North Korea Upgrades “Sea of Fire” Threat
by Richardson ~ March 30th, 2008. Filed under: Engagement, Korean Politics, WTF?.
Apparently someone in the KPA Threat Department didn’t realize that ashes logically follow fire when attempting to make one of the standard threats sound more menacing:
North Korea threatened South Korea with destruction Sunday after Seoul’s top military officer said his country would consider attacking the communist nation if it tried to carry out a nuclear attack.
“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” an unidentified military commentator said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, once our advanced pre-emptive strike begins.”
Next time this evil-genius of threats may add, “Not only will we kill you, but you will be dead!” We can only hope.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
[...] Also see North Korean Monitor, ROK Drop and DPRK Studies [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I would have to see the original declaration in Korean, but it is interesting that the North Koreans used the term “pre-emptive strike” to describe Seoul’s earlier remark.
Doesn’t that imply a self-acknowledged nefarious intent on North Korea’s part? By ascribing “pre-emption” to South Korea’s potential action, is North not acknowledging that there is something (North Korea’s own aggression, nuclear or otherwise) to pre-empt in the first place?
March 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“우리식의 앞선 선제타격이 일단 개시되면 불바다 정도가 아니라 모든 것이 잿더미로 된다는 것을 명심해야 한다”고 경고했다.
I’d say the translation captures the meaning of the original.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:32 pm
The military spokesman on KCNA was referring to this;
March 31st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Richardson:
This is the KCNA we are talking about here, and this outlet is notorious for bending the truth just a tad much like the declaration that was lost in the mail last November. Now that the evil imperialists are “not doing their end of the deal”, Kim throws a fit. Problem is, nobody did not have to do anything.
Also, I was reading the KCNA is yet to announce Lee is the new president. I guess that is not really important, because a lot of North Koreans missed the memo about man walking on the moon and the 9-11 attack. That is going off topic a bit, but this is just a few examples of just how twisted this regime is, and while the people are fed this crap and buy it, Kim wants the rest of the world to buy it, and when they don’t, he does not understand why.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Scratch that; the KCNA just talked about Lee:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aYoC35aUd03E&refer=asia
April 1st, 2008 at 5:10 am
Jack,
I’m fairly well acquainted with the KCNA. Sonagi posted the Korean text from the KCNA quote in question, while the quote in my above comment is from the Korea Times and goes to why North Korea was making these comments at all - ROK JCS Chief Kim’s answer to a hypothetical during his confirmation hearing.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:11 am
Richardson, ah ok.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Sonagi,
Thank you for the Korean version. “앞선 선제타격” is absolutely translated correctly as “pre-emptive strike” although the nit-picker in me says that “앞선” and “선제” are redundant.
Then again, we are talking about North Korea now, the land of bizzarro Korean language, distorted to fit the equally bizzarro whims of its rulers.