North Korea: What Next?

[Cykotic]

Well, there's the problem... no-one actually knows. Right now, everyone gets the fact that Kim Jong Un is as loopy as his father was. But even his dad never went this far and if i'm honest about this, I'm predicting that there will be a conflict.

Yes, I know that technically, North and South Korea are still at war (A peace treaty was never signed), but it's been more of a cold war. If things do go crazy and it all goes hot, what do you think will happen? Do you think that he could launch an attack with conventional weapons or even a nuke? They have the missile tech and have rapidly developed the nuke tech, so do you think that maybe, this will just blow over or do you think it's all gonna kick off?

I know that North Korea has a tendency to run it's mouth, but this feels different.

This feels sorta legit.

[rongravy]

Feels like some shit is about to go down. Iran is also getting kinda funky again, too. Usually the two alternate giving the rest of the world a headache.
Hmmmmm...
I feel sorry for the people these douchebags rule and let die/starve, if they're not doing something that'll get them executed beforehand...

[shootemindehead]

Nothing will happen with NK and good job too.

Frankly, I'm getting sick to the back teeth of all the bullshit being tarted around abouth this country. Iran too.

NK won't launch any nuke. The idea is absurd and belongs in the minds of Fox News execs. With America and SK just itching to obliterate them, any move would mean the end of the country and such realities wouldn't be lost on the North Koreans, regardless of how the "West" portrays them.

It comes down to this...NK is posturing because they know the hostile nature they're facing, but nothing will happen.

Either way, NK is pretty screwed. If it it does nothing, the west will make something up and if it shows off its (extremely limited) spines, the west will say it's going to nuke the planet.

[LouCipherr]

Nothing will happen with NK and good job too.

Frankly, I'm getting sick to the back teeth of all the bullshit being tarted around abouth this country. Iran too.

NK won't launch any nuke. The idea is absurd and belongs in the minds of Fox News execs. With America and SK just itching to obliterate them, any move would mean the end of the country and such realities wouldn't be lost on the North Koreans, regardless of how the "West" portrays them.

It comes down to this...NK is posturing because they know the hostile nature they're facing, but nothing will happen.

^^ This.

[Andy]

I dunno, we are all used to North Koreans whining and posturing, it's been going on for years but this is different. There's certainly no threat to the west but I wouldn't like to be in Japan or SK just now, Kim Jong Un is rapidly backing himself into a corner where his only possible action will be warfare, my personal view is that he wants America or SK to make the first move, but in reality it's far more likely he will escalate until he has no option but to attempt a launch which would be shot down in seconds and then the retaliation will wipe his country off the map.

[shootemindehead]

In my opinion, it's miles off of actual warfare.

How are they going to wage war? With their old Eastern Bloc weaponry they've had laying around for decades? They wouldn't stand a chance and they know it.

The North Koreans want to be left alone to run their affairs as they see fit, without US/South Korean interference in their airspace and their regional waters. That's not much to ask for by any nation, regardless of their political persuasion.

[Mr. Clean]

The North Koreans want to be left alone to run their affairs as they see fit, without US/South Korean interference in their airspace and their regional waters. That's not much to ask for by any nation, regardless of their political persuasion.

Perhaps, the majority of the people of North Korea want what you say but it's a whole different story for their leader.

Kim Jong Un doesn't just want respect from the rest of the world....He DEMANDS it even though he doesn't deserve it. This is seen as a conflict for their country. It's all propaganda for him.....If he ends up saying he'll chill out for a food deal, then he will park his war machine back inside a bunker....go back to his people in front of a podium and say everyone is scared of their mighty force and they gave them food and asked for mercy. He will then shower his starving people with our food and send his people further into indoctrination than they already are.

I say kill the dumb fat kid.....reunite Korea with a South Korean government....and pray to God that the people of the North can over come the years and years of brainwashing that has occurred to them. Wash hands....then eat supper. :D

[shootemindehead]

"I say kill the dumb fat kid"

?

