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Mushroom Cloud Reported Over North Korea
cbrocious writes "Yahoo! News is reporting a mushroom cloud over North Korea that occured on Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. 'The explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county blasted a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.'"
"there was no immediate indication that Thursday's reported explosion was linked to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear weapons."
What was it then? Car crash? Natural gas explosion? Hmm..."no immediate indication." Bah!
I'm actually kind of surprised it took this long to hit the wires though....I mean, shouldn't we have picked it up and there been at least, a news report? Or some sort of acknowledgement of the situation by those in power........
I bet most of the Pacific Rim's probably up in arms over this-Especially the Chinese, TFA states it hit somewhere close to the China-North Korean border..... You'd think with something like that, either the Chinese would strike or raise hell along the diplomatic channels.....
Reminds me of those WWII era Civil Defense movies I saw once in a history class...You
know, the one with the turtle...
"Ok kids, what do we do when the bomb hits?"
"DUCK! AND COVER!"
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
First of all, no doubt its a nuke. No conventional explosive creates that large a mushroom cloud... well if you had about 10,000 tons of TNT maybe you could, but otherwise its most likely a nuke.
But now that they have working nukes... don't know whether we can trust Kim not to use them... North Korea used to be Russia's puppet, but is now an orphan nation. And they will do anything to get attention.
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
How long can we ignore this crazy bastard, Kim Jong-il I mean? Are we gonna have to wait until he strikes oil?
-dameron
If is it nuclear then yes, the U.S. military would likely know about it, but I highly doubt they would make this information available to the public so quickly.
It would be highly embarassing to the current administration to have to N. Korea's insane nuclear ambitions (which is a back burner issue for them) dominate the news during the 9/11 observance.
Behind one these curtains is an weird, probably psychotic dictator with weapons of mass destruction? Can you guess which one?
Wrong again George.
-dameron
Y! is really the only 'big' News Outlet that has more then just a small blurb about it. Untill I see a nice satellite image, or photo of the cloud or something concrete, I'm skeptical.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
wondering why this isn't all over the news? Where are the pictures, reports, I mean if there is a chance this was nuclear in origin than it is A BIG DEAL. I certainly want to know what the hell is going on over there.
Something interesting to note. This took place on Thursday, 09 September. Two days ago. The news is only getting out now.
Anyone else think it quite remarkable that we live in an age where information travels at incredible speeds all over the world... but it took two days for the (at least mainstream) media to report this? Think about it. There are still places in the world where something equivalent to a small nuke can go off -- mushroom cloud and all -- and we don't NOTICE it right away.
It's kind of humbling.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Ok, so the article said this explosion happened on Thursday. If it was a nuke, there would have been like eighty kajillion reports of it by now (saturday, in the US). Not that I am dubious, just wanted to point out the time discrepency.
Here
Possession of the nukes all but guarantees immunity from invasion. This means they can now safely reduce their conventional forces by 30-40% and start working on things less critical to their survival.
What else might create an explosion of this size? How much conventional explosive would be required? That's what I'm wondering. My purely speculative theory is that the explosion was purely a show by North Korea to drum up patriotism. North Korea is probably right now telling its citizens it has nuclear bombs, even though this explosion likely wasn't nuclear at all.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Remember the whole reason a North & South Korea exists is because China supported the Communist North.
... yet.
So, if the US goes into NK, we are pretty much going to go mano-a-mano with the PRC for domination of the globe. Neither the US or the PRC really want that.
Screaming about "oil" and "aren't they the same" really ignores significant differences.
Nowhere near "all of our troops" are in Iraq. We've got about 125,000 troops in Iraq. That includes Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, and significant numbers of National Guard troops.
That's about two Canadian Armed Forces' worth of troops, but only a fraction of our total force strength.
And here's a big, big question for everyone who's going to bleat "Well why'd we send those troops to Iraq instead of North Korea?":
The city of Seoul is home to eleven million people. The city of Seoul is also within artillery range of North Korea. Artillery is cheap and ubiquitous, and as North Korea's army is arrayed along Soviet lines, they have scads of it. Until it fires, it's damned hard to spot camoflaged artillery from the air, and even if you could spot all of it, the sheer number of artillery pieces they have is quite staggering.
If you have a plan for military intervention in North Korea that doesn't lead to the virtual annihilation of Seoul within hours of the start of the war, please, we're all ears.
yeah it's such a crazy idea that the South developing nukes with the aid of the US, who will invade foreign countries regardless of international law and opinion, would make the North defensive.
the whole problem could have been solved ages ago. the North had an agreement with the US to not develop nuclear technology in exchange for help with a nuclear power plant (which cannot be used to make nukes). the US refused to live up to their end of their agreement though. so what do you expect from the North? unilateral disarmament and trust the US? lol.
