North Korea Conducts Fifth Nuclear Test -- The Largest One Yet (cnn.com) 243
TMB writes: As reported by CNN, North Korea has conducted its 5th nuclear test, the largest yet at 10 kilotons.
Before the test was reported, Slashdot reader hcs_$reboot reported: A magnitude 5.3 earthquake has been detected in North Korea, amid reports the country had been preparing for its fifth nuclear test. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said it had been an "artificial quake." The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor had been detected in the north-east of North Korea, close to a known nuclear test site. The earthquake occurred close to the surface, the USGS said. The shallow depth and precise timing of the quake suggests it was man-made. North Korea says it has tested a nuclear warhead and that the test showed the warhead "has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets."
Can't have happened ... (Score:4, Funny)
North Korea says it has tested a nuclear warhead and that the test showed the warhead "has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets."
This can't have happened, Bill Clinton signed an agreement with North Korea.
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Their claims for what the test showed is false. Successfully detonating a weak nuke doesn't indicate that it's been standardized, or it will function on a ballistic missile. (Rockets have no guidance, so only a total F'ing moron would put one on a rocket.)
V2 rockets hit London from French territory during WW2. North Korea could hit Seoul, its only 35 miles from the border.
Re: NONSENSE! (Score:2)
Back then japan was made of paper . concrete structures survived well. Infact after 2 blocks the pressure wave is on par to a hurricane tho a little warmer
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It is terrifying to think that there are people who have no conception of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
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It is terrifying to think that there are people who have no conception of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
Amen. And the idea that if they send one out to punish some entity that they will be around to appreciate it for more than a day, if that. WTF?
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Actually very few V2 were sent from France, most launch sites were in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The first V2 was sent in September 1994.
I KNEW Hitler was a time traveler!!
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...I KNEW Hitler was a time traveler!!...
But there's less lead in the water now. This one could be.. uh... well they're already out of their real-world minds in NK, so.. yeah.
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Their claims for what the test showed is false.
As a claim, yes, it's false. Which means we don't know whether they actually have those standardized nukes or not.
...so only a total F'ing moron would put one on a rocket.
Yes, indeed, he would.
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I mean, the man wrote 1,500 books in three years while at a University. He picked up a golf club in 1984 and hit a 38 with no fewer than 11 holes in one. They couldn't possibly be crazy liars, could they?
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...(Rockets have no guidance, so only a total F'ing moron would put one on a rocket.)...
So you're saying he'll do it..? Har.
Some people in some parts of the world don't understand what "real world" is when they've been brainwashed since birth.
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Maybe it would have gone to shit anyway, but by 2006 they were setting off nukes. Personally I think an approach other than Bush's of insults and perpetual vacation would have had different results.
Here's what happened as a list of events from someone far more careful to avoid bais than I.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron
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Not quite but close. Then the "axis of evil" speech happened and it all went to shit. Maybe it would have gone to shit anyway, but by 2006 they were setting off nukes.
Over a year before Bill leaves office North Korea is flying missiles over Japan and his administration suspects that North Korean is cheating on the nuclear deal.
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So a halt for close to a couple of years is the same as missiles every few months since plus atomic fucking bombs being detonated?
Besides it wasn't really Clinton doing the work but instead of bunch that were mainly military. Powell was set to finish the job but then baby Bush decided to pretend to be "strong" and absolutely fuck everything up.
Could it have been solved? Maybe,
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Nukes are obsolete (Score:2)
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Precision weapons are much more useful.
If you are the worlds police force and you care about humanity yes, that is true. If you are looking for an effective deterrent and you demonstrait routinely to your potential enemies satisfaction you don't really care about the lives of the innocent than it isn't true.
I am plenty frightened that DPRK would use a weapon like this as a response against South Korea, Japan or any other first world aligned Asian power if an attack on them was made and failed to immediately cripple these assets. I fear they wo
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Nukes are better for influencing public opinion. Threaten to send a nuke at Washington DC and millions of ordinary people panic. Threaten to send precision strikes against the pentagon and the white house and only those people head for the bunkers.
