North Korea Declares War on the US by Magonsdaughter

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

North Korea Declares War on the US

POSTED BY: MAGONSDAUGHTER
UPDATED: Friday, April 5, 2013 14:20
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Sunday, March 31, 2013 11:39 PM

North Korea is a joke. That’s why it’s so dangerous

North Korea may look like a country gone mad, but that is exactly why we ought to take its latest display of hubris so seriously. While it should be fixing its crumbling economy, Kim Jong-un's regime prefers to declare a state of war with its southern neighbour and threaten the United States with rockets. To comprehend why it is doing this, and why this crisis is so dangerous, we have to understand its obsession with history.

A defining moment in the North Korean narrative is the Korean War of 1950-53, when the Communist leader Kim Il-sung led the North in an invasion of the South and was pushed back by US-led forces. Schoolchildren in the People's Republic are taught that American troops carried out atrocities against their grandparents and that the US would do it all again were it not for the iron leadership of the Kim family. Equally important is what happened afterwards. In peacetime, the tyrannical Kim Il-sung's power was challenged by liberal reformers, and his response was to shift the ideological justification for the regime away from Marxism and towards a unique quasi-religious nationalism called Juche. Kim became like a god, and when he died he remained head of state, governing from the afterlife.

In official accounts, the birth of his successor, Kim Jong-il, was accompanied by the appearance of a double rainbow. This secretive boy with a bouffant was cast as the god of sport, among other things. When he played his first ever round of golf in 1994, he supposedly scored 11 holes-in-one; North Korea's football coach said that Jong-il guided the team during the 2010 World Cup with the help of an invisible phone - technology that the regime claimed the leader himself had invented. When the next in line, Kim Jong-un, came to power in 2011, the pantheon gained a more gregarious deity, who smiled a lot and visited people in their homes.

North Korea is governed by fantasists, but the fantasy is bolstered by a network of gulags; hard currency raised through drug trafficking and counterfeiting money; the development of nuclear arms; and a huge stockpile of conventional weapons that could level South Korea. Moreover, all this barbarism is justified by a good v evil struggle with the US. The eternal fight against "imperialism" legitimises the Kim family's control of the country; when famine struck in the 1990s, the regime blamed a US embargo and credited the limited relief that was allowed into the country to Kim Jong-il's personal diplomacy. Confronting the US is a matter of personal honour, a fact underlined by an extraordinary order given that, should war occur, a priority must be protecting the nation's 35,000 statues of the Kims.

It is possible that the present crisis is being manufactured for the benefit of the home audience, that Kim Jong-un is reinforcing the propaganda that it is his family that protects the people from US aggression, by first stirring up aggression and then resolving it through diplomacy. But, considering the regime's failing grip on reality, two things could go wrong. First, North Korea might raise the stakes so high that diplomacy becomes impossible and backing down would undermine its authority. This is a regime that would allow its people to suffer rather than accept any compromise.

A second possibility is that the hermit kingdom surrenders to the mad logic of Juche and launches an all-out holy war on the West. Most religions have some element of apocalypse in their theology, and North Korea is no exception. If Kim Jong-un judges that the time has come to purify the South of democracy and invades, his action would surely prompt an American response that, in turn, would draw China into the conflict. It is a terrifying thought that this slightly farcical regime could trigger the war to end all wars.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/north-korea-is-a-joke-thats-why-its-s
o-dangerous-20130401-2h2ih.html#ixzz2PCczvfha

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Monday, April 1, 2013 1:46 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

North Korea has been at war with South Korea and the U.S. for 60 years.

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Monday, April 1, 2013 7:11 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Very unsettling.

I realize we could level the country with conventional arms and sterilize them with nuclear ones, but it didn't get what it's gotten without significant, albeit clandestine, help.

So, what are the goals of those other countries? A proxy war with the US? A chance to forge alliances? Selling arms and technology for profit? A lab to do things they couldn't do in their own countries?

Touch NK and you touch them. And how will they respond?

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Monday, April 1, 2013 7:46 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thanx, Magons. I'm not sure what to think about this; their "threats" to US are laughable and have gone on forever, but they can make a mess over there, and that worries me. And I don't like seeing our own sabre rattlers being encouraged...

