North Korea Threatens US For What It Calls Double Standards Over Rocket Launches By 2 Koreas

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, February 2, 12:10 AM

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is threatening to retaliate for what it calls U.S. double standards over recent rocket launches by Pyongyang and U.S. ally Seoul.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman did not elaborate on what that might entail in his comments Saturday to the official Korean Central News Agency. But Pyongyang has recently threatened to conduct its third nuclear test in response to what it calls U.S. hostility.

Washington says Seoul’s rocket launch Wednesday had no military intent while Pyongyang’s in December was a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang for its launch. Pyongyang says it should be allowed to launch satellites for peaceful purposes.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-threatens-us-for-what-it-calls-double-standards-over-rocket-launches-by-2-koreas/2013/02/02/5f40d0f2-6cf6-11e2-8f4f-2abd96162ba8_story.html

[defacto7]

1. North Korea is one psychotic nation.

n/t

[olddad56]

2. Very true, but so is our nation.

[defacto7]

3. yeah... probably so.

n/t

[Socal31]

6. So you wouldn't rank one "above" the other, using the obvious faults of both?

n/t

[4saken]

7. Sounds like you've grown sensitive to the ills of this country...

But you'd never make that comparison if you had to personally deal with theirs.

[Posteritatis]

25. Woo, only took two posts for the NK-US equivalency crowd to show up. (nt)

[Drunken Irishman]

26. Not psychotic enough to where you can't make that statement...

Good luck finding one North Korean who posts from the safety of their North Korean home that their nation is psychotic.

[Turbineguy]

27. If the Tea Party ran this country

the two would be similar.

[bluedigger]

4. So North Korea is shaming us?

[davidpdx]

5. They are laughable

I'm screaming from the other side at the North Koreans (literally 26 miles from the border), "Go ahead make our day. We'll pummel your asses."

[obxhead]

10. That is a really scary thought.

I remember 6 days, 6 weeks, certainly not 6 months.

Pummeling their asses would lead to extreme tragedy to tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people, another inconceivably massive debt to deal with, and millions of families affected by every angle of armed conflict of any kind.

"Go ahead, make our day" should be an option we hope we never come to. It shouldn't even be considered an option, it should be considered the ultimate failure.

[davidpdx]

11. Well but I'm saying if they dared fire on the South

it would essentially be suicide for them. That's exactly why they aren't going to do it. The dictatorship would fall and there would be nothing left of the country. It's all bark and no bite.

[John2]

20. I'm hearing

all this chest beating from both sides but remind me how destructive a nuclear bomb was in Japan? How many do North Korea has now? Can the people of South Korea survive a nuclear attack? I think North Korea has sacrificed food for defense against us. I would be suprised if anybody wants a War, including South Korea on the Korean Peninsula. China would probably step in also if anyone on both sides resort to a nuclear conflict. So beating your chests has no logic on both sides.

[davidpdx]

22. No, not really

You are seeing Kim Jong Un continue to do the same things his father did and the US, South Korea, and Japan go to the UN and ask for sanctions.

North Korea does not yet have a portable device in terms of a nuclear bomb.

Again I point out that anything they would do would be suicide as it would bring and end to the regime.

[sir pball]

30. No need for nukes (not they they likely have any stockpiled anyway)

Seoul is well within the range of the tens of thousands of conventional artillery pieces that the Norks have heavily dug into the mountains just north of the DMV. Yes, in the end, the South and US would completely crush NK, but not before Seoul was pounded into dust by a hundred thousand old-fashioned cannon shells.

[NickB79]

28. An attack on S. Korea by N. Korea would require a massive US response

Yes, it would ultimately be suicide for N. Korea, but they'd take tens/hundreds of thousands of S. Koreans, and many thousands of US servicemembers, with them.

A friend of mine who was shipped off to serve in S. Korea a few years ago once made a remark I haven't forgotten: "If N. Korea invaded, we'd run out of bullets before we ran out of N. Koreans to shoot at." Resupply would be a long way away, even with air drops.

