North Korea attacks South Korea … or is it the other way around?

South Korean war games that fired shells across the border and simulated an invasion of the North provoked a response from the DPRK.

By Steve Gowans, via what’s left

If you read Mark McDonald’s article in The New York Times, ‘”Crisis status” in South Korea after North shells island’, the answer depends on whether you paid attention to the headline, the expert commentary, and the tone of the article, or whether you paid attention to the facts.

If you paid attention to the former then North Korea attacked South Korea.

If you paid attention to the latter, the opposite is true.

Here are the facts McDonald reported.

• 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning a military drill … sharply criticised by Pyongyang as “simulating an invasion of the North” and “a means to provoke a war”.
• ROK [South Korean] artillery units fired toward the DPRK [North Korea] from a battery close to the North Korean coast. The South acknowledges firing the shots.
• The DPRK replied.

Shouldn’t the headline read: ‘”Crisis status” in North Korea after South Korea mobilises 70,000 troops and shells the North’?