Mark Steyn (click below for entire article):
Take a look at a satellite picture of the peninsula by night: South Korea ablaze in electric light, the North in darkness. In Far East Asia, North Korea’s the hole in the doughnut.
North Korea at Night
Posted on 05/11/2005 7:02:17 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Thursday 12.05.2005, CET 03:52
May 12, 2005 1:05 AM
please read in lead paragraph ...inbound North Korean missile... instead of ...inbound North Korean president... .
A corrected story follows.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department is weighing whether a decision to shoot down any suspected inbound North Korean missile should go all the way to the president, a top general told Congress on Wednesday.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command that coordinates U.S. missile defense operations, said the authorization would ideally come from the president and the secretary of defense, but there might not be time enough.
"As you can imagine, getting the president, the secretary, the regional combat commander into a conversation and a conference in a three to four-minute time frame is going to be challenging," Cartwright told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense. "So what are the rules that we lay down?
"We are working very hard with the secretary to lay down those rules and understand the risks associated with those very quick and timely decisions that are going to have to be made ... when we deal with the North Korean threat," he testified.
North Korea, at odds with the United States over its nuclear program, is believed to have the capability to mount a warhead on one of its long-range missiles, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month.
Cartwright said the U.S. missile defense system is designed to "characterize" a threat in its first three to four minutes of flight. This could leave as little as three minutes to decide whether to fire ground-based interceptors if the suspected target were Alaska or Hawaii.
Since October, the multibillion-dollar missile shield of radars, sensors, interceptors and battle management capabilities has been in a "shakedown" or check-out period similar to that used before a warship enters the operational fleet.
The ground-based system's prime contractor is Boeing Co..
Ships equipped with Lockheed Martin Corp. Aegis combat systems also have been patrolling the Sea of Japan to provide long-range surveillance and tracking data to the battle management system.
"Is it phone calls that we make? Do we use the command and control system in the displays to inform the national command authority? How are we going to bring them together?" Cartwright asked.
Last year, when interceptors were lowered into their silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the threat was defined as "two to five missiles coming from North Korea," he testified.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, told the committee that current missile defense fielding activities were a "direct response" to perceived dangers from North Korea and Iran.
While two recent aborted interceptor test flights had been "very disappointing," the Missile Defense Agency remained confident in the system's design, its ability to knock out targets and its "inherent operational ability," Obering said.
Reuters
BMD (and to a lesser degree, even regular air defense) is a game of "shoot first, ask stupid questions later and sort it out when its on the ground". Anything that slows the time from launch detection and positive identification to weapons-free and engaging the missile is unnecessary and needs to be eliminated.
When dealing with weapons that can kill millions if they detonate, you don't ask questions, you just open fire until you're absolutely certain that the target is destroyed. Then you shoot it a few more times just in case.
This is a joke, right? They're going to be hand-wringing and buck-passing while megatons are incoming?
No, they need to fire at anything headed our way, then report the results--not waste a second seeking permission to fire.
Knock it down, then turn the peninsula north of the 38th parallel into a glass parking lot.
You are exactly right!
It is alledged that there are 3 million "tubes" pointed at South Korea and 300,000 of em can deliver rounds accurate or not on Seoul in less that 1 minute.....
By tubes I mean Artillery, MLRS, Heavy and Medium Mortars....etc . Anyone know if this is valid ?
And we are wondering if we should find him in the seconds needed to give a shootdown order on a NK rocket?
Who knows how many of those tubes are loaded and operable in 2005? Who knows if the NK C&C is still intact, that is, would generals pass down the nationally suicidal "Gotterdamerung" order if Kim Jong Il decided to go out in a blaze of glory with a mass attack on Seoul?
Politicians, they'll be the death of us yet.
My suggestion shoot it down SHEESH
BTW guys for the American on the board Target going start selling Kim Jong 11 masterpiece Team America in week of April 17 it being advertise right now at my local SO Cal Target store
It's true per all the intel we have, though the number of tubes or rails that can actually range on Seoul is only about 250,000. More than enough to do the city.
The current word from defectors and intel is that 85-100% of them are still operable. It is apparently a capital offense in the NK Army to let your artillery piece to be inoperable outside of maintenance times.
That, their nuclear and missile programs, and the rest of their army is where all the money they have that Mentally Il doesn't appropriate goes.
I thought I'd read that at some point ......They'll rain a whole lot more hurt than one or two low yeild smokers IMO.
Stay safe !
John Kerry is very concerned that we will continue development of a nuclear bunker buster thus negating the advantage of North Korea in its extensive use of German tunneling machines.
Actually Kerry should encourage our weapons development: If left unchecked, sooner or later the North Korean tunneling efforts will uncover Kerry's original service records.
Now that's just damn funny .... !
Kerry.....theres a name I can forget easily.
OMGGG rack that LOLOLOL! ROFL
NOW that very funny LOL!
I don't know if those numbers are accurate, but that is what I have heard as well.
Mark Steyn (click below for entire article):
Take a look at a satellite picture of the peninsula by night: South Korea ablaze in electric light, the North in darkness. In Far East Asia, North Korea’s the hole in the doughnut.
North Korea at Night
Rules are simple:
1. Any unanounced lauch which leaves North Korean airspace - immediate destruction.
2. Any announced lauch which, due to trajectory, could pose a threat, immediate destruction.
Where is the problem??
In that case, useful idiots have nothing else to do.:-)
Definitely
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