North Korea Warns the U.S. to Expect a 'Bigger Gift Package'

[Forty Two]

Galaxian is right about that point. He's wrong about the "America wants to kill all the slant eyes" nonsense. Had we had that motive, Macarthur would never have been fired by Truman and we would have nuked China back to the stone age.

But, he is right that North Korea has been shown that there is no choice for it but to develop nukes. We should never have taken out Qaddafi. He should have been the emblem, the model, for the notion that if you come clean on WMD plans, and openly commit to not developing them, then we'll not kill you. Qadaffi, as bad as he was, did that, and wound up sodomized by a bayonet and murdered in public.

With the Libya thing, nobody cared anymore that "they didn't attack us," and "they didn't have WMD" or anything related to Congressional or UN approval. All that went by the wayside because a different crew did the deed. But, at least when it came to Saddam Hussein, he was arguably lying, and he was posturing as if he had major WMD. Qadaffi came clean and opened up to inspections and cried "uncle!"

What is Kim supposed to take from that? He basically has one choice - a hard line stance that says he won't give up an inch and if the west goes too far, he'll pull the trigger. It's his only hope, and it's why we have no good solution now. None. He's got nukes, we have to deal with him. We're going to need to back down, or there will be a war.

[JimC]

[
So, yes, there's no choice for N.Korea but to develop their defense rapidly, to warn the USA to go back home & get lost.

I find myself wondering how you manage to keep it together to walk down the street without your head falling off.

Lots and lots of duct tape...

[pErvinalia]

[
So, yes, there's no choice for N.Korea but to develop their defense rapidly, to warn the USA to go back home & get lost.

I find myself wondering how you manage to keep it together to walk down the street without your head falling off.

He doesn't walk. He uses anti-gravity to float.

[Rum]

Galaxian is right about that point. He's wrong about the "America wants to kill all the slant eyes" nonsense. Had we had that motive, Macarthur would never have been fired by Truman and we would have nuked China back to the stone age.

But, he is right that North Korea has been shown that there is no choice for it but to develop nukes. We should never have taken out Qaddafi. He should have been the emblem, the model, for the notion that if you come clean on WMD plans, and openly commit to not developing them, then we'll not kill you. Qadaffi, as bad as he was, did that, and wound up sodomized by a bayonet and murdered in public.

With the Libya thing, nobody cared anymore that "they didn't attack us," and "they didn't have WMD" or anything related to Congressional or UN approval. All that went by the wayside because a different crew did the deed. But, at least when it came to Saddam Hussein, he was arguably lying, and he was posturing as if he had major WMD. Qadaffi came clean and opened up to inspections and cried "uncle!"

What is Kim supposed to take from that? He basically has one choice - a hard line stance that says he won't give up an inch and if the west goes too far, he'll pull the trigger. It's his only hope, and it's why we have no good solution now. None. He's got nukes, we have to deal with him. We're going to need to back down, or there will be a war.

That may be their thinking but China could easily guarantee him and his nasty family safe passage. They are more or less prisoners as they stand in any case.

[mistermack]

Russia is extracting revenge for sanctions by sabotaging everything that the US tries to do in the UN about North Korea. They've made it perfectly clear that they will vote down with China any more effective UN resolutions.

I don't approve, I think it's too dangerous a situation to play games with.
But I'm not surprised, and you can hardly blame the Russians in giving the US some tit-for-tat grief.

It's not a situation that's going to change, till the sanctions on Russia are lifted. Even though they are having no noticeable effect, the Russians don't like it, and will always respond in kind.

[Forty Two]

Kim Jong Un is threatening the US, Japan and the UK. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... h-11170437

[Forty Two]

And, they'll sink Japan into the sea, and reduce the US to ashes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ashes.html

[JimC]

It's time for Godzilla to pay a visit to NK...

[Hermit]

North Korea is a long way off being able to deliver a "gift package" of any size to the U.S. Ignoring that fact makes a lot of sense, though, if you want to convince the gullibles that some military threat is twisting your arms (no pun intended) into increasing the US military budget by 550 billion smackeroonies, and that deep down inside you are not a war hawk at all.

