Do you favor or oppose a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea

[DemocratSinceBirth]

45 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Favor
	2 (4%)
	Oppose
	43 (96%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Aristus]

1. OPPOSE!

Haven't we had enough of bids for military supremacy masquerading as pre-emptive strikes in the name of national defense?

[randome]

9. I oppose too, but supremacy doesn't have much to do with this, I think.

NK is led by a madman who starves and tortures his citizens in a more overt manner than Saddam Hussein ever did. If we were somehow required to choose ONE country to invade, NK should be on the list of possibilities.

But it's sheer folly to think we can 'set things right' by fiat or, for that matter, on China's doorstep.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Hortensis]

38. Good grief, NK by itself. Then CHINA

comes into it, and boy WOULD China come into it. Striking NK would be regarded as striking China itself.

[randome]

40. I know. NK is a tragedy with no clear solution.

It's like a huge experiment in human suffering. Generation after generation that knows nothing about the outside world. And all we can do is comment on it or ignore it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[ProudLib72]

2. Sorry but the wording is confusing

Favor or oppose in the subject line, but "yes" "no" for the choices? I guess you meant "favor" only for the subject line?

[maryellen99]

3. Oppose

45 shouldn't be able to destroy a country and its people because 45 is in danger of being forced out of office.

[Calculating]

4. NK cannot be allowed to continue building longer range delivery vehicles

NK being able to deliver a nuclear weapon to the mainland US is an unacceptable outcome. They either need to stop with their missile development and nuclear program, or something will need to be done. The longer we wait, the more casualties there will be when that happens. The NK problem isn't just gonna go away. How long will the world tolerate a rogue state led by an evil madman who continually threatens everybody? Little Kimmy makes Trump look like a sane and reasonable fellow. NK have no intention of modernizing or reforming. Kim intentionally keeps his people starving and ignorant to maintain power. All media is tightly controlled to maintain the illusion that NK is the best there is. Being found with outside media is punishable by death/torture/imprisonment. The families of dissenters are sent to concentration camps for 3 generations to be tortured, starved to death, and have medical experiments conducted on them. It would honestly be doing the people of NK a favor to liberate them from this sadistic madman.

[SharonAnn]

27. Depends on what China might do. If they stand back, then yes.

NK is not going to do anything to negotiate or pause in their activities. We may have to take out the necessary facilities.

I absolutely hate saying this, but i don't know how we get them to stop threatening others and perhaps even acting on their threats. And, don't forget, they also do have actual WMD's, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

[meadowlander]

28. Sounds like something the UN/international community should address.

Why is a preemptive strike the only option on the table?

We should be getting China to lean on them.

[HoneyBadger]

5. If no one has a pre-emptive strike, we would have eliminated war

I am not even sure if I ever favor a strike, even a reactive one. Maybe if they attack the US.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. We are treaty bound to defend Japan and South Korea* if they are attacked.

I have no problem with that. I do have problems with pre-emptive strikes.




*edited to cite the right Korea.

[randome]

10. South Korea, maybe?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Blanks]

7. I support preemptive diplomacy...

That has yielded good results in the past.

[NurseJackie]

8. Yes! I am totally in favor of not preemptively using nuclear weapons on the DPRK

[Tom the Mechanic]

11. N.K. nuke sub over halfway built already

When that sub is completed, then Kim Jon Un can blackmail us.

Or worse.

I can't see a way out, but we can't possibly know all the details.

Either way, the next best thing to do is replace Congress.

www.votejamesthompson.com/phonebank

He's the first of 4 seats we can take from Trump this year.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. North Korea has the technology to build a nuclear submarine?

[Tom the Mechanic]

15. You can see it from satelite

The TV series "What On Earth" did an episode on it.

Say goodbye to the west coast, and the corn belt, and...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. Do you have a link?

[NWCorona]

30. It's for real and even though by all standards it's rudimentary, if completed it would change a lot.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a24381/north-korean-nuclear-missile-sub-update/

[DK504]

33. Even if it is not mechanized

it will change everything.

Hair Furor better place nice with the Chinese, since they give him a trade mark for every thing farts out, so they put a lid on Kimmy.

Even Kimmy must realize what will happen if he goes down this path.

[cwydro]

23. I'd like to see a link to that too. nt

[NWCorona]

32. See post #30

[cwydro]

55. Thanks!

That's interesting to learn.

[procon]

13. Really... Why are Republican policies given equal credence here?

Since no one in DU is going accede to Trump's threat of war, this is another useless piece of self serving click bait. Harder than a poll, but a better and more thoughtful discussion would be to exam the inevitable consequences if Trump were to actually go down that path.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. There are defenses of a pre-emptive strike in this thread.

[procon]

18. An incidental happenstance; and not the focus of this thread, yeah?

The poll numbers demonstrate my point, but maybe you were 'honestly' expecting a different outcome?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. Oh, I knew it would be lopsided. I was trying to get the pre-emptive strikers to reveal themselves.