On the other hand:

Quote:
Reality check? North Korean parliamentary session shifts tone

North Korea began its annual spring parliamentary session on Monday amid ongoing tensions in the region between Pyongyang, Seoul, and Washington. But in a sign that North Korea might be taking a more realistic approach than its belligerence would suggest, the ruling party declared that a stronger economy remained a top goal of the country, along with expanding its nuclear arsenal.

In recent weeks, North Korea has kept up a steady stream of threats against the United States and South Korea, including plans to "cut off" hot lines to the South and to launch military strikes against the US mainland. Pyongyang has also proclaimed that it would never yield its nuclear weapons under any circumstances. But the parliamentary focus on economic reform suggests that the North may not be as obsessed with its own paranoia as its propaganda suggests.

The Associated Press writes that "there has been a noticeable shift in North Korea's rhetoric to a message that seeks to balance efforts to turn around a moribund economy with nuclear development." Much more at http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2013/0401/Reality-ch
eck-North-Korean-parliamentary-session-shifts-tone?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem

Well, "money talks"--let's hope it keeps talking LOUDLY to their parliament!

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Monday, April 1, 2013 8:09 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I did want to add this to my previous post, but it does somewhat address something you brought up.

I hope no one mistakes me for a person about to be manipulated into supporting a war with NK. I didn't support invading Afghanistan, deeply opposed aggressing against Iraq, am extremely cynical about US support for various countries' Arab Spring, wish the US - as THE major player in the Israel v the rest of the Middle East situation - would adopt a saner policy, and am perplexed and saddened by our position regarding Iran.

While I don't trust NK, my level of mistrust of the US the only slightly less.

That said, I don't feel I know enough about the entire situation regarding NK to make any predictions or project any scenarios. How deeply imbued with their own propaganda is NK? Who are NK's secret supporters? What is their interest in this?

Obviously if NK attacks anyone we have to respond. But anything short of that is to me a troubling interlocking set of unknowns.

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Monday, April 1, 2013 10:29 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I'm not sure what to think about this; their "threats" to US are laughable and have gone on forever, but they can make a mess over there, and that worries me. And I don't like seeing our own sabre rattlers being encouraged...

After reading this thread its obvious that you people have not taken even five minutes to review the North Korean military position.

If all out war broke out the North Koreans are in possession of one of the worlds largest and best trained armies. They have tons of chemical weapons and effective Soviet and Chinease made delivery systems. They have hundreds of aircraft, thousands of tanks. They have over 200,000 fanatical special forces whose training and readiness was once comparible (in their limited sphere of operation) to the Soviet Spetznaz units who trained them. They have hundreds of artillery pieces within firing range of the South Korean capital (which is one of the world's largest cities and home to the majority of the South Korean people).

All the military experts agree on two things. We would win any war, conventional or nuclear. That war would take weeks at least and would result in hundreds of thousands of deaths including massive US casualties. Remember Iraq? Remember how long it took to get to a thousand dead...two thousand...three. Imagine if we were there in a week...or a day. Suppose a battallion gets overrun or panics and runs...or surrenders. Can't happen? It has before...in Korea (not to mention Vietnam).

Bedford Forrest led an American combat unit during the Civil War. An untrained civilian he adopted a simple strategy for winning battles...get there first, with the most. Korea is already there...and they've by far got the most.

So...will American airpower based in Japan and South Korea be able to slow down the North Koreans? Yes...but it'll take weeks and in the meantime people, including Americans, will die by the bushel. Unless the war goes nuclear or chemical (or both) in which case the end might come sooner, but the people, including Americans, will die by the...well...a hell of a lot will die.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Monday, April 1, 2013 10:50 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

North Korea has outdone itself with its whacko rhetoric in recent days - it's even found a way to make women's clothing sound evil - but it's reached such a frenzy that we have to wonder whether it portends something truly serious.

For decades, North Korea has routinely threatened to destroy the capital of its capitalist neighbour, South Korea, in ''a sea of fire''. Seoul is still standing, a thriving metropolis and a daily rebuke to the poverty of Pyongyang's closed socialist system.

But consider Pyongyang's official ''declaration of war'' against the US and its allies including South Korea, issued two weeks ago. It declared: ''Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle''.