It's this kind of Rambo diplomacy that has America knee deep in shit and has deminished her standing with the rest of the world.

How about leaving North Korea the fuck alone? How about trying that?

That might work.

[Mr. Clean]

The turd starves his own people to the point that they resort to eating their own children....constantly threatens South Korea and the U.S. He rules his people through fear and propaganda. The man doesn't want peace....that much is obvious. I'm not trying to be condescending towards you....I just don't see sticking your head in the sand as a viable option when you have a dirt bag screaming obscenities at you over a megaphone....all the while....ordering war preparations when he is the one causing all the ruckus. I most certainly don't want to waste good food on HIS military.

When someone says to you "You WILL respect my authoritah and suck on my ballz." Your next move shouldn't involve earplugs or balls in your mouth if you have any self respect at all. :p

[shootemindehead]

Most of the threatening comes not from NK but from her (potential) enemies. It's the US primarily that does the threatening. North Korea is responding.

Also, a lot of the starvation is caused from factors that occur from without. The sanctions imposed on the Country causes havoc for the people and drives them the arms of the ruling government and in turn makes them look good.

North Korea is the junior entity in all of this nonsense and of course she's going to react in a defensive manner when she is constantly beset on all sides by openly aggressive nations, the most aggressive being a nation that has no business telling her what to do at all.

With respect, you aren't even remotely qualified to tell me what "the man" wants. I doubt anyone here is. But, speaking logically, the idea that the North Korean government wants war falls flat on its face when the obvious factors are considered. No nation is going to go up against the US. The idea is absurd. So, the constant threats by the US will lead to states like North Korea and Iran to seek Nuclear deterrents.

Put the US in North Korea's shoes and you might get a better picture of the overall situation.

In addition, I am not talking about sitting around doing nothing. There are other alternatives that just aren't being explored. Dialogue, for a start.

Here's an excerpt from an interview that Noam Chomsky gave in Korea a few years ago. It's interesting reading, as always and it pretty much still applies:



NOAM CHOMSKY: North Korea is one of the most horrible countries in the world, nothing good to say about it.

But the question is : "what do you do about it ?" You try to make it worse or try to move towards reconciliation and improve matters. The Bush administration is making it worse. This hysterical rhetoric is going - predictably - going to increase North Korean efforts to develop a nuclear deterrent. And as the South Korean president pointed out, you don't want them to do it, but it is understandable why they would. You threaten a country with destruction and they're not going to say. "Thank you, here is my throat, cut it." They are going to try to find some way to react. There are only two ways to react. Nobody is going to fight the U.S. military. The U.S. depends about as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. It's technologically far more advanced - such an enormous destructive capacity - that nobody is going to fight a war with it, which leaves two possibilities for a deterrent. One is nuclear weapons and the other is terror. And so by carrying out meaningful threats against other countries, you're simply inspiring terror and nuclear proliferation...

..."You'd better develop a deterrent." And the only deterrent they have is nuclear weapons, rather - weapons of mass destruction - or terror.

What other option do they have? It's the same with Iran. One of the leading Israeli military historians, Martin von Creveld, this is his name, recently had an article. I think it was in the International Herald Tribune in which he said, approximately, "Obviously we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. But if they don't develop them they are crazy." If you put them under serious threat of attack, they are surrounded on all sides by very hostile and aggressive forces - U.S. armies on both sides and other nuclear state, Israel is a powerful nuclear state which is threatening them. I mean, you threaten them with attack, they are not going to say, "Thank you." They are going to react. And how can they react? In several ways. One of them is by increasing its support for terror and the other is developing a nuclear deterrent.

