Nuclear North Korea

[zantonavitch]

As of 24 hours ago, the communist, cult-of-personality, bizarre, unpredictable dictatorship of North Korea has evidently joined the atomic bomb club. This constitutes an intolerable threat to America's safety and security. We need to hit them militarily very soon and exceptionally hard.

Because of previous extreme appeasement, weakness, and cowardice on the part of the West, the short-term results of this strike will possibly be quite bad -- especially for South Korea and Japan. But their appeasement, weakness, and cowardice was far worse than America's. So they seem to have it coming.

In the long-run, it's probably far better for everyone if we deal with, and solve, this problem right away. The whole world is watching. Yet more American "paper tigerdom" -- as when the dictatorships of the Soviet Union, China, and Pakistan went nuclear -- isn't the answer.

One of these days, all this passivity and incompetence in the face of dictatorial threats is really gonna cost us. And considering the grotesque way America props up, sanctions, and enables most of these hyper-criminal regimes -- and considering our indifference to the suffering of their citizen-slaves -- we won't have much right to complain when we finally pay the price.

[Brant Gaede]

As of 24 hours ago, the communist, cult-of-personality, bizarre, unpredictable dictatorship of North Korea has evidently joined the atomic bomb club. This constitutes an intolerable threat to America's safety and security. We need to hit them militarily very soon and exceptionally hard.

Because of previous extreme appeasement, weakness, and cowardice on the part of the West, the short-term results of this strike will possibly be quite bad -- especially for South Korea and Japan. But their appeasement, weakness, and cowardice was far worse than America's. So they seem to have it coming.

In the long-run, it's probably far better for everyone if we deal with, and solve, this problem right away. The whole world is watching. Yet more American "paper tigerdom" -- as when the dictatorships of the Soviet Union, China, and Pakistan went nuclear -- isn't the answer.

One of these days, all this passivity and incompetence in the face of dictatorial threats is really gonna cost us. And considering the grotesque way America props up, sanctions, and enables most of these hyper-criminal regimes -- and considering our indifference to the suffering of their citizen-slaves -- we won't have much right to complain when we finally pay the price.

We don't know that North Korea had a successful nuclear test. 550 lbs of explosive? Something shook the ground--apparently.

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

Andre: "This constitutes an intolerable threat to America's safety and security."

I fully agree. It must not be tolerated. Not only because the madman who rules North Korea is our enemy, who would like nothing better than to bomb American cities, but because he will almost certainlnly export atomic materials to Iran -- which, ruled by another madman, could well use them against us in Iraq and Israel if not in our own cities -- and to terrorists around the globe.

The historian Hannah Arendt pointed out a very important fact. She said that Western nations act in their own self interest, or at least attempt to do so (however inadequately they might define their self-interest), and that the disastrous error these nations make is to assume that dictators are similarly motivated by the interet of their countries. She said that history teaches us that this is not the case -- that while we would try to do everything posible to protect the lives of our citizens, dictators are quite willing to sacrifice millions of their citizens in their lust for power. (As only one example, we saw, when the the USSR collapsed, the nightmare conditions of the Russian people in a country where every penny and every thought went to the arms race and nothing to the suffering people.)

I think she's right, and that as a result economic and other sanctions against North Korea probably would not be successful; the dictator will not not be deterred by the death by starvation of millions of his slaves. However, since power is his overriding concern, he might care if he believes that they will rise against him. So we ought to take the outside chance, before going to war and losing American lives and treasure, of imposing the toughest sanctions possible on North Korea and bullying every nations we can into joining us. Unless there are relevant facts I don't know, which there well might be, surely it would be worth trying for a limited time. But if sanctions don't work, if they don't cause the North Koreans to topple the dictator or the dictator to back down, I don't see that we'll have any choice but war. We can't go on forever as we have been doing: limiting our actions to talking and talking and then talking still more while we allow nations that hate us to develop the means to destroy us.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

We should bomb North Korea's nuclear enrichment facilities and other units involved in manufacturing nuclear weapons. And, I think we will - at least I hope so. (But I also agree that we need to wait until the tests are in to see if a nuclear test was actually done - and this should be soon.)

I decided to read up on this a bit. Here is the Widipedia article on North Korea. I was surprised to read the following in the article:

However, the US and the DPRK have not had formal diplomatic relations and technically remain at war as the armistice never resulted in a peace treaty.

Apparently, we would not even have to declare war on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons manufacturing structure.

It also appears that the dictator Kim Jong Il is not even the official head of state because it doesn't exist in North Korean law. He shares the "official" power with two others, Kim Yong-nam and Pak Pong Ju.

I fully agree with all posts on this thread so far.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

In talking about nuclear North Korea let s not forget to thank our two former living Democratic Presidents William Clinton and Jimmy Carter. These gentlemen's appeasement of North Korea in the 90ths made what ever occured yesterday possible.

Edited October 15, 2006 by Chris Grieb

[zantonavitch]

Barbara makes many good points in Post 3.