The people of North Korea were ''full of surging anger'' and were determined to ''annihilate the enemies''. Any provocation from the US would be met with ''merciless nuclear attack''.

It warned: ''They should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong-un,'' the country's 30-year-old ruler who was promoted by his father from civilian to four-star general at one stroke, ''the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past.

''The hostile forces will clearly realise the iron will, matchless grit and extraordinary mettle of the brilliant commander of Mount Paektu'', the legendary birthplace of the Korean people.
North Korean army officers punch the air as they chant slogans during a rally.

Giving some weight to its words, North Korea has cut off military and humanitarian hotlines that linked the North and South in the absence of diplomatic relations.

This is an escalation even by Pyongyang's standards. It has specifically threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US mainland and its Pacific bases in Hawaii and Guam.

Another novel rhetorical twist is that now that South Korea has its first female leader, Pyongyang has made her very femininity sound hostile.

It refers to Seoul's President, Park Geun-hye, not by name but as ''the sinister swish of skirts''.

This produces guffaws but the rising tensions are also producing some gulps. Remember that North Korea has the world's fifth biggest standing army of about 1.1 million soldiers. (For scale, Australia has a population similar to North Korea's 24 million but has fewer than 60,000 military personnel.) And if you include North Korea's reserve forces, it has the biggest army in the world with 9.5 million troops.

There are serious doubts about how effective Kim's massive army would be in a war - tourists have photographed soldiers on duty in Pyongyang carrying wooden replica guns. But it has a massed artillery capable of bombarding Seoul with half a million shells in an hour.

And, of course, it now has the nuclear bomb. Analysts in Seoul and the US estimate it has half a dozen to a dozen of them.

So the big question is, what is going on? What is Kim Jong-un's plan? Here we enter the realm of theory. Analysts of Kim's super-secretive kingdom have come up with three plausible explanations.

One is that North Korea's long-running protection racket is not working any more, and it is increasing its threats to see if it can restore the old game.

The protection racket? For decades, Pyongyang would threaten to do horrible things to its neighbours, and the West, led by the US, would agree to give the country assistance in return for peace.

But every time, Pyongyang took the aid, reneged on its promises and renewed the threats - and continued to work towards the nuclear bomb it now possesses. That racket is not working any longer.

''The United States will not play the game of accepting empty promises or yielding to threats,'' said US national security adviser Tom Donilon.

''To get the assistance it desperately needs and the respect it claims it wants, North Korea will have to change course. Otherwise, the United States will continue to work with allies and partners to tighten national and international sanctions.''

The theory is that Kim jnr is pushing the threats to new heights to see if he can ultimately force a return to winning aid by extortion.

A second theory is that the boy marshal is simply having trouble consolidating power, and is seeking to win over top military commanders with his bellicosity.

A third is that Kim Jong-un, who convened the annual meeting of the ruling Communist Party on Monday, is hatching a program of economic reform. He spent years at boarding school in Switzerland and knows first-hand that there is an alternative to the ''juche'' policy of hermetically sealed socialist self-reliance that has forced an estimated two-thirds of his people to live on a subsistence diet.

But to make such a dramatic policy change, Kim needs to strengthen his hand. The theory runs that he is doing so by putting the country on a heightened state of military alert.

If any of the theories is accurate, there is a high chance that Kim will proceed to an act of military aggression - bombard a South Korean base, sink a South Korean ship, or shoot South Korean soldiers across the DMZ, all of which Pyongyang has done in the recent past. But not proceed beyond, to the point of opening an all-out war.

But all of those theories assume the regime, ultimately, is rational. There is no such guarantee.

Seoul and Washington are remaining calm. There is no satellite evidence of North Korean mobilisation. The US has already decided that, if it sees the fuelling of any long-range North Korean missiles, it will strike them pre-emptively. And Park is calmly proceeding with her policy of ''trust-building'' by giving food aid to the North. How's that for a sinister swish?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/kim-out-of-strikes-as-world-sits-tigh
t-20130401-2h2zt.html#ixzz2PFLTaOd2

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Monday, April 1, 2013 11:59 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Very unsettling.

I realize we could level the country with conventional arms and sterilize them with nuclear ones, but it didn't get what it's gotten without significant, albeit clandestine, help.

