[NJ_gent]

"South Korea knows that the "cost" of U.S. military action against North Korea may very well be the annihilation of Seoul in a North Korean nuclear attack"

Supposedly, Seoul is well within range of North Korea's arsenal of conventional missiles and could be leveled without a single piece of North Korean equipment having to roll across the DMZ. That would negate their even having to use their nuclear weapons for anything north of Seoul. Tokyo, however, I can imagine would be hit with a nuclear weapons fairly soon. If, God forbid, they've managed to miniaturize the components for the nuclear weapons enough that they can mount them on a Tae-po Dong II, then we could see nuclear weapons capable of hitting US shores as well. That's the risk we take with any military action against North Korea. At the same time, if we don't take action, they're going to complete work on the Tae-po Dong III, which could deliver a nuclear weapon to Washington, DC. At that point, we'd be at the mercy of the North Koreans.

This is, yet again, the reason I've said all along that we should have taken care of North Korea before Iraq. North Korea was a bigger threat than Iraq before we went in, and they're a much bigger threat now than Iraq ever was.

[plain talk]

I agree with you. But look at the heat Bush is getting over Iraq which was a no-brainer. Can you imagine the flack for starting a nuke war over there with this fruitcake? We should have dealt with this problem many years ago. But we are where are now. To deal with it properly now means anniliation of Seoul. This is politically unacceptable to any president. Won't happen. I think the only answer is small swat teams taking out pieces of NK slowly over time. Kind of reverse terrorism inside NK.