"North Korea has tested its first nuclear weapon, its official news agency reported on Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency reported that the test was successful and no radiation had leaked from the site.

The test took place at 10:36 a.m. local time (9:36 p.m. ET Sunday) near the city of Kilju, according to South Korean defence sources cited by South Korea's Yonhap news agency."

Is this the start of another Cold War?

[ 08 October 2006: Message edited by: ouroboros ]

quote:

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The Korean Central News Agency reported that the test was successful and no radiation had leaked from the site.

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Awwww, well ain't that just sweet. That fact that site will be good for nothing for the next 50,000 years, give or take a decade, doesn't count, does it.

And I know all about how Sung's little state capitalist dynasty fears a US military attack. But what does it think it is going to do with a few big bangers on that tiny little peninsula?

Besides, is that regime really that stupid to think a US attack would not engage China? That's exactly what happened during the Korean War, and that's exactly why the US, Russia and China are all signatories to the agreement to prevent that from happening again.

You know, I remember about ten years ago it appeared both Koreas were warming up to the idea of reunification (much to the chagrin of both the US and China). I guess that's history now.

Mr. Axworthy said the reported North Korean nuclear test will likely make it harder than ever to slow down the spread of nuclear weapons to other nations. No kidding.

The test occurred only a week after Japan installed a new, more nationalistic prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and just as the country was renewing a debate about whether its ban on possessing nuclear weapons - deeply felt in a country that saw two of its cities incinerated in 1945 - still makes strategic sense.

quote:

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The big fear about North Korea, American officials have long said, has less to do with its ability to lash out than it does with its proclivity to proliferate.

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Magnitude 4.2; Depth ~0 mile. Local time 10:35:27 AM. I'd say that's confirmation.

[ 08 October 2006: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

quote:

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MOSCOW A top Russian military officer confirmed Monday that the device tested by North Korea was a nuclear weapon, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Russian military monitoring systems "detected the test of a nuclear weapon in North Korea," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev as saying.

"It is 100 percent (certain) that it was an underground nuclear explosion," the agency quoted Verkhovtsev, the head of a Defense Ministry department, as saying.

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quote:

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Acquisition of hundreds of nuclear weapons by Japan and South Korea will not have any serious impact on the total balance of nuclear power. Japan and South Korea have too much to lose in a nuclear war with North Korea, while North Korea has little.

The fifth and last point is a long, overdue farewell to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, with the Bush administration standing in the dock as prime defendant accused of sabotaging nuclear non-proliferation. Had the Americans been steadfast in upholding the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty by reducing their nuclear weapons and respecting the sovereignty and independence of the non-nuclear states, North Korea would not have felt any need to defend itself with nuclear weapons.

A nuclear test by North Korea will go a long way toward emboldening anti-American states around the world to acquire nuclear weapons. There is a long line of candidate states.

---

quote:

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While North Korea may not "care", China certainly would, but it is interesting that North Korea sees advantage in a nuclear Japan and South Korea only because it believes it would signal loss of US power and prestige in the area. How it manages to not see it as an increased threat on themselves is anyone's guess.

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quote:

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It’s true that if South Korea and Japan acquire nukes, it’s bad for the US’s ability to control the situation. If you’re truly committed to weakening the United States above and beyond all other priorities, you might logically adopt a policy of general support for anyone who wants to acquire nuclear weapons, no matter *who* they were.

In fact, if you were a weak, stunted state ostracised by the global system and confronted by the world’s superpower, you could arguably come up with the following idea: "The global system makes our enemy strong, therefore, chaos - any kind of chaos, anywhere - weakens him!"

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quote:

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It is important to note that the North Korean Foreign Ministry pledges to faithfully implement its international commitment in the field of nuclear non-proliferation as a responsible nuclear-weapons state and to prohibit nuclear transfer.

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quote:

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Hilarious if it wasn't so serious. You simply can't get anymore schizo than that.

---

Unfortunately, it's too often been the case that existing nuclear weapons states and their allies have been willing to exempt themselves from their own obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or UN Security Council Resolutions, while insisting that other states follow every jot and tittle of the same international norms they choose to disregard.

