North Korea-Should we be concerned?

“I know this is a backpacking board but I figured I would ask you what you think regarding North Korea. Watching the news has me a little concerned that they are 1 month away from having a nuclear bomb and could have 5 by the summer.

It doesn't look like other countries are thinking to highly of us right now. Tony Blair doesn't seem as anxious to run to war with Iraq. The UN wants us all to be united. France is pissed and Germany doesn't like what we are doing and I know the China is not a big fan of ours.

It seems like as a country we are alienating are self from the rest of the world and acting like nothing can stop us.

I'm not a big political person but I definately seem a little concerned.

What do you think?”

“The countries around NK should be more oncerned.”

“Wouldn't it be so bad if they accidentally had a nuclear accident? Ooops...did I accidentally push the stealth ICBM launch button... No one would ever know.”

“We're already seeing the effects of all this middle east uncertainty is having on the U.S. economy. Once war starts, who knows how far it will go and there's real potential for very tough times if the calamity spreads over there. High energy prices could push the U.S. and global economy right over the edge. If Israel gets attacked with weapons of mass destruction and responds with a nuclear attack on Iraq, the Muslims may go berserk over there and start a situtation that will change the entire region. Hopefully, things will work out OK once things start in a few weeks. Let's hope so.”

“From what I understand...

We had an arrangement with NK that Clinton put into effect.

We would supply them with oil for the energy needs if they agree not to make nuclear material.
They agreed and we screwed when Bush decided he didn't like the idea of giving them our oil.

So there is one more country that can blame us for their current problems and now is creating nuclear material.

Great!”

“History repeats itself - we did the same thing to Japan, and the result was......... Pearl Harbor.

Buddur has hit the nail on the head, our policy needs to better involve the surrounding countries who are threatened in order to quell the insurgant countries of the world.

NOTE: The two countries that we speak of could have been defeated years ago if we didn't succoumb to political pressure, and finished the job. It's now time to finish the job.

"Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash."
--George S. Patton”

“It seems to me that North Korea is just asking for it.”

“the way i understood it was that NK broke our agreement(from clinton) before bush came into office. i'm not saying it's clinton's fault cause i really haven't looked into it but they have to have been working on this for years, not months. in the last 2 days i've heard on news reports that NK is moving a bunch of spent plutonium to a bomb factory. enough for 5 nukes , they said.”

“Apparently NK should have a ready nuke within a few weeks. I think what Bush wants to do is get into Iraq, finish the job, and start knocking on NK's door with a notice of seize and decist or pay the consequences now. If this does happen, I have a nasty feeling that China will chime in. Then I think the #&%!$ will actually hit the fan. But again, this is just my opinion. Which I hope doesnt come close.”

“NK already has one or two. The threat is that they could hit Hawaii or Alaska with there "Dong2" rocket (yes I said dong2. it's what they call it) very soon. If left unchecked, they could develop a delivery system by 2010 that could hit anywhere in the US.

The US has ordered to sea more assests into the area to deter them a little or go to war. The DoD was looking to put more troops in SK. Shuld we be concerned? #&%!$ yes! Those are the gus we should be going after first, or at least have China get off there hands and do something.”

“Laqtis is right. What Bush should probably be working harder at is convincing China that instability on the Peninsula will tank direct foreign investment in the region. That ought to get China off its hands.”

“Well... I suppose scared people watch more 24-hour news channels, so it's to their advantage to scare people, <G>. That being said... once we start down the Preemtion Path, how can we say it's okay for us to practice and no one else?

This doesn't surprise me.”

“i knew this was going to happen! we've started picking on people, and now everyone's going to gang up on us, and we're all going to die. that's my optimistic view on it! ;-) but for REAL...”

“Oh yeah, another penny-ante dictator.”

“That's some serious stuff. Looks like we're going to stir up the hornets nest.”

“I agree with Tilt... you can't declare someone part of an Axis of Evil and get surprised when they make respond by trying to build up their military capacity, or declare a doctrine of pre-emptive attack that includes North Korea and not expect them to do some sabre rattling of their own.

It will be interesting to see how Bush deals with this situation he and his administration created.”

“hopefully before the next presidential election (if there is one), we'll develop a test to figure out if the candidates are complete sociopaths.”

“HA!!”

“LMFAO!”

“Great stuff. Thanx for the laugh. Needed it...”

“Korea's 'lucky' triplets seized

30mar03

ALL triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages.

The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime.
The number three is thought to be auspicious in North Korea and triplets are revered. It is believed they are likely to rise to positions of power, which accounts for Kim's insistence that they are all raised in state-run orphanages, where their development can be controlled.

