Posted on 02/10/2005 6:51:04 AM PST by dead
IT would be grotesque indeed if Kim Jong-Il, the weird ruler of North Korea, became the second dictator to bluff his way into catastrophic war with the US on the basis of nuclear weapons that do not exist.
North Korea's bizarre statement that it already has nuclear weapons and will now develop more is impossible to interpret confidently.
US intelligence has long believed North Korea probably does have one or perhaps two crude nuclear devices.
However, there is intense debate within the US intelligence community over the extent and nature of Pyongyang's nuclear program.
There has always been a minority view in Western intelligence that North Korea is engaged in a great bluff. In this scenario, Kim Jong-Il is behaving like Saddam Hussein - deriving status and power from the aura of weapons of mass destruction.
However, no one can be confident in this analysis.
Certainly, North Korea has two separate nuclear programs - both of which can yield weapons-grade material.
One is a plutonium program based on the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. The other is a highly enriched uranium program dispersed at different locations in North Korea.
Two years ago The Australian revealed extensive Pentagon contingency plans to attack North Korea's nuclear facilities.
The Bush administration, while wishing to solve the problem diplomatically, has never taken the military option off the table.
But there are three devastating road blocks to such action. One, Washington could not be sure it had got all North Korea's nuclear facilities in any attack. Two, the US military is already fully extended in Iraq. Three, North Korea has vast batteries of artillery, deeply embedded in rugged mountainside, all trained on the South Korean capital, Seoul.
Nonetheless it is difficult to imagine Washington would do nothing if, as the North Korean official statement claims, the rogue Communist state now embarks on producing new nuclear weapons.
North Korea has a history of crazy statements, which often turn out to be false. But you wouldn't bet your life on this statement being untrue.
This is a crisis from hell.
"I say we take off and nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Their leader should be in a insane asylum.
of course they're bluffing. osama's ilk have them thinking they can provoke us into a first strike. when dealing with idiots, try to think like an idiot.
To borrow a line from Crocodile Dundee:
"You call that a nuclear weapon? THIS is a nuclear weapon."
We could deliver those faster. Tell them to go ahead and deliver a half dozen. My treat!
Yep. Gooday mate.
""I say we take off and nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Game over, man....game over.
(although in this case, nerve-gassing the whole nest might actually work!)
Japan has said that if North Korea goes nuclear, they will too, in self defense.
China goes into meltdown at the thought of a nuclear Japan. They remember WWII.
China has complete control of North Korea if they chose to use it. If China closes the border, The lights go off in North Korea, the vehicles stop moving, and everyone starves to death within a few weeks.
I think China likes to see the West squirm as long as possible, but in the end, they will squash Kim one way or the other.
So9
And Japan and Russia and China. Nuking North Korea could result in radioactive fallout that could de-populate whole parts of any one of those countries. And don't think that the North Koreans don't know that.
Of course.
Well-my thought would have been that we could relocate our troops if that were what we were going to do. But then again I'm no military strategerist.
"Hey baby, what's your isotope? That lead housing can't hide your radiation. I can tell you're hot for my electrodes. Wanna go thermonuclear in my rocket?"
Since there is no one for them to use nuclear weapons against but South Korea maybe the time has come for the South Koreans to start their own nuclear weapons program... if they haven't already. The NK nuclear blackmail gambit might then be neutered... so to speak
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