Speaking recently in Canada, Hans Blix captured the hypocrisy of such a position very well:

quote:

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Over the past year, the world has been increasingly caught up in the West's struggle to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, as well as attempts to pacify nuclear-armed North Korea.

At the same time, the United States is looking to ratify an agreement with India [under UN Security Council condemnation since 1998--sgm] that would essentially see America give its blessing to the Asian country's nuclear program, an act that that many believe has significantly weakened the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

[snip]

In addition, Mr. Blix says it's hard to tell other countries not to develop such weapons without leading by example.

"It's like someone sitting with a fat cigar in his mouth and telling the others they should not smoke," he says. "It's not a terribly convincing pose."

---

And that goes for Canada, too: a country that, as a member of NATO, claims that nuclear weapons are essential to its security.

A country that has recently considered playing nuclear footsie with UN-condemned 'nuclear rogue' India.

A country whose Defence Minister has recently entertained arguments about nuclear cooperation with known nuclear proliferator Pakistan:

quote:

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Pakistan is expected to push Gordon O'Connor for help with obtaining Canadian nuclear power technology today, as the Defence Minister visits Islamabad for talks about the rising Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan.

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In my view, we should take this latest nuclear test as further evidence (as if we needed any) that *all* nuclear weapons states should fully and completely disarm themselves of these species-destroying weapons: that includes the US, Russia, Britain, France and China, no less than North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel.

Anything less than universal nuclear disarmament is dangerous hypocrisy.

[ 09 October 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

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Mr. MacKay was briefed on reports of the nuclear test late last night. “Consulting with our allies is going to be our first step,” he said. The news will be keeping government officials awake in many parts of the world, he said.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
Don't forget that morality has nothing to do with national security.

---

What 17th century boat did you just step off?

Morality is the BASIS of National Security, even if our friends down south, and our 'New Government' doesn't see it that way.

We have lots og potential players here too. We have a Russian Government eager to reassert itself in that region. A Chinese government only too happy to assert itself on the international stage as a super power yet again. A Japanese government who has been slowely remilitarizing, and last but certainly not least, an American/Nato response that can't be even slightly notable due to its entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I'm thinking is we have a quick Chinese invasion. After all, I'm sure the North Koreans aren't going to put up much of a fight against their closest 'friends'.

quote:

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:
I am happy they have a nuclear bomb. I don't believe Kim is insane, they said the same thing about Castro and lately Chavez. I think this is the natural order of the world we live in.

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[ 09 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
The only logical course is to hit them as soon as possible to limit the casualties on our side.

---

North Korea responded, just as expected. One- build and develop a nuke .Two -test a nuke. In case you haven't noticed that is the only weapon that the US respects.

Iran is responding the same way and you can expect Syria to follow suit...I mean seriously come on ....Your contry is being intimadated by a power that has used nukes before and got away with it. By a country deemed by many to be the biggest terror threat to the planet , pre and post 911. Not enough bandwidth on the internet to list every attrocity.

By a country that creates hitlists and eliminates the people in them (afghans, Iraq's, lebonese) . You can guess who's next. Koreans, Iranins, Syrians.

quote:

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The re-uniting of Korea is a good thing for the many families that have been seperated since the war in the 50's.

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quote:

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Right now, the U.S. government has upwards of 10,000 nuclear bombs and warheads in its arsenal. And -- as the Washington Post uncritically reported the same week as the announcement about the end of the W56 warhead -- Congress and the White House are resolutely moving ahead with plans for "a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons" under the rubric of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program...

Rest assured that while President Bush was at a podium in the White House on Monday denouncing the North Korean nuclear test as a "provocative act," Karl Rove was hard at work to fine-tune plans for a rhetorical onslaught linking this crisis to the "war on terror."...

For the next four weeks, the Bush administration will do its best to exploit the North Korean nuclear test to stave off a loss of the Republican majority in Congress.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
Or like Clinton, giving them a reactor.

