South Korea - nuclear bomb wise a dangerous country to live in. In blue is the current track of the KTX Express.
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PETE'S COMMENT
After reading this evocative article below I assume worldly South Koreans are quietly fatalistic. Though many might blot North Korea out of their minds just to get through the day.
I wonder if people in India feel fatalistic about Pakistan in a similar way?
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Strategypage,
February 12, 2013 On Point reports: http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/2013021222182.aspx
"Nuclear Endgame on the Korean Peninsula?
by Austin
Bay, February 12, 2013
Last October, while riding on South Korea's KTX
express train from Seoul to Cheonan, I glanced at one of the rail car's video
monitors just as a chilling yet cyclically familiar news flash lit the screen:
"North Korea threatens South Korea with nuclear war."
The KTX onboard video system provides English,
Chinese and Japanese translations of news and passenger information updates.
Geography and history influence the language choices -- the Korean Peninsula
sits between China and Japan, the U.S. is South Korea's closest ally -- but
economics is the most pertinent reason. In the 21st century, Korean, English,
Chinese and Japanese are global money languages, and the KTX caters to business
passengers. I pegged the officious gentlemen seated three rows up as Chinese.
Like me, he was looking at the monitor. Chinese characters superseded the
English alert, Japanese followed the Chinese.
Then a live video feed of the very fast train's
current speed -- 304, no make that 305 kilometers per hour, quite a clip --
completely replaced the news flash. I wondered how my fellow passenger had
assessed North Korea's message. One of the more interesting secret State
Department cables released by Wikileaks quoted senior Chinese foreign ministry
officials as admitting North Korea's ruling clique is certifiably nuts.
I went back to gazing out the window, at a valley
filled with lush rice paddies, the rice plants yellow and ripe. A day or so
earlier, I'd read a wire service report that North Korea faced yet another crop
failure and unless donor nations responded immediately, the wretched souls
ruled by the Kim family's hereditary communist dictatorship would once again
face starvation. Yes, I thought, the starving North had just threatened the
hardworking, productive and, as a result, well-fed South with nuclear
immolation. The North's extortion racket in a rice kernel: Feed us, or we will
kill you en masse.
With this week's nuclear test (Feb. 12, 2013) the
cycle of threat continues, this time backed by an impressive bang.
The test demonstrates that despite years of coaxing
the Kim regime with economic development projects (like the Kaesong Industrial
Zone) and years of plying the dictatorship with rice, heavy oil and other
goodies, the North continues to develop the military capabilities to make good
on its threat of nuclear war.
The test also serves notice that the Korean War
isn't over, and unfortunately some people need reminding. Last month, President
Barack Obama proclaimed that a decade of war is ending. North Korean
propagandists declared that current dictator, Kim Jong Un, had ordered the test
as a response to "ferocious" U.S. hostility and "violent"
opposition to North Korea's sovereign right to peacefully launch satellites.
See, North Korea claims its December 2012 ballistic missile launch was all
about civilian satellites, not testing a delivery system capable of hitting
Seoul, Tokyo and Honolulu. Initial seismic analysis indicates the nuclear test
had the punch of a 6 to 8 kiloton weapon. Though roughly half the power of the
Hiroshima bomb, that's more than big enough to incinerate Pearl Harbor and the
beach at Waikiki. It is very probable that North Korea provides Iran's Islamic dictatorship with nuclear and missile technology, so North Korea's nuclear menace extends beyond East Asia and the Pacific to Central Asia, Europe and Africa.
China's official reaction was surprisingly tough, given that Beijing has been the North's chief benefactor and sponsor, but China has global economic interests that North Korean nukes and their Iranian offspring may imperil. China expressed firm opposition to the test. The Obama administration is calling for stiffer international sanctions to punish North Korea, but China is the only nation that can impose meaningful sanctions on the Kim regime. Beijing has never done so.
South Korea has won the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the Korean War. The only unsettled component is the one that puts the KTX, Seoul's nightclubs and the lush rice fields at risk: the military confrontation. Unless China acts decisively to end North Korea's nuclear quest, this week's multi-kiloton blast may lead South Korea and Japan to conclude the military dimension must be won as well."
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Pete
