U.N.: North Korea has violated DMZ agreement
It seems that Pyongyang is trying to prove a point. Just what that point could be is anyone's guess, but North Korean belligerence, always rather ham-handed, has taken on a more serious tone. The DMZ has been largely what it was intended to be since the end of the Korean War in 1953. Now this....
A U.N.C. Military Armistice Commission investigation revealed that the North Koreans had brought into the DMZ automatic weapons, the kind that can be operated by crews.
They were observed transporting, setting up and manning Type-73 light machine guns on six days between December 13 and December 20.
The South Korean army spotted the weapons while providing security for workers building the reconnection of the Gyeongui railroad and adjacent highway between the two Koreas.
The South Koreans reported that their northern counterparts set up the weapons from 100 to 400 meters (100 to 400 yards) north of the line and removed them at the end of each day.
U.N.C. said that it sent a message on December 23 to North Korea requesting a meeting on the issue, to be held December 26, but the North Koreans would not accept the message.
US and South Korean military sources have estimated that roughly 2/3 of North Korea's 1.1 million- man army is stationed at or near the DMZ. When a bear that large rears it's head, it's bound to attract some attention- and perhaps that is the whole point of this exercise. Every now and then, the North Koreans have to make certain that the West, and particularly the US, realizes that they are still relevant. Of course, that assumes that a neo-Stalinist, morally bankrupt, thoroughly corrupt government can even be considered relevant. North Korea is an economic basketcase of it's own making. The troglodytes in power have demonstrated a willingness to starve their own people to death if it allows them to maintain ideological purity (and, it goes without saying, their own positions). Anyone assuming that they understand the thought process of the North Korean leadership might want to consider that there may not BE any thought process (at least as we know it) involved in this madness.
Anyone with even the slightest amount of common sense should recognize that the gravity of this situation far outweighs anything Iraq could muster at the moment. We THINK Iraq has nukes, but we KNOW North Korea does. Couple that with the knowledge that Kim Jong-Il and his brethren are a particularly belligerent and unstable lot, and, well, it's not a pretty picture. It's not unthinkable that the entire Korean Peninsula could have that healthy nuclear glow before much longer.
Weenie roast, anyone??