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quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
It reduces the only possible and logical response to military, premptive action. It's another lesson for appeasers who thought negotiation and containment could work with a rogue regime...The only logical course is to hit them as soon as possible to limit the casualties on our side.

---

You neo-con freak, "appeasers" my ass, just who the fuck are you other than one who wants armageddon? If there is a hell, you will be in it for wanting to destroy God's creation. And just Who has been appeasing North Korea? Maybe if there would have been some appeasement going on they would not have developed nuke capabilities.

quote:

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:
Take it how you want but it is the puny kid tired of getting his ass kicked and has found a club to ward off the bully...for a while.

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The “puny kid” metaphor conjures up an image of a poor, innocent and bespectacled kid who is the head of the chess club, suffers from asthma and is picked on simply because he’s a weakling.

Sounds just like Kim Jong-il!!!

Not.

The caption on the photo accompanying this story says it all: “[South Korean] protesters hold candles as they chant slogans during an anti-North Korea rally in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday.”

Yes, that exactly what is needed. Chanting of slogans. I might suggest that they add "nervous hand-wringing" to their protest as well. Where is their new-found love of the North??

By the way, the theat isn't that great to the USA (it would be utter suicide to attack the USA, or China, for that matter). The threat of North Korea nukes is far greater to its non-nuclear neighbors (South Korea, Japan, etc.). Hence, the likelihood that those countries will seek nukes now as well.

quote:

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Gary Gibson of Australia's Seismology Research Centre estimated the blast at about one kiloton. That was dwarfed by India's biggest - around 45 kilotons - and the 10-kiloton bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
The North Korean underground nuclear test explosion (if indeed it really was a nuclear explosion) was one of the smallest nuclear explosions ever made on Earth.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pogge:
[QB]

Those were light water reactors which are of no use in producing nuclear weapons.

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quote:

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So, it's no biggie, then. That's a relief!!

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CNN still uses quotes for 'nuclear test'.

http://edition.cnn.com/ASIA/

Furthermore, the USA has some responsibility for that.

quote:

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The United States, along with the IAEA, has repeatedly urged Pyongyang not to restart its nuclear facilities, frozen under a 1994 deal with Washington.

It was then that Washington promised to send fuel oil to Pyongyang and help build light-water reactors in return for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons programs.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by VanLuke:
Furthermore, the USA has some responsibility for that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by VanLuke:
Not exactly accurate as light water reactors need enriched uranium

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quote:

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North Korea has repeatedly agreed to junk its nuclear weapons provided the US does three things: 1. deal directly with Pyongyang, which Washington refuses to do; 2. provide security guarantees that the US will not attack North Korea; 3. provide economic aid. The Bush Administration’s hard-line neoconservatives refuse to ‘validate’ North Korea’s totalitarian regime through direct talks. Neocons are determined to overthrow Kim Jong-il. But Washington has no qualms about dealing with other despotic regimes in the Mideast and Central Asia.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pogge:
I should have been more specific. It's much more difficult to use light water reactors to produce weapons grade fuel and the reactors in question have been described as "proliferation-resistant" if not "proliferation-proof."

---

That's true but I haven't even mentioned plutonium - a leftover in any reactor. Also, with respect to nuclear energy use one *always* has to look at the full fuel cycle. In this case one could start with the enrichment of uranium, which follows the ore's mining. That leaves 2 roads to acquiring a nuke: Use the enrichment plant to enrich it to higher purities than is necessary for a reactor, or use the plutonium. (Keep in mind that North Korea withdrew from the NPT. Therefore it's not obliged to open to any inspections.)

I'm also aware of why you were reacting but nevertheless felt it important (hey, look at my avatar on the other sites ) to point out the link between the so-called peaceful use and weapons.

As to the reactors that never materialised: C.f. my post above about US promises. (Fuel oil then reactors. I've been following this dossier for years and the link to the CNN page above is because the piece is one of the articles in my North Korea file.)

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
And not because they stuck by their agreement "to send fuel oil to Pyongyang and help build light-water reactors in return for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons programs," but because they did not do as they had promised.

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Wasn't this obvious from my post or at the very least from the article linked?

