Quote:If you read Mark McDonald’s article in The New York Times, “‘Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island”, the answer depends on whether you paid attention to the headline, the expert commentary, and the tone of the article, or whether you paid attention to the facts.
If you paid attention to the former then North Korea attacked South Korea.
If you paid attention to the latter, the opposite is true.
Here are the facts McDonald reported.
o 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning a military drill…sharply criticized by Pyongyang as “simulating an invasion of the North” and “a means to provoke a war.”
o ROK artillery units fired toward the DPRK from a battery close to the North Korean coast. The South acknowledges firing the shots.
o The DPRK replied.
Shouldn’t the headline read: ‘Crisis Status’ in North Korea after South Korea Mobilizes 70,000 Troops and Shells the North’?

Quote:

Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington

08:14 24/11/2010
© ru.wikipedia.org/

A U.S. naval task force led by the George Washington nuclear-powered aircraft carrier will join South Korean warships in naval exercises on November 28 - December 1, Yonhap news agency said Wednesday.
The United States and South Korea earlier announced joint naval drills in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula.
The drills will be held in the wake of a recent military clash between North Korea and South Korea. The South claimed it returned fire after the North opened artillery fire on the its Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday, killing at least two South Korean marines. Sixteen others were injured, along with three civilians.
North Korea later blamed the South for causing the incident.
The USS George Washington, which carries 75 combat aircraft and a crew of over 6,000, has already left a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, Yonhap said quoting S. Korean and U.S. defense officials.
MOSCOW, November 24, (RIA Novosti)

Quote:Over 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam-era transcripts released this week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee highlight the fact that several Senators knew that the White House and the Pentagon had deceived the American people over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The latest releases, which document skepticism over the pretext for entry into the Vietnam war, date from 1968.
Four years into the war, senators were at loggerheads with Lyndon B. Johnson. At the time Foreign Relations Committee meetings were held behind closed doors.
It would take over thirty years for the truth to emerge that the Aug. 4, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, where US warships were apparently attacked by North Vietnamese PT Boats – an incident that kicked off US involvement in the Vietnam war – was a staged event that never actually took place.

• Korea-stone cops
  Much is being made of North Korea’s shelling of one of 30 disputed islands, Yeonpyeong, which houses a South Korean military base, well inside what should be a demilitarised zone between the two Koreas resulting in the deaths of two South Korean marines and two civilians. The borders were unilaterally drawn by the UN at the end of the 1950-53 war and the countries are still officially in a state of war. Rumours are that the incident is connected to the possible transition of power from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to his son Kim Jong Un, or to North Korea’s recent announcement that it is proceeding with its nuclear programme.
  
  The skirmish began Tuesday when North Korea warned the South to halt military drills at the base, after which Seoul began firing artillery directly into disputed waters within sight of the North Korean shore. The North retaliated by shelling the Yeonpyeong military installations. Seoul responded by unleashing its own barrage of howitzers and scrambling fighter jets over the North, killing far more North Koreans though the actual number is not yet know.
  The words of condemnation -- of the North -- from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama for the “provocation” flowed, as expected. Obama used the occasion to reaffirmed plans to stage joint military exercises later this week in the Yellow Sea, the latest in its own provocations of both North Korea and China this year, following the sinking of a South Korean warship in an earlier joint US-South Korean military “exercise”. Accusations that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors, were undermined by evidence pointing to the US itself. Pyongyang denied responsibility.
  
  400 of the 1,700 residents of Yeonpyeong were evacuated. Instead of demilitarising the disputed islands and agreeing to mediation, the South Korean government announced it would strengthen its military forces there and halt aid to the North, while the North warned of more military strikes if the South encroaches on the maritime border by "even 0.001 millimetre."
  That the provocation is from the South Korea side, with its pro-US President Lee Myung-bak, who has made his anti-communist sentiments clear in the past, is confirmed by the fact that the incident failed to scare off investors, with South Korea's stock market experiencing only a momentary ripple.
  
  
• http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=290%3Akorea-stone-cops&catid=42%3Apeace-and-socialism&Itemid=95