Officially, the policy was introduced to help poverty-stricken parents in a country where hunger is widespread.

But aid agencies and diplomats have dismissed this: triplets born to high-ranking officials are also seized.

"There is no doubt that the policy is compulsory and universal," a veteran Western diplomat told London's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"It may be officially atheistic and Stalinist, but North Korea essentially operates a state religion infused with superstition, astrology and a personality cult that glorifies Kim as a unique individual.

"You don't take any chances with rivals in that system," the diplomat said.

The children are housed in "triplet rooms", which visitors describe as bare but clean. They are said to receive good foreign-aid food, but none of the love and affection bestowed on most children.

A member of a foreign delegation that visited one such orphanage said they were greeted with a vision of desperate isolation and sadness.

The triplets were placed together in one room, with many of them rocking backwards and forwards in an almost trance-like state.

"Our people were stunned into silence," the delegate told the Telegraph.

A pediatrician who studied evidence from the visit diagnosed severe emotional trauma.

Delegates reported a high standard of care in the triplet rooms.

"But none of those infants knows what affection is," a delegate said. "Our staff tried to cuddle them for a few minutes, but then, of course, we had to leave."

The seizure of triplets is an extension of a policy designed to ensure absolute loyalty to Kim.

The children of all high-ranking government officials are taken from their parents at the age of two and transferred to state-controlled schools where family bonds are broken and devotion to Kim is instilled.

More than 300 sets of triplets are born in North Korea every year and their well-being has raised worries among aid agencies, despite official claims the policy represents an act of kindness.

In a statement to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, North Korea said: "Triplets are supplied by the state free of charge with clothing, bedding, a one-year supply of dairy products and a pre-school subsidy, and special medical workers take charge of such mothers and children and care for their health."

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6206548%5E663,00.html”

“welp...looks like we should instigate a First Strike policy again. that sounds like a direct threat to the US. can't have those triplets comming here to bomb us in their emmotional unrest.”

“(wringing hands......emotionally)”

“Shortly after the country led by the insane Kim Jong-Il announced that it will prove it has nuclear weapons by testing them, President Bush announced that the United States has no reason to attack North Korea because they don't have any WMD. Apparently WMD is now short for "Oil".”

“>font size=3>The North Korean Uranium Challenge

By DAVID E. SANGER NY Times

WASHINGTON, May 23 - The discovery that North Korea may have supplied uranium to Libya poses an immediate challenge to the White House: while President Bush is preoccupied on the other side of the world, an economically desperate nation may be engaging in exactly the kind of nuclear proliferation that the president says he went to war in Iraq to halt.

Yet to listen to many in the White House, concern about North Korea's nuclear program brings little of the urgency that surrounded the decision 14 months ago to oust Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Bush has been asked about North Korea in recent months, he has emphasized his patience. He does not refer to the intelligence estimates that North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons, or to the debate within the American intelligence community about whether North Korea has spent the past 18 months building more.

Instead, he lauds the progress he says the United States has made in organizing China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to negotiate as one with the North Koreans - though those talks have resulted in no progress so far in ending either of North Korea's two major nuclear programs.

Just last week, the Pentagon even announced it was removing a brigade of troops that had been securing South Korea's border with the North, and sending it to provide additional forces for the Iraqi occupation.

With international inspectors recently reporting that North Korea may have shipped uranium, already processed into a gas that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment into bomb fuel, the White House has been silent. On Sunday, a White House spokesman declined to talk about the reports, other than to issue a statement at the president's ranch in Texas that the news proves the need for "the United States policy for North Korea to disarm in a complete, verifiable and irreversible fashion."

<snip>

In short, if the North's sales to Libya are confirmed, the nightmare that Mr. Bush discussed so often last year - the sale of "the world's worst weapons to the world's most dangerous dictators" - may be happening at the other end of the axis. Iraq, it turns out, had little or nothing to sell.

<snip>”

“Violin, N. Korea scares the pants off me...and frankly I think it scares teh pants off this administration too.

N. Korea is a time bomb and the consequences would be deadly if handled wrong. Trust me, it would be no Iraq. In a war with N. Korea, the death toll would be staggering.”

“staggering ... for them

We are very careful in Iraq not to hurt anything that doesn't fire first.

North Korea would be a different story, I hope.”

“There will be no war with N. Korea.

You only need to be concerned if you live anywhere near a terrorist target city like NY or DC.

