http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD_Helicopters_MD_500

US military designation for this type was the OH-6; I think this is what our Vietnam-era helo pilots used to refer to as the “Loach” (a slang pronuciation “extrapolation”, from “Light Observation Helicopter”(?))

I think (like the even more well-known “Huey”) that this type is now gone from the US military inventory.

At least they’re not “transport” types, so you presumably won’t have to worry about one landing nearby and disgorging grim- looking DPRK special operations troops (though I suppose they could fly escort for other DPRK helos that can).

But — get out of your car and get in the ditch, if you trying to evacuate, and you see one of these flying overhead — even if it’s got ROK markings.

…P’yongyang was rather late in recognizing the full potential of the helicopter. During the 1980s, the North Korean armed forces increased their helicopter inventory from about forty to about 300. In 1985, North Korea circumvented United States export controls to indirectly buy eighty-seven United States manufactured civilian versions of the Hughes MD-500 helicopters before the United States government stopped further deliveries. Reports indicate that at least sixty of the helicopters delivered were modified as gunships. Because South Korea licenses and produces the MD-500 for use in its armed forces, the modified helicopters were useful in North Korea’s covert or deceptive operations…

http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....rforce.htm

Because we just “take it”, in terms of never retaliating for these kind of outrages. “Why worry about what the Americans think, here we have an opportunity to service our own financial and/or domestic political interests, and the Americans are always going to be there to protect us; ‘they need our bases.’”

Some of you may remember this story:

U.S. INVESTIGATES HELICOPTER SALES

February 3, 1985, Sunday
(NYT); Foreign Desk
Late City Final Edition, Section 1, Page 1, Column 5, 607 words
- The Commerce Department said today that it had evidence a West German businessman had illegally shipped to North Korea as many as 82 Hughes helicopters with potential military applications. Theodore Wu, deputy assistant secretary for export enforcement of the Commerce Department, said the transaction involved enough helicopters ”to support …

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/.....th%20Korea

A “TimesSelect” archive article so I don’t have the whole. I’ll see if I can find another link, I think I recall some discussion about this at globalsecurity.org.

One assumes that most of these US manufactured helicopters are no longer operational. I presume the German businessman got them as Bundesrepublik military surplus; I think, or at least I hope, that the German government was sufficiently embarassed to suppress any further effort by any of their countrymen to make more money by providing follow-on logistical and maintenance support.

Unless of course the North has now been able to acquire such support through its extensive (though hopefully in this case “unofficial”) contacts with the South.

No country would ever have to forge it’s own money, because it can just fucking run a few overtime shifts at it’s own treasury and print itself the real thing. There is NO REASON for any government to print forgeries because the inflationary effects are the same whether it prints real or forged money. Forged money also creates numerous negative effects on a country’s economy while giving no advantages. Duh.

This must be a close cousin of the equally retarded “America knew the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor and let it happen” and the so-dumb-it-hurts “America wiped 100’s of billions of dollars off it’s economy Sept. 11 so they could invade Iraq.” And if anyone feels belief in these two above are not retarded, please spare us.