N. Korea Warns of War Amid High Tensions

[newyawker99]

It is getting more difficult to keep track of this stuff. The problems are everywhere!! :argh:


The Korean War ended 50 years ago, yet tensions remain high amid suspicion that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. In a reminder of uneasiness along the world's most heavily armed border, the communist country Saturday warned of a new war.

The warning came ahead of the 50th anniversary Sunday of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 armed conflict on the world's last remaining Cold War frontier.

"The arrogant and outrageous moves of the U.S. imperialists to stifle the DPRK by force are being carried into extremes," North Korea's army Chief of the General Staff Kim Yong Chun said.

North Korea "will promptly beat back any precision strike, surgical operation-style strike and pre-emptive nuclear attack with the powerful war deterrent force," Kim said.

Korea

[rjbcar27]

1. Bluster.

They talk a good fight but they are painfully aware that should they kick off, North Korea would be wiped off the face of the earth within the hour.

[bahrbearian]

2. What are you saying? "Bring it on"!!!!

[rjbcar27]

3. No, just stating the obvious.

[teryang]

4. The Chinese won't allow

...the presence of American soldiers in N.Korea. The possible outcomes of conflict with N.Korea are unknown. While the N.Korean military are not a match for CFC, this strategic and rugged terrain is ideal for the type of combat operations that the Chinese favor. Predicting quick defeats of Asian foes is the legacy of 19th Century colonialism. Don't bet on it.

[rjbcar27]

5. I don't doubt that, but if NK drops a nuke...

I don't doubt that their first would also be their last.

[ewagner]

6. In this case...

MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) is an operative policy. We don't want Japan, Alaska or Hawaii to disappear any more than they want the whole of N.Korea to disappear.

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Attacking

While that precludes the U.S. from attacking, there is a chance that NK would attack conventionally. Of course, there is a certainty that the U.S. would nuke them before they could wipe out American troops in SK.

[Trek234]

16. What a foolish argument

So burn down your house to save your cat from fleas?

What are you suggesting? Kill every american soldier in South Korea to save them? Yea, that makes a good deal of logic.

You nuke North Korea you KILL EVERYONE IN SOUTH KOREA INCLUDING YOUR OWN DAMN TROOPS! If not immediatly in the coming days and years from effects of fall out.

Not to mention China might just take offense to fall out from the United States (BEING THE FIRST TO FIRE A NUKE) causing death to it's people and decide it's time for United States people to die.

Furthermore you are being as naive as a five year old to think the current administration could give a damn about South Korea. Do you think Bush is going to put his ass on the line for them with no return? That would be a first.

The current administration would likely either say 1. Fuck em and pull out our forces ASAP or 2. Wage a conventional war. Those are the only two choices.

The braid dead americans who think anyone attacks us = nuke can't think past that. They don't think about the ungodly number of dead innocents that would rival Hitlers numbers, or the MAJOR repercussions to the United States. The worlds nations might very well form a collective alliance AGAINST the United States after that. The world can NOT tolerate a nation clearly willing to kill MILLIONS instantly after being attacked conventionally, and would move against the United States. Rightfully so just as we should move against any other nation after doing such a thing.

[Muddleoftheroad]

20. Not suggesting

Not advocating.

Stating fact. No U.S. president will allow North Korea to roll over our troops unabated as they did last time. We have 37,000 guys there. Many would be killed almost instantly. The rest would last long enough for tactical nukes to slow the NK advance. Whether they would use full-scale nukes or not is an open question. But battlefield nukes would have to be deployed.

Clinton would have used them, Bush I would have and so will *. To do otherwise would result in almost instant impeachment by his own party.

[teryang]

8. This is a straw man

...and not how the provocations will play out in fact. The events will not begin with the last act. The confrontations will take place a very low tactical level. The neocons expect to manipulate these provocations in such a way as to provide justification for a pre-emptive military attack on N.Korea. This assumption is based upon viewing N.Korea in isolation from all of its neighbors and from a lack of study of previous similar occurences such as the EP3 incident when the neocons first took power, or earlier instances such as the Pueblo incident or the tree cutting incident in the DMZ.

