"Permission to break out the Bieber, sir?" "Negative, Lieutenant, you are not to utilize the Bieber except in a time of war."
We here in The West tend to think of the Cold War as being long over, but in absolute truth, it’s not completely over. Sure, the whole United States vs. Soviet Union standoff has mostly died down, and Germany’s now all one piece. Marko Ramius has sheen Monchana, and realished it wash no shcreaming hell. But that doesn’t mean the whole deal is over.
Over in the Koreas, tensions are still running rampant. The Demilitarized Zone is still just as dangerous as it ever was, with North and South sides trading pot-shots at one another. One side sinks a ship, the other retaliates by beating up someone’s mother. And periodically, each side will let loose a couple of artillery shells just to make sure that the other side is still paying attention.
Now, however, the South might have taken things a bit too far:
This is what has been blasting over across the border through the giant military-grade boom-boxes in the photo above. K-Pop. Cheesy Korean pop music has been broadcast to their neighbours in the North at enormous volumes, at all hours of the day or night. Now, I watched this video, purely for research purposes, and this is pretty cruel. There isn’t even some Katy Perry cleavage to make it appealing.
This is, I’m firmly convinced, the primary reason for North Korea pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Let’s face it, if your neighbours pointed some giant stadium-grade speakers out the windows of their house, directly at your bedroom windows, and started playing some J-Lo at all hours of the day and night… you’d probably look at creative ways to knock down their house too.
[Special thanks to the Mysterious Utility Bento for the tip; Image source: Hydra Magazine]
I'm not sure I could concentrate well enough with that in the background to get any actual work done on retaliatory weapon development.
I'm curious as to what range this is good upto, because if it's reaching the nearest towns then it could be serving a dual purpose. If it's just to annoy the hell out of the norths soldiers, I'm sure it's doing it's job admirably.
If you ever get bored look up what we blasted at Noriega while he was held up in a Panamanian church. It's pretty funny what we did with psychological warfare against him. Of course the fact that we blasted heavy metal at a Catholic Church seems wrong but oddly very American
Someone in the Army had a sense of humor – blasting Jimi Hendrix's version of the "Star Spangled Banner" and Alice Cooper's "No More Mister Nice Guy". I wonder which song finally broke Noriega. I'll bet it was New Kids on the Block. That would break me. http://darrengarnick.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/git…
I believe the Wiki entry which MR MZS actually says the Church itself finally wore him down. Mostly likely because they were sick of the Americans playing this game.
They should just hold one of these "car stereo" competitions at the border:
http://articles.cnn.com/2003-07-02/tech/popsci.st…
So they sell a lot of those noise canceling headphones
Dear lord that terrible sound! Anyway here's a better one. In Operation Nifty Package "Welcome to the Jungle" Byu Guns N' Roses was blared at the Vatican embassy to get him to surrender:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nifty_Pack…
Wait what is this? Vandalism, what is "Eyes of Destruction" by GNR? Yup a bad edit from some Rick Rolling to the article must have changed from Appetite for Destruction… Stupid losers with nothing better to do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operati…
Anyway while I was trying to make sure my memory was correct I stumbled on this quote from a youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNl6FdowLg
So it seems that really they were playing the loud rock music so that reporter microphones could not pick-up on the negotiations, that's interesting and plausible.
[youtube o1tj2zJ2Wvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg youtube]
C'mon, it's a friendly thing. They're saying, "Hey Commie bros, there's a party goin down around here..Cruiser's Creek, yeah…" Okay, I might have been possessed by Mark E Smith from The Fall whilst typing that…
I'd prefer this. Even if it came with Air Cav attack.
[youtube tHl7jSZW1yc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHl7jSZW1yc&feature=related youtube]
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning." One of my favorite movie lines.
Come, Comrades!
Help defend the land of our Glorious Everlasting Leader
against these stooges of the Western World!
These bubbly, shapely, sweet-smelling, rockin'
hawt stooges of the…..
Ah, screw this- I'm outta here!
Exactly.
<img src="http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqJihLe5rWOvJJKMUZ8yK_jINm_5-ftXtrg_PNKkYGu-Ixzdo8VYHP0O59Zg" />
VS
<img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/5/29/1243616268333/North-Korean-soldiers-at–003.jpg" />
I find the approach somewhat confusing, and can't tell what their goal is. If it's cultural inoculation, then why would they be playing it at annoying times and volumes? Isn't the goal for them to like it?
If the goal is to irritate them, they couldn't find anything more abrasive?
I'm pretty sure that guy from the 2nd video is going to pull something if he keeps that up.