South Korea Denounces Japan's Suggestion of Strike Against North Korea

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aLi_vFpbtydI&refer=japan

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea's government said suggestions by Japanese officials a pre-emptive strike on North Korea is an option ``endanger peace in northeast Asia.'' snip

``Japanese political leaders are making dangerous and reckless remarks invoking a `preemptive strike' in an attempt to further intensify a crisis on the Korean Peninsula,'' Chung Tae Ho, spokesman for South Korea President Roh Moo Hyun, said in a statement today. The comments reveal ``Japan's nature of aggression so we cannot but be alarmed.''

Suggestions of military action by Japan are viewed with unease in Asia because of the country's wartime aggression last century. The growing dispute between South Korea and Japan is complicating efforts by the U.S. and China to get North Korea to return to negotiations on ending its nuclear weapons program.

Discord between Japan and South Korea has been simmering for the last year because of other issues, including disputes over islands both countries claim and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a shrine in Tokyo that includes World War II war criminals among the dead it honors.

The remarks by Japanese officials are being made ``to justify the militarization of Japan,'' South Korea's Chung said in the statement. ``We will continue to respond decisively to their arrogance and recklessness.''

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. It is rather provocative.

Did North Korea suggest a preemptive strike against Japan?

[lyonn]

2. Japanese leader has spent too much time with bush. EOM

[icymist]

3. "Japan's nature of aggression" ?

South Korea and Japan are going to argue with each other while North Korea fires missiles over both of them. Beautiful! :sarcasm:

[ugarte]

4. I guess the South Koreans don't buy the hype...nt

[NNN0LHI]

5. Are you familiar with some of Japan's nature of aggression toward Korea?

It wasn't pretty. They enslaved Korean women to be used as "comfort women" by their soldiers for R&R.

Don

[icymist]

6. That's not what I meant.

I just thought it was ironic that Japan and South Korea are arguing about ways over sixty years ago, meanwhile North Korea has working missiles and atomic bombs right now.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Sure, they've got missles and bombs.

But did they actually threaten to attack Japan?

[icymist]

8. Oh for crying out loud!

How would you feel if another country just started firing missiles overhead where you're at?
residents on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture reported the sky turning red or orange around the times when the missiles were launched.
source
Now wouldn't that shake you?

[atreides1]

10. Wouldn't shake me a bit

Well taking into consideration that Russian satellites have been flying over to US for several decades
with the intent of gathering intelligence for where the best place to drop a nuke is, I can't say I'd be overly concerned.

I figure it's going to happen eventually, and there's very little I can do about it, so you learn to live with it, like we in the US have done.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. No, it wouldn't shake me.

North Korea's got to test their missles. Launching them over Japan is the only logical choice.

Getting worried about this is a bit like getting worried about Sputnik. And that didn't worry me either.

[atreides1]

9. The main reason for the 60 year old argument

Is that Japan has never accepted resposibility for the crimes it committed while it occupied Korea, hell even Japanese history books don't admit to it.

It's sort of like Germany denying the Holocaust.

North and South Korea may be divided because of political ideology, but both countries are inhabited by Koreans, with relatives on both sides of the border. And all Koreans remember what was done to them by the Japanese.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Sure.

And now that Japan's been involved with the war in Iraq it looks like their slipping away from their promises of pacifism.