North Korea vows Nuclear attack on U.S., targets D.C.

[machievelli]

Problem for lil Kim is that he called off the armistice. Technically we were always at war with NK just in a cease fire. We already HAVE the authority to go in, should we deem it worth the effort. We won't until baby Kim actually makes a real move, but should he tick us off enough, we're already in a(legally) declared war with North Korea and have authorization to beat them to a bloody pulp... The only question is if China would step in and defend them. I think so long as it stays conventional, China would turn their backs...

 

Actually, I think it would be the other way. If Kim attacked South or we attacked North, and Kim did not hit the nuke button, China might actually assist as long as he refrained. But you're right that after sixty years of supporting Korea, and watching them go to hell in a hand basket because of their mix of Communist rhetoric and a rule closer to a monarchy, China may just sit there and watch him get steamrollered and hope someone sensible replaces Kim.

 

Remember this as well, if that happens; of all the nuclear nations. as in ones that wwere known to have the bomb, what nation A: tried to get them banned worldwide? and what other nation actually stepped back from that cliff, dismantled their production facilities, and convinced the new government to foreswear ever redeploying them?

[Bob Saget]

I found this amusing

 

also there's this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21979127

[urluckyday]

^Classic!

[Tommycat]

Actually, I think it would be the other way. If Kim attacked South or we attacked North, and Kim did not hit the nuke button, China might actually assist as long as he refrained. But you're right that after sixty years of supporting Korea, and watching them go to hell in a hand basket because of their mix of Communist rhetoric and a rule closer to a monarchy, China may just sit there and watch him get steamrollered and hope someone sensible replaces Kim.

 

Remember this as well, if that happens; of all the nuclear nations. as in ones that wwere known to have the bomb, what nation A: tried to get them banned worldwide? and what other nation actually stepped back from that cliff, dismantled their production facilities, and convinced the new government to foreswear ever redeploying them?

 

It's only my opinion that China won't join. I find it highly probable that China would value the trade relations with the US(look for stuff that DOESN'T say "Made in China"), as well as being fed up with defending NK and claiming they were not making nukes... Then proven wrong. It's an embarrassment to China that a government they supported went as far as they did.

 

And technically it was the US that started attempts at preventing nuclear proliferation(Ohhhh the irony/hypocrisy of that).

[machievelli]

It's only my opinion that China won't join. I find it highly probable that China would value the trade relations with the US(look for stuff that DOESN'T say "Made in China"), as well as being fed up with defending NK and claiming they were not making nukes... Then proven wrong. It's an embarrassment to China that a government they supported went as far as they did.

 

And technically it was the US that started attempts at preventing nuclear proliferation(Ohhhh the irony/hypocrisy of that).

 

How is that hypocritical? Above I commented that one nation called for a full ban of nuclear weapons. That was after the UN started, and the US offered before the Security Council to not only turn over all of the weapons to UN control, but to assist the UN in collecting every scientist that could have created more, and I mean every scientist, including our own.

 

That attempt failed because two countries vetoed it, the Soviets and France.

 

The Nuclear proliferation treaty was suggested by us, true, but except for India, who refused to sign it, and the NKs who have repudiated it (After developing them mind).

 

Why do you think Robert Heinlein wrote the long watch where the UN has the bomb and the hero is working to stop a coup d'etat within the troops that have them? It was written while the debate went on to ban them forever.

 

Want to try to answer the second part? What nation has repudiated them for all time?

[Tommycat]

How is that hypocritical?

The US, wanted to stop the proliferation of nuclear arms after they had developed them, and in fact used them in war time. Then wants no other country to posess them(in 1947)... On top of that they ended up being one of two countries with enough nuclear weaponry to destroy Jupiter. I find that just a tad hypocritical.

Above I commented that one nation called for a full ban of nuclear weapons. That was after the UN started, and the US offered before the Security Council to not only turn over all of the weapons to UN control, but to assist the UN in collecting every scientist that could have created more, and I mean every scientist, including our own.

 

That attempt failed because two countries vetoed it, the Soviets and France.

 

The Nuclear proliferation treaty was suggested by us, true, but except for India, who refused to sign it, and the NKs who have repudiated it (After developing them mind).

 

Why do you think Robert Heinlein wrote the long watch where the UN has the bomb and the hero is working to stop a coup d'etat within the troops that have them? It was written while the debate went on to ban them forever.

