Showdown With North Korea

With Iran making noise in the Mideast, the other remaining charter member of the Axis of Evil is feeling a little left out in the far east. Kim Jung-Il will not be ignored evidently:

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.

The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.

..."If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.

The NoKo's are threatening to launch a missile toward Hawaii and can send a million men south across the 38th parallel with little notice. Our 28,500 men and women can resist but for how long is any one's guess. We have been training with ROK troops for years and are most-likely stepping that up.

This is the clearest example yet of the lack of respect the world's leaders have for Obama. Sure, these despots and thugs would get froggy on occasion when Bush was in office but never so overtly and never so provocatively. Kim is risking all-out war and doesn't seem too concerned that we will respond with any type of force other then defensively. How about moving a carrier into the arena at least.

Thank heavens Bush pushed so hard for missile defense during his eight years; a program Obama is trying to kill.

South Korea a Rising Force

Bryan at Hot Air linked to this piece in the Chosun newspaper concerning the completion of a new Aegis destroyer in Korea. See if you can spot who they had in mind when they designed this ship:

The first of a new class of destroyers named for King Sejong the Great will be launched late this month. Korea's new ship with its Aegis combat system will be more powerful than Japan's most advanced Aegis vessel.

...King Sejong-class destroyers have better attack capabilities than Atago-class vessels, Japan's most up-to-date Aegis vessel which were deployed warfare-ready in March."

...All the features make King Sejong-class destroyers a kind of strategic weapons systems with strategic attack capabilities. Japan's Aegis ships carry no ship-to-surface missiles.

Emphasis mine. Just a bit of animosity towards the Rising Sun, don't you think? Both Koreas have a serious score to settle with Japan for the atrocities the Japanese visited upon them during the second world war. China does as well and that bears some watching as Japan will be the second target the Chinese attack after Taiwan and an alliance with South Korea would not be a welcome development.

In the next several decades, China will look to cement their power in the region and if they were able to co-opt South Korea, the Japanese would have only the US and Australia to aid them.