Replies

With the caveat that a broken clock being right twice a day is the best example of simple "coincidence", I think three "coincidences" have been mentioned already (not knowing whether they add up to anything more than their face value)

1) Kim Jong-Il passed through the station 9 hrs before the blast (sounds like a big miss, but he reportedly likes to visit a factory there and someone may have thought he might stop there). He is feared, and hated. We are not the only ones who do not know what is going on over there. I doubt he knows half of what is going on over there. When folks are too scared to tell you anything but "yes", you then isolate yourself from the truth. The truth is that they are in a state of catastrophic collapse and are past the point where they can extort enough money from us to cover their losses. The only way they will get the massive infusion of aid needed to bail them out is to cough up their nukes, every last one of them.

If they try to go south, they (their military and foreign intel) know how that game ends (even if they dare not say it out loud). The question is whether the "Dear Leader" does.

NMD reportedly goes active in a matter of weeks (I think the papers said they moved it from Sept to June). It will inhibit their capability to launch their nukes on the US (everyone reading this is 30-40 minutes away from a North Korean nuke). Once NMD is up and running, it substantially degrades their arsenal (which is probably much larger than either this administration or the previous one would admit - - even the new estimate of 8 warheads is probably low, but better than the number of 1 or 2 that has been the party line since 1993). You cannot feasibly transfer a meaningful number of nukes to a terrorist group and infiltrate them into the US without getting caught. You can launch a significant number (in theory), and retain some for a second-strike deterrent.

People can have itchy trigger fingers.

2) He was returning from a historic trip to China (I think he has been there once before and to Russia once and that is it) where the Chinese leadership is reportedly trying to get him to fork over his nukes and get a grip on reality (leave his Hitlerian fantasy-land and join the real world a la Libya). Many if not most in the North Korean leadership tie their survival to the arsenal. If they surrender the means to reunify the peninsula militarily, then the regime is consigned to the dustbin of history. So they may adopt a "use-it-or-lose-it" mentality. Third option is negotiations. They give us what we want (the nukes). We give them what they want (a lifeboat). Problem is that there may be differences of opinion in the leadership on striking a deal (unexpressed though they are)

3) There are reports of a major power struggle inside North Korea. A week or two before the trip, the second most powerful man in North Korea (Kim's brother-in-law Chang/Jang) was removed from his post. His entire family is tied into the power structure (I think one of Chang's brothers is a military general, another is high up in internal security).

On the other hand, the "accident" could still be a coincidence. They shut everything down before he came through, and with all the extreme security precautions, when they tried to bring everything back "online" once he had left, someone did not realize that explosives were near a live wire.

We cannot seem to figure out how many nukes they have. I wouldn't expect anyone to get to the bottom of this one anytime soon. It's like old-school Sovietology - - reading entrails. At least the death toll was much less than originally estimated (South Korean TV initially said 3,000 dead or injured - - no telling where they pulled that number from)

Whatever happened, it is bound to make them more jumpy, and that is not a good thing. Jumpy people make bad decisions. And this would be precisely the wrong moment to pull troops tasked to Korea and put them in Iraq. Serious people are talking about this, and it is simply insane.

BTW, North Korea trains jihadis. *Lots* of them. They were "country before country was cool". And they probably were/are up to their eyeballs in terrorism of the worst kind.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Funny, I knew that your analysis would scare the Jujubees out of me, but I needed to hear it, regardless.

The only way they will get the massive infusion of aid needed to bail them out is to cough up their nukes, every last one of them.

(everyone reading this is 30-40 minutes away from a North Korean nuke)

Gulp. Hurry up June!

Many if not most in the North Korean leadership tie their survival to the arsenal.

What about the rest of the military and the North Korean people? Have they been so cut off from reality that they would cling to this leadership who have and are starving them to death? Probably, yes. (I just answered my own question, heh.) I guess they wouldn't have the energy to revolt??

There are reports of a major power struggle inside North Korea.

What do you know about Chang or anyone who might survive a power struggle? I guess I'm asking, can anyone be worse than Jong-Il?

BTW, North Korea trains jihadis. *Lots* of them. They were "country before country was cool". And they probably were/are up to their eyeballs in terrorism of the worst kind.

Nothing to add to that, simply bears repeating!

Nice to hear from you again.

Vel