[ 09 October 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

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Originally posted by thorin_bane:
Now if you think that china or the US wouldn't use a nuclear strike against N Korea you are sadly mistaken.

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Perhaps the US should simply let North Korea's neighbors handle this.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Perhaps the US should simply let North Korea's neighbors handle this.

Good luck to 'em.

---

I think anti-American sentiment has never been more wide-spread in S. Korea than it is today. And there is no love for the U.S.A.'s ally in Japan. The Chinese are trying to convince Kim DPRK can have free markets without having to give up control of the economy.

I think a pullout of American troops from Korea would go a long way in easing tensions in the region. I'm sure they could use the extra 30 thousand troops in Iraq, that country which was falsely accused of having nuclear weapons.

[ 09 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
Perhaps the US should simply let North Korea's neighbors handle this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Perhaps the US should simply let North Korea's neighbors handle this.

Good luck to 'em.

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quote:

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Originally posted by VanLuke:
Wasn't this obvious from my post or at the very least from the article linked?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
I very much doubt that China thinks it needs US permission for whatever steps it decides to take.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

I suppose the same could be said of the US, then, no?

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I'll bet one made in China wrist watch bought at Walmart that Warshington doesn't carpet bomb Pyongyang. Not now. S Korea and perhaps Japan would have too much to lose in a dustup. ICBM's?. N. Korea isn't weakened like Iraq was after a ten year-long medieval siege of a desert nation.

What other options do the hawks have in terms of economic sanctions ?. I think DPRK had been more isolated economically and sanctions imposed than Cuba.

ETA: My prediction: N. Korea will become the next Asian tiger economy while the rest of the democratic capitalist third world continues to struggle with basic literacy, health care and IMF reforms for Liberal democracy in general.

[ 09 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
ETA: My prediction: N. Korea will become the next Asian tiger economy while the rest of the democratic capitalist third world continues to struggle with basic literacy, health care and IMF reforms for Liberal democracy in general.

---

http://tinyurl.com/o37tx

[ 10 October 2006: Message edited by: libertarian ]

South Koreans are quietly reassessing their whole, failed sunshine policy attitude. Maybe the US ain't so bad as it's their only friend now. Don't expect China to come to its senses. It is politically incapable of dealing with North Korea. I've been up to the Chinese and North Korean border and a collapse of North Korea would produce a huge refugee problem. China is not capable of annexing N. Korea. S. Korea could just barely afford to reunify with the north. They would need US help. And China is militarily incapable of waging any war on the peninsula. So they must deal with their worst case: US forces at the PRC border at the Yalu River.

China simply hopes the problem will go away or not get worse. They, not the US, have been the stumbling block in the UN Security Council.

quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Fidel's last few postings. He thinks the other world leaders are evil and if he was in power all he'd have to declare peace and a new world order and all would be fine.

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These boards are not here to discuss other people, so get a grip!

quote:

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It's time we all agreed that hitting North Korea fast, hard and early is our only course. It's either now or later.

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quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
So ladies and gentlemen, we have a complete nutcase holding nukes. Is there anything you want to negotiate with him? Will he even stick to the agreement?

---

A premetive nuclear strike against the United States is an extremely danherous proposition. Not only that the people of the USA can hardly be held completely responsible for the eccentircties of the leadership, given the repeated examples of vote fraud, and human rights abuse, not to mention mass poverty that Americans are subjected to, while their wealthy and wacko overlords go on blithely spending the countries wealth on expensive military toys.

So a question for you. Does anyone think that North Korea would have lit off a nuke has the US not labeled them part of the axis of evil, and then refused to talk to them?

The point about the military industrial complex makes a whole lot of sense. Of course they want another nuclear power in the world, that means the US needs to buy more!

To Cue -->

[ 10 October 2006: Message edited by: quelar ]

quote:

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So ladies and gentlemen, we have a complete nutcase holding nukes. Is there anything you want to negotiate with him? Will he even stick to the agreement?

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This is a case of self-imposed ignorance. As the Margolis piece points out very, very well, it was the failure of the US to live up to its agreements that has precipitated this crisis. In fact, there is hardly an international treaty in existence, to which the US is a signatory, that the US has honored in good faith.

