North Korea Claims Capture Of U.S. "Submersible"

FOXNews is reporting a strange story from across the Pacific. It seems that our funny friends in North Korea are claiming that an "ultra-small unmanned submersible vessel was captured during a reconnaissance mission in waters off North Korea's eastern city of Hamhung". From the article:

The newspaper report on its Web site, monitored in Seoul, was accompanied by a picture purported to be of the black torpedo-shaped U.S. vessel. There were no further details as to when or how North Korea obtained it.
Last September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il instructed officials to put the new spy vessel on public display along with the ship Pueblo that the communist regime captured in 1968, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea, David Oten, dismissed the report."We have nothing unaccounted for and there is no way for us to verify that this is a U.S. vessel," Oten said.

As near as I can tell (my computer doesn't have the right language installed) this is the web site they're talking about. There's a picture of a "black, torpedo-shaped" object about 3/4 of the way down the page, which is what I assume is what the North Koreans are claiming is the "unmanned submersible vessel" in question:

I know -- weak. I got you all excited for nothing. Hopefully someone will read this who can translate the story in question (maybe Skippy-san?), and we'll find out how what appears to be an exercise torp could be considered an "spy vehicle". If the article turns out not to have an explanation, hopefully it will at least mention "Juche" or "the glorious Army First policy" so we'll be able to get bigger chuckle.

Bell-ringer 1942 07 Aug: At the suggestion of a commenter, I went to Babelfish, and it spit out this translation for the portion of the article of interest, which it said was titled "The spy boat which is exhibited newly":

minimum elder brother underwater unmanned price tag submergence of the U.S. army which from the Hamgyong-Namdo Hamhung southern part offing is arrested while reconnaissance missions accomplishing really it is a. In anti-US joint combative monthly publication of this year phwu blow favor it was exhibited at the time of rightly before and it was Doe. 2005 September Kim Jong Il general to see the unmanned price tag submergence affection which is arrested and to the people widely this in order to open to the public, and, it does.

It looks like I might still need some translation help, but since it looks like it's in Korean, vice Japanese, Skippy-san might not be much help.

Submariners -- Imperialist Warmongers?

Earlier, I mentioned that a South Korean "peace group" had gotten a picture of an American submarine visiting Chinhae, S. Korea, and noted that our boats visit there all the time. Via Rontini, we read that the North Korean press is putting their own spin on the matter, and they're not happy! (More on their unhappiness here.) While I'm disappointed that the story doesn't mention "Juche" or the "Enlightened Army-First Policy" it's still a good example of the old-time humorous Communist revolutionary jargon that I miss so much from the 70s.

DPRK Organ Decries US Submarine's Docking in ROK, Defends Its Nuclear Weapons
Pyongyang Rodong Sinmun (Korea), 04/06/2005
The belligerent US forces are showing a very ominous move to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. A case in point is the fact that South Korean private organizations have recently disclosed with a photo that nuclear-powered US military attack submarine "Los Angeles" called at the Chinhae Naval Base, South Korea, when the US-South Korea "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration [RSOI] exercise" and the "Foal Eagle" joint military exercise were being staged as a combined exercise in South Korea. Up until now, the United States has never made public its nuclear-powered submarine's call at South Korean seaport, and has strictly kept it secret. This is the first time that the fact has been disclosed.This once again clearly shows that the United States has run amok in staging exercises for actual combats, while regarding a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula as an irreversible fact.On many occasions, the United States has said that it "would not attack or invade the DPRK." However, its gibberish is nothing more than a stratagem aimed at concealing its attempt to unfailingly swallow our country with the force of arms.The United States, which conducted a joint anti-submarine exercise in the East Sea of Korea [Sea of Japan] with South Korea in this year, mobilized the "Stryker" unit, a rapid mobile force deployed from the US mainland; the combat fleeted by "Kitty Hawk," a main aircraft carrier of the US 7th Fleet; fighter-bombers, fighters, and many other, huge offensive means to stage the "RSOI" exercise and the "Foal Eagle" joint military exercise as a combined exercise. The fact that the United States secretly brought a nuclear-powered attack submarine into South Korea on the pretext of the war exercises fully lays bare the aggressive nature and danger of the game it played with fire this time as a preliminary nuclear war and as a test war for northward invasion, which was waged with our Republic as a target for a preemptive nuclear strike. This is not the first time that the United States' sinister scheme to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula has been brought to light. It has been laid bare by a document declassified by the "Freedom of Information Act" and by others that the United States prepared a scenario to use 30 nuclear weapons in "times of a contingency" on the Korean peninsula and conducted mock warheads dropping exercises, postulating the use of nuclear weapons. The United States has deliberately and viciously staged nuclear war exercises for northward invasion, even if it officially made a commitment in the DPRK-US Agreed Framework that it would not pose threats to our country with nuclear weapons and it would not use nuclear weapons against our country. After taking power, the belligerent Bush group openly designated our Republic as a target for preemptive nuclear strike, and it is blatantly scheming to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike against the DPRK.Lately, the United States is even more frantically speeding up the preparations for a nuclear war against our Republic. The United States has already deployed "B-52" and "B-1B" strategic bombers in Guam -- a strategic base with the Korean peninsula as a target --, and, then, it is now planning to deploy new-type long-distance bombers, cruise missiles, and nuclear-powered submarines, and it is also planning to deploy the ultra-high-speed underground penetrating missiles, which have been especially developed for destroying our country's underground structures, the first in South Korea. It goes without saying that these US maneuvers are for the purpose of carrying out a preemptive nuclear strike against our country. Recently, Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a talk with the NBC television network, has openly blabbed that the US Forces are capable of carrying out military operations against the North Korea's nuclear facilities, if the need arises. The facts clearly show that the United States is determined to unfailingly implement the aggressive strategy aimed at invading the DPRK and Asia by carrying out preemptive nuclear strikes. In a situation in which the United States has absolutely no desire to coexist with our country, but it is only seeking to "overthrow the system" of ours with the force of arms, it is absolutely just that our Republic has come to possess nuclear weapons. Had our country not strengthened its self-defensive defense capability to counter the US attempt to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike, the Korean peninsula would have already been turned into a US nuclear war battlefield, and the Korean people would have suffered nuclear catastrophes and disasters. We do not pay attention to whether or not the United States has the desire to attack us. The nerve of our army and people fully prepared for self-defense to counter any attack is that the United States can do whatever it wants to do. Nuclear weapons are not US monopolies, and the United States is not the only one that has an option to carry out a preemptive strike. If the US imperialist warmongers will light the fuse of a nuclear war in our sacred land, they themselves will never be able to escape from the flames of the war.

I'm sorry... I know I'm supposed to be worried that North Korea poses a real threat to world peace, but jeez... this stuff is just too funny.