SUN WOO LEE: What opinion do you have about the issues related to the human rights of the North Korean people? Do you have any solution?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The solution is step-by-step reconciliation. It's not going to solve the problem tomorrow. But in the longer term, it can solve the problem. I mean you know much better than I - the Koreans have always wanted to be reunited. That goes back to 1945. I'm sure that that's just as true in the North as in the South. People have families, [it's the] same country after all. So, a move towards reconciliation will reduce the human rights violations. Not easily. There will still be people starving, there will still be severe controls over the population. But the way to reduce them is to move towards the sunshine policy, move towards reconciliation. Every step that is made for reconciliation improves human rights. So every threat makes human rights violations worse. That's almost true everywhere. Syria and Iran. Take Iran. You know Iranian democrats and reformers have bitterly condemned the sanctions and they say that all it does is make the leadership harsher, and give them popular support. So it undermines democracy, and it undermines human rights.

SUN WOO LEE: How do you think we should solve the North Korean nuclear weapons problem?

NOAM CHOMSKY: There's a way to do it. There's a very simple way to solve it. In fact, it came pretty close to working. In 1994, there was a framework agreement, which, as far as we know, stops nuclear weapons development in North Korea. In return, the West, primarily the United States, pledged to provide them with the capacity for nuclear energy development, which they need. They don't have internal resources. The West didn't live up to that bargain. And then when the Bush Administration came in, waving its weapons of mass destruction, saying, "We are going to attack you!" Well, OK, it's the end of the framework agreement. They then began to carry out the uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons. How far it's gone, we don't know. But the way to reduce - you know, you can't eliminate completely the possibility that someone will be able to develop nuclear weapons. But you can reduce the probability. There are many ways to do it. One is to work within the general structure of the framework agreement. If you make nuclear energy available that reduces the incentive to develop nuclear weapons. The other is to reduce threats.

And then there're things that go far beyond that. I mean the big problem that's been pointed out over and over by Mohamed Al Baradei--who just won a Nobel Prize--is the production of high-grade, weapons-grade enriched uranium--fissile material--that really can be used for nuclear weapons. As long as that's produced, there will be nuclear weapons produced. Again, I can't predict the details, but it's available.

So, the way to terminate the threat of nuclear weapons is to take two steps. One of them is to control, to have an international control over the development of any fissile materials and have a bank somewhere under international control with all fissile materials produced or stored. And if any country wants them for legitimate purposes - nuclear energy, then release them. That proposal has been at the U.N. for years, I think it was 1993, [that] it was proposed. But the U.S. has blocked it.

It finally came to a vote in November 2004. That's probably the most important vote that the U.N. ever took. The vote came out 174 to 1. The U.S. voted against it. Two countries abstained: Israel and Britain.

SUN WOO LEE: Britain, too?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Israelis reflexively have to do what the U.S. tells them. So they abstained. Britain was much more interesting. The British ambassador explained in the U.N. session why Britain was voting against it. He said Britain is in favor of the treaty, but the way this one is written is too divisive. It divides the world 174 to 1. And so therefore Britain will go along with the U.S. That just tells you what Tony Blair's priorities are. Human survival is of much lower priority for Tony Blair than making sure that he gets invited to George Bush's ranch. And this was not reported. I don't know if it was reported in South Korea, but in the U.S. it was not reported. It was not reported, you know. That's one step towards eliminating nuclear weapons.

And there is a second step which Elbaradei has insisted on: the non-proliferation treaty was a compact, it was a bargain. The non-nuclear states agreed not to develop nuclear weapons and the nuclear states agreed that they would eliminate nuclear weapons. Have they done it? None of them have done it. And the U.S. isn't believed. The U.S. simply says the provisions of the treaty don't apply to us. Well, O.K. if the nuclear states are not going to live up to their side of the bargain, then the non-nuclear states are not going to do it, either. You may not be able to eliminate environmental catastrophe, but the threat of nuclear weapons can be eliminated by simple ways. The nuclear states, primarily the U.S., should undertake their obligation, by treaty, even underscored by a World Court judgment, to move towards elimination of nuclear weapons. We're doing the opposite. And there should be international control over production of the fissile materials. That would come very close to terminating the nuclear threat. The other thing to do is to recover the nuclear weapons that are around. There had been progress on that, up until the Bush administration. They just dropped the efforts. These are solvable problems and the fate of the species depends on it. Environmental catastrophe is longer term. And we don't know if it's a solvable problem but certainly there are things that should be done about it.

[rongravy]

I dunno, we are all used to North Koreans whining and posturing, it's been going on for years but this is different. There's certainly no threat to the west but I wouldn't like to be in Japan or SK just now, Kim Jong Un is rapidly backing himself into a corner where his only possible action will be warfare, my personal view is that he wants America or SK to make the first move, but in reality it's far more likely he will escalate until he has no option but to attempt a launch which would be shot down in seconds and then the retaliation will wipe his country off the map.
^^^This.


Perhaps, the majority of the people of North Korea want what you say but it's a whole different story for their leader.

Kim Jong Un doesn't just want respect from the rest of the world....He DEMANDS it even though he doesn't deserve it. This is seen as a conflict for their country. It's all propaganda for him.....If he ends up saying he'll chill out for a food deal, then he will park his war machine back inside a bunker....go back to his people in front of a podium and say everyone is scared of their mighty force and they gave them food and asked for mercy. He will then shower his starving people with our food and send his people further into indoctrination than they already are.

I say kill the dumb fat kid.....reunite Korea with a South Korean government....and pray to God that the people of the North can over come the years and years of brainwashing that has occurred to them. Wash hands....then eat supper. :D
And definitely ^^^this. :elol:
The guy's an idiot. Guess if you starve your own people, they will be too weak to revolt...

[LouCipherr]

Most of the threatening comes not from NK but from her (potential) enemies. It's the US primarily that does the threatening. North Korea is responding.

Shootem is correct. This seems to be the one thing that people do not understand - NK didn't just start threatening Sk and other countries again like this for no reason. What they're doing is a reaction to threats and sanctions the US and others want to impose on them.

Remember, the US used to be the "protector" of kids on the playground. Now, we're the bully, stomping through the sandbox and kicking sand into the face and eyes of anyone who gets in the way. It's bullshit of the highest order, but it is what it is.

While the media likes to play up the "threat" from NK, let's be honest here. Anything that NK tries to do military-wise will be met with a swift kick in the ass from the US military (and others) and we'd turn that country into a wasteland. It would be suicide for KJU and NK to strike first. Maybe, just maybe, the dude has a suicidal streak in him, but I seriously doubt it. He wants to stick around and strut his ego around some more for all to see. It's what they do.

It's all posturing. Just like every other time they get their panties in a bunch over there. While it seems it might have escalated more than it has in the past, let's also remember that the media are mostly to blame for that aspect. These people have nothing better to do than make things seem worse than they are, and why? It brings in ratings and sells newspapers! It's what they do. (gee, sounds familiar)

[Mr. Clean]

So, the logic for the two of you(Shootem & Lou) saying NK is defending itself is because attacking the US would be suicidal and the sanctions are uncalled for and without reason?

26 March 2010 - 'North Korean torpedo' sank South's navy ship - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10129703

23 Nov 2010 - ‘Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/asia/24korea.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What instigated these two incidents? I know that these happened with the past leader but the son is even more bat shit crazy than his dad was.

During my time in the military, 3 years of it was ensuring peace in the Pacific. If we where to pull out of Korea, the North would move to take over the South. You can take that to the bank. If we were to pull out of the Pacific...The same thing would happen and then they would start screwing with Japan. I don't see how anyone could see NK as a peaceful Nation.

[LouCipherr]

Who said they are 'uncalled for' and 'without reason'? Not I, but if people want to understand why NK has been ramping up their rhetoric, this is the answer. We are pushing them for sanctions and other countries are verbally pushing them around, and they want nothing to do with it.

Right or wrong? It doesn't really matter with NK. It never has.

Also, take into consideration that KJU wants to "prove" himself. How else does he do that other than whipping his dick out and waving it around for everyone to see?

[shootemindehead]

There was a LOT of debate about the actual origin of that torpedo and the length of tiem it had been under water, due to its decrepid state and the fact that the only "evidence" that it was North Korean was that fragments that were conveniently found on the ocean floor(?) it had a couple of North Korean characters written on it...in permanent marker.

Coupled with the fact that this supposed attack was carried out by a conventional submarine with non-guided torpedoes. This means that the sub captain would have had to have gotten within 1000m to make his attack and all this during a huge "war games" excercise, with sophisticated moderned submarine tracking equipment, taking place off of the North Korean coast?

Sounds like a load of old bollocks to me.

The North shells Southern territory and the South shells the North. But when the South does it, it doesn't make the news.

Be careful what you choose to believe.

On sanctions, they're pretty useless and only affect the general population. Do you really think that he ruling power in North Korea are affected in the slightest by sanctions? All sanctions do is drive people to more extreme opinions about the people enforcing the sanctions. They were absolutely devastating to the people of Iraq and directly responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of children alone, which pigs like Madeleine Albright deemed to be "...worth it".

[LouCipherr]

Here is one example (of many) that shows how the media is blowing this shit way out of proportion. This is the UK press, but it's no different from the US press in this regard.

Link: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/391376/North-Korea-states-nuclear-war-is-unavoidable-as-it-declares-first-target-will-be-Japan (http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/391376/North-Korea-states-nuclear-war-is-unavoidable-as-it-declares-first-target-will-be-Japan)

Title of the article: North Korea states 'nuclear war is unavoidable' as it declares first target will be Japan

Pretty bold statement, wouldn't you say? Nuclear was is "unavoidable"?

Thing is, when you read the article, that's not quite the case... here's the first three paragraphs (bolded words are emphasis provided by me):

NORTH KOREA has warned Japan that Tokyo would be the first target in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, as it increased threats of an attack.

In a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the communist country lashed out at Tokyo's standing orders to destroy any missile heading toward Japan, threatening such actions will result in a nuclear attack against the island nation.

If Japan executes its threat to shoot down any North Korean missile, such a “provocative” intervention would see Tokyo — an enormous conurbation of 30 million people — “consumed in nuclear flames”, KCNA warned.


So where, exactly, in that article does it state that nuclear war is "unavoidable"? It doesn't. But it makes for a GREAT headline, doesn't it?

More dick-waving by KJU while the media continues fear-mongering for ratings. Nice.

[MoonSylver]

...while the media continues fear-mongering for ratings. Nice.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoYazAAScOE

[Mike70]

this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. who thought that some underling losing the key to the North Korean leader's secret porn vault would set off such a crap storm. the loss of the key was, undoubtedly, a western plot to keep the people's leader from getting in his daily strokes.

[LouCipherr]

Interesting...

North Korea Withdraws Missiles From Launch Site (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/06/world/asia/nkorea-missiles-withdrawn/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

How cute. The Boston bombing happens, North Korea is no longer in the news and a week or so later they withdraw their missiles.

Coincidence? I think not.

[shootemindehead]

It might have more to do with the lies about Syrian sarin and the Israelis bombing things they shouldn't be going near.

[LouCipherr]

I was thinking more along the lines of the media, shootem. They take any breadcrumb they can get, blow it way out of proportion (ie: fear-mongering for ratings), then when they come across a different breadcrumb, the first story gets lost in the mix and no one gives a shit anymore. Even though the first story was purporting "armageddon is near! nuclear war is inevitable!" :rolleyes:

It's the news cycles I'm interested in - and how they lie and twist stuff, yet no one seems to care... and everyone buys into whatever they see on the 6 & 11 o'clock news. It's sad.