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More useful for what? Until someone describes the problem they're trying to solve, I'd hesistate to talk about the relative merits of various solutions.
How much can he keep testing? (Score:3)
Fire the gun into the ground until the clips empty...
Oh this'll be worth watching with popcorn (Score:2)
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Informative)
Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
I am much less worried about them than Muslim countries with the bomb. North Korean rulers are ruthless and power hungry but rational to the degree that they don't want to be wiped out in a counter-strike. Many Muslims would see a counter-strike as an advantage, with millions of people becoming martyrs and getting their millions * 27 virgins.
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Most of us don't have to care - until all cheap stuff from South Korea, Japan and Taiwan and possibly China ends due to a local war.
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Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
I am much less worried about them than Muslim countries with the bomb. North Korean rulers are ruthless and power hungry but rational to the degree that they don't want to be wiped out in a counter-strike. Many Muslims would see a counter-strike as an advantage, with millions of people becoming martyrs and getting their millions * 27 virgins.
I quite agree. Nork is all about an egomaniac running a Communist monarchy. Massage his ego, and he's happy.
With Muzzies, everyone wants to demonstrate to the other that theirs is the 'true Islam', as blessed by allah, and that their victories demonstrate that imaginary support. Iran getting the bomb wouldn't be new for the ummah - Pakistan already has it, but have been in too much of a turmoil to actually use it against India
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Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
I am much less worried about them than Muslim countries with the bomb. North Korean rulers are ruthless and power hungry but rational to the degree that they don't want to be wiped out in a counter-strike. Many Muslims would see a counter-strike as an advantage, with millions of people becoming martyrs and getting their millions^27 virgins.
Took care of a little mistype for ya. ;)
Re: aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is in the Quran, but it is not clear how to interpret it. 72 may be the actual number, or just 'a very large number'. Furthermore it is not clear if you get virgins or 'grapes'. Obviously you will not get 72 grapes, but this likely means that you will get 'infinite food'. This is actually likely, as in the times it was written hunger was an even bigger problem compared to today.
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Furthermore it is not clear if you get virgins or 'grapes'.
Riiiiight.
Re: aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Note the use, some years back, of "bad" meaning "good" in American English. Or "bad" meaning "tough". Among MANY other changes over the years.
Languages change, for better or worse. Why should Arabic be any different?
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The Arabic logical fallacy (Score:3)
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In a nutshell, this reduces to the notion that there is no way for something to be perfect unless everyone is exactly the same. I'm not saying the Quran (or anything else, necessarily) is perfect, but I think your argument is flawed.
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Well, on the plus side, the grapes could be strung together to make anal beads.
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Well, on the plus side, the grapes could be strung together to make anal beads.
That's a lotta anal grape juice.
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Freeze them first- and work quickly.
virginity of allah's houris (Score:2)
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
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You are absolutely correct. The history of nuclear weapons is that one country getting them, means other countries get them:
The US bomb begat the Soviet bomb.
The Soviet bomb begat the Chinese bomb, the English bomb, and the French bomb.
The Chinese bomb begat the Pakistani bomb.
the Pakistani bomb begat the Indian bomb.
In recent years, the US conventional war machine and dubiously-justified invasions begat the North Korean bomb, and progress on the Iranian bomb.
The one exception to all this seems to be South
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Another exception is Israel -- the only country on that list that's at all hostile to Israel is Pakistan, but Israel's nuclear weapons program predates Pakistan's.
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South African here, we actually dismantled our nuclear weapons program well before apartheid ended in 1994, it was only announced then once the international inspectors were allowed in. I think the end of the program started in 1988 and took two years to complete.
Officially it was ended to build peace and stability in the region after the end of the Angolan war, but there are whispers in the air that it was done to prevent the ANC from getting their hands on WMDs and possibly selling them on to the highest
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Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, if we don't require the virgins to be straight it gets a lot easier to reach the quota.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Virgins? I'd rather have 72 slutty girls who knew what they were doing.
