How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

[timkona]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

LOLOLOL

Glossy, hat's off to you for the way you just be tearing up M's wishful post.

I needed a laugh like that after a long day that started with an earthquake.

[joshuatree]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Check history again to ascertain how successful the idea of "coo and heap praise" works. If that doesn't clarify, ask Madeleine Albright. Also check with the current SK government on the success of their appeasement oriented Sunshine policy.

Bush should just invite Kim to his ranch for the bilateral talks and make it a condition that Kim himself has to fly out to the ranch. That be hilarious to see what Kim would say considering he's got a phobia of flying.

[hawaiifiveoh]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Maybe the North Korean government is just playing chicken with the US by finally publicly admitting that it has at least one nuclear weapon, hoping it can force the White House into bilateral talks rather than the 6-way talks that were going on, and maybe the majority of Americans are saying, "so what?" , but the people in Hawai'i should be alarmed, very alarmed. It is known that the North Korean missile carrying that payload has a long-enough range that it could theoretically hit either Hawai'i or Alaska.

So since the N. Koreans have a nuclear weapon and we never did find any WMDs in Iraq, why aren't we threatening to invade N. Korea, too? Could it be because The People's Republic and Pakistan are good friends of the N. Korean regime? The best way to disarm the N. Koreans is not through war. Its people are starving to death. Feed the people and the problem with that kooky Kim Il Jung just might take care of itself.

Miulang

http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?...d&c=26,1045299

WE ARE TRILLIONS IN DEBT ALREADY...THIS COUNTRY WILL BEGIN TO FALL IF WE INVADE NORTH KOREA.

[Miulang]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Why I think having Kim Jong Il wine and dine Condi is a good idea is because little men with visions of grandeur (especially in the Asian culture) mainly want to be respected. People who are totally Westernized don't get this nuance. This is the reason why lots of American companies like IBM who have branches in Asia send their people off to "etiquette school" before turning them loose in Asia. The American way appears to be "it's our way or the highway." And we reap what we sow most of the time.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

WE ARE TRILLIONS IN DEBT ALREADY...THIS COUNTRY WILL BEGIN TO FALL IF WE INVADE NORTH KOREA.

This country already is falling because of the $2 billion being spent every week in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't have enough troops to engage in another front, plus we also want to out-testosterone Iran. This is where our foreign policy has failed, once again.

Miulang

[damontucker]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

CNN has said that the US has now confirmed the Nuclear Tests were done last week now.

An analysis of air samples collected shortly after North Korea declared it had conducted an underground nuclear explosion confirms the test took place, according to the office of the U.S. director of national intelligence.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapc...ons/index.html

[joshuatree]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Looks like we're not the only one wanting Kim to go away.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...73-601,00.html

[glossyp]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Looks like we're not the only one wanting Kim to go away.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...73-601,00.html

Fascinating article. If, as the article implies, the Chinese have given up on Kim, that is a significant sea change in the political landscape opening up all sorts of possibilities.

[Vanguard]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Looks like we're not the only one wanting Kim to go away.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...73-601,00.html

Meanwhile, some of the North Korean elite are seeking their boltholes in China.

Xin Cheng, an estate agent in the high-rise district of Wang Jing, which is popular with resident South Korean businessmen, said many high-ranking North Koreans were buying property there.

The rats getting off the ship?

[damontucker]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Everyone ready for Round 2?

SEOUL, South Korea - Satellite images indicate North Korea appears to be getting ready for a second nuclear test, officials said Tuesday...

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/north_korea
It's getting more than scary

[zatoichi]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

What I get from this is an arms race that includes South Korea and Japan. Not a good outcome.

As for NK hitting us with a missle, they might be able to make this work. But they have a limited number of these nukes and delivery systems and will need to have some deterence with their neighbors.

As for the Clinton Administration being somehow at fault for this having been out of office for six years. That is absurd. There is no evidence that NK had breached their agreement at the time Clinton left office.

As for the Bush Administration being responsible for this mess. This is plausible. An argument that more attention would have yielded a useful safety valve is probably true. But even me as a very partisan Democrat, I say NK still should have not gone this route. It made a bad problem worse.

[Miulang]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Japan has consistently said that it has no desire to arm itself with nuclear weapons. It does have nuclear power plants already, but the country has suffered through more than 60 years of residual damage to its citizens; I seriously doubt they want to have that happen again. The US, in the meantime, has pledged that it will defend Japan to the fullest (whatever that means).