If Kim Jong is a nut case holding nukes, he is barely nuttier han Bush/Cheney who hold a lot more nukes. And NK has vowed not to use nukes first while the US plans to use them in Iran.

Since Bush/Cheney have come into office, the world teeters on the brink of global conflagaration with US influence and prestige on the wane, the US stripped of any moral authority, and the world sinking deeper into conflict over dwindling resources.

quote:

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
sgm, your arguement for unilateral disarmament is ludicrous and reckless in the face of a nutball regime like North Korea.

Reagan's course to increase arms was the correct one and we won the Cold War.

sgm, the North Korea problem is not a moral dilemma. It's a national security threat. Don't forget that morality has nothing to do with national security.

---

quote:

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It's time we all agreed that hitting North Korea fast, hard and early is our only course. It's either now or later.

---

$1000 Wedding, I can see from your reply to my post that Harper's cuts to literacy programs are already having some unfortunate effects.

First, where did I argue for 'unilateral disarmament'? My point was that citizens should do their best not to allow this test--if it has occurred--to be used to continue the game of nuclear hypocrisy that has been going on for many years.

According to the rules of this game, described last night on CNN by Joseph Cirincione, the US gets to decide that some countries, whether abiding by the NPT or not, are responsible nuclear powers (itself, UK, France, Russia, China, Israel, Pakistan, India) and also gets to decide that other countries (Iran, North Korea, Iraq) are not. The decision is arbitrary, not necessarily based on evidence, and the US--exempt by definition from judgment of its own conduct--can enforce it with unilateral, preemptive or even preventive military action.

I closed my post by saying that '*all* nuclear weapons states should fully and completely disarm themselves of these species-destroying weapons.' That's what I'd call multilateral or even universal nuclear disarament, and it's no more than what the US, UK, France and the other nuclear weapons states recognized by the NPT have legally undertaken to do.

You dismiss my concerns as merely 'moral,' but this ongoing hypocrisy doesn't merely imperil the souls of the nuclear hypocrites in Paris, Washington and Islamabad: it's what I called a 'dangerous hypocrisy,' precisely because it encourages other states (e.g. India, Israel, North Korea) to flout the NPT and its principles as well.

The hypocrisy is a matter of national, even global security.

And as for taking Reagan as some kind of model: good grief! Not only was his (and was it his?) Cold War 'victory' over the Soviet Union a dubious victory indeed, but his huge arms build-up was almost the textbook definition of recklessness. That we survived the period despite such recklessness is little thanks to Reagan and his like (on either side of the ideological divide): you might as well thank a drunk driver for arriving home without running into anything.

Your final, reckless call for a preventive war (the supreme international war crime, if you're interested) would result in tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths, the possible destruction of Seoul and other cities, and perhaps even in nuclear confrontation.

That your grim zeal for such an attack has been unleashed by a combination of incomplete evidence, untried diplomacy and ignorant caricature suggests to me that I am not the foremost candidate for the labels 'ludicrous' and 'reckless' on this thread.

Note to Boom Boom's post:

quote:

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There's a tremendous amount of hypocrisy coming from the US: they refuse to sign the Non-proliferation Treaty, and have 10,000 nuclear weapons.

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[ 10 October 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

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Originally posted by libertarian:
[QB]The explosion may not have been nuclear:

http://tinyurl.com/o37tx

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I was thinking the same thing and I'm no moonie.

It could have been one big bluff. Ask yourself what North Korea had to lose by bluffing (next to nothing because even China has gotten increasingly irritated with NK over the last couple of years) and what the gains (deterrent of US attack) might be.

quote:

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Originally posted by sgm:
[QB]Actually, they've signed the NPT; they've just decided they're not very worried about fulfilling their Article VI obligations to disarm.

---

Like all the other hypocrites. They are even developing new nukes and Tony the Poodle wants to modernise British nuclear weapons systems.

quote:

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Originally posted by VanLuke:Like all the other hypocrites. They are even developing new nukes and Tony the Poodle wants to modernise British nuclear weapons systems.