Heard more than one comedian, some of them Muslim, make that joke. A more creative one was "72 virgins? I hope not. I don't want 72 phone calls about 'So, where is this going?' and having to meet 114 parents."
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72 virgins is a good investment.
The afterlife is long, and these 72 virgins will probably get a lot of experience along the way. And while you can turn a virgin into a slutty girl, the opposite is impossible.
If, for some reason, you really can't stand virgins, you also get 8000 servants in the package, so you can pick a few of your virgins and send them for training.
virgin count (Score:2)
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Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
You mean attack something again? There was the North Korean invasion of South Korea back in the 1950s, before a prepared US military and a prepared South Korean military were sitting on the border.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its a bit more complicated than that - the partition of Korea only happened in 1948, two years before the Korean War started, and *both* sides were making aggressive noises and movements toward the other, it was simply the North that first moved en mass south of the border to reunite the country. The South at that point was still building its military in preparation for its own invasion of the North, as well as disenfranchising a huge number of its own citizens who were communist or didn't support the US-and-UN imposed elections.
By the start of the Korean War in 1950, the South had imprisoned 30,000 communists, and had interred 300,000 more in "reeducation camps". They had also killed more than 60,000 of their own citizens in various quellings of uprisings by disowned groups. The North were doing their own similar thing, sure, but I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War. After all, you hardly ever hear that, in the early days of the war, the southern president, Syngmam Rhee, ordered the executions of between 100,000 and 200,000 of his political opponents in the Bodo League massacre.
The North today may be run by nut jobs, but do not mistake the cause of the Korean War as solely the Norths fault, nor on the same level as todays North Korea...
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Its a bit more complicated than that - the partition of Korea only happened in 1948, two years before the Korean War started, and *both* sides were making aggressive noises and movements toward the other, it was simply the North that first moved en mass south of the border to reunite the country. The South at that point was still building its military in preparation for its own invasion of the North ...
And it is not as simple as you suggest. While both sides claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea and desired reunification, only one side had the actual capability to force reunification. The North, far better armed than the South due to Chinese and Soviet support, had the capability to completely overwhelm the South. The South had no such capability.
By the start of the Korean War in 1950, the South had imprisoned 30,000 communists, and had interred 300,000 more in "reeducation camps". They had also killed more than 60,000 of their own citizens in various quellings of uprisings by disowned groups. The North were doing their own similar thing, sure, but I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War ...
Failing to indicate that the North engaged in such practices on a far larger and even more brutal scale is a whitewashing of the North.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:4, Insightful)
You ignore the fact that the South is well documented as being as aggressive toward the North over the border prior to the invasion, and indeed again it is well documented that it was the South which started many of the skirmishes and exchanges of gun fire that blighted that period. Syngman Rhee is on record that he wanted to conquer the North by any means necessary.
And no, concentrating on one side while *explicitly* saying that is what I am doing does not in any way diminish the acts of the other side - especially when the point is to dispel the very polarised image that people have of the North and South during the Korean War. Trying to say otherwise is merely an ad hominem attack rather than engaging in the discussion.
At that point in time, the South were every much the bit as brutal as the North - hundreds of thousands forced into reeducation camps, hundreds of thousands executed, tens of thousands killed in up risings etc etc etc.
But it would seem that people like you don't like that side of history being brought up - to people like you, the South is completely innocent, and *that* is quite disturbing because it means you arent willing to look at the history of the region in a dispassionate or detached manner...
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You ignore the fact that the South is well documented as being as aggressive toward the North over the border prior to the invasion, and indeed again it is well documented that it was the South which started many of the skirmishes and exchanges of gun fire that blighted that period.
While the South may have made futile impotent symbolic gestures the North planned and prepared and executed a full scale invasion.
