http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/north-korea-issues-chilling-warning-over-us-south-korea-war-games/story-e6frg6so-1225962038838

North Korea issues chilling warning over US-South Korea war games

NORTH Korea's state media warned today that "no-one can predict the ensuing consequences" if a US carrier group goes ahead with a planned drill with South Korea in the Yellow Sea.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) statement came days after the hardline communist regime sharply heightened regional tensions with an artillery attack that killed two marines and two civilians on a South Korean border island.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington and its battle group plans four days of exercises starting today with a flotilla of South Korean warships in a show of force meant to deter Pyongyang.

The KCNA report labelled the United States “the arch-criminal who orchestrated the recent military clash”, in which South Korea on Tuesday returned artillery fire at the North.

The report repeated Pyongyang's claim that it attacked in response to South Korea conducting a military exercise that lobbed shells into waters that the North regime regards as its own.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Nov 28^th, 2010 at 7:17am:




When South Korea started firing, did any shelling land in North Korea at all?

Or even close (whatever that distance is) to the border?

Miss Anne Dryst wrote on Nov 28^th, 2010 at 7:22am:




When carrying out military exercises do you think that it would have been wise to advise North Korea of this?

Does the US advise China/Russia of similar exercises when they are close to their borders (whether naval or with an ally)?

Miss Anne Dryst wrote on Nov 28^th, 2010 at 7:25am:


They HAD told North Korea....

http://www.infowars.com/north-korea-deploys-missiles-targets-fighter-jets/

North Korea Deploys Missiles, Targets Fighter Jets
                                     
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 28, 2010
North Korea upped the ante on Sunday as South Korea and the United States conduct military exercises described as a show of force in response to North Korea’s artillery bombing of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island last week.

North Korea’s missiles “appear to be targeting our fighter jets that fly near the Northern Limit Line (NLL),” a source told the Yonhap New Agency. The Soviet-designed SA-2 missile has a range of between 13 and 30 kilometers. “The military is preparing for the possibility of further provocations as the North Korean military has deployed firepower near the NLL and is preparing to fire,” the source said.

Other missiles on the North Korean west coast, such as the Samlet and Silkworm with ranges of up to 95km, have also been put onto launch pads, the source said.
The Hoguk series of exercises that began earlier this month in South Korea include 70,000 South Korean troops. Exercises built around the USS George Washington carrier battle group in the Yellow Sea began Sunday. The Pentagon claims both sets of exercises are built around deterrence and are in response to the sinking of the Cheonan.
In August, the Obama administration used the Cheonan incident as a pretext to impose additional economic sanctions on North Korea. On May 20, South Korea officially blamed North Korea for the sinking of its warship in March. Investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States arrived at the conclusion that North Korea sunk the vessel with a torpedo. Investigators said the torpedo was likely of German manufacture.
“There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks,” investigative journalist Wayne Madsen wrote in May. “Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel.”

_____________

check out video reports

Is this going to escalate out of control?
Should China have "told" the USA to stay out?
Would the USA have sent troops?
Will the USA send troops now after being "told" not to?
And will Australia be asked to support the USA and send troops?

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.
The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.

The Saudi king was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme", one cable stated. "He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
The cables also highlight Israel's anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran – and its unstinting attempts to influence American policy. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, estimated in June 2009 that there was a window of "between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable". After that, Barak said, "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."

The leaked US cables also reveal that:

• Officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.

• Leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as "evil", an "existential threat" and a power that "is going to take us to war".

• Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, "we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both".

• Major General Amos Yadlin, Israeli's military intelligence chief, warned last year: "Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on 11 September 2001."

Asked for a response to the statements, state department spokesman PJ Crowley said today it was US policy not to comment on materials, including classified documents, which may have been leaked.

Iran maintains that its atomic programme is designed to supply power stations, not nuclear warheads. After more than a year of deadlock and stalling, a fresh round of talks with the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany is due to begin on 5 December.

But in a meeting with Italy's foreign minister earlier this year, Gates said time was running out. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, the US and its allies would face a different world in four to five years, with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. King Abdullah had warned the Americans that if Iran developed nuclear weapons "everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia".

America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".

In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."

In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."

In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.

No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.

There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Nov 29^th, 2010 at 11:13am:


Sadly and ironically, such action against Iran would probably trigger WWIII...