CNN: "South Korea and the United States started joint military exercises Sunday..."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Amid tension, U.S. and South Korea begin military drills
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 28, 2010 10:45 a.m. EST



http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/28/koreas.crisis/index.html?hpt=T2

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea and the United States started joint military exercises Sunday, U.S. Forces Korea spokesman David Oten told CNN, prompting a furious response from North Korea.

The naval operations are "no more than an attempt to find a pretext for aggression and ignite a war at any cost," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said, warning that the drills "are putting the Korean Peninsula at a state of ultra-emergency."

North Korea warned of unpredictable "consequences" if the United States sends an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea for the military maneuvers.

The divided peninsula, tense at the best of times, has been near the boiling point since Tuesday, when North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.

[davidinalameda]

1. North Korea put the peninsula in a state of ultra-emergency

not the US or the South Koreans

[aquart]

2. A show of force is a standard diplomatic tool.

Kim Jong Un has to prove he is a strong military leader or he won't be alive twenty minutes after Daddy dies. Things are very dicey for him right now and war with SK is preferable to civil war. Could be he'll get both.

THIS IS CHINA's problem, not ours. China needs to assure the little anointed one that they have his back in case of internal trouble. And that they don't want him going to war with major Chinese markets.