At that point in time, the South were every much the bit as brutal as the North
The political oppression and political indoctrination and violence of the South pales in comparison to the North.
But it would seem that people like you don't like that side of history being brought up
Untrue, I just don't believe in logical fallacy of false equivalency.
Big Difference - US Restraint vs Soviet Aggression (Score:4, Insightful)
Even as you go through the Cold War, the United States played a very careful balancing act, trying to prop up the South while actively constraining them from launching a reunification campaign (that could spiral into WWIII) and actively squashed any efforts by the South to become a nuclear state. The North has always been much more openly aggressive, maintaining a forward positioned posture and threatening invasion at every turn.
There's also still no overlooking that the South has evolved into a relatively liberal, democratic society that is a responsible global player. Whereas the North is still very much an old school totalitarian dictatorship which continues to flout international norms.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:4, Insightful)
The OP pointed directly to the 1950 invasion as their point, so that is what I talk about - and if you read my comments in full, you would note that I accept that NK today is run by nut jobs, but that doesn't change the situation back then.
Its also worth noting that South Korea never signed the 1953 Armistice Agreement which resulted in the "permanent" partition of Korea into the North and South - it was signed by the UN and the North, but not the South. Odd that...
Meanwhile, the South hasn't exactly seen a great 75 years itself - coups, assassinations, martial law, political murders, torture of dissidents, dictatorships etc etc
Re: aggression inevitable? (Score:3)
Ive been to sk. Its nice and darn nicer than nk
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I never said it wasnt.
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Now. Till the 1970ies it was the other way around. Back then North Korea has been actually less authoritarian than South Korea, as funny as it may sound nowdays.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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By the start of the Korean War in 1950, the South had imprisoned 30,000 communists, and had interred 300,000 more in "reeducation camps". They had also killed more than 60,000 of their own citizens in various quellings of uprisings by disowned groups. The North were doing their own similar thing, sure, but I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War. After all, you hardly ever hear that, in the early days of the war, the southern president, Syngmam Rhee, ordered the executions of between 100,000 and 200,000 of his political opponents in the Bodo League massacre.
You didn't mention it, but the only reason you have that information to talk about is because South Korea is a well functioning democracy and you have no access at all to information about what North Korea did at the time. We don't know if they did the same, more or less. And as far as white-washing goes, that may simply be your view of the situation from outside South Korea. For all I know people in South Korea have a really good understanding of what went on and it's not white-washed there at all. The
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but I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War
[...]
The North today may be run by nut jobs, but do not mistake the cause of the Korean War as solely the Norths fault, nor on the same level as todays North Korea...
Nor should you. Despite your attempts at some sort of reverse whitewashing, it remains that North Korea started the war and would have finished it with a brutal tyranny over the entire Korean peninsula, if it weren't for the direct intervention of a superpower. It wasn't solely North Korea's fault. They had considerable help from the USSR and China.
But to cast blame on South Korea because they did evil things that were irrelevant to North Korea's interests? Well, I guess they showed weakness by not
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:4, Insightful)
I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War.
I noticed that last night. When reading about this nuclear test I noticed that the article was referring to the South Korean president as Ms. Park, so I looked her up ( I didn't realize they had a female president). She's the first female president, and the daughter of Park Chung-Hee, who led a military coup against the government and is described as a strongman dictator who led the Third Republic of South Korea after the coup, then in 1972 he declared martial law and made the constitution much more authoritarian (which led to the Fourth Republic of South Korea), before being assassinated by the chief of his own security services in 1979. That eventually led to the Fifth Republic of South Korea, which lasted until 1987 and now they are the Sixth Republic of South Korea. His daughter Park Geun-Hye is the sixth president of the sixth republic (11th president overall, and the 18th presidential term). So yeah, it's definitely a bit complicated.
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Why? You fail to provide an argument - it sounds like you simply don't want to agree that I have a point, and thus need to look for any excuse in order to discount said point.
You do realise what "white washing" refers to, right?