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And if we think people in other countries don't notice this hypocrisy, we're kidding ourselves.

Notice this passage from a Times of India report:

quote:

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But even as India and Pakistan added their voice to the chorus of international condemnation of Kim Jong-Il's isolated regime, key observers in European capitals began quietly to question the "moral authority" of such criticism from the two South Asian gatecrashers to the nuclear weapons club.

Yet despite the West's manifest unwillingness to heed its own mantra about the need for nuclear non-proliferation, Britain, Germany, Italy and the EU presidency were driven to react with unconcealed fury to the news from Pyongyang.

In what some observers described as "monumental hypocrisy" from Britain, whose prime minister recently announced he would be replacing the ageing Trident nuclear weapons system, Tony Blair condemned North Korea's first nuclear test as "a completely irresponsible act" and warned of "international repercussions".

---

Apparently, some Labour conference delegates wanted to debate the issue at the recent September convention, but found their motions ruled out of order (shock!).

This was fortunate for the morally courageous Tony Blair, who was thus able to deliver his much-praised final address without fear of messy, democratic debates about backroom decisions on nuclear weapons knocking him off message.

[ 10 October 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

That's too damned funny, Fidel. I didn't know you were suck a jokester!!

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quote:

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Originally posted by quelar:
Just ignore, it will go back to the close minded hole it came from.

So a question for you. Does anyone think that North Korea would have lit off a nuke has the US not labeled them part of the axis of evil, and then refused to talk to them?

The point about the military industrial complex makes a whole lot of sense. Of course they want another nuclear power in the world, that means the US needs to buy more!

To Cue -->

[ 10 October 2006: Message edited by: quelar ]

---

It was funny.

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
The North Korean underground nuclear test explosion (if indeed it really was a nuclear explosion)....

---

quote:

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Henry Champ, reporter for CBC News in Washington, reported Tuesday that the U.S. intelligence community doubts whether the explosion was actually a nuclear one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by VanLuke:

I was thinking the same thing and I'm no moonie.

It could have been one big bluff. Ask yourself what North Korea had to lose by bluffing (next to nothing because even China has gotten increasingly irritated with NK over the last couple of years) and what the gains (deterrent of US attack) might be.

Or, perhaps the test was a dud, i.e. that they had planned a much larger bang and they are not quite there yet. It wouldn't be the first time that a regime of that type announced a failure as a success.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by quelar:
Does anyone think that North Korea would have lit off a nuke has the US not labeled them part of the axis of evil, and then refused to talk to them?

---

Shit, the US can't win. On the one hand, people are saying that the US shouldn't do anything without working with other countries. On the other hand, when the US is trying to work with NK with several other of NK's neighbors, it's "refusing to talk to" NK.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

And, yes, I think NK would still have tried to obtain nukes had Bush not labeled NK as part of the axis of evil. Evidence? He was trying to do that before Bush was even elected.

---

quote:

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Harper calls for sanctions against North Korea
Canadian Press

Vancouver — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling on the United Nations to impose sanctions against North Korea for its purported nuclear test.

Mr. Harper condemned the test blast and said the UN must make a "a meaningful and substantial response."

"We deplore these kinds of actions in the strongest possible terms," he said Tuesday.
"This was meant to be a threat. This is a threat to Canada and all of our allies."

.......................

Mr. MacKay said Canada wants to see the specifics of the tough sanctions being proposed by the U.S. at the UN Security Council, including a trade ban on military and luxury items, the power to inspect all cargo entering or leaving the country, and freezing assets connected with its weapons programs.
"Clearly this is of such a serious nature — so irresponsible, so provocative — that it is going to require these type of deterrent measures," he said.
"The economic sanctions, although they will have grave implications for the people of North Korea, there is very little in the way of alternatives to get the North Koreans to take this seriously from the global perspective."

---

What do you take from a people who have nothing?

I heard Tony Snow on the news saying the people of North Korea need to be punished for the nuclear test.