[davidpdx]

29. No, because many of the bases are south of Seoul

and we still have the superior air power. Yes, they could probably level a good deal of Seoul and the surrounding area. Whether they would take Seoul, I very much doubt it. Japan is not that far away to bring in additional aircraft. There would also be a question of how many of the malnourished North Koreans would actually show up to fight. The active duty soldiers are taken care of, but anyone who is not active duty and not a government official is probably not well off.

[RandiFan1290]

8. Yuk Yuk! We're gonna kick their ass!

Yeeehawww! Let's get signed up quick so wes can kill some motherfuckers y'all!! We needs the kiddies signed up too! Can't leave them out of the killing FUN!!!1

http://www.todaysmilitary.com/contact-a-recruiter

[davidpdx]

12. See post #11

[RandiFan1290]

13. Yeah the tough talk helped Saddam and the innocent people killed in Iraq too

Sorry I don't play this game

[davidpdx]

14. Clearly I wasn't talking about firing on them

I was talking about them firing on the South. I guess you can't read so well.

[RandiFan1290]

16. I guess you don't do history so well

Saddam did the tough talk too. He wanted to avoid an invasion. There were no weapons and we invaded a weak broken down country. There was no firing on anyone to provoke that invasion.

N Korea needs food and medicine to the people. We should flood the country with it even if a lot of it goes to the military.

We heard plenty of childish tough talk 10 years ago. I hope we've learned something by now.

[davidpdx]

17. No, I do history fine

In fact you may recall it was the North that attacked the South that started the Korean War. My point is if they were to attack it would be a mistake. I don't think they would do that though.

[RandiFan1290]

18. We don't need anymore attacking

We can agree there

[davidpdx]

19. Yeah

As I said, my house is 26 miles from the border. We'd be toast with their artillery. I'd rather not find out how good their aims is.

[loudsue]

9. I feel really sorry for the North Korean people.

They have a psychotic tyrant family at the helm of their country, keeping everyone starving except the army that does the tyrant's bidding.

It has to be a nightmare.

[davidpdx]

15. I do too

North Korean refugees have spoken out about the conditions and they are appalling. They spend almost all of their money on defense and let people starve.

[John2]

21. Seems to me

some people in our Government has the same philosophy when it comes to spending cuts. They like shiny toys too.

[daleo]

23. There is a double standard

That's just a fact. To castigate North Korea for things that the west congratulates South Korea is the very essence of a double standard.

Given their history, I doubt that Japan, for example, is happy to see either Korea capable of ICBM or nuclear weaponry.

[cire41]

24. +1

n/t

[sir pball]

31. Except the South doesn't have nukes

Nor AFAIK any intention of developing them (though if we pulled our support, I'd wager they'd get on that pretty quickly) - so their space launches, while definitely applicable to ICBM technology, are inherently a hell of a lot more benign than the Norks. It's like having a gun with no ammunition.

[daleo]

32. They could probably put nukes together in a short time, if they felt the need

If they haven't already.

Japan could probably build a bomb quickly too.

[sir pball]

33. I'm sure they do have the technology

The theoretical development of nukes is almost ancient history; it's a purely engineering problem these days and the Koreans are damn fine at that.

The biggest hurdle the South would have is the fissile materials themselves, with no active enrichment infrastructure (even if they do produce power-grade fuel you can't just dial it up to eleven, you need further hardware) the timeframe would still be fairly long. Unless we or Japan (they DO have the infrastructure to produce weapons-grade materials) supplied them on the sly, it would still be a multi-year project. Also, while they, nor any nation really, aren't saints, they aren't psychotic obsessive lunatics like the Norks...just sayin'.

[daleo]

35. South Korea has CANDU reactors

India built a bomb on the sly with their help, Pakistan too. So you never can be sure.

[bemildred]

34. Yawn. nt