kidrock8: It's my understanding that college kids protesting there is like college kids drinking here; it's a tradition that everyone takes part in. Putting the protests in that light, the protests don't worry me too much. Major: Of course it would mean the end of their regime - any war would - but if they are to have even the slightest hope of survival, they must keep the US limited to conventional weapons. Or at least keep us from using nukes (the line between conventional weapons and unconventional weapons is getting very blurry, expecially taking into consideration things like Daisy Cutters, thermobaric bombs, microwave weapons, MOABs, etc). And again, we might not use nukes back even is they used some on the SKs, the logic being that A) they've used up all of their nukes already, B) we're going to win anyway, and C) why damage the peninsula more if we're going to win anyway? In that case, they could probably get away with it. subtomic: That is impossible to estimate without more information. For example, what is the yield of the device? Was it airburst or ground burst? How strong were the winds? Was it raining? Where did it go off? Was the blast contained in any way? There are quite a few factors that could mitigate the potential damage. It would just depend. It is safe to say that one or two small-mid sized nukes would not render the peninsula uninhabitable, probably just the areas where they went off. Look at Japan for an example; NKs bombs probably aren't much more powerful than those. But again, it just depends. We sure would want to. At least get some kind of warning out... But it would be more important to seize/destroy the nukes and other WMD in a preemptive attack than it would be to warn the NKs and destroy your surprise. Such would make a preemptive attack irrelevant. It might depend on how imminent we felt the threat was, though. We might act differently if we thought an attack was two days off than we would if we thought it was two weeks off... Always possible. Not smart in any way, but possible. They sure do love to threaten the Japanese (not smart either). I would think that they wouldn't want to waste one of their precious handful of nukes on such a target though. Unless they had more than a handful, that is. Then it would become a much more attractive target, particularly the ports and US bases there.
Posted on Sun, Mar. 02, 2003 Reviewing the bidding on Pyongyang By Molly Ivins Creators Syndicate When we need a laugh in grim times, we count on our Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Whoopi Goldberg of the Bush administration. Last week, Ashcroft took time off from tracking down terrorists in order to bust 55 people for selling rolling papers, pipes and other drug paraphernalia. Nice to see a man who's got his priorities straight. Onward. Let's review the bidding on North Korea. "Review the bidding" is a bridge term for "How did we get into this mess?" In 1994, the Clinton administration came to something called the Agreed Framework with North Korea, under which Pyongyang agreed to put its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods -- which can be easily converted into weapons-grade plutonium -- into storage, watched over by U.N. inspectors and cameras. In return, the North Koreans were supposed to get two light-water nuclear reactors and economic and diplomatic relations. Unfortunately, we didn't quite live up to our end of the bargain. As usual, the Republicans had a cow and decided that anything agreed to by Bill Clinton (not to mention the dread Jimmy Carter) must be a sellout. We did, however, provide a substantial amount of food and fuel aid over the years, and in 2000 the Swiss company ABB agreed to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho. Interestingly enough, Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB at the time, though a Pentagon spokeswoman says the secretary does not recall the $200 million deal ever having been brought before the board. So in comes George W. Bush, and six weeks into his term, March 2001, Bush humiliates President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea during his visit to Washington by announcing that we would not support his "sunshine initiative" to improve relations between the Koreas, for which Kim Dae Jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize. North Korea had been sending lots of signals that it was ready to deal, ready to open up and to make concessions. But the Bush administration denounced it as a "rogue state" and used it as a prime excuse to promote the national missile defense system. Bush, ever the soft-spoken diplomat, told a reporter that he "loathes" Kim Jong Il on a "visceral level" and also called the dictator "a pygmy." True, Kim Jong Il is vertically challenged and a repellent dictator, but insulting paranoiacs with nukes is not smart. Then came the "axis of evil" speech in 2002. According to Bush's speech writer David Frum, North Korea got thrown into the axis as an afterthought, apparently for rhetorical purposes. Unfortunately, Kim Jong Il, like, kind of took it personally. Then the Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive war" was announced, along with the policy of using nuclear weapons to maintain American hegemony. In October, North Korea admitted that it was running a secret uranium enrichment program, so Bush promptly renounced the Agreed Framework and cut off the food and fuel oil supplies we had agreed to. (Don't ask me to explain this, but apparently an enriched-uranium program is not nearly as dangerous as making