[ 11 October 2006: Message edited by: Southlander ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Sven, how many times has Washington and its nut job generals threatened to incinerate NK since 1953 ?

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Even though my handle is not Sven let me help since he's not likely to oblige.

U.S. nuclear threats: Then and now

quote:

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On the Korean Peninsula. One of the first instances of a U.S. threat of nuclear use came just five years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. With the United States mired in the Korean War, in November 1950 a reporter asked President Harry S. Truman whether U.N. forces might cross the Yalu River into Manchuria. Truman responded, "We will take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation, just as we always have." Asked whether that included using atomic bombs, Truman responded: "That includes every weapon we have." A few minutes after the press conference ended, the lead of the United Press wire story read, "President Truman said today that the United States has under consideration use of the atomic bomb in connection with the war in Korea." [7]

Nearly three years later, Truman's successor, President Dwight Eisenhower, also wielded the threat of U.S. nuclear use. In May 1953, Eisenhower authorized an expanded Korean bombing campaign, prompting the North Koreans and Chinese to respond by increased ground action. As part of the heightened military activity, the Joint Chiefs presented six different scenarios for ending the war, "most envisioning the possible use of atomic weapons," according to an official Pentagon history. "After the NSC reached a seeming consensus on May 20 to employ atomic weapons both strategically and tactically--that is within and outside the Korean Peninsula--the administration communicated its resolve to the Chinese and North Koreans. . . . Both Eisenhower and [Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles believed the message had the desired effect" of ending the war, the history reads. [8]

In what later became known as the "Tree-Trimming Incident," U.S. forces in Korea again threatened the use of nuclear weapons when they were placed on DEFCON 3 on August 19, 1976. The alert, which was ordered in response to a fatal skirmish between U.S. and North Korean border guards over U.S. attempts to trim a tree in the demilitarized zone, involved deployment of nuclear and other forces in operations that signaled preparations for an attack on North Korea. [9] The U.S. display of force included nuclear-capable B-52 bombers flying "from Guam ominously north up the Yellow Sea on a vector directly to . . . Pyongyang," noted Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub in his book, Hazardous Duty. [10] North Korea did not interfere with the tree trimming again, so the flexible U.S. options appeared to work.

Most recently, during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, the United States nearly launched a conventional strike against the North's nuclear production facilities. Although nuclear threats were not reported to have been part of the effort, U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) did apparently study the nuclear option in 1995. And during 1997 congressional hearings, Gen. Eugene Habiger, commander of Stratcom, confirmed that indeed the United States had threatened the North with nuclear weapons during the crisis. Asked what "sort of deterrence" he thought U.S. nuclear weapons played in preventing WMD from being used by rogue states, Habiger responded, "In my view, sir, it plays a very large role. . . .[The threat of U.S. nuclear use] was passed to the North Koreans back in 1995, when the North Koreans were not coming off their reactor approach they were taking." [11] Habiger subsequently explained that the message passed on to North Korea had been explicit. [12]

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http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=so06norris

Furthermore:

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More than a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only the United States continues to deploy land-based nuclear weapons outside its borders.

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http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=nd04norris

[ 11 October 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

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To you it may seem just fine to allow some war monger to call for death and destruction but hey, for the majority of us this is the same shit we hear every day from the MSM. Not needed here.

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Sorry Stargazer. I understand your point of view but I don't agree. I know the majority of conversation here is lefties talking to lefties about left-wing things but if it ever got to the point where that was all it was, I think it would become an unhealthy dynamic.

Y'know what? We're not always right, and sometimes the only way to see this is for some committed dissenters to come in and poke holes in our arguments until it sinks in. Even in the more common scenario where we successfully defend our positions, having this tension prevents us from falling prey to our own illusions. No matter how good your intentions are, this is always a danger. I'm more concerned about us being honest than comfortable, and if we can't defend our positions, then maybe we shouldn't be holding them.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Your idiotic approach would mean the destruction of babble.

Fortunately, nobody who matters agrees with you.