[Forty Two]

Well, it's interesting, but it does not indicate that the technological hurdles are insurmountable. We all know that the idea of them delivering a nuke by ICBM is a ways off, but it's closer now than it was. Accuracy and range of the ICBM is a big part of the equation. After that, you need to make a small warhead, and make it able to survive reentry and detonate over a target. However, they have one thing that the Germans referred to in the video do not have - 75 years of development and available research and reverse engineering that they can undertake. We can't really ignore their efforts.

Also, it doesn't take a lot to rock the world, as 9/11/01 showed. One missile hitting a city and killing a few thousand people, even if it's not nuclear, is enough to start a decades long war where millions will die. If they bombed Japan or South Korea, a major war would ensue. It's a big risk, nuke or no nuke.

We don't want war with North Korea. I'm not sure how that's avoidable now, because of what was done to Moamar Qadafi in Libya. Kim Jong Un knows he cannot let his guard down and he cannot give up nukes. He must have that threat, or he will be dead, eventually. He probably thinks that if he ended his ICBM and nuke program, he would ultimately be taken out. He's playing the only game he has.

[JimC]

North Korea is a long way off being able to deliver a "gift package" of any size to the U.S. Ignoring that fact makes a lot of sense, though, if you want to convince the gullibles that some military threat is twisting your arms (no pun intended) into increasing the US military budget by 550 billion smackeroonies, and that deep down inside you are not a war hawk at all.

From everything I've read, it is the artillery targeted on Seoul that is the main deterrence to an attack by the US and/or South Korea, in that such an attack, although probably successful in the long run (depending on the reactions of China), would trigger tens of thousands of civilian deaths in a short space of time.

[Forty Two]

And, here we go... https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4543242/w ... wn-planes/

Inching closer to a bad outcome.

We have to figure a way out of this. A war with the DPRK is not a viable option.

There needs to be a way to get to a sit-down and to resolve this.

There is no good guy/bad guy, moral imperative here. We all know the Kim regime is tyrannical and murderous, but there is nothing we can do about it. We need to convince them to give up their offensive nuclear program, and that's going to require - if they can be convinced at all - an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the Kim regime, and assurances to end sanctions and work with the DPRK.

The problem is, the DPRK saw what happened to Qaddafi, and they don't trust the US or the civilized western nations. If you give up nukes, then you are alive only at the pleasure of the western countries. They don't trust us

And, think of the history - the UN action in Korea in the 1950s was a massively bloody conflict, and the North Korean people grew up hating the US. They swear readily to lay down their lives to kill Americans. There is no "liberating" North Korea, because North Koreans do not want to be liberated by the US. They live under the notion of the US carpet bombing North Korea during the Korean War, and they think American soldiers are coming to kill their children.

War with North Korea is not an option, because decapitation of the regime cannot win the war, and there is no way to occupy North Korea. Victory could only come with wholesale slaughter of the population, and that is not something the US should ever be willing to inflict, unless North Korea actually uses nuclear weapons on the US, and even then, ways around it would be preferable.

So what can be done here? It's a difficult issue. One that may not have any non-war result.

[Svartalf]

only way would be to neutralize NK before they can use their artillery to raze Seoul and all of Norther SK, and launch missiles over to Japan... and nope, I don't see the US being able to achieve that, because the NK is in full readiness and will raze ost of their southern brothers and some of Japan before we can glass them, as soon as they detect something wrong... and we don't have enough B2's to destroy their offensive capability/disable their command structure in time.

[Forty Two]

And, no matter what, even if the US does flatten the command, communication and control aspects of the DPRK and neutralize the artillery capacity for the most part, there will be millions of rabid and hungry north Koreans with nothing much in their heads besides a sincere desire to kill Americans or die trying. If we couldn't win hearts and minds in 1950-53, we sure as fuck are not going to do it today.

[Svartalf]

Not sure if they are lobotomized to the same extent they were 70 yearsago... even soldiers look too lean in their uniforms while on parade, that speaks lots for how happy the people must be about their government... just give them a chance to desert, they might take it.