While Obama is distracted with “monitoring” Iran and buying ice cream, the Gargoyle north of the 38th Parallel clamors for attention, again.
Comforted by the U.S. military’s missile defense systems, Hawaii residents doubt a North Korean missile would light up the clear island sky. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worried that a long-range missile could be launched in their direction.
Japanese media have reported the North Koreans appear to be preparing for a long-range test near July 4 — U.S. Independence Day. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protections for Hawaii in case a missile is launched over the Pacific Ocean.
“The North Koreans are unbalanced and could try anything,” said Dan Gleason while walking his dog in downtown Honolulu. “If they do hit Honolulu, I hope it’s a good shot, because I don’t want to go through the aftermath.”
Only one concerned person with a Hawaii trip planned has called the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau seeking information, state tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said Friday. With Hawaii’s huge military presence, no one should be afraid to travel to the islands, she said.
“We believe that this is a very safe destination,” she said.
Retiree Mae Dong, a Honolulu resident of more than 50 years, said the United States must remain resolute in the face of any North Korean aggression.
“It’s disturbing,” she said Friday. “We cannot run. We have to fight them.”
A number of Hawaii residents said they were confident the military was prepared to defend the state, unlike when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
On Wednesday, a military radar system — shaped like a giant golf ball — slowly disappeared from Hawaii’s coast as it headed out to sea. The 28-story missile X-Band defense radar is designed to work with ground-based missile interceptors on the island of Kauai to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system was returned to Hawaii after the mobile launcher recently was tested at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Since 2005, all six tests of the ground-based missile system have intercepted their targets, excluding tests when the targets malfunctioned, Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Pam Rogers said.
It is one of two missile defense systems the military tests at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. The other is the sea-based Aegis system, which has recorded 18 successful firings in 22 attempts.
Looks like we’re taking some military action.
The U.S. military is preparing for a possible intercept of a North Korean flagged ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned.
The USS John McCain, a Navy destroyer, is positioning itself in case it gets orders to intercept the ship Kang Nam as soon as it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The order to inderdict has not been given yet, but the ship is moving into the area.
“Permission has not been requested. Nor is it clear it will be,” a military source told FOX News. “This is a very delicate situation and no one is interested in precipitating a confrontation.”
The ship left a port in North Korea Wednesday and appears to be heading toward Singapore, according to a senior U.S. military source. The vessel, which the military has been tracking since its departure, could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials, a violation of U.N. Resolution 1874, which put sanctions in place against Pyongyang.
……The ship is currently along the coast of China and being monitored around-the-clock by air.
The apparent violation raises the question of how the United States and its allies will respond, particularly since the U.N. resolution does not have a lot of teeth to it.
The resolution would not allow the United States to board the ship forcibly. Rather, U.S. military would have to request permission to board — a request North Korea is unlikely to grant.
North Korea has said that any attempt to board its ships would be viewed as an act of war and promised “100- or 1,000-fold” retaliation if provoked.
“If provoked”? The little son of a bitch has been been accelerating his in-your-face nuclear program since Obama took office. They’ve been launching missiles fucking left and right, threatening Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., but they accuse us of provocation? God damn it. Why can’t we just say fuck it, and vaporize Pyongyang.
North Korea has criticized the U.S. for reaffirming its nuclear protection of South Korea during a recent summit, saying it exposed a U.S. plot to launch atomic war.
The accusation comes as Washington and regional powers consider a new South Korean proposal to meet soon to find a way to resolve the global standoff over the North’s nuclear programs.
In North Korea’s first response to last week’s meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington, its government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama’s commitment to South Korea’s security, including through U.S. nuclear protection, only revealed a U.S. plot to attack the North with nuclear weapons.
“It’s not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion,” said the commentary published Saturday.
The weekly also said the North will also “surely judge” the Lee government for participating in a U.S.-led international campaign to “stifle” the North.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has spiked since the North defiantly conducted its second nuclear test on May 25. The North later declared it would bolster its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war in protest of U.N. sanctions for its test.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons deployed there.
In what would be the first test case for the new U.N. sanctions, U.S. officials said Thursday the U.S. military had begun tracking a North Korean-flagged ship which may be carrying illegal weapons. The officials said the ship left a North Korean port Wednesday.
On Sunday, South Korean television network YTN quoted an unidentified South Korean intelligence source as saying the ship is believed to sailing toward Myanmar. Seoul’s Defense Ministry and Unification Ministry said they could not confirm the report.
In all likelihood, the communist regime of North Korea will topple under the weight of its own brutality. There’s widespread starvation, their people are brainwashed slaves of the State, and their currency doubles as toilet paper. China (propped up with capitalist dollars) is the only reason why those bastards have any revenue whatsoever.