But not only might the current looney-tune dictatorship give these new weapons to Iran, but also maybe many different jihadi groups, and for a variety of evil reasons (which makes sense to them). This problem really needs to be nipped in the bud.

As Hannah Arendt and Barbara note, dictators have all kinds of odd motivations and can not be counted on to behave rationally -- not even as rational fearful monsters. And this phenomenon is probably many times more true for an odd twit non-entity moron like Kim Jong-Il.

But I don't think the suggested severe economic sanctions would work. Not unless we apply them to North Korea's lifeblood, South Korea.

One idea that I've been thinking about for several years is a professional attempt at propaganda, similar to those experts, the Nazis. After all, it worked to promote evil(!). And maybe the half-ass propaganda of Radio Liberty et alia worked to help end the Cold War with victory for us.

My idea here is bombard them with about four different radio and t'v' stations aimed at high-brows, low-brows, middle-brows, and just entertainment-seekers. Let everyone contribute to the shows -- even a tiny number of pro-Kim communists, in open and fair debate. Let exiles and anti-communist radicals and leftists and neo-cons and even religious nuts participate in the shows, but with a great emphasis on quality. Use comedy and thundering lectures and boring academic discussions and vulgar entertainment to relentlessly and limitlessly attack, mock, and insult communism and tyranny in general, and the current regime and leaders in particular.

Also: inform the pathetic North Korean people that if they don't rather quickly overthrow/control their leaders -- and/or stay far away when we eventually decide to attack -- we fully reserve the right to slaughter them en masse.

As for any electronic jamming: attack these devices within a few minutes and with great energy. If this alone precipitates a full scale war, so be it. We tried.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Well, it looks like there is a strategy to defeat Kim Jong Il's nuclear ambitions without war after all. We won't let him drink any more French cognac or wines until he dismantles the program.

Here is an article about his craving for luxury items (amid the country's starving population) and the dire need for these items by his elite. Now, with the proposed sanctions, the elite may have to rough it without imported caviar and perfume. Could there be a revolution in the air?

Kim may trade cognac for nuclear weapons

My favorite of all these life-and-death excesses is Kim sending an envoy to Beijing to bring back McDonald's hamburgers.

That one tilted out my political joke meter...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is another gem about North Korea. They have to turn off their lights at 9:00 PM to save on electricity since they have so little. A satellite photo was recently presented US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld showing North Korea dark and South Korea lit up. You can read about it in the Daily Mail article North Korea might now have The Bomb, but it doesn't have much electricity of Octovber 13, 2006. The above image is from the article.

Michael

[zantonavitch]

What's going on with that #!%*#!% damn dot? Maybe we should bomb it -- just to be safe. :devil:

[Mikee]

That's the capital city where all of the statues of Kim Jong-il are being lit up with spotlights. Just feel the love....

[Chris Grieb]

For those who attended the TOC's 2006 Summer Seminar know that Don Parrish gave a talk about his trip to the PRK. The PRK(North Korea) sounds like a very depressing place. There going nuclear is a very frightening idea.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

North Korea wants bank accounts unfrozen

I just read the article linked above from Associated Press.

On October 14 above, I made a post about a newspaper article that I found funny, but with a strong possibility of being the truth: the thugs in power in North Korea are addicted to foreign luxuries. A quote from the article speaks for itself:

Washington had banned transactions between American financial institutions and Banco Delta Asia SARL — a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau — saying it was being used by North Korea for money-laundering.

U.S. officials also sought to rally other countries to prevent the North from doing business abroad, saying all transactions involving Pyongyang were suspected of being involved in counterfeiting and money laundering.

The Macau ban is believed to have blocked the North's access to some US$24 million (euro18.9 million), and is thought to have hit the country's leadership in particular, who indulge in luxury goods like cognac and fine wines while the vast majority of North Koreans live in poverty.

Is there any doubt what the ideology behind the government of North Korea is if they stop a full-scale nuclear arms program because the elite can't drink cognac and use French perfume anymore?

I have a great idea for them. Why don't they try to get these things with their own production and their own currency? Or is that cheating?

Michael

[jts]

Mike Adams says North Korea can kill 90% of the USA population. 

 

 

[Brant Gaede]

An "expert" who needs to quote "experts" isn't an expert. Done right this fellow would have started with an expert's knowledge of EMP and worked backwards to North Korea then come with what may be possible for NK is obviously possible for Pakistan, India, Israel, Great Britain, France, the United States, China and Russia and soon for Iran. If the possible purported devastation is actually true then what is called for is a massive civil defense effort right now for if the water stops flowing tens of millions will die in days in the American South West including southern California from dehydration. In reality the only danger points are the vulnerabilities of interstate power lines transformers which need to be hardened. Numerous powerful nuclear bombs would have to be detonated in the upper atmosphere. This is beyond NK but not China and Russia. This was found out by atmospheric nuclear testing in the early 1960s.

--Brant