So, what are the goals of those other countries? A proxy war with the US? A chance to forge alliances? Selling arms and technology for profit? A lab to do things they couldn't do in their own countries?

Touch NK and you touch them. And how will they respond?

The idea is to bleed us, of course. We're bleeding because we're obligated to protect South Korea. We're further bled because we're obligated to protect Japan. And Taiwan. And Guam. And so on, and so on, ad infinitum.

And of course, now we're obligated to protect Afghanistan and Iraq as well. And probably Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, etc., etc.

Anybody who gives a billion or two to an "evil empire" kind of place can do so knowing full well it will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions in expenditures.

The only ones who haven't figured that out yet is us.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Monday, April 1, 2013 12:03 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I'm not sure what to think about this; their "threats" to US are laughable and have gone on forever, but they can make a mess over there, and that worries me. And I don't like seeing our own sabre rattlers being encouraged...

After reading this thread its obvious that you people have not taken even five minutes to review the North Korean military position.

If all out war broke out the North Koreans are in possession of one of the worlds largest and best trained armies. They have tons of chemical weapons and effective Soviet and Chinease made delivery systems. They have hundreds of aircraft, thousands of tanks. They have over 200,000 fanatical special forces whose training and readiness was once comparible (in their limited sphere of operation) to the Soviet Spetznaz units who trained them. They have hundreds of artillery pieces within firing range of the South Korean capital (which is one of the world's largest cities and home to the majority of the South Korean people).

Yadda-yadda-yadda... Sorry, but I've heard it all before. There was a time when we were being told all the same horror stories about Saddam's vaunted "Republican Guard", the elite of the elite troops, the best he had; why, to hear the generals tell the tale, these guys were ten feet tall and bulletproof.

It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

"Hero" here has a bad habit of believing propaganda and hype.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Monday, April 1, 2013 12:28 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
The idea is to bleed us, of course.

Ka-CHING!

That's the sound my mind makes when it runs across something it thinks is a good idea.

THANKS

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Monday, April 1, 2013 3:09 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
The idea is to bleed us, of course.

Ka-CHING!

That's the sound my mind makes when it runs across something it thinks is a good idea.

THANKS

For the price of a few airline tickets, a handful of boxcutters, and a couple months of flight training, someone was able to bleed the U.S. of six trillion dollars. That went a long way towards showing the rest of the world how bloody easy it is to bleed us.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Monday, April 1, 2013 3:55 PM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Yadda-yadda-yadda... Sorry, but I've heard it all before. There was a time when we were being told all the same horror stories about Saddam's vaunted "Republican Guard", the elite of the elite troops, the best he had; why, to hear the generals tell the tale, these guys were ten feet tall and bulletproof.

It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

If by 'then' you mean 2003, your right. If you mean January 15th, 1991 just prior to Desert Storm, you'd be wrong.

Lets explore some of the differences between 2013 Korea and 1991 Iraq.

1. Terrain. Iraq, mostly flat, open terrain with little or no cover. Perfect for attack helicopters, A-10s, and M1 tanks with laser rangefinders enabling them to fire accurately while moving at high speeds. Korea is mostly rough terrain with large amounts of natural cover that will force close air support risk flying into the short range European style mobile air defenses that the Soviets specifically desinged for this kind of campaign. The broken terrain will also negate US technological advantages that allow for longer range engagements making many of these fights close in affairs where weight of numbers will fair well against nimble technology.

2. Tactical situation. Iraq massed its Army along the Kuwaiti border but held signifigant reserves in Baghdad and Basra as well as along the Turkish border. They were deployed in a fortified defensive position which was counter to the Soviet doctrine of mobile warfare. US forces feinted a Marine landing to draw attention while massing US heavy forces in the western desert to outflank the Iraqi defense. Then they used a month long air campaign to wear down the Iraqi forces inflicting signifigant damage and destroying their supply lines and communication. In short they were cut off, outflanked, and then outfought...in that order. In Korea there is no large undefended 'western desert'. The North Korean Army is massed on the border. There are two long coastlines, but no Marine division in place to threaten them. The Koreans will not be waiting six months for the Americans to build up and attack... they will be moving foreward seeking to occupy or destroy South Korea's industrial and population centers before the Americans can deploy concentrated air power and additional heavy land units. In 1991 the supply bases and airfields were impervious to attack (except for random missile strikes). In Korea it is likely that rear areas will come under heavy attack by special forces units. This could disrupt or delay local air support, supplies, and the deployment of US reinforcements.