plutonium.) The North Koreans said they would drop the uranium enrichment and allow inspections to continue in return for a promise of no pre-emptive strike from us and a normalization of relations. Bush refused. A few months later, the North Koreans kicked out the U.N. inspectors and announced that it would begin making plutonium from the spent fuel rods. Bush then announced that we absolutely would not negotiate with the North Koreans. Then, in January, he announced again that we would not negotiate but would "talk." The North Koreans want direct talks with the United States, while we want multilateral talks -- Bush endorses multilateralism at last! -- with Japan, China and South Korea, and possibly Russia, Australia and the European Union. China, Australia and South Korea have all urged us to have direct talks. Meanwhile, the South Koreans have elected Roh Moo Hyun to succeed Kim Dae Jung, and he, like his predecessor, favors the sunshine policy. (Before you start on the "How dare they?," "Those ingrates!" and "Worse than the French," please recall that for 25 years the United States supported a military dictatorship in South Korea, so they tend not to take our rhetoric about "democracy" really seriously). All in all, a nasty situation. Colin Powell has just returned from a trip to South Korea and may be able to work out some straddle on the direct-talks issue. Meanwhile, it looks as though the North Koreans are busily building nuclear bombs, and no one doubts that they'd sell a little spare plutonium to anyone who paid them enough. Oy gevalt. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N. Korea
Oh, Jesus. What a bunch of leftist BS... Molly Ivins, oughtta expect it. Sure. It didn't have anything at all to do with the fact that the North Koreans never ended their nuclear weapons program, and have actually succeeded in making several weapons. By their own friggen admission. It didn't have anything at all to do with that... It was all Bush's fault. Where do you find this crap, glynch? Should've titled the article "How Bill Clinton got duped into giving the North Koreans everything they wanted while they cheated and built their nukes anyway"... Yeah, it's called "carrot and stick" you moron. North Korea has been doing it for decades - they are masters at it. Another term would be "schizophrenic good cop/bad cop", or you can just use "extortion" if you wish. It sounds to me like what Ms. Ivins (and glynch) is really unhappy about is that Bush is not caving in to Kim's demands. He is not bowing down to their extortion as Clinton did. 'Dammit, Bush! Surrender! Be a p***y!!!' Is that the game we're supposed to hope for? I for one am glad that we have a Commander in Chief who will not surrender to terrorists and foreign dictators. It's about time.
I may not want war with Iraq, which I have many reasons, I do feel we should get Kimmy boy out of power PRETTY DARN QUICK! Like today or tomorrow. If Saddam threated to turn Israel, the US, or even a neighbor into a sea of fire, this man and his Repulic Gaurd (or whatever it is called) would be annihilated. I like Korean people, but man, I really hate that Kim basterd
Treeman since your very educated on this field whats our chances of having a nuclear war with korea? and if so would other countries join us to wipe out their country? To me if you fire one off then your basically starting world war 3 and they say the next war will be fought with sticks and stones. I still do not understnd why anyone would wanna build a bomb that destroys the world. NOBODY WINS in a Nuclear war in my opinion.
Chances? I can't give you odds. I have maintained that Kim is not entirely sane, and it is therefore difficult to predict exactly what he will do. If we have a nuclear war with them, worst case is we lose LA. They lose everything. And unlike Iraq, pretty much everyone who counts (except China - and they're more neutral than anything) is on our side versus North Korea.
What do Koreans have to do with Kim? No one voted him in to run North Korea. No one in South Korea likes him. The only in the North who like him are the ones who fall for the bullsh!t propaganda.
They don't need to nuke Seoul. They already have enough artillery shells aimed at the city. They'd probably nuke Japanese cities like Tokyo or Kyoto because of past history and because they're our greatest and wealthiest ally. Nuking their own people sounds like a last ditch suicidal attempt. Nuking Japan would keep them in power for a little while by showing their peons that they're a powerful country... I hope those pilots aren't Chinese trained....
Ya I realize that... but if anything it "offended" me more that you ASSOCIATED Koreans with him. As if he is supported by Koreans. I'm not offended though. I usually don't act this PC. It's like if you said you like Germans, but you hate Hitler. It goes without saying that the Germans are sepearte from Hitler.
I understand your point, but Hitler actually had support from his people when he was in power. Now if you associated current Germans with Hitler that's a different story.
Well he's associating current Koreans with their current leader, so if that is what you meant, your analogy is off.
No. Point is that the term "Koreans" is quite a broad brush to paint with. There are 2 times more South Koreans than North Koreans. There are maybe 2-3 South Koreans out of 50 million, who support Kim Il Jong. If you are incapable of getting what my main point is no matter how "off" my analogy is, then forget I said anything. There aren't as many "Koreans" supporting him as you think.