 

Want to try to answer the second part? What nation has repudiated them for all time?

I actually don't know the answer to the second part. I remember reading something about Canada getting rid of theirs, but lets face it, they didn't need them as a MAD deterrent. But I would like to know the right answer. BTW It was India, Pakistan, and Israel that didn't sign on(If I remember correctly. Been forever since I was interested in nukes).

[urluckyday]

The US, wanted to stop the proliferation of nuclear arms after they had developed them, and in fact used them in war time. Then wants no other country to posess them(in 1947)... On top of that they ended up being one of two countries with enough nuclear weaponry to destroy Jupiter. I find that just a tad hypocritical.

 

I understand why people look at this as hypocritical, and I understand how this fits in with certain people's disdain for the US (not saying you specifically)...but I always tell people that make that argument to consider this: imagine if no one, including the US, had a nuclear arsenal except for a country like North Korea/Iran who had been secretly building them.

 

Yes, I know that the US and many of its allies have a huge nuclear arsenal...but let's keep in mind that this isn't the same country back when it almost came to blows with the Soviets. You can't tell me that the United States hasn't handled nuclear supremacy with the responsibility that a superpower should have. We don't flaunt our weapons in military parades or even make mention of nuking people if we don't get our way.

 

The technology exists, and there is nothing to stop that anymore. If it was possible, I wish humanity could rewind and never even conceived of nuclear technology, but that can't happen. Yes it may be a little bit hypocritical, but at the same time, the world is and should feel much safer knowing that a country like the United States has nuclear supremacy instead of all the other less enticing options (that includes places like Israel).

[machievelli]

The US, wanted to stop the proliferation of nuclear arms after they had developed them, and in fact used them in war time. Then wants no other country to posess them(in 1947)... On top of that they ended up being one of two countries with enough nuclear weaponry to destroy Jupiter. I find that just a tad hypocritical.

 

I actually don't know the answer to the second part. I remember reading something about Canada getting rid of theirs, but lets face it, they didn't need them as a MAD deterrent. But I would like to know the right answer. BTW It was India, Pakistan, and Israel that didn't sign on(If I remember correctly. Been forever since I was interested in nukes).

 

Tommy, in 1947 when they went to the UN, it wasn't regarding non proliferation; the US called for a total ban, and not just a paper 'we won't make or use them. We suggested wholesale arrests of scientists and theorists everywhere.

 

Remember the old saw about a weapon being so horrible it ends war? American observers who went to Hiroshima and Nagasakii after the war were appalled by the devastation, and Truman knew just from the theoretical designs put forward by the military, that the more powerful bomb (Hiroshima) was a firecracker in comparison to what would come.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons The actual treaty was suggested by us in 1968. By then there were six nations known to have them, with three more coming up fast. But as I stated in a previous post, every time a new nation joined that exclusive circle, tensions arose. When it was only the US, the Russians believed that we'd repeat our actions of 1918. So they needed those nukes to 'protect themselves'.

 

And if you honestly believe Joseph Stalin thought only of defending his country, you should be on medication.

 

He believed, that the US dropped two bombs for only one reason; to prove the fist bomb's results weren't a fluke and I can understand why he might. But that meant they had to develop their own

 

England and France developed them for their own reasons, England because they understood that they couldn't guarantee we'd start throwing them at the Soviets if they promised not to use them in a NATO conflict. France was still under De Gaulle, and he didn't like not having the newest toys.

 

Each caused problems. Russia had to rethink a European conflict not once but three times. Actions already in the works by them in Eastern Europe came to a screeching halt when the odds that France might be threatened by say, trying to support Greek Communists for example. They stopped supporting 'armed struggle' throughout Europe until the Terrorist years.

 

When China showed off their first bomb, tensions arose again. They had already occupied Tibet, were (and still are) claiming that Taiwan is a 'breakaway province' they have a legal right to occupy), Had fought a small but very nasty battle over Quemoy and Matsu, and were supplying 'armies of liberation' in Malaya, the Phillipines, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. That caused India to develop them to stop the Chinese from just wandering south and taking them over as well.

