North Korea goes Rogue yet again

I’m on endless hold with the State of Louisiana at the moment.  More of Bobby Jindal’s relentless war on people here.   I did manage to catch this horrible story which  is all over the news and very scary. North Korea has fired artillery at South Korea.  South Korea returned fire.

I’m not sure what our treaty status is with North Korea and South Korea since that war, but I’m pretty sure a bunch of us are committed to defend South Korea against naked acts of aggression.  This is from the first link above and the NYT.

The South Korean military went to “crisis status” on Tuesday and threatened military strikes after the North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island, killing two of the South’s soldiers and setting off an exchange of fire in one of the most serious clashes between the two sides in decades.

North Korea has pulled some stunts before.  Notably, it’s always firing badly built missiles into the oceans. It torpedoed a South Korean Navy vessel back in March.

The Guardian has a timeline up for the Key Events concerning North Korea. (That’s also where I got the photo)

WAPO has the response from the White House.

In the United States, a White House spokesman said President Obama was “outraged” by North Korea’s “provocative” action, adding that Americans stand by South Korea.

Obama plans to call South Korean President Lee Myung-bak later Tuesday to express American solidarity, spokesman Bill Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Indiana.

South Korea called the shelling of the civilian-inhabited island of Yeonpyeong, which lies near the disputed maritime border separating North and South Korea, a breach of the 57-year-old armistice that halted the Korean War without a peace agreement.

The North fired an estimated 200 artillery shells onto the island, and the South returned fire with about 80 shells from its own howitzers. The attack began just after 2:30 p.m.

I’m trying to look up our treaty status with South Korea at the moment, but I imagine we have some obligations to defend them as I know we still have troops and bases there.   What the response will be is any one’s guess at this point.

The BBC reports that dozens of houses were damaged in the artillery bombardment. There’s reports of people being sent to shelters but no news of any casualties or fatalities.

“Houses and mountains are on fire and people are evacuating,” a witness on the island told YTN television station. “People are frightened to death.”

Local government spokesman Yoon Kwan-seok said the shelling lasted for about an hour and then stopped abruptly.

“All of the island’s 1,600-odd residents were evacuated to shelters,” he said.

The South’s military fired back some 80 shells. Casualties on the northern side are unknown.

South Korean fighter jets were also deployed to Yeonpyeong, which lies about 3km (1.8 miles) south of the disputed inter-Korean maritime border.

President Lee Myung-bak ordered the military to retaliate against North Korean targets in case of “additional provocations”, his spokesman said.