Japan Threatens Force vs N. Korea

[arnadstephen]

FROM: Home - BBC News

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Feb 13, 2003

Japan threatens force against N Korea


Japan has warned it would launch a pre-emptive military action against North Korea if it had firm evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack.

Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it would be "a self-defence measure" if North Korea was going to "resort to arms against Japan".
Mr Ishiba said it would be too late if a North Korean missile was already on its way.

His remarks were the latest in the international row over Pyongyang's nuclear intentions, and followed a North Korean warning that it had the ability to strike American targets anywhere in the world, if provoked.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2757923.stm

 

[thomas]

Japan adopting the Bush doctrine... I wonder how they plan to execute a pre-emptive strike. North Korea isn't a sitting duck like Iraq, no easy in, easy out.

 

[arnadstephen]

Its no good to say you can do something when you can't

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Japan threatens North Korea
By Stephen Lunn in Tokyo
February 15, 2003


..........on and on...........

But Mr Ishiba knows his military options are limited. Japan's defence agency spokesman Akihiro Kobe said his country did not have the military capability to effectively take out a North Korean missile, either in the air or on the ground before its launch.

.........on and on........

theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5986622%5E401,00.html
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[den4]

When the J-government has trouble taking out the corrupt out of their own group, and even start on a reform process that isn't mired in committee meetings or stalled in the diet, and who can't even figure out how to save people during major earthquakes (ie: Kobe), how are they going to stop a nuke missile from doing anything with seconds to react?

somebody is dreaming.....

 

[thomas]

I'm sure Kim Jong-Il is shivering...

Anyhow, sad times when diplomacy is substituted by mutual threats and sabre-rattling.

 

[thomas]

The Washington Post on Japan's unusually aggressive response.

Threat Erodes Japan's Pacifism

Japan's version of Special Forces, a small and secretive group within the navy, and a larger army airborne unit, are undergoing stepped-up training, the sources said. The maritime forces have been put on heightened alert. And the country's Defense Agency is reported to be preparing to dispatch two destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile and tracking system, the Myoko and Kongo, closer to North Korea to watch for a possible missile launch.

Other moves, started years ago with an eye on North Korea, are now being completed. Japanese forces have been slowly transferred from the northern island of Hokkaido, where they had long been poised to counter a possible Russian threat, to western Japan close to the Korean Peninsula. And next month, Japan plans to embark on its first military use of space with the launch of two spy satellites designed to take radar and optical pictures of North Korea. These moves, subtle and often unpublicized, add to the gradual and often wrenching progression toward a greater role for the Japanese military.


=> washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10698-2003Feb14.html