 

Add to this the fact that before 1968, while both the US and Russians had developed ICBMs, they had not been tested sufficiently to guarantee their survival or accuracy. That is why the Russians tried to slip them into Cuba secretly. which put the entire Northern hemisphere at danger. You would have nuclear weapons in the hands of a nation that totally hated us, and no definite way to assure that Castro would not just push the button himself

 

At ten (My age during the Cuban Missile Crisis) I was already reading at Junior College level, but I wasn't the only kid that age asking the local libraries about ballistic missiles, and why Russia had to deploy them there. But for me to ask for adult publications (As in reading level, not content) like Janes at that age would be like a kid that age today asking the local library for the most recent issue of Playboy Magazine.

 

I think our movement toward suggesting world nonproliferation came from a comment made by Robert MacNamara, the Secretary of Defense. Decades after the fact, a then top secret meeting was reported. MacNamara had gone to the Joint Chiefs, and was dusting off the war plans in the event Russia actually launched at us.When he asked what we would do if a single missile came out of Cuba or the Soviet Bloc? Answer: Fire everything back at them.

 

His reply? "Gentlemen, that isn't a war plan, it's a spasm".

 

That crisis caused the installation of the Hotline so we'd never come that close again.

 

The problem, as I mentioned above, was summed up quite concisely by David Weber in The Short Victorious War. When the war warning is issued, the main character thinks;' Admiral Caparelli had just formally put the trigger to the war every RMN officer had feared for decades in the hands of some junior grade captain commanding a light cruiser flotilla picketing some nameless star system in the back of beyond'. The peace of the world is in the hands of the least stable leader with nukes, as it has been since 1950.

 

That was why the US was upset that a nation with the capability to make nukes was willing to attack a smaller neighbor, which caused the Gulf War,and because of Saddam's stubbornness, and whoever suggested to the Shrub that he might try it again led to the present mess in Iraq.It's why we are upset with both Iran and North Korea now.

 

Look at the three Regimes from the viewpoint of stability, meaning policies and what is known about their leaders:

 

Iraq under Saddam: A man who pretty much guaranteed there'd be no coup by eliminating anyone with any capability at all. The decade long Iran-Iraq war was fought because, in our intelligence estimates, Saddam was hoping to become the next Caliph. To be Caliph. you must hold the Cities of Qom (Iran) Mecca and Medina (Saudi Arabia) and Jerusalem ( I don't need to tell you). When that war failed, he then turned around and attacked Kuwait because he didn't want to pay back the money lent to him by that government, claiming it was actually 'Province 52', because the British had administered the two countries from Baghdad.

 

When the Coalition began Operation Desert Shield (The air war portion of Desert Storm) Saddam launched SCUDs at of all people Israel. Again, intelligence believed he did this because a third of the Coalition forces or backers were Arabs, and if Israel retaliated, they'd fight on his side for that reason alone.

 

When the ceasefire was declared, part of the Agreement was that UN inspectors would be allowed to verify that all of the chemical, biological and nuclear projects the Iraqis were known to have were dismantled. Saddam instead spent five years running them around, refusing them direct access to facilities unless they came when he said they could, and finally, kicking them out of the Country. When Clinton after a very nasty diatribe when the UN was denied access to the Presidential Palaces across the country suggested that maybe we should bomb those facilities to destroy anything hidden there, Saddam had thousands of Iraqi civilians trucked into the compounds, then in front of the Media, dared us to do just that.

 

To quote my ex-wife, Saddam was a spoiled brat asking for a spanking.

 

Now let's look at North Korea: A nation laboring under poverty and deprivation caused directly by three generations of the Kim family. Sung was only put in power because he was the acceptable leader to the Russians who occupied the North, just as Rhee was the best of a bad lot in the South. But while the US actually limited Rhee's army from getting anything that would allow him to attack North, Russia equipped them with second hand weapons making the NK as well armed as the Soviet Army of 1944.

 

It would be like say the French Genderamie of today armed with assault rifles and submachine guns (which they are) as the sole defense force of France versus the German army of 1940 that beat the French in less than 60 days. The only real deterrent we (The US) had offered was the 30,000 men stationed in Korea, who were almost as poorly armed, and ill-trained thanks to budget cuts. (See my posting above where I commented on the First Korean War, also called the 'Great Patriotic War by the NKs).