If the Koreans are selling this stuff eventually terrorists will get it and drive it in from Canada or Mexico, or ship it in on a Panamanian or Liberian freighter and set the thing off.

The US should inform Korea that if their stuff is used we bomb them as an accessory before the fact.”

“Yes. Lets wipe N. Korea of the face of the planet before they destro us with total mass destruction!”

“Well Bearmagnet what about France, England, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, they all have nukes too.

Only Korea and Pakistan seem to be selling fissionable material to others.

If an illegal gun dealer sells a gun which is used to shoot your child, would you not think they should be held responsible also ?

Do you have some viable alternative that would make N. Korea more responsible ?

Prevention is so much better than cure when talking Nukes.”

“Who really thinks that train yard explosion that just missed Kim Jong-il was caused by negligent workers?”

“Violin, I hate to say I was thinking the same thing.”

“MacGyver, I think the death toll would be staggering on both sides. Unless of course you're talking about pulling out and dropping the bomb.”

“I guess a peace treaty to end the armistice with full access by international inspectors would be appeasement?

Better to end the world now and just get it over with. Bush is gonna get us all killed anyhoo.”

“Appeasement, violin? Only if we gave aid.

We should have taken care of NK before Iraq, and I said so before the Iraq war. We should have developed and deployed theater ballistic missile defense systems (or purchased them from Israel) and surrounded NK with them as well as with, oh, 3 aircraft carrier battle groups, deployed 250,000 troops to SK, and demanded full stand-down, inspections, and such. If they failed to comply, we should have launched a surprise aerial assault against their artillery, shot down any ballistic missiles they might try to lob, and proceed with the invasion.”

“Indiana John,

That's what I'm talk'n 'bout.”

“Why's it illegal, manuka? Should we go after former Soviet Republics?”

“Bearmagnet - the illegal gun trade was an analogy for selling fissionable material to potential terrorists.

Your questions make me wonder if you comprehend the destruction a single nuke can cause.

Understand that in the radioactive smoking hole that was once a city with 200,000+ people there is little evidence of which group planted the device. Just because Al Quaeda is getting lots of publicity there are a truckload of other terrorist orgs out there.
But the radioactive material would identify where it originated.

My argument is that all nations should be doing everything they can to discourage the proliferation of these weapons. The opposite appears to be true.

How about some creative thought on your part, do you have any solutions, or just prefer to poke holes in other peoples thoughts.
It is a lot easier to be a critic if incapable of original thought yourself.

and yes, ex-soviet republics should not be selling the stuff either.

This in my opionion is a major failing of the UN.
They should have taken the lead in purchasing and destroying this material levvying all nations for the cost.
and yes, understood that the US would pay a major part of that as we pay a major part of all the UN's costs.”

“who cares about N. Korea when we have Iraq to worry about? Iraq couldn't hit the Persion Gulf with a missile and NK can hit Seattle. It's all good.”

“I don't think anyone can comprehend what a single nuke can do.

I wasn't trying to poke holes in your thoughts, per say. I was just imagining that everyone was going to come to the conclusion that we should take out N. Korea, after we tidy up Iraq of course.

Creative thought? That's difficult for me. How about we open up trade with N. Korea? How about we give up our nuclear weapons? Say al qaida hits us with a nuke - what exactly are we going to nuke back?”

“Well if it's anything like 9-11, we'll attack some Islamic country (it dosen't matter which one) we know we can "shock and awe" and extract our vengence.”

“Shock & Awe without nukes. Maybe the world would be more stable if we gave them up?”

“I think Rummy called it a "rain of steel".”

“No No you just missed his accent

Raid and steal”

“"I guess a peace treaty to end the armistice with full access by international inspectors would be appeasement?"
- Violin
02:07:28 PM
05/25/04
----------------------------------

"Appeasement, violin? Only if we gave aid."
- Mutt
02:20:57 PM
05/25/04”

“U.S. Proposing Aid in North Korea Talks

By AUDRA ANG
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP)--U.S. negotiators presented the first detailed American proposal Wednesday on resolving the standoff with North Korea, offering the North energy aid and a security guarantee in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program.

The proposal is meant to break an impasse in talks that began their third round after earlier negotiations brought no progress on Washington's demand for the North to scrap its nuclear program.

The step-by-step plan would begin with Pyongyang freezing its nuclear program for a three-month period to prepare for dismantling, during which it would list all nuclear activities and allow monitoring of its facilities, U.S. officials said.
[...]”

“Isn't that what the Clinton administration tried to do in '94 and the Gingrich Gang called him an appeaser?”