Category: North Korea

Stars & Stripes reports that US and South Korean soldiers were rewarded in record time for their rescue of the North Korean soldier who defected last week;

Two South Korea soldiers who are part of the JSA security battalion crawled across the leaf-strewn ground to recover him, then dragged him to safety as other members of the battalion monitored the situation.

Gen. Vincent Brooks, head of United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea, awarded the soldiers an Army commendation medal “in recognition for their efforts” in rescuing the defector, during a ceremony at Camp Bonifas, a statement said.

The awardees were Sgt. 1st Class Noh Yeong Soo, Sgt. 1st Class Song Seoung Hyeon, Sgt. Robert Hartfield, Maj. Jeffery Schmidt, Lt. Col. Kwon Young Hwan, and Lt. Col. Matthew Farmer, USFK said on its Facebook page. It didn’t provide more information.

“Your actions resulted in saving the defector’s life and de-escalating an incident that threatened the 64-year-old armistice,” the citation said.

The award process isn’t usually so quickly completed. I checked my award for securing an East German soldier. The incident happened on April 15th and the award is dated the 13th of July and that was only an Army Achievement Medal, a step below the ARCOM. I guess when two Lieutenant Colonels and a Major are up for an award, the processing time is faster. All I had with me was a stinkin’ 1st Lieutenant.

Stars & Stripes also reports that the North Korean guards at the DMZ have been reassigned;

Yonhap news agency cited an unnamed intelligence source saying there were “signs” the North had replaced its entire security force of 35 to 40 men at the Joint Security Area. South Korea’s Defense Ministry and the U.S.-led United Nations Command said they couldn’t confirm it.

The source also told Yonhap the North seems to have temporarily closed a bridge over which the defector drove a military jeep to reach the border before his dramatic escape on foot last Monday. The source said the North could be preparing to install a security gate at the bridge for strengthening its screening of personnel coming in and out of the area.

North Korean troops also appear to be digging a trench by hand at the point Private Oh ran across the South Korean frontier.

Stars & Stripes released the video of a North Korean soldier, known only as Oh, who made his escape from the hermit kingdom last week. He was shot five times by his former comrades. The most dramatic part of the adventure is when two South Korean soldiers crawl out to rescue the wounded defector and drag him to safety.

The [United Nations Command] said its investigation found that the North Koreans violated the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War as they tried to stop the soldier, who was severely wounded by the gunfire.

Doctors said Wednesday he has regained consciousness and is enjoying watching television, including movie and music channels.

The soldier’s daring escape in the truce village of Panmunjom was a major embarrassment for North Korea, which is locked in a tense standoff with the United States over its development of banned nuclear weapons.

“The key findings of the special investigation team are that the [North Korean army] violated the armistice agreement by one, firing weapons across the [Military Demarcation Line], and two, by actually crossing the MDL temporarily,” Army Col. Chad Carroll, a UNC spokesman, said at a press conference.

According to doctors, Oh is recovering nicely after a number of surgeries and immersing himself in CSI reruns and K-pop videos. Doctors also report that Oh had a foot-long parasite living in him and a number of other diseases, including Hepatitis C which reveals health problems among even the cultural elites in the North Korean military.

As usual, I was looking for stuff to provide a snarky view of ND:tBF’s malfeasance toward his own people. When this WaPo article came up first on my search block, I read it, blinked, reread it, and asked out loud “What in the hell is wrong with that fat basterd?”

Before you read it, there are a few things from history’s locker that you should know.

The Romans had a great plumbing system, didn’t they? Yes, they kind of did. But in the digs at Pompeii and other places, including Nero’s Golden Palace (built on the Roman slums that he burned), the sewage went down a hole and stayed there until some poor soul with cacatorium duty went down into the plumbing system and moved it along. (Shovel the shit or suffer the whip.) There were, in fact, commodes in the kitchen in some houses in Pompeii.

The Romans were infested with parasites such as whipworm, usually picked up from the public cacatoria where everyone used a common sponge to wipe their butts. They were great engineers, but they had no idea how to make toilet paper (or if you prefer, bath tissue). They also had a love of garum, a fermented fish sauce made from uncooked fish. Any parasites the fish had picked up, such as fish tapeworm, were transmitted to the consumer, because cooking killed the parasites. And despite their culture and love of regular bathing, external parasites such as lice and fleas infested the Romans just as much as they did the Vikings and other European populations, right on up through the Middle Ages. The hemorrhagic fever that nearly wiped out the population of Athens in 430BC was probably brought in from northern Africa (Ethiopia) by people infested with either of those insects.

You would think that in this modern world, where vermifuges are available for every critter on Earth, including people where and when needed, this would be a thing of the past, wouldn’t you?

Well, not if you live in a country with a ruler so demented that his only goal is to piss off a perceived enemy that can pound him into the ground head first. He is nothing like his Daddy or his Granddaddy. They were better managers, even if they were Commie crapweasels. They might have stiffed the general population, but they didn’t do that to their military.