 

Sung failed because he didn't expect that the UN and US would actually get involved, and the only reason there is not a unified Democratic Korea today is because China intervened openly, but Truman wasn't willing to take the war to the next level by using Nukes against China. Looking back, especially at the Air defenses of both the US and Russia during that war, and the horrendous losses suffered by bombers rather than fighters, neither side could have fought a serious nuclear war then. Russia could obliterate Western Europe, but could't reach much of the US with nukes without suicide missions, and you'd have to send full wings (72 bombers per wing) with every plane carrying a nuke to guarantee hitting anything more than 400 miles inside the other guy's country.

 

Not cost effective. Not at about five million dollars for one bomb per aircraft alone.

 

After that war, we have a man who wanted to be a movie producer (again refer to previous posts by me) and one thing I have learned from the few producers I have met, reality is not part of their lexicon of virtues. If they think they can pull off a movie with even the most ridiculous premise, they'll fund it. Look at House Calls, where the main character is played by a man fifteen years older than the Script called for, just because he liked the man's work. To quote his daughter, if her father had bought the rights to the book Roots, he would have chosen Robert Redford to play Kunta Kinte.

 

Picture this guy in charge of a country. This is the man who first developed the nuclear technology, then when he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, first denied it, then repudiated the NPT.

 

Now we have that man's son in charge, and his supporters are trying to make him look tough, so he can't speak mildly, he has to threaten first the US, then, when analysts world wide commented he didn't have the reach to carry out much of that threat, his neighbors with his new nuclear hammer.

 

Iran I left for last, because it is the most worrying to me. There is an old bad joke in Middle Eastern politics that the further you are away from Israel, the more vehement the rhetoric against them. This is because their close neighbors have been clubbed over the head by the IDF too often to be willing to accept another drubbing. After the Israeli attack that leveled the Ostirak nuclear power plant in the 80s, Iraq had backed off on the 'Death to Israel' cant because they had just proven quite capable of taking them on even at that range.

 

Iran is led by a man that has A: claimed the entire Holocaust history was fabricated by the US just to make the Jews look like underdogs. He is also a firmly religious man who reminds me of some of the crazier fundamentalists here. I knew a guy in Texas who firmly believed that if a nuclear war happened 'God' would assure that his branch of lunacy survived to repopulate the country.

 

Picture a guy who honestly believes that 'God' would intervene to save his one small group, and let everyone else die. Do you want him in charge of a button? That's what we have in Iran.

 

Back in the 60s, everyone with nukes could already see where it was going. By my own research in the early 80s at the time the NPT was originally signed there were more than 30 nations in what I all the second tier, nations with either the capability to develop the weapons on their own, or the money to buy that capability.

 

The primary reason the US offered to buy up the smaller nukes the Russians had after the Berlin wall fell wasn't because we needed them, even to study. It was because there were nations out there that would have paid for them, and I'm not talking chump change. Libya for an example had offered a couple of billion dollars for a tacnuke, something small enough to put in a Cessna.

 

Last, your suggestion was wrong. Canada never developed the bomb (Though they are in that second tier) because unless relations between them and the US went to hell, they have no one they need to threaten with it. Japan (also in the second tier) has never tried to develop them; the public outcry there against even peaceful use of nuclear technology stopped them from using it in their navy, and stymied power plants until well into the 80s.

 

No, that one shining example is of all places, South Africa. According to our intelligence (And my own research confirmed it,) the South Africans were a Nuclear power starting in the late 60s. When the Apartheid regime was finally ready to accept majority rule, they approached Mandela, who was a shoe in for the presidency of the new South Africa, and when he discovered they actually had the bomb, he ordered that the production was to stop, all existing nukes were to be dismantled and destroyed, and promised the earlier government that they would never even think of using nules again.

[machievelli]

I understand why people look at this as hypocritical, and I understand how this fits in with certain people's disdain for the US (not saying you specifically)...but I always tell people that make that argument to consider this: imagine if no one, including the US, had a nuclear arsenal except for a country like North Korea/Iran who had been secretly building them.

 

Yes, I know that the US and many of its allies have a huge nuclear arsenal...but let's keep in mind that this isn't the same country back when it almost came to blows with the Soviets. You can't tell me that the United States hasn't handled nuclear supremacy with the responsibility that a superpower should have. We don't flaunt our weapons in military parades or even make mention of nuking people if we don't get our way.

 

The technology exists, and there is nothing to stop that anymore. If it was possible, I wish humanity could rewind and never even conceived of nuclear technology, but that can't happen. Yes it may be a little bit hypocritical, but at the same time, the world is and should feel much safer knowing that a country like the United States has nuclear supremacy instead of all the other less enticing options (that includes places like Israel).