I think we are in more danger of Kim Jong Il selling the technology to terrorists than we are of him actually lobbing a nuclear weapon at any country, particularly one with the capability of lobbing the same thing back at his country. He may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He doesn't want to commit suicide.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

The US announced that there has been some headway in the 6-way negotiations with North Korea with regard to their nuclear weapons capabilities.

The chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, qualified the draft accord as "excellent" but declined to provide details. He said it was being submitted to all six governments and, pending their formal approval, would be ratified at a meeting scheduled later Tuesday in Beijing.

...A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, also suggested the tentative agreement was likely to gain formal approval by the six governments, including North Korea. He cited "extraordinarily strenuous efforts" in negotiations that lasted through the night, and said the delegates would gather again later Tuesday "to confirm the progress we have made."
...Despite a sense of achievement in Beijing, the deal was expected to face criticism in Washington, with Democrats charging the administration allowed North Korea to gain nuclear weapons through poor diplomacy in recent years and conservatives saying it shows weakness at a critical moment.

"This is a very bad deal," former U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton told CNN. "It contradicts fundamental premises of the president's policy he's been following for the past six years. And second, it makes the administration look very weak at a time in Iraq . . . when it needs to look strong."

Guess all it took was cutting Kim Jong Il off from his Cuban ceegars, expensive Scotch, cold cash for his concubines and foreign delicacies! Good old John Bolton, ever the loyal soldier for the White House, even though he was humiliated by not being permanently installed as the UN Ambassador.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

Never thought I'd be able to read this (or am I hallucinating?). Apparently one of the reasons the new 6-way pact was able to be negotiated was because the President gave the US team of negotiators more flexibility to maneuver to get Korea to give in:

Ever since the North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in 2002 after the discovery of a clandestine nuclear program, the Bush administration has insisted that North Korea should not be rewarded for its bad behavior -- and many of the U.S. offers have required Pyongyang to give up a lot before it could receive anything in return.

...Now Bush has signed off on a deal that accepts North Korea's original position -- a "freeze" of its Yongbyon nuclear facility -- and requires Washington to move first by unfreezing some North Korean bank accounts. The agreement leaves until later dealing with such vexing issues as the dismantlement of the facility, North Korea's stash of weapons-grade plutonium and even North Korea's admission of the nuclear program that started the crisis in the first place.

As a result, the agreement came under attack yesterday, with conservatives labeling it a betrayal and Democrats charging that Bush allowed North Korea to become a nuclear-weapon state without gaining much improvement over a Clinton-era deal that collapsed during Bush's first term. But Bush pronounced himself "pleased" with the accord, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a prime architect of the accord, said it is just the beginning of a long process. "This is not the end of the story," she said, calling it the result of "patient, creative and tough diplomacy."

Whoa. Is this a gentler, kinder George W. that no one thought existed inside that outwardly dufus shell? Poor guy. No matter what he does, he gets yelled at by both sides now.

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

Re: How serious is the nuclear threat from N. Korea?

So how many actually believe that missile N. Korea tested really broke up?

Or was it a test of our airborne missile defense system.

As long as we (America) say our missile defense program is in the testing phase and not deployed, we don't break any treaty. But once deployed that's another story.

So we put up this smoking mirror that tells the world, "Hey the most advanced country in the world still can't take out telephone pole from outer space. We stage a few disasterous tests and feed the bleeding hearts that we're not ready to put one in service.

In the meantime some N. Korean punk tries to flex his muscles and launches his best. We in turn test our secretly functioning defense system on his rocket and take it out.

North Korea can't tell the world we took out his missile with our defense system because saying so will admit defeat and really deflate his nuclear program, and the rest of the world will say, "you mean America's defective missile system could still take out your best?"

Meanwhile the United States cannot gloat about blasting North Korea's missile outta the sky because admitting so would be a violation of the Anti-ballistic missile treaty.

So everybody's mum and North Korea is back at the negotiating table with their tails nicely tucked between their legs.

So how serious is the nuclear threat from North Korea? Well if they try to launch one, we'll simply take it out while it's still over their country. Basically killing them with their own weapon. And because it's still in a testing phase, "What defense system? They just build crappy missiles" And we shrug our shoulders publicly and high five behind the doors.