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China-Japan-Koreas
NKorea threatens to shoot down spy planes
2009-04-01
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea accused the United States of spying on the site of an impending rocket launch and threatened Wednesday to shoot down any U.S. planes that intrude into its airspace.

North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit on a multistage rocket between April 4 and 8. The U.S., South Korea and Japan suspect the reclusive country is using the launch to test long-range missile technology, and they warn Pyongyang would face sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution banning it from ballistic activity.
Posted by:tu3031

#9  Crosspatch, I think this time they mean it - if we send the RC-135s to circle over the launch site, they will shoot them down (somehow).
Of course, N. Korea isn't that big. The RC-135s and other assets can loiter in international and S. Korean airspace and see pretty much anything they want to.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2009-04-01 16:48  

#8  If they could shoot them down, they already would have a long time ago.

Just words.
Posted by: crosspatch   2009-04-01 15:01  

#7  Can the UAVs carry AIM missles as well?
Posted by: Galactic Coordinator Omavising9607   2009-04-01 13:39  

#6  Small quibble WMT, it's "Barada".

"Klaatu Berada Nikto" means "Klaatu says kill 'em all. Let Bradbury sort 'em out."

Posted by: GORT   2009-04-01 12:49  

#5  Klaatu Berada Nikto, Kimmie!
Posted by: William Marcy Tweed   2009-04-01 12:04  

#4  Shoot away. More where that came from.
Posted by: mojo   2009-04-01 10:50  

#3  Ignore the big radar return Kimmie. It's a trap. Instead look for the holes in the sky. They're everywhere.
Posted by: ed   2009-04-01 10:48  

#2  From the horse's mouth...

KCNA Blasts Japan's Anti-DPRK Ruckus

Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- The unsavory forces hostile to the DPRK are going reckless in their moves to deter the DPRK's projected launch of "Kwangmyongsong-2," an experimental communication satellite for peaceful purposes. Japan is taking the lead in this racket though it has committed the biggest crimes against the DPRK.

Japanese authorities including Prime Minister Aso are making much ado, asserting that the above-said satellite launch poses a "threat" to their security. Ship-and ground-based interceptor missiles and monitoring means of the "Self-Defense Forces (SDF)" are being deployed in the East Sea of Korea and its vicinity.

They are asserting that in case the satellite is launched, Japan will independently apply additional sanctions against the DPRK and bring up the issue for discussion at the UNSC.

They blustered that they would "intercept" the DPRK's satellite, counting on the support from their master. But when their master flinched because of the strong stand of the Korean People's Army, they found themselves in such a miserable position as to modify their assertion by uttering that they would intercept it only when the debris of the multi-stage carrier rocket falls down on the land of Japan.

Clear is the reason why Japan is kicking up such a row to disturb the world, doggedly insisting that the DPRK's launch of satellite is aimed at developing the missile technology. The primary aim sought by Japan through this is to bring the six-party talks to collapse and delay the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and thus justify its ambition for nuclear weaponization.

Looking back on the history of the six-party talks, Japan has done only wicked and wrong things obstructive to the denuclearization of the peninsula since their very start. The whole world, to say nothing of the parties to the talks, has a common understanding of this.

Japan has opposed every effort to abide by the principle of "action for action" for the denuclearization as evidenced by its stand against the delisting of the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism" and persistent refusal to fulfil its commitment to offer energy.

Japan's deliberate obstruction is intended to frustrate the denuclearization of the peninsula at any cost in a bid to secure a pretext for justifying its nuclear weaponization.

Another aim sought by Japan through this is to use the DPRK's satellite launch as the best pretext for facilitating the militarization of the Japanese society and weathering its political crisis.

As the Japanese authorities admitted, they have neither guarantee nor conviction that they can intercept the DPRK's satellite.

What they seek more than anything else through their opposition to the said satellite launch is political and military aims.

In other words, they are working hard to focus the attention of the people at home disillusioned with the corrupt political landscape on "threat to security" with an eye to incite militarism, gain time to tide over the political crisis and lay a springboard from which to push forward in real earnest the moves to turn Japan into a military power including the building of a joint missile shield with the U.S. in the future.

This is the ulterior aim sought by Japan in hyping "the missile threat from north Korea."

The war blackmail and all other hostile acts Japan is resorting to, describing only the DPRK's satellite launch as the development of missile technology are little short of a declaration that Japan does not recognize the September 19 joint statement calling for embodying "the spirit of mutual respect and equality." This is, in the final analysis, an act of overturning the six-party talks.

The DPRK is not afraid of any attempt of Japan to intercept "Kwangmyongsong-2."

Should Japan dare recklessly intercept the DPRK's satellite, its army will consider this as the start of Japan's war of reinvasion more than six decades after the Second World War and mercilessly destroy all its interceptor means and citadels with the most powerful military means.
Posted by: tu3031   2009-04-01 10:34  

#1  Can't shoot down what you can't see, Kimmie.
Posted by: DarthVader   2009-04-01 10:27  

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