What Will U.S. Do About N. Korea?

AP ^ | 10/18/02 | PAULINE JELINEK

[Mike Darancette]

North Korea is far less of a danger to her neighbors, S. Korea and China than Iraq is to hers. I suggest we put the Korea ball into China's court for now.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Have you considered that China is helping North Korea?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

And though successive U.S. military commanders have said a war there would be winnable, they estimate that casualties could be massive and destruction to South Korea catastrophic.

Nuke 'em.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I thought Bill and Jimmy had cleaned this up...

[Mr. Bird]

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said North Korea must allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities and agree to destroy whatever weapons of mass destruction it has.

This guy is such a cartoon.

[CatoRenasci]

Asked whether the United States might use military force, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "We're not planning anything of that nature right now."

I love this reply!. Notice Powell did not say we would not use force. And, since no doubt contigency plans for using force against NK's nuclear establishment surely exist and are kept up to date on a regular basis, there's no need to plan 'anything of that nature right now' as it's in the can.

[Seruzawa]

Nuke 'em.

Nuke whom? Kim and his criminal henchmen? A couple of million oppressed farmers?

[Non-Sequitur]

Nuke North Korea and the fallout will depopulate whole sections of South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. You think that they will sit still for that?

[RGSpincich]

I don't want to know what the US is going to do about Korea. I just want to hear about things going "boom" in the night over there. It's time for a Mission Impossible cast reunion.

[ClearCase_guy]

Nuke whom? Kim and his criminal henchmen? A couple of million oppressed farmers?

While I see no reason for us to go off half-cocked, this sort of reply really irks me. In a war (if there is to be a war) innocent farmers get killed. It always happens. It's sad, but unavoidable. We can't decide not to got to war ever again, because we might kill an oppressed farmer.

I maintain that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the 2 greatest Humanitarian acts of the 20th century. I think Truman deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? Because at least a million (possibly 2 million) Japanese would have been killed if we had sent in the US Army to conquer all of Japan. Our atomic bombs made that unnecessary and killed 200,000 so that we could spare a further 800,000 (at least). That's a humane act, in my book.

[Conagher]

"This January, 1989 Institute for Science and International Security image shows an overview of the Yongbyon nuclear site. The older buildings, the IRT reactor, the Isotope Production Laboratory, and the Institute of Radiochemistry are shown in the upper portion of these photographs. The 5 megawatts-electric (MWe) reactor and associated buildings are in an area just south of the oldest part of the center. ( Institute for Science and International Security via Reuters)"

[Sgt Carter]

oh, now he tells me that he used the f... word maybe that's why. Could that be why? but they won't let him post now.

[agrandis]

Truman wouldn't let Macarthur nuke the Chinese before they had nukes. Would have saved us a lot of trouble, to say the least, and maybe saved NK from a nightmarish existence for 5 decades.

However, what about fallout? How many South Koreans would it be acceptable to kill?

[CaptRon]

"The reality of the United States using force unilaterally against North Korea is extremely difficult, if not impossible,"

Says who? We are the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and if we deemed it necessary to confront N. Koreas 1.7 million soldiers their muster the next day would find the ranks several hundred thousand men short.

[philetus]

I'm sure China is helping N. Korea. Why would they stop now?

A nuclear war would be counter productive to China's goal, at this time though.

[Admin Moderator]

Your friend's account was removed by Jim because he finds the name inappropriate. It wasn't the content of his comments, it was his chosen screen name.

[Mike Darancette]

Have you considered that China is helping North Korea?

Why and how?