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Umm...it's not quite so simple as that. Before the Korean war there was no concrete North Korea and South Korea. Neither government recognized the border or each other. Poor old Korea split up due to the meddling of the super powers.
Actually it is quite simple. In 1950 and today North Korea does not recognize the legitimacy of the South Korean government and considers reunification by force to be a legitimate option. There is no peace treaty ending the Korean War, just a Cease Fire. North Korea has occasionally conducted raids into South Korea and killed South Korean over the decades of this Cease Fire.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:4, Informative)
Nah, this sorta thing is pretty much SOP for NK, they'll be all like "Raaaah look at us we are like SUPER dangerous! Give us oil and food or we use our spooky new powers!"
Then we give them oil and food and they step back down, when that stuff runs out - they go "Raaaaaah!" again.
They've done it before.
Besides there's a long way from a functional nuclear device to a missile deliverable one.
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They'll be all like "Raaaah look at us we are like SUPER dangerous! Give us oil and food or we use our spooky new powers!"
That has indeed been their peculiar form of diplomacy during some past crises.
Besides there's a long way from a functional nuclear device to a missile deliverable one.
Also true, but how far are they on their way by now? They're determined, have been busy for years, have taken several tests, and announced they're done. Hard to verify, but that might actually be the case.
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Well, there's two different ways of making a nuclear ballistic missile.
1. Make a huge fucking rocket and put your big heavy crude weapon on top of it. See: Titan series of ICBMs, also used to launch Gemini capsules into orbit.
2. Use a staggering amount of resources to miniaturize your nuclear weapon, and use a smaller more efficient rocket. See: anything currently in the US, Russian, or Chinese arsenal, such as the Minuteman or Trident series of ICBMs.
North Korea has had very public issues with #1, and
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It's Kim Jong Un trying to consolidate his power. His health has deteriorated a lot since he came to power, he walks with a stick and has become obese. It's put down to stress.
He is trying to look strong by showing he can stand up to the US and defend NK from it. He wants to prove he is a great military strategist.
Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
North Korea is the buffer between China and the US forces, a North Korean attack would lead to the regime's fall and probably a reunification into a strong pro-western country which I'm sure China doesn't want. Despite all the saber rattling I'm fairly sure Kim wouldn't try pulling it off alone. In fact, I think China would tell him that in case of a unilateral attack they'd roll in and occupy North Korea themselves before US-led forces could do it. Even if 99,99% of the population is ignorant some must know the real state of the country and its technology, this is not Nazi Germany. This is a backwater podunk with a not-so-unwarranted paranoia after being named in the "axis of evil" and the invasion of Iraq. Fuck what everyone else thinks, it's better to have the arms to defend yourself and act like you could use them. He'd be right at home in the US, in another life.
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I'm pretty sure the senior military are quite happy with the current situation, and should the leader of North Korea seek to alter that wholesale by resuming military activity in any serious way against the South, I have no doubt that there would be a quick and sudden illness and subsequent replacement of their supreme commander...
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Re:aggression inevitable? (Score:5, Informative)
While the North does have a huge army, its main value (note I said "value", not "intention") is in its defensive ability - its artillery, bunkers, sheer weight of numbers etc. By and large, the NK military is still stuck in the 1960s, and would be decimated should it choose to cross the DMZ - it lacks serious armour, air support and mobility, and the NK supply chain is pathetic.
The nuclear option adds a certain ... flavour to the mix, but NK only have a few bombs, and those are questionable. Seoul may get nuked, it may not - for any chance of a nuke hitting Seoul, it would need to be either mounted on a rocket, or fired as an artillery shell, and both of those options require some serious technical ability which the NK's lack. Airborne delivery is out of the question, as any NK aircraft wouldnt get far into the South before being shot down. Hand delivery is a distinct possibility, but nuking Seoul doesn't win the North the war, and it would have no effect on the US troops in the South.