They expect the low level provocations to play out to their political advantage domestically and rally the American leadership and S.Korea and Japan to a regional war. There is even is a serious delusion that the Chinese will go along with this. When the crisis reaches this level they will receive an ultimatum from Beijing (and possibly S.Korea who won't go along.) It will either be ignored and the US will face a huge war with possible nuclear escalation or the China faction in American leadership circles will force the neocons to back off in humiliation as arch conservatives have done since the Korean conflict in the 50s.

[bpilgrim]

12. yeah, it would be... SURGICALLY REMOVED from the planet

no muss, no fuss

thank you general rjbcar27 for your briliant analysis :hi:

peace

[Trek234]

15. You think far too simply

You obviously don't realize the power of a nuke. The atom bombs (baby toys compared to current nukes) brought the surface temp to over 5000 degrees almost instantly. People were vaporized and actually had shadows burned in to whatever was left.***

When you nuke North Korea say GOOD BYE to South Korea - they are dead too. And don't think China is going to be very pleased when countless Chinese die from fallout from a nuke attack on North Korea.

North Korea nukeing ANYONE would anger just about all nations in the world. More than likely the United States would have to "take one for the team" so to speak, and then collectively combine with massive international forces to take down North Korea through standard means.

Why? Because, again, if you nuke North Korea you risk full scale nuke war with with any nations effected by a United States nuke going off in the region. Thus you have potentially hundreds of millions (if not reaching a billion) dead from a full scale nuke exchange.

You are foolish enough to allow such a domino effect. Remember, you are sitting high and mighty right now confident if we are nuked your government is going to retaliate and kill EVERY ONE in that region. But guess what? A Chinese person in China right now is also pleased to know that if China is effected by any other nations nuke weapons they will suffer the same fate.

It goes both ways.

***But don't take my word for it - here is an excerpt from the book "Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter"

"The temperature of a nuclear explosion reaches into the millions of degrees. "Little Boy," exploded 1,000 feet (300 meters) above Hiroshima, caused the surface temperature to jump to well over 5,000 degrees almost instantly. Citizens more than two miles (3 kilometers) from the blast were burned.

The force of the explosion annihilated everything within more than a mile of the center. Photographs were taken showing where "shadows" had been burned into concrete walls; the humans who were the sources of the shadows had been completely vaporized.

It has been estimated that nearly 60 percent of the population of Hiroshima died either instantly or within a few weeks. Many more died later. Even today, more than forty years after explosion, the effects are still showing up. The children of the survivors continue to carry the "radioactive plague."

Yet "Little Boy" was very small compared to the warheads presently available."

[Bandit]

19. Yep just like we wiped Viet Nam off the face of the earth or are you

suggesting we would nuke them into oblivion? I find that very troubling if that is what you are suggesting in such a calous manner.

[PaDUer]

24. I was talking

to a young GI at the VA the other day who came back from Korea about 5 months ago..he said that it's REAL BAD there and that we have lots of ammo that can knock out Seoul completely..he said he never wants to go back there..He said it's a lot worse than Iraq.

[chenGOD]

30. Does he mean the Korean war was worse than the Iraq wars?

Cause that's the only way I could see Korea as being worse than Iraq.
Oh yeah, and since I live here in Seoul, I'm gonna say that life here is pretty normal. There's certainly no guerilla warfare going on.

[LiberalLibra]

9. The N Koreans beat us to a stand off once and could easily do it......

....again. Only this time they have nukes, chem/bio weapons to help do it with. Underestimating the N Koreans and Chinese is the worst mistake we could make.

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. Not exactly

How many communist Chinese helped? How about the rules of engagement where the Chinese could attack us from China but we couldn't go after their bases?

[bpilgrim]

13. wow

general Muddleoftheroad you better get your resume over to the DD i am sure they are always looking for a few more bright young men to help stratigize.

:toast:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

33. Generally speaking

It doesn't take much of a history buff to outthink Bushco.

[LiberalLibra]

18. Muddleoftheroad: Check out post #17, another way in but no way out????

.....

[BiggJawn]

14. Why not? We've "Misunderestimated" everyone we've picked on so far...

Afghanistan? Hell, we bombed them back to the 1990's, just before the Taliban took over. Don't look now, here they come again!

Iraq? Even Wolfenstein (the great military mind!) is scratch his toup over THIS one....

North Korea? Well, FINALLY some territory Rumsferatu is familiar with....Seeing's how he was a 2nd-rate fighter jock trainee (much like his boss) from that era....But that was 50 years ago....

