N. Korea blasts upcoming S. Korea-U.S. military drills

[xizhimen]

N. Korea blasts upcoming S. Korea-U.S. military drills

SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea lashed out at South Korea and the United States Saturday, warning that their upcoming joint military exercises would push the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.

South Korea and the U.S. plan to jointly stage major military maneuvers, called Key Resolve, from Feb. 27 to March 9, with about 200,000 South Korean and 2,100 U.S. troops participating.

Separately, the two allies plan to hold the Foal Eagle joint military exercise from March 1 to April 30. The Marines of two countries will also hold a joint landing exercise in March, the largest of its kind in 23 years.

South Korea and the U.S. regularly hold military exercises to bolster their readiness against a possible North Korean invasion. The communist North has a track record of military provocations against South Korea.

Still, North Korea routinely denounces military drills in the South as rehearsals for a northward invasion.

"The Key Resolve is a nuclear war rehearsal for aggression" on the North, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary. The North often releases its position on South Korea or the United States through its state media.

The commentary also claimed that "the exercises will deteriorate the critical inter-Korean relations and drive the tension of the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war."

Tensions still persist on the divided Korean Peninsula over the North's two deadly attacks on the South in 2010.

The commentary also warned that the North will "mercilessly punish those gangsters who rush into a house of mourning with a flaming torch of aggression," noting that North Koreans are still mourning the death last month of their leader Kim Jong-il.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice, rather than a peace treaty.

 

[xizhimen]

one more small push and they will start bombing SEOUL to the ground.

 

[gambit]

one more small push and they will start bombing SEOUL to the ground.

You are dreaming.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Effects of famine: Short stature evident in North Korean generation

YANJI, China — At 16, Myung Bok is old enough to join the North Korean army. But you wouldn't believe it from his appearance. The teenager stands 4-feet-7, the height of an American fifth- or sixth-grader.

My mother and younger sister are taller than him.

Myung Bok escaped the communist North last summer to join his mother and younger sisters, who had fled to China earlier. When he arrived, 14-year-old sister Eun Hang did not recognize the scrawny little kid walking up the dirt path to their cottage in a village near the North Korean border, whom she hadn't seen for four years.

"I can't believe he used to be my big brother," Eun Hang said sadly as she recalled their early childhood, when Myung Bok was always a full head taller. Now she can peek over the crown of his head without standing on her tiptoes.

The teenagers go through an almost daily ritual: They stand against a wooden wardrobe in which they've carved notches with a penknife, hoping that after eating a regular diet, Myung Bok will grow tall enough to reclaim his status as a big brother.

In a single generation, North Korea managed to produce a population of near dwarfs.

South Korean anthropologists who measured North Korean refugees here in Yanji, a city 15 miles from the North Korean border, found that most of the teenage boys stood less than 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. In contrast, the average 17-year-old South Korean boy is 5-feet-8, slightly shorter than an American boy of the same age.

So if both boys join their respective militaries, the South Korean soldier will have greater stamina, load bearing capability, speed and flexibility.

To the extent that they ever get to meet South Koreans, the North Koreans are likewise shocked. When two diminutive North Korean soldiers, ages 19 and 23, accidentally drifted into South Korea on a boat, one reportedly was overheard saying they would never be able to marry South Korean women because they were "too big for us," according to an account in the book "The Two Koreas," by Don Oberdorfer.

The soldiers were repatriated to the North at their own request.

That is sad. They would rather live enslaved and have at least a facade of 'manliness' in North Korea than to live free in South Korea but in fear of being rejected by women.

The North Korean military had so much difficulty finding tall-enough recruits that it had to revoke its minimum height requirement of 5-feet-3. Many soldiers today are less than 5 feet tall, defectors say.

This is not good. Weapons manufacturers cannot customize their wares to that extreme. A rifle is one thing but the more complex the weapon system, be it a howitzer or a fighter aircraft, the less the manufacturers are able to redesign the weapon system without producing a brand new weapon system altogether. Does the North Korean pilots sit on thicker cushions in their cockpits? How does their lesser height affect their ability to manage a volatile situation like air combat?

Height, however, is only the outward manifestation of the problem. The more troublesome aspect of stunting is the effect on health, stamina and intelligence.

"There is a difference between being naturally small because your parents are small. That's not a problem," Seok said. "But if you're small because you weren't able to eat as a child, you are bound to be less intelligent."

