via Yahoo.com
An experienced South Korean surgeon operating on a defector from North Korea has described his shock upon finding dozens of unusual parasites inside the man’s stomach, suggesting widespread health issues among the population of the secretive state.
The patient, who has not been named, was critically injured as he fled North Korea under a hail of bullets fired from his former comrades through the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) border area between the two countries on Monday. Doctor Lee Guk-jong has now operated twice on the man to treat his injuries, with the presence of parasites adding complications to the surgery.
“We are struggling with treatment as we found a large number of parasites in the soldier’s stomach, invading and eating into the wounded areas,” Lee said at a press briefing following a three-and-a-half-hour operation on Wednesday, quoted in the Korea Biomedical Review.
Story here.
Follow the link and read the story before continuing...I'll wait. You're back? Good.
My armchair analysis.
I always thought that a limited airstrike on nuke facilities was the way that they would go (if there is war) because of the desire to limit blowback. I'm sure China doesn't want a refugee crisis and neither does S. Korea.
They might go for a decapitation strike but they would still want a functional N. Korea so that its breakup can be managed at the time and pace of the powers in the region.
But two things have me wondering if plans are being written for a limited ground incursion into N. Korea.
The first is that the Pentagon told the Congress that while they could get MANY of N. Korea's nukes, they couldn't get them all in an air campaign. Attriting an enemy works in every form of combat except for nukes. With nukes you have to gobble up every one of them cause even one can ruin your day and kill millions of your citizens.
The second is this news story. I knew that the N. Koreans operated elderly equipment but I didn't take into account how badly the population has been ravaged. This guy was tiny. Most American 16 year olds are bigger (male and female!) and the idea of parasites probably affecting a large part of their population along with other diseases makes me believe that we have an overwhelming advantage against them.
In tech, training, health, equipment and general "physicality" we outclass the North Koreans by a wide margin. If they push during the coldest part of winter, timing the assault when a terrible winter storm front rolls thru would seem to be the icing on the cake for either an airstrike, ground campaign or both.
Malnourished, under equipped troops just don't perform well when its bad outside.
These two bullet points tell me that a potential ground fight might be easier than projected if it's planned right. My guess? The go order is given sometime this winter. That's been my prediction and I see no reason to change now.