 

Have you ever read The Sum of all Fears by Clancy? This is an author who actually was interrogated by the CIA because of things he used in the Hunt For Red October, because they were supposed to be American Military secrets. He did what i do before he writes; he researched all of the unclassified publications, and merely used them as his basis for the equipment he wrote about. The basis of the book (Not the movie) was that the Israelis had deployed nukes to stop Syrian advances before cooler heads prevailed. The bomb used later in the book to attack Denver was one that had not been removed from the aircraft carrying it, but had not been armed when that plane went down, and was later recovered by a terrorist group who funded reclaiming the material for an attack on the US.

 

Like a lot of his later work, it was a nuclear cliff hanger; the Russians, according to a spy of our own, claims that the Soviets had lost control of several small nukes, and splinter groups there might use them against the US to derail the collapse of the Soviet regime; the Americans believe this, and since the president is supposed to have been in Denver, his National Security Adviser suggests it was a plot to kill him. This causes the US to go to Defcon 3.

 

But as Clancy points out, when the Military goes to that level, some units, specifically in regions where they might be attacked, automatically go to Defcon 4, which authorizes them to protect themselves from any perceived attack. This leads the captain of an Ohio class nuclear missile boat to begin preparing for launch, and the Sierra class Attack boat that has actually been able to track of him to attack the American boat.

 

Clany's character Jack Ryan is the new Director of the CIA, and knowing all that has been discovered that the President is ignoring, breaks into the Hotline communications between the Russians and the President, tell all of this to the Russians, and also reports that there is enough evidence that it was actually a terrorist attack. As Ryan is being arrested, the Russians report that they have ordered the stand down of all their military.

 

But he has one more thing to do. With the president finally listening to him, and the men behind the attack already in custody, the president decides to pay the Arabs back because one of the terrorists claimed that a high level cleric in Qom was backing them. He proposes to nuke the city, and since Ryan as DCIA can be the second man in the two man rule (Someone high up in the government must agree with the President about firing the missile) Ryan instead tells the SAC general that the President is too distraught to make that decision, and that he should ignore any further attempt. This is prescient, as when the captured terrorists are told that we had fired that missile, they boast that their lie had assured the Arab World would all join together with us as their only real enemy forever.

 

Israel has been a member without firing off even a test bomb, since the mid 60s. If you need to know why, look at the simple demographics; less than 4 million people surrounded by nations with over one hundred million people who have screamed 'death to Israel' since the late 40s. As much as the US's enemies claim Israel survives only because of American support, remember that Israel has it's own weapons industry for every weapon they might need. They have this for a very simple reason. They can't guarantee that an outside supplier will keep selling to them. When the oil nations protested European support, threatening to cut oil sales, they backed down. When the US started airlifting replacement equipment into Israel after the Russians had already done the same in the 70s during the Yom Kippur war, they carried out that threat.

 

So Israel developed their own ships from Italian designs, their own aircraft from French designs, and their own tanks from their own design.

[VeniVidiVicous]

The US practiced Operation Reforger; a massive deployment of US troops from the US to Europe every year from 1965 until the Wall came down, and the Russians never 'assumed' it meant we were preparing to attack. As with the exercises in Korea, we did notify the Russians that the exercises were scheduled, so accusing the US and SK of 'preparing for invasion' is ridiculous. It was like the claim that the Korean Airliner Voskaya PVO shot down was really an RC135.

 

The primary reason it's BS is because for the US and SK to have a reasonable chance of success, the SK would have to do a full mobilization, and there is no way SK could do that without it being noticed. You're talking about 8 million troops, and that is about 15% of their population, and forty percent of their workforce.

 

Editing, Checked the CIA factbook:

 

NK Manpower available for military service without major dislocation of the economy:

males age 16-49: 4,836,567

females age 16-49: 5,230,137 (2010 est.)

 

Full

Males 6,515,279

females 6,418,693

 

SK

Manpower available for military service without major dislocation of the economy:

 

males age 16-49: 13,185,794

females age 16-49: 12,423,496 (2010 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:

Full

males age 16-49: 10,864,566

females age 16-49: 10,168,709 (2010 est.)

 

But neither country has enough equipment for a full call up except for just handing everyone a rifle and saying 'go forth'.

