Pentagon planning for strike on North Korean nuke facilities

Something tells me that bombing a nuclear plant and taking out a few artillery pieces would not have quite the desired effect.

 

I think Kim is shaking in his boots right now....I am sure what we did in Iraq is weighing heavily on his mind.

By the way, I wanted to thank Bill Clinton for paying him off to stop his nuke program....good thing he did that, now Kim wants more...surprised anyone?

DD

 

Just in case some people aren't aware --

I've seen several quotes detailing the degree to which artillery in the hills above Seoul is incredibly well hidden and numerous. It is claimed in these articles that the prevailing opinion is that it would be impossible to expect to take out enough of the artillery to prevent a 1,000,000 deaths in Seoul if the North responded agressively with chemical weapons. Whether this is true or not, I think we can at least assume that the Seoul would potentially suffer a far greater price than Kuwait was recently subjected to in an all-out war.

Also, if we did a limited bombing and Kim misinterpreted the situation and decided to attack Seoul, he could probably have it reduced to cinders before we could respond. Given his history of miscalculations, this doesn't seem entirely unlikely. In otherwords, it might be a safer course to assume that you can take out 95% of S.Korean artillery and hope to limit civilian deaths to the hundreds or thousands, as opposed to betting the farm that Kim will appreciate restraint.

Delicate balance.

Also, anybody who thinks North Korea is being demonized and isn't really that bad of a place should watch "Welcome to North Korea" with secret footage shot by a British journalist in the North. It shows a police state that excedes the worst stereotypes.

 

Good.

It's about time we seriously did something to NK.

As a Korean-American, I have been wanting Kim to get eliminated by any means necessary.

I'm sure people will call me a war-monger and what not, but thye simply do not understand the plight that N Koreans have gone through. What makes it sad, is that the N Koreans buy into the propoganda they are fed, and they believe they are in a good shape.

 

Attacking North Korea won't be as easy as Iraq. If the U.S. attacks North Korea, Seoul is gone.

 

Whether Iraq could have waited while we dealt with N. Korea is a mute point now, obviously. I had hoped we would bring military pressure to bear when this problem with them first resurfaced. I'm concerned that the Administration's "hawks" will say that we now have no choice but to strike. And the plan mentioned sounds like some fantasy. The idea that we can pick and choose our targets and the NK leadership will sit back and nod their heads sagely and say, "it's OK, lets just relax and they'll be finished in a little bit" is really a flight of imagination that leaves me incredulous.

Hell yes, the idea of a full scale conflict is scary. They may have outdated hardware, but they have planned for this for 50 years. They are supposed to have a couple of nukes, at least, and other unpleasent things to throw an unpleasently short distance to hit South Korea where it hurts. And the leadership of North Korea is well short of a full deck upstairs. Let's hope the State Department can come up with a diplomatic solution, hopefully with the Chinese and perhaps the Russians.

DaDakota, you think North Korea is shaking in their boots? Imagine what South Korea and it's people are feeling right about now. This is not Iraq, circa 2003 OR 1991. This requires diplomacy I hope the Administration has in it. I'm not reassured by it's track record. This is one we have a lot of agreement on, treeman, now that what I had hoped could be avoided or postponed has occurred. What a mess.

 

This "memo" seems like a calculated leak to show NK that we are serious about them ending their reprocessing. The problem is that NK might get the impression that we have already decided on "regime change" and will then launch an all-out attack on Seoul. Obviously, we would get plenty of support from other countries if that happened, but the damage would already be done. With these stakes, I think it would be a better idea to present an image of acquiescence (even thought we don't and shouldn't have any plans to back down at all) just to keep tempers cool. So I think this leak is way too premature and somebody in the administration needs to tighten the information flow up considerably.

 

No no no...I do not think we should attack North Korea at all. I do think it can be worked out diplomatically.

However, I guarantee they are not so willing to poke the lion in the eye after seeing what we did to Iraq.

DD

 

Dont think we should bomb them.......This could do much harm to South Korea.......Kim will be threatening us again in 10 years though.......Hopefully we can stop this peacefully.

 

Talks just began today right? Why would we engage in talks if we were going to bomb the plants and facilities, etc.

Hogwash I tell you!

 

You aren't aware of Kim Il-Jong are you? I would be surprised if he relinquished his toys (WMD).

That is all he has. He spends the entire NK economy on WMD. If you take that away from him, he has nothing.

 

Well NK just admitted (again?) that it already has nuclear weapons and is threatening to export plutonium. I'd like nothing better than to bomb this Kim Jong-Il a-hole to hell but South Korea would get pounded. Tough situation.

 

China, you get oil if you take him out. Russia, stay out of this. You screwed up, fix it. Now, send in your killers.

 

How do you stop something peacefully when the other side has no respect for its own agreements?

Can any agreement with North Korea ever be trusted? The last one wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

If an agreement is made, does that mean we'll just see a far-more-developed nuclear program in North Korea in five years?

It's a hideous conundrum. I hope some agreement that can actually be monitored will be able to be forged. The alternative seems to be to just let North Korea do whatever they want to do, or resort to military action... something that should be the last resort and which would likely have dire consequences.

 

KimJI is like a freakin lying, two face, backstabbing drug addict leach who borrows and steals from anyone. He needs an asskicking real bad. And what's up with that perm?

I do think this will be resolved diplomatically. The Koreans aren't irrational like some of those Jihad MiddleEasterners. All Kim wants is money and security, and he's pretty blatant in his blackmail attempt. We should really turn this over to SK and Japan to finance this. If they want to show him the money, then fine. If not, then we need to work together with China, Russia, SK and Japan on a military solution before it gets any uglier.

 

and what cause millions of south koreans to die?

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but which side is that, exactly? You could easily make the argument either way.

That said, this is indeed a troubling situation.