North Korea fired upon the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong on Tuesday, killing a marine and setting several buildings on fire, in one of the most serious clashes since the Korean War more than 50 years ago.
The incident spurred the evacuation of the civilians living in Yeonpyeong, where 13 other marines were also injured by artillery fire.
South Korean military officials scrambled fighter jets and fired howitzers in response to the artillery fired at Yeonpyeong. It is unclear if any North Korean targets were hit.
I do have to ask what those "fighter jets" were doing up there if the ROK has no target results. Then again maybe they do and they're just not telling the press, but the rule with these situations is you retaliate massively. About 10-1 should do the trick.
Of course nobody wants Korean War II, but that doesn't mean you walk on eggshells around these yahoos. The ROK and the Americans have the means to cripple DPRK's military, and this would be an appropriate response. The population has suffered enough, as tempting as carpet bombing Pyongyang might be, but smart-bombing government buildings there and presidential palaces (everywhere) would do nothing to make the population's life worse and would make the elites suffer.
As for the Chinese weighing in on this, they should be told to muzzle their dog or we'll do it for them. I think that language exactly would be just what the situation needs, but the Americans are far past having the cojones to do that. So we can expect more of this sort of thing, all over the world.