Is that how this potential conflict between brothers going to be? One physically and intellectually superior to the other?

The issue of IQ is sufficiently sensitive that the South Korean anthropologists studying refugee children in China have almost entirely avoided mentioning it in their published work. But they say it is a major unspoken worry for South Koreans, who fear that they could inherit the burden of a seriously impaired generation if Korea is reunified.

"This is our nightmare," anthropologist Chung said. "We don't want to get into racial stereotyping or stigmatize North Koreans in any way. But we also worry about what happens if we are living together and we have this generation that was not well-fed and well-educated."

About 500 North Korean children have come to South Korea, either alone or with their parents, and they are known to have difficulty keeping up in the school system, say people who work with defectors.

Although South Korea gives defectors priority in going to the best universities in a form of affirmative action, about 80 percent have ended up dropping out, Chung said.

Reunification will happen. The South Koreans are quite confident that the event will happen in their favor. Although North and South Koreas will cease to exist, their respective peoples will continue to be visibly different for at least one generation before the disastrous effects of communism inspired poverty are negated.

Still think that North Korea will prevail in a military confrontation against South Korea? Dream on. Seoul may be seriously damaged but the city can be rebuilt. That cannot be said for a generation of human beings and their offspring. The North Koreans have proven to be an anthropological oddity worthy of scientific excitement.

 

[xizhimen]

You are dreaming.

they just bombed S.Korea last year and i dont think that was a dream.

 

[gambit]

they just bombed S.Korea last year and i dont think that was a dream.

And the North Koreans are lucky that their Southern cousins are more restrained. Your response is a non-argument in the face of reality -- SCIENTIFIC REALITY.

 

[ptldM3]

I had a number of Korean friends and most of them are not what i would call small. I'm pretty average in height and on the skinny side but i would be well over a foot taller and out-weigh some of the North Korean soldiers buy a good 70lbs.

They seriously need to find some food.

 

[xizhimen]

And the North Koreans are lucky that their Southern cousins are more restrained. Your response is a non-argument in the face of reality -- SCIENTIFIC REALITY.

so that wasnt a dream,was it?

 

[gambit]

so that wasnt a dream,was it?

This certainly is not a dream...

Daily NK - The World¡¯s First Interview with a Current North Korean Soldier

He was a soldier who was suffering from malnutrition, who was ordered to return home for a certain period of time to recover. Currently it has been known that many soldiers have been returning home for malnutrition. The interviewee was at the age of 19 and from Kangkye of Jagang Province. He said he had been interned at a hospital for 2-3 years since he joined the military, but because he could not receive adequate treatment (nutrition) he is returning to home, where his sister is living, for his recovery.

When our interviewer asks, “Have you eaten?” the low rank soldier answers, “Even if I did eat, I cannot digest. My intestines do not work.” Mere exchange of few words reveals how serious is the malnutrition that low rank North Korean soldiers may be suffering.

Still dreaming of a North Korean military victory over the South?

 

[xdrive]

NK say this every time and they do nothing. They are all talk.

 

[xizhimen]

NK say this every time and they do nothing. They are all talk.

they shot down S.Korean airliners,bombed S.Korea's islands and killed their soldiers,sank S.Korean warships...what else do you want them to do..

 

[xdrive]

they shot down S.Korean airliners,bombed S.Korea's islands and killed their soldiers,sank S.Korean warships...what else do you want them to do..

They did them at random times, not directly after the U.S and SK held the exercises.

 

[LetsGetRowdy]

NK say this every time and they do nothing. They are all talk.

they torpedoed a south korean warship; killing all the men on board.

they shelled a south korean island; killing 2 soldiers and wounding civilians.

both of these actions by the north are acts of war. what did the south do? nothing. yet you say the north koreans are all talk? more like all action!

 

[xizhimen]

They did them at random times, not directly after the U.S and SK held the exercises.

so they are not all talk,right?S.Koreans are all talk no show.

 

[longyi]

South Koreans are very statistical minded. They wouldn't want to add 24 million people to dilute their Per Capita. As a SAR ok.

 

[xizhimen]

South Koreans are very statistical minded. They wouldn't want to add 24 million people to dilute their Per Capita. As a SAR ok.

want it or not,they just can't.the North also wants to conquer the South.