[2cents]

11. NK can be bought off anytime

It has been proven that NK can play nice, given financial incentive.

Dopey, Rummy and the other evil elves want (and I believe have planned from the Axis of Evil speech)to unviel this "new product" (credible nuclear threat)in Sept 04, for the election.

If a large number of sheep bought the Hussein/nuke bs, they'll be in full submissive mode when hit with the doomsday rhetoric about an undeniable nuclear threat.

After the "election" NK will be covertly bought off by the US, using a third party (probably China).

Question is - Is Kim willing to play by the timeline?

[rook1]

21. Uh Huh!

That's what got us into this mess to begin with. "We will help you build nuclear plants if you promise not to use them to develope nuclear weapons" yea right!
You can't buy off communists and nut balls like Kim Chong-Il. He wants to be a big boy but he hasn't learned how to play yet.

Keep in mind that there has been no on the ground intelligence to verify that NK really has nukes...oh ,they are working on them for sure. But do they actually have operational nukes in their possession?
I don't think they do. Why haven't they tested one? Could it be that NK has reached a point where they cannot go any further.Could it be that they are trying the same old game to get more concessions, more information?
NK knows that if they attack SK or use nukes they will cease to exist...it's that simple. They want to join the club, but nobody is listening. We should listen but remain firm as far as the nukes are concerned.

[2cents]

22. You may not be aware

The reactor NK restarted (that Clinton had shut down)is from the 1980's, Soviet built, on the Reagan/BushI watch - but I'm sure you don't want to go there.

Does NK have all the ingredients for a nuke? - most probably

Does NK have nukes? - like you, I don't know. But given Kim's ego, I'd say they probably do.

Your right about one thing - testing. Can't get street creds in Club Nuke without testing.

NK is Bushco's "Ace of Terror" - their sure fire, can't fail reelection card. A NK nuke test now might force Bush to play his ace too early.

That's why I asked if Kim would go along with the programme.

When all's said and done, will anyone get nuked? - probably not, the economic considerations of the region and the world far outweigh the cost of throwing Kim a bone. China's the key.

[TankLV]

23. But you're assuming bunkerboy and his gang of criminals are rational.

Of this I am certain. They are not.

They are psychotic.

They are delusional.

They are very dangerous. Crazy dangerous.

It is now highly likely, from their misteps from day one, that they will bring us to nuclear war.

[Eloriel]

28. Yep, that's my vote too

Add to that zero comprehension of the devastation of nuclear weapons (goes with "delusional") -- in fact I think they're just itching to use them -- and zero conscience re the death and destruction (goes with "sociopaths").

If we get through this administration without major nuclear exchange of some type -- either us "pre-emptively" on them, or them petulantly on us because we just refuse to pay a little attention and give a little respect, I'll be very surprised.

Eloriel

[2cents]

32. Who's really calling the shots?

I agree with your descriptions our little cabal, and left alone to their own devices we'd all be toasty. But who are their ultimate puppetmasters?

All the moves this admin. has made (from war to looting the treasury)has a common denominator - PROFIT for the monied interests this admin. serves and is beholden to.

This, to me, indicates a significant degree of control and guidance behind the scenes.

Yes, they'll allow Bushco to toss up gorilla dust with Kim for an election. But nuclear war is bad for business.

Bottom line - no profit, no war.

[chenGOD]

31. The reactor that KEDO was supposed to have built

was a light-water reactor. Which is much more difficult to get weapons'grade plutonium from.

Of course we'll never know if North Korea could have gotten weapons grade plutonium from the light-water reactors, cause KEDO never built them.

The one that they might or might not have restarted is an older model.

Do some research on the net, and see what North Korea was willing to give up in return for these light-water reactors.

[pinniped]

27. A very plausible scenario.

Now I know why W is doing his best to ignore them even though it's quite obvious "they" aren't going away.

But there's plenty of time between now and 09/04 so W must have a backup plan.

[Tracer]

17. Plan 5030 (Pentagon)

Look what the nitwits have cooked up:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030721/usnews/21korea.htm

[PaDUer]

25. nitwits

is calling it mildly...not a good scene!

[MidwestMomma]

26. I read President Carter is planning trip there in September

If the admin lets him go, maybe he can fix things up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

[Paulie]

29. Wasn't there a report

about how NK got nuke tech from Pakistan? So they probably already have a couple of warheads.