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Japanese news is reporting that analyst think NK has the ability to accurately target short range missiles now. They can't get as far as Japan, but South Korea can be hit with precision, they say, as well as shipping off the NK coast.
I don't know how accurate those claims are, but thought they were worth mentioning.
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They can leven Seoul with classic artillery, no need for nukes there. However, if they develop long range missles, the nukes are usefull as defense weapons, should some US president decide it's time for another regime change. They wouold still loose of course, but I doubt the US would tke the rist that one or two of their larger cities are getting nuked in the process.
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All they need to do is put it on a missile, then they can wipe out the US
Not yet. NK is still stoppable. This is probably why nobody is doing anything.
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Actually the reason why no one is doing anything is that despite the posturing of the US and friends, North Korea is a rational actor. Same as Iran.
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Re:Good. We are all N. Koreans today (Score:5, Insightful)
Shia? Sunni? You give them too much credit if you ask me.
If you do a poll, my guess is that the result would be that Shia [wikipedia.org] is some comedian, Sunni is what California is, and over there in that Arab desert is one big homogeneous mass of brown skinned towelheads that wanna kill the American way of life.
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You're right, people in that part of the world are all so unforgivably stupid for thinking that people in some other part of the world are all so unforgivably stupid. It's certainly not you who is unforgivably stupid.
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What can anyone do? An invasion would be a disaster, China would get involved... Diplomacy is difficult while the US and SK continue to antagonise with military "exercises" of their cost.
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All they need to do is put it on a missile, then they can wipe out the US, the bully of the world!!
Could Russia have even wiped out the US in the height of it? I don't think so, destroy a lot of places and kill a lot of people, sure, but wipe out? The NK's are going to need to get their production skates on if they want to wipe out anywhere!
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North Korea isn't that technologically adept, their regime certainly doesn't foster the kind of environment where the required talent can exist readily.
NK technology (Score:2)
North Korea isn't that technologically adept, their regime certainly doesn't foster the kind of environment where the required talent can exist readily.
That's nonsense, or wishful thinking at best. Obviously there are talented people there too. I'm assuming the 'kind of environment' you refer to is the Western ideal one: creative, free, entrepreneurial etcetera. But people can be pretty creative is the alternative is horrible enough too, and that seems to work quite well there. As you can see, for example, here [nknews.org] their computer technology may be somewhat outdated, but well past the 8" hard disk stage - more like beginning of the 21st century. Looks like the
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No, they have Dear Leader calculate everything in his brilliant head.
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Well, the US military plays for keeps, and while NK is figuring out how to build / launch nukes, the US Navy is testing out its shiny new rail gun...
And that's just the stuff the military feels like showing off. We probably have some bombs, in Area 51, that do "things" that most PhD-level Physicists / Chemists would have trouble grasping, let alone the military guards laughing about a small plane dropping a single bomb like that would do any damage...
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If we had any leadership in the White House we would implement a regime change in North Korea.
Exactly who is itching for a fight here? It's not that the NK leadership is exactly peace-loving, but can we blame them for being somewhat suspicious about the US' intentions if this is an accepted way of thinking about foreign policy there?
But countries like North Korea with unstable leaders need to be silenced as well.
'Unstable leaders' ... and this is coming from a country where Donald J. Trump could be chosen as the next president?
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...well...yes, its called an election in the free world. Any nutjob can run....it doesn't mean they get elected. I distinctly remember some guy locked up in jail trying to run for decades. For better or worse you get what the majority vote in and the "people" are responsible for that.
That's part of the beauty of the election process, and it sure beats being stuck with the same ass nugget for life, Amiright Comrade?
By the way, what happens if he losses, are we back to Bush being the strawman?
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The critique is on the warlike culture in the US, not on the past slavery. Slavery is outdated anyway, modern capitalists concluded long ago that it is much cheaper to pay their workers a little and let them care for themselves and let them compete with each other. Slaves are expensive property that has to be kept alive and fed and healthy to be productive. Free-market workers are easily replaced.