I'm ex military, The US likes to fight wars. ww1, ww2, Korea, Vietnam, Afganistan, Iraq twice.. That doesn't count the 20 times we been down in south and central America..the Philppeens, Cuba, Grenada..Boxer rebellion in China...Mexico, and no I don't mean Mexican American war..Spanish American war was 1898..so that's close enough. Plus all the stuff the CIA did covertly.

I'm not against any of that, for it actually, I'm just saying. Empires are built like that. We tend to have a difficult time admitting to ourselves that we are in fact an empire.

I imagine it is the time for empires to be formed economically rather than by force.

This latest NK nonsense is absurd, and it scares me honestly.

Empires utilize both aspects for growth. The primary problem with empires is they tend to stop growing and become decadent. Rot from the inside out then collapse like a hollow tree. Empires, to stay strong must grow continually, allways looking outward to increase it's strength. It can become a vicious cycle.

That's an idiotic statement.

You can say that, but the History is behind the statement. I allready showed how often the US has been involved in wars just this century.

Still, how bout this? Mankind is greedy and desires only things forhimself and willingly fights anyone else to get what he wants.

Not really scary. South Korean conservative politicians are using this incident as an excuse to block next year's failed policies.

So who's the main benefactor of the Yeongpyeong-do Barrage? It's not the North. It's not the USA. It's the current South Korean president in power.

It really makes me wonder why the Japanese and American media over-react to this incident.

South Korea has vowed to retaliate to a point where NK will be incapacitated if it provokes once more.
America and SK performed massive drills near NK.
America and Japan performed gigantic drills near NK (44000 troops i think)
America, SK, Japan, China and many other countries support NK financially, a lot, not just SK, due to the 1953 armistice.
China until recently was thought to be backing NK fully with it's defense of the SK ship-sinking, though the cables tell a different story.

Most of what you said is so wrong.
No over reaction, NK is unpredictable to it's closest ally, China, and it has nukes and missiles to launch them with, which they've tested in the sea of Japan.
The leader is dying, and self righteous, and trying to give his son a country stronger than the one he's been leading...

Seriously. Pay attention.

Yeah. And I'm a South Korean living near the DMZ.

Seriously. Pay attention by looking at the South Korean public. We are more anti-government after this incident.

Think beyond the war and look closely at the South Korean National Assembly in Yeoido. It's actually collapsing.

North Korea doesn't need to make war. They are already collapsing the South Korean government without firing a single bullet after the island barrage.

I checked some polls a few days ago that (yeah they only included a few thousand people) but seemed to show a general sentiment of "We want revenge/war" from people in Seoul.
The anti-government people seemed like a minority, and even so the sentiment was against the government's weak reaction to the north.

Anyways, South Korea is not the biggest factor in this equation with regards to war or no war. It's a nutcase with nukes and no friends, who no one feels able to control, at the drop of a hat he could flick a switch and bye bye seoul or some city in japan or who knows.

Anti-gov is the biggest social faction in huge South Korean websites like Daum, Naver, and Yahoo Korea.

Read Korean websites (and actually learn Korean) and see how different they are from the official statements shown in Western press.

How hawkish. Well... There's always be a Westerner who would shout this kind of statement.

Here's the running gag in the South Korean internet-space: "If there would be a war, our president will flee to Japan instantly."