South Korean leader threatens 'retaliation'

Hours after North Korea's deadly artillery attacks, South Korea's president said "enormous retaliation" is needed to stop Pyongyang's incitement. International diplomats appealed for restraint.
"The provocation this time can be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory," President Lee Myung-bak said at the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The incident -- in which two South Korean marines died -- is "the first direct artillery attack on South Korean territory since the Korean War ended in an armistice" in 1953, Yonhap reported.
In addition to the slain marines, 15 South Korean soldiers and three civilians were wounded when North Korea fired about 100 rounds of artillery at Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, South Korean authorities said. Hundreds of island residents boarded boats and fled to safety, as the attack also set houses and forests on fire.
Some U.S. forces had been helping the South Koreans in a military training exercises, but were not in the shelled area.
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South Korea's military responded with more than 80 rounds of artillery and deployed fighter jets, defense officials said.
Firing between the two sides lasted for about an hour in the Yellow Sea, a longstanding flash point between the two Koreas. In March, a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk in the area with the loss of 46 lives in a suspected North Korean torpedo attack.
The United States has about 28,500 troops deployed in South Korea. A U.S. defense official said more than 50 U.S. Navy vessels are in the area, including a carrier strike group led by the USS George Washington.
South Korea's Lee said "indiscriminate attacks on civilians are a grave matter." He said that, since "North Korea maintains an offensive posture," South Korea's military forces -- the army, air force and navy -- "should unite and retaliate against [the North's] provocation with multiple-fold firepower."
"Reckless attacks on South Korean civilians are not tolerable, especially when South Korea is providing North Korea with humanitarian aid," Lee said, according to Yonhap.
After the incident, Yonhap said the Seoul government "banned its nationals from entering the communist state, indefinitely postponed scheduled Red Cross talks and began looking at ways to push the United Nations to condemn Pyongyang."
South Korea also suspended promised flood aid to North Korea, Yonhap reported, citing an unnamed official.
North Korea said the incident stemmed from South Korean maritime military exercises, code named Hoguk, and called the exercises "war maneuvers for a war of aggression." READ more at http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index...
The "South Korean puppet group" engaged in "reckless military provocation" by firing "dozens of shells" inside its territorial waters "despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK" or Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's military said in a statement.
"The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK standing guard over the inviolable territorial waters of the country took such a decisive military step as reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike," the statement said.
"It is a traditional mode of counter-action of the army of the DPRK to counter the firing of the provocateurs with merciless strikes," said the statement, which warned that it "will unhesitatingly continue taking merciless military counter-actions against it" if the border is crossed.
A senior U.S. defense official said South Korea had informed North Korea prior to the training mission, and that "there's no reason North Korea should have been surprised by this firing of artillery."

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[417truthfinder]

It was a news report And this is how it read South Korean leader threatens 'retaliation' so what I will do for you is explain to Retaliation defined: is return like for like, esp. evil for evil: to retaliate for an injury. please only use caps when you are yelling and have your facts together anyways thank you for your comment just wish you post with intelligence 

[Rico8458]

maybe i was not clear: america needs china to pay the bills in america. china is the creditor of america today. america is broke. therefore, america cannot afford to support south korea anymore with their defense. let south korea be free to fight their own battles. pull all U.S. troops out of south korea. you dont need america no more. walk away from us is better for you.

[stolly27]

@Rico8458 and ur just another idiot that is talking out of ur ass...get ur head out of ur ass...first of all china never gave united state money..we buy all these cheap shit from china and we gave china produce for their over populating pigs...

[Rico8458]

let south korea fight their own war. america is broke and needs china to pay her bills here. the u.s. treasury has no money. china gives america money to pay the military, social security, food stamps, welfare, entitlements, and defense budgets are all dependent on china lending america money so how can we fight for south korea? south korea needs to create their own million man army.

[davidlee110]

@MUsiCconOsuer YES IT DID!

look at up.

[MUsiCconOsuer]

@davidlee110 no its not

[andy7666]

And they are now doing MORE military exercises! The Jew.S.A want another war!

[666friends]

@davidlee110 As if USA didn't want to start ww2.... But anyways thank you for the bombing, I hope democracy will kill some North Korean civils too, just to show them do not to fuck with America (y)

[davidlee110]

@omega4chimp No, but it ended WW2.