3. The US Army. In 1991 we deployed over 500,000 Army and Marines. These included several heavy units from Europe. We transported mountains of supplies and had nearly six months of sustained military buildup. I highly recommend a book called 'Moving Mountains' that describes the 1990 logistical effort. Simply put...we can't do that in Korea. First of all most of the 1991 military no longer exists. The logistical support infrastucture no longer exists. The 1990s saw the dismantling of the army. Closing logistical bases saved a ton of money in peacetime but cost us dearly at war when we had to outsource our supply chain. In Korea the Army consists of a single division. That division was reduced from 3 active brigades to 2 in the 1990s with the 3rd being a National Guard unit. Now its a single brigade and the other two are inactive reserve units...in other words they exist only on paper. Prior to the Clinton cuts the 2nd Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Korea had backup. A full Marine Division could easily be deployed from bases in Okinawaw and the western United States...that division has been similarly decimated by cuts (not to mention extended overseas deployments in other warzones). Likwise the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii could be rapid deployed for immediate support, but not anymore. The only immediate support would come from a few marine units and whatever elememts of the 82nd Airborne we can get there in time. Elements of the 101st Air Assault could also be sent...in other words, light infantry forced to fight tanks and armored personel carriers at close ranges. Over time...weeks...larger heavy units and the National Guard would become available and could be staged slowly through Japan.

4. Saddam's example. North Korea likely studied Desert Storm. Where did Saddam lose that fight? It was in August of 1990 when he stopped at the Saudi Border. North Korea knows that over time the US will concentrate air and naval power and make victory impossible. Therefore their only chance is an all out attack and seek victory before the US can deploy. Alternatively they can succeed by making the cost of victory so high that we'd never be willing to pay it. Nuclear weapons are the key. If Korea threatens Japan, will Japan be willing to allow US military operations? Saddam's mistake was he allowed us to deploy. Will Korea learn from that example? Imagine Saddam overrunning the Arabian peninsula...there was what, 50,000 Saudis and a handful of smaller states with tiny militaries. It was several days before our first troops arrived. Then we're forced to stage our liberation from Egypt through Jordan while Saddam incites a war between Isreal and Syria and Palestine on our flank. Same outcome, but it costs us more money, more time, and more men. Korea will want us to pay that cost.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Wednesday, April 3, 2013 7:12 AM

KWICKO

This is silly, but I still laughed...

Meanwhile, Li'l Kim keeps prattling on and amping up the idiocy. It's like he's trying to dare someone to do something or, more likely, he's trying to "force" us to the negotiating table because he wants more food aid, etc., and he thinks if he gets belligerent enough and threatening enough, that will do it.

But that's only because it's always worked in the past...

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Wednesday, April 3, 2013 7:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

That is excellent, first good laugh of the morning. There are any number of countries who are hostile to us and who could start all kinds of hell if they wanted to; and some will. What exactly do those enumerating all this stuff think we should DO, is what I would like to know? Invade every one of them that says they're going to attack us? No, wait, given the Bush mentality, invade every one we THINK might want to attack us? I'd really like to hear what they think we should DO, and how they think it would "fix" the "problem".

Like the gunslingers of old, do they think we should take on every idiot who wants to make a name for himself? Or WHAT, exactly?

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Wednesday, April 3, 2013 11:51 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
North Korea has been at war with South Korea and the U.S. for 60 years.

And this is the first time N. Korea has authorized a nuclear strike.

But you're absolutely right. There's nothing here to fret over , at all. Just go about our business, and ignore lil'Un.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, April 3, 2013 2:49 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
North Korea has been at war with South Korea and the U.S. for 60 years.

And this is the first time N. Korea has authorized a nuclear strike.

But you're absolutely right. There's nothing here to fret over , at all. Just go about our business, and ignore lil'Un.

Fretting and panicking hasn't worked out very well for us in the recent past.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Thursday, April 4, 2013 11:35 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

The Australian government has warned North Korea that South Korea cannot continue to ignore threats to its security as the communist state's deadly game of brinkmanship edged closer to armed conflict.

