[LibertarianInExile]

You made a rather simplistic statement earlier. I wasn't sure if you were unconcerned about those lives, or ignorant of their peril. What you have posted since makes clear that your post was merely intended to emphasize the relative danger Kim is in compared to us. I apologize if my response seemed patronizing--I thought it a point that needed to be made in the event you WERE unaware or unconcerned about these people.

[garbageseeker]

Kim Il-Jung is an extremely dangerous man and he will do anything to regain the Korean Peninsula under his control. That is why its imperative to stop him.

[TexasPatriot8]

Hey that's okay. I sure didn't mean to make it sound like it was a trivial situation there. Really, my initial comment was kinda just a passing one. It was simplistic, but I was more talking about a kinda passing glance at the situation, primarily through the "eyes" of the ICBM scenario. I don't see Il, nutso as he is, as willing to throw it all away on a nuclear missile program that he knows leads only to two places. Dead and out of power, or in prison awaiting execution for war crimes against his people and the South, and out of power. Despots love their power above all things, and I think he'd much rather die while in power after years of maintaining a stand off, trying to look like a tough guy with his nuclear program.

Like others have mentioned, I'm not totally convinced that this isn't just a rouse by the Chinese, seeing if they can bait us into something, or check out our capabilities in responding to a NK missile launch, and then respond publicly, "Gaw-ree, we no be-weev he did dat!" I'd be surprised if in 30 years, there wasn't a military conflict of some sort between the U.S. and China. I think it will be over Taiwan instead of North Korea. It behooves the Chinese to have N.K. there so they don't have U.S. troops right on their border there.

That makes Afghanistan kinda interesting. There iis that tiny little sliver in the NE of Afghanistan that borders far Western China. I wonder how close to that border our troops have come. It would be the first time U.S. troops bordered Chinese troops since the Korean War, and that was when they were shooting at each other. Kinda eerie.