 

 

Actually it doesn't. They are doing nothing different than normal, and haven't attacked yet. It's a practice defensive drill designed to retaliate should NK attack. Same drill as always.

 

And honestly, Fox at least had info and quotes from the AP.

 

My guess is the reason none of the others mentioned the pacifist demonstration is that it also happens EVERY YEAR.

 

Both of ye missed my point, i'm not saying practicing a military drill is the same thing as declaring war or preparing to declare war.

 

I personally don't think the North Koreans are stupid enough to declare on the South while the world police are backing them, I still disagree with the sanctions imposed on countries (including NK) by the US/UN.

[machievelli]

Both of ye missed my point, i'm not saying practicing a military drill is the same thing as declaring war or preparing to declare war.

 

I personally don't think the North Koreans are stupid enough to declare on the South while the world police are backing them, I still disagree with the sanctions imposed on countries (including NK) by the US/UN.

 

You missed my point. Claiming that maneuvers are only a disguise for an actual attack is BS, but it's not our BS, it's theirs.

 

As for protesting against sanctions, the UN has only two options in this case; one, sanctions, and as I pointed out in later posts, there are ways around them. The second is actually calling on member nations to force compliance

 

Which would you prefer? At least the US isn't even hinting that we might be considering a preemptive strike, which under the UN charter (article 51) is a perfectly legal response, even if we used nukes.

[urluckyday]

Israel has been a member without firing off even a test bomb, since the mid 60s. If you need to know why, look at the simple demographics; less than 4 million people surrounded by nations with over one hundred million people who have screamed 'death to Israel' since the late 40s. As much as the US's enemies claim Israel survives only because of American support, remember that Israel has it's own weapons industry for every weapon they might need. They have this for a very simple reason. They can't guarantee that an outside supplier will keep selling to them. When the oil nations protested European support, threatening to cut oil sales, they backed down. When the US started airlifting replacement equipment into Israel after the Russians had already done the same in the 70s during the Yom Kippur war, they carried out that threat.

 

So Israel developed their own ships from Italian designs, their own aircraft from French designs, and their own tanks from their own design.

 

The reason I brought up Israel in that situation is for the very reason you described. Literally the last place I would want nuclear weapons is in the Middle East. While I don't think that Israel shares many similarities with North Korea as a government, I do think that they share the same situation. Both are isolated countries geographically. Surrounded by people they call their enemies and backed (until recently) by a major world power.

 

A desperate and isolated country like North Korea or, if things deteriorate, Israel, is dangerous.

[machievelli]

The reason I brought up Israel in that situation is for the very reason you described. Literally the last place I would want nuclear weapons is in the Middle East. While I don't think that Israel shares many similarities with North Korea as a government, I do think that they share the same situation. Both are isolated countries geographically. Surrounded by people they call their enemies and backed (until recently) by a major world power.

 

A desperate and isolated country like North Korea or, if things deteriorate, Israel, is dangerous.

 

Since Yitzak Rabin was assassinated and the hardliners took over, I agree. Half of the problems between present day Palestine and Israel are because the Israelis tried to rewrite or circumvent the Oslo Accords. The rest is because there are elements inside Palestine, including their own present government there who still want it all.

[VeniVidiVicous]

You missed my point. Claiming that maneuvers are only a disguise for an actual attack is BS, but it's not our BS, it's theirs.

 

As for protesting against sanctions, the UN has only two options in this case; one, sanctions, and as I pointed out in later posts, there are ways around them. The second is actually calling on member nations to force compliance

 

Which would you prefer? At least the US isn't even hinting that we might be considering a preemptive strike, which under the UN charter (article 51) is a perfectly legal response, even if we used nukes.

 

I agree with the first part, claiming the maneuver was preparation for an attack was a bit of a stretch. You have to keep in mind though that politics is a lot like pro. wrestling, there's a lot of posturing and empty dialog on both sides before anything conclusive actually happens.

 

The UN has the option of staying out of NK's business doesn't it, Why aren't they sanctioning the US for having a nuclear arsenal?

[machievelli]

I agree with the first part, claiming the maneuver was preparation for an attack was a bit of a stretch. You have to keep in mind though that politics is a lot like pro. wrestling, there's a lot of posturing and empty dialog on both sides before anything conclusive actually happens.

 

The UN has the option of staying out of NK's business doesn't it, Why aren't they sanctioning the US for having a nuclear arsenal?

