News reports coming from the region and the fact that he starves his people but lives in opulence himself. Anyone with eyes and more than 3 brain cells can tell he is as crazy as his father if not more so.
Sounds like a reasonable step but one that even though should be used will not work. China seems to have no desire to stop North Korea and appears as though they want to draw America into conflict in that country. China has no desire to engage America in outright war but they wouldn't mind war with America through proxy. As for a devastating attack on South Korea there may be no way to prevent it from happening if we attack the north. Even though it would be costly it would be preferable to NK being able to launch a nuclear equipped missile into American territory. If or when NK launches a missile at us it will not be a lone missile there will be multiple missiles with multiple nukes. A country which is in a strong military position can afford to launch a single strike but a country which is weak militarily would use devastating force with it's first strike in hopes it would know knock it's opponent off his feet and delay retaliation.
That makes him an oppressive tyrant, not insane. He want nukes and rockets to defend himself, has said that and no more on several occasions and has never said he intends to attack the US for no reason. OTOH we .almost constantly put forth this patently absurd notion that the first thing he's going to do with an atom bomb is to lob it at the US in an act of pretty much totally inexplicable national and actual suicide. You have to wonder who's crazy until you examine the real dynamics of the situation. WE"RE the ones who keep Kim in power, for every time we threaten him this enables him to tighten his hold over his people. It also enables us to throw another hundred billion or so to our defense contractors who will steal most of it and give us boondoggles like the F-35 and Bradley. Hell I know who's crazy, it's us for listening to Republican thieves all these years
It's funny how some people will side with others over their OWN interests. How stupid is that? There are just too many people in the world, which increases the ratio of crazy:normal people.
Fine, show me ONE example of where Kim has said "I want an Atom bomb so I can use it to OFFENSIVELY attack the USA", that is, where he says he intends to attack us BEFORE we attack him. I don't mean implied or hinted at, I mean said clearly enough that any reasonable person would take that as a "Clear and Present Danger." I will acknowledge myself mistaken and stand much abashed. Also, how is it in the interests of the US to go to war with North Korea? What do we stand to gain and lose?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/0...e-emptive-strike-will-reduce-us-to-ashes.html Edit: wrong preemptive strike Too easy. Troll on
I will accept that, I stand abashed However, I will note that the use of a pre-emptive strike was predicated on NK feeling it was "about to be attacked". That doesn't excuse it, mind, as any nation will say that, but it does reduce it below the level of 'clear and present danger'. That is, however, simply IMO and others may reasonably differ. And I still don't see how it is in our interests to go to war with them. It may be necessary but it would clearly be a disaster for both us and the South Koreans
NK feels like ANYTHING is an attack against them. They jailed a kid (which ended up killing him) because he stole a banner. That made him a terrorist. NK is absolutely insane. They threaten us with nuclear holocausts! That said, we won't go to war with them. China will invade NK and install their own gvt before they let us attack.
I dearly hope so. And I hope they can find some way to defuse the situation without hurting the South. The North in effect holds several millions in Seoul hostage and this must not be forgotten That student may not be the only victim. The North is known to have abducted people with needed skills from the South and even from Japan. American expatriate English teachers in rural areas near to the border are informally warned of this though it seems no more than normal have gone missing in recent years.
If you're interested in NK, I suggest watching some of the youtube documentaries. There's some very recent ones (April 2017) and the BBC ones are great. All the smuggled footage is insane. I just watched one that follows the entire journey (from NK to SK) of a group of north Koreans escaping. They had to be smuggled from NK, to China, then to Vietnam, then Laos, and then finally Thailand who's government will fly NK escapees to SK for free. Escaping from NK straight into SK is impossible because of the military occupations (mines..etc)
If we can't trust a proven mass murdering and torturing sociopath lunatic who had starved and killed hundreds of thousands of his own people vowing to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike to kill as many tens of millions of American and Korean civilians as possible to be safe and reliable, who can we trust?