North Korea appeared to move a missile capable of hitting South Korea and Japan to its east coast on Thursday. The movement was detected by South Korean and US intelligence, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing military and government sources.

Earlier in the day the US announced it was speeding the deployment of an advanced missile defence system to Guam in the next few weeks, two years ahead of schedule, in what the Pentagon said was ''a precautionary move'' to protect US naval and air forces from the threat of a North Korean missile attack.

That in turn followed the North Korean army's claim that it had final approval to launch ''merciless'' military strikes on the US, involving the possible use of ''cutting-edge'' nuclear weapons.

The sudden deterioration of security on the Korean Peninsula comes as Prime Minister Julia Gillard prepares to fly to China on Friday for a visit that will include meetings with China's new leadership of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr issued a stern warning to North Korea, saying its southern neighbour would not wait idly while the threat from the north worsened. ''We warn them that South Korea, which has shown admirable restraint, is not likely to ignore continuous threats, let alone any future attacks,'' he said.

"They have nuclear capacity now. They have missile delivery capacity now. We have to take those threats seriously": U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

''We cannot vouch for the veracity of these reports [about missile movements] but we simply repeat that the rest of the world wants an end to the provocative behaviour that is being displayed by the politburo of North Korea.''

China remains Pyongyang's only significant friend and provides cheap energy as well as other economic and trade assistance to the poverty-stricken hermit kingdom.

But even Beijing appears no longer able to control the unpredictable manoeuvres of North Korea's erratic leader, Kim Jong-un.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/korean-missile-crisis-
20130404-2h9ug.html#ixzz2PX4YrTXY

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Thursday, April 4, 2013 11:37 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Arms escalations, no matter how nutty the reason, have a history of turning nasty.

I don't think this threat should be treated lightly.

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Thursday, April 4, 2013 7:57 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Arms escalations, no matter how nutty the reason, have a history of turning nasty.

I don't think this threat should be treated lightly.

Oh, stop fretting & panicking.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, April 5, 2013 2:03 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:

Oh, stop fretting & panicking.

Worried someone might horn in on your schtick?

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Friday, April 5, 2013 3:43 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:

Oh, stop fretting & panicking.

Worried someone might horn in on your schtick?

Where did I do either ?

And besides, it's only nuclear weapons.

Duck and cover ? Got it.

Oh wait... isn't that YOU who lives in the Austin TX area ?

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, April 5, 2013 3:44 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

*curious double post *

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Friday, April 5, 2013 2:20 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:

Oh, stop fretting & panicking.

Worried someone might horn in on your schtick?

Where did I do either ?

And besides, it's only nuclear weapons.

Duck and cover ? Got it.

Oh wait... isn't that YOU who lives in the Austin TX area ?

Yes, I do live in Austin, close to the Samsung plant. Do I strike you as someone who is terribly concerned or worried about being targeted?

I've been targeted pretty much my whole life, told that we were going to be incinerated in a nuclear firestorm at any given second. I was born just outside Washington DC just a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis when my dad worked at the NSA. I'm still alive; we didn't get nuked. I lived in Taiwan while we had "duck-n-cover" air raid drills at least once a week, usually accompanied by supersonic flyovers of fighter jets, complete with sonic booms that would shake the room. Again, we were told as kindergartners that we would be either invaded by the Red Chinese or nuked with little to no warning. Then we moved to another base in another country, a base that was itself yet another first-strike nuclear target, where we were going to be incinerated by the Red Menace just because they had nothing better to do, apparently.

So, yeah, I'm pretty immune to it at this point. Growing up in the shadow of a looming and impending mushroom cloud breeds a certain fatalism, a lack of ability to be panicked by threats of death and destruction.

So when someone tells me that we're going to be nuked on Friday, my general reaction is, "So what do you want to do with the rest of the weekend, then?"

I'll not waste time worrying about that which (a) will not happen, and (b) cannot be stopped by my worrying if it is going to happen.

I have no gods, no afterlife, just this one. Some folks have lots of reasons to die; I have lots of reasons to live, and fear doesn't fit into my plans, nor does panic. Fearing someone who cannot do you harm is like worrying about going to hell after you die - it's a waste of time that could be better spent on life.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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