 

First, NK is in violation of International law because they signed the NPT originally. If you look at that agreement http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html under article 10, paragraph 1 'Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests. (Italics are mine.

 

This means, in the accepted form by the UN that you have to withdraw first, then begin your development of those weapons 90 days later. By developing nuclear weapons first they violated International law. An agreement they signed, then violated assuming impunity.

 

As one example, the reason the Shrub used basically the same threat against NK as Kennedy did when facing off against the Russians was because giving any technology or materials linked to nuclear weapons is also a violation of that treaty. Since a NEST team (Nuclear Emergency Support Team) can tell you who processed the weapon's grade material right down to the year it was processed in most cases. They don't even need to enter the country (Such as say a terrorist organization setting off a tacnuke); all they have have to do is fly a plane through the fallout cloud and collect some, and less than 24 hours after that blast, Kim could expect hell on Earth; and having the survivors say 'but we already backed out of the treaty' would cut no ice anywhere in the world

 

So your premise is that we should just ignore the fact that they are already in violation of the law? By the same token we should ignore every criminal ever caught.

 

As for the nations that already have such weapons, all but Israel, China Pakistan and India have voluntarily reduced their own arsenals under START.

[VeniVidiVicous]

So your premise is that we should just ignore the fact that they are already in violation of the law? By the same token we should ignore every criminal ever caught.

 

As for the nations that already have such weapons, all but Israel, China Pakistan and India have voluntarily reduced their own arsenals under START.

 

This, doe's not address what I said:

 

The UN has the option of staying out of NK's business doesn't it, Why aren't they sanctioning the US for having a nuclear arsenal?

 

So i'll repeat, why is it okay for NK and Iran to be sanctioned due to possible nuclear ambitions while it's assumed that your country is perfectly entitled to have them?

Can you not see how that's hypocritical??

[machievelli]

This, doe's not address what I said:

 

 

 

So i'll repeat, why is it okay for NK and Iran to be sanctioned due to possible nuclear ambitions while it's assumed that your country is perfectly entitled to have them?

Can you not see how that's hypocritical??

 

The nuclear weapons owned by the US predate the existence of the UN, and was only built to the extremes it once had because of the threat of attack on the West by the Soviets. Once that threat was gone, both sides have been reducing that arsenal, because they are no longer necessary at that level. That is how the major nuclear powers went from the 80,000 odd warheads we once had to about 15,000 now.

 

The NPT is not a demand for whole scale nuclear disarmament worldwide. It was a solemn pledge signed by the existing nuclear powers not to help others gain the weapons, and by those who did not to refrain from developing them on their own.

 

As for the UN just staying out of it, the government of NK has told their own people for sixty years that they only lost the warwas because of interference from the West, and that at any moment we're going to start that war again. They have this paranoid fantasy that every American goes to bed and dreams of how to kill one tiny nation smaller than just about every American State just because we didn't beat them back in the 50s.

 

But unlike the Chinese intervention of 1950, Kim is saying that with the few nukes he has, he's big enough to start that war again, and considering the possible ecological damage to the region, it isn't a matter of whether he's big and bad enough; it's how many of his own will die when the retaliation comes.

 

Think of it this way; the last time a nuke was dropped in anger was in August of 1945, more than eight years before I was born. The total casualties from nuclear weapons, including all of the long term deaths have been less than 300,000.

 

Yet you expect the UN to do nothing while Kim could fire off a single warhead at what would be euphemistically call a 'legitimate' target and increase that worldwide toll by a thousand percent with one blast?

 

In comparison, this is one guy in one small town of a couple of hundred people who decides he has the legal right to demand the others let him do what he wants because he just bought an illegal gun.

 

If the UN just stays out of NK's business as you so cogently put it, they lose the moral right to expect anyone else in the world to refrain from war just because they want to.

 

Korea said they would not develop nukes, they lied. Strike one.

 

They stole the material from a legitimate legal use, their own power plant. Strike two.

 

Now they are pretty much threatening every neighbor that for whatever reason is host to an American base. Strike three.

 

The only reason they are not out, is the same reason a cop doesn't just step out of his car and open fire on a criminal fleeing the scene of a robbery.

 

The problem from my point is that the horrible nasty Americans will end up pulling that trigger for the UN, and I think we would rather not kill another twenty odd Million to stop yet another madman.