If I were the president, I'd give Kim one very clear, unambiguous warning -- shoot off one more ICBM, or conduct one more nuclear test, and I'll OBLITERATE your war-making capacity. We could do it fairly easily using nothing more than thermobaric weapons, of which we have many. That MOAB thing that Trump dropped on the ISIS Islamo-nazis in Afghanistan three months ago would do nicely. LOTS of them.... It would also send a potent, unmistakable message to the Islamo-idiots in Tehran that we are watching them like hawks, too.... . Ooh... now, multiply this by about 1,000... for several days in a row....
What else would he say, "Oh I'm going to use the nukes to kill all the Americans I can"? The rest of your post I just don't care about because it is just conjecture.
Good points. When they have a couple hundred ICBMs, we and all of our allies are screwed. We can't let that happen.
The Soviet Union was a rational actor. Even NK's pursuit of nuclear weapons is irrational. NK is under zero threat from SK or the US. There is nobody on our side who wants NK territory, and there is no one on our side who wants war with NK. SK and the US just want to maintain the status quo and to have peace and security. Furthermore, NK's security is guaranteed by China. The Chinese proved that in the Korean War. There is just no rational reason to pursue the acquisition of nuclear weapons when you don't need them, nor is there any rational reason to threaten to use them against the #1 superpower in the world. The bottom line is that the little inbred mutant is a nutcase, and you don't let a self-isolated inbred nutcase have nuclear weapons. You do not allow him the power to incinerate Honolulu, Fairbanks, and every major city on your west coast. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A., San Diego - ...... gone. It doesn't matter that we would retaliate in kind. You don't let this kind of person have them in the first place. It is just out of the question. It is non-negotiable.
Don't be starting sh*t with North Korea. It won't end well if you do. Let the North Koreans handle their dictator internally. I believe eventually he will be Khaddafied
I didn't say war, I said every action that isn't an act of war needs to be explored. If we have to place total trade embargos on China and Russia to get nuclear weapons out of NK then that should be on the table. This is no longer a joking matter, the man ruling the place isn't a sane actor and while we must tread carefully we can't just keep kicking this issue down the road. The difference between NK and most nations the US views as hostile to it's interest is that most nations are rational actors. North Korea the so called "best Korea" or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not being rational. They threaten to blow someone up every week, make videos of nuking our cities and instill nearly insane propaganda in every part of there civilians lives about the US. I don't blame the people of North Korea for there government, but at the same time we can't allow an insane actor to gain the kind of power nuclear tipped ICBM's would give.
Which is just what you would expect a totally rational actor to do IF he is living like a Prince while his people continue to starve. Kim's threats are for his PEOPLE'S benefit, not ours, and we are playing right into his fat hands. His people might one day overthrow him, especially if we would just ignore him but it doesn't help at all if when he tells his people the USA is coming to get them they can look and see the 7th Fleet anchored at their doorstep.
I don't think you understand the culture, I doubt his people will be able to overthrow him because it's much like the government Japan had in WW2. The man is promoted as a literal god figure and the people living there might not fully believe it but hear it so much and are so cut off from the rest of the world that line of thinking is deeply ingrained into there thought process. They can't see ships 100's of miles away or even close to them, the fact is Kim can make up what ever BS he needs to and the people would buy it as they have no internet and only get government TV/radio broadcast that tells them what there truth is and anyone that questions it is shot and then the rest of there family is shot. Or if he feels in the mood he takes a flak cannon and blows you up with it for the people to see. And it's not like they can just google fact checks on what Kim's government tells them so they never really know what's going on. All they know is that where they live is messed up and that it's worth trying for better but even that isn't likely as universal as I would hope. Things won't change worth jack no matter if our stuff is close by or not. He is not a sane actor thinking that nuclear weapons are a good idea when he can already bomb SK to bits and China would otherwise have his back. And threating to blow up the United States nearly every week on top of all of that and you claim him to be a rational actor?
I do agree every step should be used before war is used. I just believe none of those will work and failing them will leave only war in our toolkit. Also while we are trying those steps with China and Russia NK will gain the ability to reliably launch nuclear missiles to any target they want. They are not far from the ability right now. It may well be too late for diplomacy to do any good.
I believe China and Russia both would love to have us involved in a war with North Korea. Just like before they would be supplying the north while we are fighting in the south. I do believe it would be a little different this time because our generals would not have their hands tied. We could have won the Korean war and the Vietnam war if the generals were allowed to do what was needed to win.
