by Todd Brendan Fahey
May 15, 2003
Investigative reporter Bill Gertz, whose Intelligence connections are nonpareil, reports in the May 13th issue of The Washington Times that North Korea has cultivated a powerful new anti-antipersonnel weapon: a Chinese-built laser-gun, capable of striking airborne targets at altitudes up to 3 miles, and that the weapon was demonstrated on U.S. Apache helicopters in March, according to classified Pentagon information.
Reporting from Seoul, South Korea on December 9, 2002, I had the opportunity to question the Pentagon's decision to ground its entire Apache helicopter fleet after two such craft crashed mysteriously within a month of each other near the DMZ separating North and South Korea. The Pentagon, to-date, has not responded to my inquiries surrounding the grounding of the Apache fleet.
In an exclusive flashback, I invite readers to judge for themselves whether the loss of two helicopters as well as an unspecified number of lives, might have been the result of similar North Korean laser technology, employed much earlier than Bill Gertz and the Pentagon are now reporting...
Fear of North Korean
"Seoul-Grab" Abounds:
U.S. grounds helicopter fleet in South Korea
(originally for EtherZone.com)
By Todd Brendan Fahey
December 11, 2002
Sources within the 1st ROK (Republic of Korea) Army's 11th Signal Brigade-- headquartered in Wonju, near the "demilitarized zone" separating the bifurcated nation still technically at war--are expressing deep concerns as to the U.S. Army's decision to ground its entire fleet of Apache helicopters in South Korea, following the crash of two AH-64 Apache helicopters in separate incidents within a month's span. The U.S. 8th Army in Korea made the decision last Sunday, August 23, to ground all 70 of its potent attack helicopters. ROK Army personnel, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, fear that the absence of the U.S.' ferocious anti-tank helicopters could lead to a blitzkrieg-style attack on South Korea's capital--what is privately being called "the Seoul-grab."
On August 1, the latest version of the U.S. attack helicopter--an AH-64D Longbow belonging to the 1st Aviation Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division, U.S. 8th Army-- crashed on Mount Gwangdeok, Hwacheon, Gangwon Province. Three weeks later, on August 21, an AH-64A from Camp Eagle, Wonju, flew into the face of a mountain in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, in dense fog.
The AH-64D Longbow, built by Boeing, is the most powerful anti-tank antidote to any potential North Korean invasion of the northern region of the Republic of Korea. South Korea has been unable to afford the ticket price of Apache helicopters, and the U.S. Army's decision to ground its fleet, pending investigations of the loss of its helicraft, leaves a major hole in the ROK's defense against an incursion from the North.
The ROK's own attack-helicopter fleet--chiefly McDonnell Douglas 500-MD and McDonnell Douglas AH-1S attack helicopters--are equipped with TOW anti-tank weapons, but possess less-advanced SIGINT electronics than that of the Apache--and is not widely considered to represent an effective deterrent in the event of a unified assault from the North.
The ROK's Army sources express immediate concerns on three levels:
1) North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is meeting currently in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin; and although much has changed in geopolitical dynamics since the 1950s, it is now known that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin gave the final go-ahead toward the North's catastrophic invasion of its southern brethren in 1950.
2) The ROK's Capital Defense Command--which ostensibly protects the administrative capital city of Seoul, and specifically the "Blue House" (presidential residence), major government offices, the Ministry of National Defense buildings and Kimp'o Airport--is of dubious strength. Comprised of significant Marine and Infantry divisions, it lacks significant defensive air cover, which would be critical to repel any tank-borne invasion.
3) Privately and publicly, the ROK's military is suspicious of the aggressively dove-like overtures made continually by President Kim Dae-jung to the North. The so-called "Sunshine Policy" is viewed by most military personnel as a one-way street, benefitting North Korea in trade, loans and tourism, but offering almost nothing in the way of verification of arms reduction (or human rights adjustments) from Kim Jong-Il and his military dictatorship in Pyongyang.
Particularly alarming is the recent finding that one of the ROK vessels sunk in last months attack deep into the Han River by North Korean forces, has demonstrated over 280 hull penetrations, by a vast array of guns of various calibers--indicating much more than the "defensive maneuver" claimed by Pyongyang. The damage to the craft, which was raised from the floor of the Han River and examined by both South Korean and international weapons experts, reveals it to have been the victim of a fierce, first-strike assault, and not a "tit-for-tat" exchange as has occurred in "disputed" waterways previously.
With John R. Bolton, US undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, currently visiting South Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Sung-hong and Im Sung-joon, a chief adviser on diplomacy and national security, relative to North Korean issues, and as the South Korean government once again capitulates to the North--having deciding on August 28th to allow Pyongyang to fly its communist flag and a "unification flag" at the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan, in violation of the ROK's National Security Law--respecters of liberty in the South are now wondering how long it will be before Asia's freest nation is swallowed up by the Beast.