I have read several articles on what a war with North Korea would like. Some of the articles suggest it would be our biggest military operation since WW ll. There has to be a better alternative.

[procon]

24. Hogwash.

And pointless, too, as none of that is presented until now. Certainly an earnest and frank discussion, as opposed to this simplistic and attention seeking Y/N poll, would have allowed for easy condemnation of the fallacies held by any of your suspected rightwing "pre-emptive strikers".

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Wow.

I have a question and your post provides the perfect opportunity to ask it. What do internet posters think will happen when they disrespect other posters? Do they think the disrespected party will just cower, especially when he or she is anonymous?

Thank you in advance.

Not cowering.


P.S. Seventy members of our community voted. That indicates the value of my query.

[procon]

54. The assumption of any "value" in the rhetorical question presented is open to debate.

While 'disrespect' is a perception oft served on a mirrored tray, it must be earned, nonetheless, and requires much less intellectual rigor as that required to gain respect, as demonstrated in the wearisome dearth of thought shown in the choices offered in this poll.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

56. My thread has fostered discussion as intended, your pomposity and pretentiousness notwithstanding.

P.S. Thanks for kicking my thread.

[procon]

59. As stated above, this is just another attention seeking poll.

P.S. Thanks for acknowledging your true intent.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

60. I intended to foster discussion on a discussion board. The tragedy.

P.S. Thanks for kicking my thread.

[erpowers]

17. I Support Regime Change

I support deploying a special forces group to North Korea and removing Kim Jong from power. I do not think United States should allow Kim Jong, or any other North Korean leader to continue to threaten the United States and launch missiles in the direction of multiple countries. I would like for the United states to attempt to reunite North and South Korea with the South Korean leader assuming control of both countries. If the countries cannot be reunited at least the North Korean people can be given their freedom.

[MFM008]

19. Oh sure

Add a little nuclear war to your day.

[wiggs]

21. It would probably be a preventative strike, not pre-emptive

Preventative strike means that some day an adversarial country could become an imminent threat and we better head it off now. Preventative strikes, like Iraq 2003, are generally illegal.

Pre-emptive means there's an imminent threat like massing at the border and moving missiles into place for a strike. IIRC it becomes an act of self-defense to carry out a pre-emptive attack and is generally legal. I haven't heard anyone say that an attack on the US from N Korea is imminent. South Korea might feel a threat is imminent I guess...

In either case with respect to N Korea, I don't see why any of the previous authorizations to use force would apply. There is time to go to congress, as intended, and ask for new authorization. And since it might be S Korea, not us, that is under threat I would think there's time to go to the UN or other allies and get consensus on action...so that we aren't sticking our neck out there alone. Any other pathway is worrisome, maybe illegal. I would hope that behind the scenes congressmen/women from both sides of the aisle are weighing in proactively on what their expectations are.

[LP2K12]

22. I oppose.

I oppose it as a veteran.

I oppose it as a member of the military intel community.

I oppose it as a human.

[SummerSnow]

26. He's going to kill us all, but first he'll take his family and fly to Mother Russia to live.

[ExciteBike66]

29. I say favor

in an attempt to exert some reverse psychology on our Dear Leader.

[haele]

31. Not only no, but Hell NO!

Unless you want everything in the Northern Latitudes to become ashy ruins where everything is slowly dying of radiation poisoning.

Kim Jong-Un isn't stupid, he's egotistical. The recent murder of his half-brother is evidence of how clever he can be, as well as how paranoid he can be.
Paranoid people plan for attacks against them; since he has developed nukes as the primary symbol of his power, he's not only going to protect them against any and all threats he can think of, he's going to plan how he can execute the maximum retaliation against whomever might try attack them.

Li'l Kim has enough of a God complex he will start lobbing whatever nukes haven't been taken out within the first five minutes of a military strike at So. Korea and U.S. bases within reach.
That f***er has no problems taking the world down with him.

Unless we have an exact knowledge of how many and where his nuclear arsenal along with any transport systems are, a pre-emptive military strike is out of the question.

Haele

[EX500rider]

37. Sorry, N Korea has nowhere near the megatonnage needed for what you said.

We've already had over 500 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted at various sites around the world from 1945 to 1980.

How many could N Korea deliver? 3 to 9 bombs?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. Nine nuclear weapons going off is nine nuclear weapons too much.

[haele]

46. It's not just what they can deliver in a strike.

It's what happens once nuclear weapons start being used - or destroyed in mass quantities.
Warheads are not the only delivery system. And again, we don't know where all his nuclear weapons are stored.

North Korea is a very strange country that actually believe their leader is a God; we'd have to break the country; destroy their leader and several levels down in the government, their military, and their scientific community, to actually remove the threat posed by the Kim dynasty and their religious/political stranglehold there.
Those people have put up with so much - sacrificed their personal futures and actual blood relationships with South Korea - to support their Dear Leader; they aren't just going to dance around singing "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!" once Kim is gone. And if he's not deposed by internal methods, the North Koreans will blame the "Corrupt West and Asian Proxies" for their loss of leadership and National identity.

