True, but both sides lost. Bush by having his bluff called and he was caught bluffing. N. Korea because they showed how incompetent they are technologically and militarily. Thanks, Dubya. There was no need to demonstrate US bluster for what it is. Stupid leaders subject their countries to disgrace.
I remember when Boris Yeltsin visited a grocery store down by NASA and he was stunned by the amount of produce and food. Then he started asking customers what they did for a living and several worked at refinery and chemical plants. He couldn't believe that common working people were eating so well.
There was also the kitchen debate where Khrushchev visited an average American home at the Moscow World's Fair couldn't be the home of an average worker, but instead the home of the elite.
He didn't say that per the transcript. He said how everyone is entitled to the same houses instead of working for them.
I think it was a major blow for him -- I think at one point he said it was staged or something. Yeltsin was crazy - I remember watching a 60 minutes episode and he played tennis against Leslie Stahl. He was so bad (like the tennis episode from Seinfeld bad) he would cheat after every point and acted like he was dominating. Strange to watch a major leader act so weird.
Before 9/11, Americans thought large-scale terrorist attacks were something that happened to other nations, across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We learned differently, to our sorrow. The photo below is of a container ship entering a harbor. Container ships carry a huge amount of the trade between the United States and other countries. They carry thousands and thousands of containers the size of the trailers trucks take all over the country, which is what happens to huge numbers of them. We inspect a tiny percentage of the containers entering our country, something the 9/11 Commission said we should do something about, and which has recieved little attention, compared to security in airports, etc. North Korea reportedly has a few crude atomic weapons. Honestly, we don't know for sure (publicly) how crude they are, but one would easily fit into one of the containers on the ship in the image below. Think of that sailing into San Francisco, New York, or the Port of Houston. Not a pleasant thought. North Korea is dangerous. Keep D&D Civil.
Wow..these guys are nuts N. Korean Missle aimed at Hawaii N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii - report TOKYO (Reuters) - A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad. But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile's angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan. North Korea may have targeted Hawaii to show the United States that it was capable of landing a missile there, or because it is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet, the paper said. An alternative explanation might be that a missile could accidentally hit land if fired towards Alaska, the report said. A separate report in the Mainichi Shimbun daily cited U.S. and Japanese government officials as saying a piece of the Taepodong-2 missile fell off immediately after take-off, strengthening the view that the launch was a failure.
The US has security committments to Japan including a nuclear protection guarantee that essentially offers our nuclear arsenal to protect them in the case of an attack. This was all done in exchange for Japanese guarantees not to build a nuclear weapon or for that matter a truly active military. In short, if japan gets hit, we're guaranteed to get involved.
Can you imagine what would happen if one of those missles actually came close to hitting our land? Or even Japan? I'm really curious what the response would be.
There is much debate in Japan concerning their military role in the world. A large faction wants to be more involved in peacekeeping-type missions, and there is a definite possibility that they will amend their constitution in order to increase their military forces. And much of this debate is a direct result of repeated NK sabre-rattling. You'd think that this would make China nervous as hell, and would lead to them - since they're the only country with any real sway w/ NK - reigning them in a bit. We'll see.
You would think. So far, this hasn't happened. What does North Korea have to do in order to garner serious Chinese attention... action, not soundbites? Fire a missile over China? Keep D&D Civil. Keep D&D Civil.
