KPFA News Director Mark Mericle sings U.S. imperialist tune on Korea. Twice!

The United States said today it believes North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island was linked to leader Kim Jong Il's effort to pass power to his son and was not the start of a military offensive against South Korea. The shelling yesterday was one of the heaviest attacks since the end of the Korean War in 1953 and has left Washington struggling to find a way to respond to Pyongyang without tipping the peninsula into wider conflict. Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, said China's leadership was absolutely critical given its unique influence on North Korea's leadership. A U.S. aircraft carrier group set off for Korean waters today for military exercises with South Korea due to begin on Sunday, the kind of show of force that China has previously opposed. The Pentagon said the exercises were not linked to Tuesday's strike; instead they were part of a series of previously announced drills.

The State Department says Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton will be talking by telephone with China's Foreign Minister about North Korea's attack on South Korea. The Obama administration wants China to press North Korea to stop its aggressive actions against South Korea. State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley calls China pivotal to changing North Korea's behavior and says Beijing has a responsibility to make it clear to Pyongyang that deliberate attempts to inflame tensions with Seoul are not acceptable. Crowley said U.S. diplomats had delivered that message to Chinese officials in Washington and Beijing. The statement came after Tuesday's North Korean artillery attack on a South Korean island that killed two South Korean troops and two civilians and sparked a dramatic escalation of tensions between the rival Koreas.

As I've written elsewhere, if Mark Mericle and Aileen Alfandary can't be paid off to retire, they ought to be given the 6 am to 7 am slot when Democracy Now! is finally moved to 7 am, as was democratically decided by the Program Council and the Local Station Board over 6 years ago, but never implemented because of stonewalling by the insider clique.

For a critical analysis of the latest Korean incident, see: