Meanwhile, there’s North Korea
A top defector has a chilling warning:
A senior North Korean defector has told NBC News that the country’s “desperate” dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies.
Thae Yong Ho is the most high profile North Korean defector in two decades, meaning he is able to give a rare insight into the secretive, authoritarian regime.
According to Thae, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and ICBM.”
So far, several US presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have seemed unable to do a thing about the conundrum and threat posed by North Korea. Now it’s Trump’s turn.
Don’t we have Star Wars to shoot down any Nork missle? The Stars Wars that RWR wanted and was mocked by the Dems.
Cornhead – mocked by the party of Science, no less?!?
I must say, I can’t see why the U.S. would care. North Korea is an impoverished backwater that isn’t going to conquer anyone except maybe South Korea. The South Koreans hate Americans and admire Kim, so I say let them work it out for themselves. Even if Kim conquers South Korea, Korea will be a small country totally dominated by China, so who cares?
We don’t know if anything bad will happen, but whatever bad does happen, we know it will all be Trump’s fault. You heard it here first.
Cornhead: No. Star Wars was advertised as a solution to shooting down any missile, which in those days included a massive ICBM attack the Soviets could have thrown at us.
Star Wars, as advertised, was a fraud.
It worked as a bluff against the Soviet leadership, who couldn’t be sure what the US might have up its sleeve. But we were bluffing.
Tech marches on. Three-and-a-half decades we might be able to stop a lone Nork missile.
More likely the Norks will threaten South Korea or Japan. I don’t take them seriously for Seattle or San Francisco.
Nonetheless, technological creep is serious business. It’s a big reason I backed the Iraq War.
I figured we would be better fighting the Islamic jihad in the early 2000s than fighting them in the 2020s when god knows what sort of off-the-shelf WMD might be available.
I see it as a serious concern. I suspect the worst of Kim, that he’s mentally unstable.
IF Kim invades/attacks S. Korea and/or launches nukes at Japan… we are by treaty obligated to declare war upon N.Korea.
Which begs the question, what would China then do? And while I don’t think the ChiComs care at all about Kim, they greatly care about regional dominance. I’m not confident that they could bring themselves to allow the US to pound down N. Korea. If so, that would lead to confrontation between China and the U.S. which could easily escalate into another WWI. But this time with nukes. IMO, therein lies the danger, a war that no one wants with the exception of a batshit crazy boy with his finger on a nuclear trigger.
NK is a dangerous threat, not now but at some point in the near future. Its impossible to stop their march towards a nuke tipped ICBM. The question we have to ask is will the regime being willing to face the annihilation that would swiftly follow any nuclear attack on SK or Nippon? The answer is blowing in the wind.
However, I like to think that there are high ranking members of the regime who enjoy their perks and powers that would arrange a sudden massive stoke for dear leader should he order a nuclear attack.
Be not being and stroke not stoke…. bad proof reading.
Which begs the question, what would China then do
China is the key here. The Norks would not exist without China’s sponsorship.
What matters is what Kim believes not what we think is so. Being nuts, he may convince himself that he can get away with attacking because when push comes to shove, modern America will not get into a nuclear conflict over an ally. The glitch in that calculus is that Trump, rather than Hillary is the President. But if he believes that Trump is all bluster… he might attack S. Korea while holding Toyko hostage to non-interference by the U.S.
Crazy people do crazy, unpredictable things.
Crazy people do crazy, unpredictable things.
Fortunately Trump doesn’t care about this. I don’t think Trump supporters care either.
This is neocon stuff.
Move along. This doesn’t concern you.
Wow, I’m amazed anybody on this forum could utter that.
They don’t need to hit a hard target. They would just need to detonate a nuke approximately 100 miles above the surface over the US to generate an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse).
From an article in The Hill,
This is nothing new. EMPs have been known for decades. Going back to the earliest hydrogen bomb detonations. I have 30+ year old Air Force manuals on electrical grounding which discuss the phenomenon in detail.
Also from the same The Hill article,
The real danger in this situation is that Kim just may be crazy enough to do something like this. The only other real fear of this would be an islamic bomb. But I do not think even Iran would be that crazy, unless backed into a corner with no way out. Kim is scary. Anyone who does what he has done, and is doing to his own people is certifiably bat-shit crazy.
The other real and pressing danger is that our political leadership has failed to do anything to mitigate such a threat.
Reagan was the last president who actually worked on trying to harden critical military infrastructure. Civilian critical infrastructure in this country is woefully unprotected. Such an attack would instantly put this country (technologically) back into the mid-19th century. Only our nuclear subs and forces abroad would not be affected. This type of attack is far more plausible and likely than any other type of nuclear scenario.
And death would not be the quick nuclear incineration, but drawn out starvation, sickness, and violence. Nothing to take lightly.
Tim P Says:
April 3rd, 2017 at 9:42 pm…
Reagan was the last president who actually worked on trying to harden critical military infrastructure. Civilian critical infrastructure in this country is woefully unprotected. Such an attack would instantly put this country (technologically) back into the mid-19th century. Only our nuclear subs and forces abroad would not be affected. This type of attack is far more plausible and likely than any other type of nuclear scenario.
And death would not be the quick nuclear incineration, but drawn out starvation, sickness, and violence. Nothing to take lightly.
* * *
Hence the corners and cabinets at my house dedicated to storage for the Zombie Apocalypse. It might be time to look up all those old books from the 50s-70s on survival techniques.
For food, go here:
https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/home-storage-centers?lang=eng
I see this as two parents with two children. The one child has done very well and is wealthy. The other child is barely avoiding starvation. The starving child keeps threatening the wealthy child and works to find weapons he can use to demand that the parent of the wealthy child give him money to keep him from attacking the wealthy child. The parent of the wealthy child keeps asking the parent of the poor child to do something about his behavior. But the parent of the poor child is enjoying all the discomfort that the wealthy parent is undergoing.
The wealthy parent just put some padding (the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense [THAAD] system) on his child in case the poor child tries to attack. This is in keeping with the protective way the wealthy parent has acted since the two children were birthed almost 64 years ago.
The wealthy parent has earnestly tried to avoid conflict while both the poor child and his parent have been pugnacious for all these years. And they have been able to pretty much get what they want – at the expense of the wealthy parent and child.
Maybe it’s time for the wealthy parent and his child to start being more pugnacious. Set down some markers and adhere to them. (Unlike Obama.)
Back when I was more naive and I began reading about North Korea, I was horrified. I couldn’t believe an entire country was being run as a concentration camp, while the world said next to nothing.
Then I remembered how the apartheid South African government became Enemy #1 in world opinion. “I won’t play Sun City” and all that.
I don’t support apartheid but compared to North Korea, South Africa was a paradise. Furthermore, by most metrics South Africa is a worse place to live since the apartheid government more or less peaceably stepped down and the ANC took over.
Now the “apartheid” government of Israel (as Jimmy Carter slandered the country) is Enemy #1.
Yeah, I know it’s complicated and these “What about?” argument don’t go anywhere.
But until I hear Western humanitarians speaking out about North Korea I have other things to do.
I don’t understand the people who want to get tough with North Korea. The South Koreans don’t want to get tough with North Korea; in fact they seem to prefer Kim Jong Un to the United States. On whose behalf are we getting tough, then? I am highly confident that if we exit the Korea peninsula, North Korea will not make an unprovoked nuclear attack on the continental United States, and we will live in perfect security.
Y81, WTF?
Even a quick Google search about US/ROK relations refutes the line of leftist propaganda you sputter.
Here’s one article referencing The Asian Institute for Policy Studies.
By all accounts, the US is looked on more favorably than North Korea and China. Japan of course is less favorably looked on, for obvious reasons.
To think North Korea would be happy and leave us alone if only we would leave the peninsula is analogous to Neville Chamberlain uttering “Peace in our time.” It should be blindingly obvious that if North Korea ever took over South Korea, there would be a blood bath of horrific proportions.
And, as hard as it may be for you to believe it, it would not be our fault.
Even a rudimentary knowledge of history should leave a person to understand some basic facts. North Korea unprovoked, attacked South Korea in 1950. The UN, not just the US, intervened. the war has never ended to this day. All subsequent provocations have been initiated by North Korea.
The US is not the problem here, North Korea is.
“A senior North Korean defector has told NBC News that the country’s “desperate” dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies.”
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How do we know this isn’t a false flag operation, intended to reinforce the notion that Un is crazy crazy?
MacArthur was right. This one is on Truman.