It’s more important now for Fatty Kim da T’ird to try to blow up a mountain and threaten to annihilate some other country than it is to keep his people, including his military, fed properly and healthy. If he really wants to wage war, he will lose, and lose badly. You could probably defeat the Nork military by throwing poptop cans of cat food at them.

Here’s the link to the WaPo article:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/19/what-the-parasites-in-a-defectors-stomach-tell-us-about-north-korea/?utm_term=.f13d2a26487f

There are stray cats in my neighborhood that are healthier and better fed.

That Fat Basterd needs to pay for this, right through his fat ass.

According to Stars & Stripes, a North Korean soldier was shot by his comrades when he escaped to South Korea;

The North Korean soldier, who was shot in the shoulder and elbow, was airlifted to a hospital by a United Nations Command helicopter, another military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in exchange for providing the details.

The South Korean military found him bleeding about 25 minutes after several rounds of gunfire were heard, the official said, adding the North Korean soldier was unarmed and wearing a combat uniform indicating a low rank.

The military said the two sides did not trade gunfire, but it has raised its alert level and is maintaining a full readiness posture against the possibility of provocations from North Korea.

Meanwhile, an American tourist from Louisiana was arrested by South Korean police as he attempted to infiltrate into the North, according to another Stars & Stripes link;

Military officials initially said they believed the man traveled to South Korea planning to enter the North for political purposes. But investigators, who have turned the case over to local police, later said they had determined he had no communist connections.

The U.S. Embassy is aware of the report and is looking into it, an official told Stars and Stripes on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case.

“If it is determined that a U.S. citizen has been detained, the embassy will provide appropriate consular services,” the official said. “Privacy concerns prevent us from sharing information on individual cases.”

The dingus was spotted by an alert South Korean civilian and reported to the police. I’m sure the unidentified 58-year-old has life all figured out. If he hadn’t been caught on the south side of the DMZ, I’m sure his family would be blaming Trump for his capture and demanding a rescue attempt to get his dumbass back.

The Stars & Stripes reports that the Pentagon responded to a Congressional inquiry with a letter which explained that the only way to secure North Korean nuclear weapons is to send in ground forces led by special warfare assets;

The only way to locate and secure all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites “with complete certainty” is through an invasion of U.S. ground forces, and in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a new, blunt assessment of what war on the Korean Peninsula might look like.

The Pentagon, in a letter to lawmakers, said that a full discussion of U.S. capabilities to “counter North Korea’s ability to respond with a nuclear weapon and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons located in deeply buried, underground facilities” is best suited for a classified briefing.

For their part, the Department of Defense urges that the State Department come to a resolution before the military is forced into the picture with their unique set of skills requiring them to kill people and break things in North Korea, but that they are ready to do just that.

For some time since the beginning of September 1962, US-based U-2 spy planes had been engaging in aerial photography of the island of Cuba. During that time, the construction of missile bunkers, a full-fledged missile base and the arrival and unloading of Soviet ships carrying crated equipment had been photographed and relayed to the White House. McGeorge Bundy advised Pres. Kennedy of the pending major crisis on the morning of October 16, 1962. Kennedy was aware of what was going on, and made phone calls to former Presidents Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower to brief them about what was going on.

Subsequently, he made a formal address to the nation on October 22, 1962. I was still in high school. This came during our dinner hour, broadcast from the White House at 7:00 PM EST.

The link to the video of that speech is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgdUgzAWcrw

Pres. Kennedy did hold a press conference later, including use of the aerial surveillance photos that clearly showed the missile base under construction on the island of Cuba. His decision to use the US Navy to blockade all ships heading toward Cuba brought us to the very brink of war, not because he wanted it, but because Nikita Krushchev was just as stubborn as Jack Kennedy.

The Mexican standoff began on October 22, 1962. It was Krushchev who finally blinked and backed down. Subsequent negotiations included the establishment of a direct line between the White House and the Kremlin. Fidel Castro felt betrayed by the Soviet Union, on whose military backing he had been counting, because he was ignored in the negotiations to end the blockade. The full text of those events is at this link: http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/

Simply put, we were as close to the edge of a nuclear war as you can get without actually starting one.

And now we are facing the same brinksmanship by North Korea, although it seems to be mostly threats and arm waving by Kim Jong-un. His prime minister says we should take him seriously. Well, I certainly do, even if I appear to not do so by making jokes about it.  He may be threatening to set off an airbust H-bomb over the South Pacific, but we do have ships and personnel in that area, despite small groups of protesters.

However, on October 25, 2017, the Russian government launched a long-range guided missile, a Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile from Plesetsk cosmodrome aimed at the Kura testing range in Kamchatka on the country’s Pacific coast.  It left a glowing blob of light in the Siberian night sky, spooking the locals, who wondered if it was an alien UFO or another large meteor strike.  If you look at the map in the attached article https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/27/spectacular-ufo-reported-in-siberia/  you can see that the Topol-M can easily reach North Korea.

I can only hope that Pres. Trump will congratulate Mr. Putin on his successful missile test, and offer him any necessary aid in stopping Fatty Kim da T’ird from starting a nuclear war.

Because that’s what I would do.