Except for a few actual dissidents, they (as a body politic) don't see us as helping them. They see us as taking away their reason for existence - and the entire country has been trained as an army against our "corruption".

Any nuclear weapons or nuclear resource/infrastructure, left available to North Korean Nationalists after any preemptive strike will be used against us and our allies, one way or another.

There's a reason why preemptive and preventative strikes are considered a last resort. Once it becomes acceptable to throw sovereignty - the respect for a national identification - out the window and just go in and take away another country's armaments without their tacit agreement through diplomacy and treaties, then MAD loses its teeth. And the country that just walks in and takes what they want reduces its own standing as part of the world community - it becomes as much a rogue state as the little dysfunctional government that threatens everyone else.

(Thanks, Bush and Cheney, and all you other PNAC supporters...)

Haele

[Kittycow]

39. So would just assassinating him work?

I can't believe I just said that. Would that remove the immediate threat without a preemptive strike?

I think we call that Regime Change but I'm not sure.

[haele]

50. No, there are too many levels of NK political crazy down for outsiders to do it.

If it were an internal removal, North Korea would just become a dysfunctional state and collapse internally from the infighting and wild accusations. I suspect that most of the population will apply for reunification with South Korea once the party members top levels in government, military, and science sort themselves out and no actual evidence is found that any Outsider had anything to do with it.

If another Country was involved with the removal of the Kim Dynasty, that would give North Korea a reason to focus on that agency as the cause of any subsequent dysfunction, and the global "we" would be worse off. Remember, these people have lived at least four generations as sacrificing subjects to a "God King" that brooks no political dissent; what little dissent is in the country is viewed as criminal behavior by most people there - and punishment, including execution, is acceptable to most of the citizens there.
The brainwashing is strong, and no matter how the Kim Dynasty falls, it will take a decade or more for the majority of North Koreans that were not already inclined to leave to accept the larger outside world and be comfortable taking responsibility for their own future rather than living under an autocrat that tells them how to live.

Heck, much of our own population has a problem living in the outside world and prefer to live under local autocrats who use "God's observable Favor" as an excuse to tell them the right way to act and think - and to that everyone needs to keep to their place in local society if they don't want to be cast out and end up in Hell.

Haele

[NWCorona]

34. I'm against the Bush doctrine except for extreme cases.

NK doesn't fall into that category. I actually can't think of a case where it would be warranted at the moment.

That said I do think something non military needs to be done as options are rapidly closing.

[Javaman]

35. I apposed it for the obvious reason, the war thing.

but more so, I oppose it because of the orange menace and his inability to, you know, THINK.

[get the red out]

36. SHIT!

That would be playing with millions of lives! That could develope into mushroom clouds over both Koreas. What a horror!

[NCTraveler]

41. By "pre-emptive", you mean before they strike? Thanks. nt.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. Yes, of course...

If they attack one of our allies we are obligated legally and morally to respond militarily.

[NCTraveler]

44. If a strike by them was certain, of course we should strike them ahead of time.

Actually very surprised at how lopsided the poll results are.

"If they attack one of our allies we are obligated legally and morally to respond militarily."

Not really.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

45. We have military treaties with Japan and South Korea.

We are legally obliged to come to their defense and them to ours. It's also the moral thing to do.

If a strike was certain a pre-emptive strike would be justified, but how would one establish such a strike is certain.

[NCTraveler]

47. "It's also the moral thing to do. " That poses little significance.

"If a strike was certain a pre-emptive strike would be justified." I was simply going off of the manner in which you defined "pre-emptive."

"We are legally obliged to come to their defense and theirs to ours."

Lots and lots of room to play on that one. Really depends one what the initial strike looked like. Again, the argument is conflated with the term pre-emptive and them simply striking first.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

48. All I know is if they attack Japan or South Korea we should do whatever is necessary to repel the...

All I know is if they attack Japan or South Korea we should do whatever is necessary to repel the attack.

I don't favor attacking him over idle threats. He knows there is a red line and if he actually attacks his neighbors it's the end of his regime.

[Initech]

49. Fucking hell no!!!!

It would be an unwinnable war which would end with China launching nukes on American soil. We would all lose!

[BlueCaliDem]

51. We don't need another war we're bound to LOSE. eom

[heaven05]

52. no 'preemptive wars. period

[JDC]

53. Strongly Oppose

[stevenleser]

57. I voted "No vote" because I need more context for the question.

If the question is, "Given what we know of the current situation, do you support a pre-emptive strike on North Korea as things stand now?" the answer would be "No".

However, various contingencies and emergency situations could alter that quickly.

This is not a good situation at all and if it comes to something like NK getting ready to put a warhead on a ballistic missile, my mind would likely change in a hurry.

[tavernier]

58. Why isn't ARE YOU NUTS? a choice?

Because any preemptive strike by trump would involve nukes, IMO. I know how he likes his steaks cooked.

[Kimchijeon]

61. No! I would like Seoul and the rest of SK to remain intact...please