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[ 13 October 2006: Message edited by: Centerfield ]

JTT is not idiotic. But, while I think it's bad taste and classless to call JTT "idiotic," it's not really helpful to discussion when people like $1000 Wedding tell us that "the North Korea problem is not a moral dilemma" and "The only logical course is to hit them as soon as possible to limit the casualties on our side." While I certainly appreciate the contributions of, say, Heywood Floyd (or used to appreciate, I guess) and Whazzup? (hell, I Might even throw Professor Gordon on that list, except he only seems Right Wing because he's on this board,) I don't think repeating why you can't just bomb rogue states into agreeing with you again and again.

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Originally posted by Centerfield:

It's now become the same boring rant from the small group of members who are here 24/7 attacking anyone who disagrees with there EXTREME LEFTIST views.

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Originally posted by Centerfield:
It's now become the same boring rant

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Feel free to ignore the facts I and others have contributed here but don't call mass murder boring and claim you are among the good left.

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the small group of members who are here 24/7

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Are they robots?

[ 11 October 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

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BRUCE CUMINGS: It’s important to understand that North Korea is a garrison state with a million men under arms. It has another several million who have served for long periods of time in the military. It’s been sanctioned since 1950, when the Korean War began. It’s been isolated by the United States since the regime was formed in 1948. They are used to outside pressure. They’ve lived with it. And they continue to live with it. Sanctions will not make a difference with this regime. Even if China were to cut off its aid, it’s not going to fall. So we have to negotiate with it.

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"In a measure aimed at North Korea's tiny elite, the resolution bans the sale of luxury goods to the country. Kim is known for his love of cognac and lobster and collection of thousands of bottles of vintage French wine."

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
A modest proposal: first the west gives North Korea lots of food, heating oil and medical supplies for the next three months.

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Does NK really need western help ?. According to the Washington Post last year, NK is anything but economically isolated despite U.S. attempts to cut them off from the world. This is why I think NK is poised to become the next Asian tiger economy. They have always had the moxy in a fairly literate population compared with most of the democratic capitalist third world, and now they have the muscle to pursue something else besides living in fear of a western nuclear-powered army menacing them from across the DMZ. NK has newfound trading partners. I think we have to remember that it was never Fidel's intention to be as economically isolated as they were for many years when economic warfare was waged on Cuba by the most powerful trading nation in the hemisphere.

I think that if the U.S. is an imperial superpower, it's because of its military strength alone and not so much being a lone economic giant that it once was. North East Asia(Japan, S. Korea and China) are said to be a capital reserve of the world and responsible for producing a third of the world's GDP, a lot more than the U.S. U.S. imperialists since Zbignew Brezinski were said to be interested in maintaining division among the 'barbarians.' There seems to be collusion happening between the barbarians and vassals today. And Russia is extending the trans-Siberian railway to service trade with North-Eastern Asia. The barbarians are not so divided anymore.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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North Korea is very weak militarily. The US military budget is somewhere around $500 billion per year. North Korea’s is somewhere around $5 billion per year - one percent of the US budget. Its combat pilots get only two hours of flying time a month, because they don’t have enough aviation fuel for their planes. Their equipment is old and inferior compared to that of south Korea and the US forces stationed on the peninsula. And while it has a million-man army, half of the army is engaged in agriculture and construction.

The latest United Nations Security Council Resolution seeks to make north Korea weaker still, by banning the sale to north Korea of military equipment – battle tanks, artillery systems, warships. That’s not to undermine north Korea as an offensive threat, because it isn’t one, but to make it ripe for an easy invasion.

So, is north Korea a danger? As Bruce Cumings, perhaps the top US expert on Korea, put it in the New York Times on October 12, north Korea’s “not going to commit suicide by attacking South Korea or Japan with nuclear bombs. It knows it will lose. Their fundamental orientation is being hunkered down for defense.”
....
The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, was once called a thieves’ kitchen, which is a pretty good description of the UN Security Council. UNSC resolutions against north Korea are formulated to disarm and weaken the country, so it can be easily subjugated and plundered. In fact, you can generalize to other weak countries. UNSC resolutions don’t benefit the world as a whole, they benefit the permanent members of the UNSC, usually at the expense of the bulk of humanity.

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