The real difference is the government controlling it. For NK, it is the whim of one man to launch a nuke. Is it rational for a self-preserving being to want to lauch a nuke? No, because of mutually assured destruction. But for someone irrational, this may be very possible. If Mexico and Canada had them, I'm certain that congress/parliment and whatever other democratic party that are they wouldn't want to launch a nuke, becuase the tens/hundreds of members in it understand that if they launch a nuke, they'd probably die. Even in China, which is ruled by an oligarcy, it is very likely that not all of those few very powerful people in the government would want to do something like that.
Yes, but here's the fundamental issue:
What do you DO about North Korea?
You can invade Iraq and dismantle their government with relatively few casualties.
But if you even START to THINK about invading North Korea, Seoul gets hit by 50,000 missiles before our troops can even step across the border. Sure, North Korea would fall in a matter of days, but not until after they'd done tons of damage.
The ONLY way to deal with North Korea is diplomacy. Any other dealing will reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. THAT is why nobody has done anything about that particular psychotic dictator, except met with him diplomatically.
Comment of the year
I highly doubt they would make this information available to the public so quickly
...and I highly doubt that they could keep it from the public for this long.
G
If it was an above-ground nuclear detonation, there will be plenty of fallout to analyze. North Korea is not a big enough country to contain all the radioactive particulate matter that would be generated by such a blast.
In addition, there may also be seismic confirmation. I'm not sure if it extends to above ground fission detonations, but I'm pretty sure most earthquake activity monitors in the US used to detect the underground tests done in the USSR.
Finaly, to those of you who are ok with them having nuclear weapons capability, keep in mind that at least from the perspective of the US, they have supplied many of this country's enemies with enhanced weapons capabilities. To passively allow those who would willingly use these things to acquire them is to invite your own destruction.
Just because we have them does not mean everyone should. It means that we(the world) should strive to conduct ourselves in such a way that no one needs/wants them. There are better things to do!
134,000: Number of US troops sent to Iraq, to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which had nothing to do with September 11th.
17,900: Number of US troops sent to Afghanistan, to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the people responsible for September 11th and other terrorist attacks against the US.
That give you an indication of what the Bush adminstrations priorities have been?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
>Do you want to keep sending these guys money and stuff?
Sanctions on Iraq.
Sanctions on N Korea.
Details of Fuel Oil program for NK.
In other words, they aren't getting "tons of free stuff" and NK developed, broke its reactors seals, etc under the "cowboy diplomacy" of the Bush admnistration, not Clinton. There are solutions to problems and if you can keep UN inspectors in and nukes out by bribing someone with fuel oil than so be it. We are witnessing the "tough guy" alternative. Are you ready to be drafted to fight a couple more wars for "cowboy diplomacy?"
Don't jump to conclusions. Reporters are notorious for being inaccurate, and modern news services are notorious for rapidly spreading news stories whether or not the sources are credible.
Our government and NORAD monitor everything and know what's going on. You can't expect to know the real story until you have your own satellite in orbit and your own offshore seismic monitoring stations.
So if you're stressed out right now I suggest you read a good book, hit up a good house party, get drunk, get laid, smoke dope, whatever -- and don't worry so much on a Saturday night.
Funny thing is, if politicians and military people could do the same (chill out a bit) instead of going ape shit and provoking escalations, we would live in a safer, happier world. So if there is something to worry about, let's hope that the People in Power don't do anything too stupid. When in doubt, be nice.
...raise your hands. Now, tell us HOW you think this should be handled:
1. Go over there and nuke them now before they really start causing trouble.
2. Let's reserve judgement until we know for sure it was a nuke. Then if it was, let's go over there and nuke them before they really start causing trouble.
3. Let's reserve judgement until we know for sure it was a nuke. Then if it was, let's hope the current administration will set up talks with North Korea to try and reach some compromises to their demands.
4. OK. So they have nukes. So what? Leave them alone. It's none of our business.
I am certain that we will know your political affiliations based on which answer you relate to the most.
Un-news
Well, if a forest fire can create a crater visible by satellite, I think we better start opening up our national forests to logging right away!
the reports said craters in addition to mushroom clouds.. doesn't sound like a volcano to me
Well, that's just great, but North Korea isn't in Southeast Asia.
Gee only if we had an administration that was skilled in diplomacy or even believed in it. This administartion idea of diplomacy is to insult people and tell them we are going to kill them and of course sometimes to kill them.
evil is as evil does
and i'm sure he'll become more sane, have less weapons, and become less desperate as time goes on.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
What this shows is quite simple. If you are an evil dictator who doesn't want to be invaded what you should do is *get* nuclear weapons and be able to threaten your neighbours with destruction.
Iraq: no nuclear weapons, very weak conventional army, not really a military threat to any of its neighbours, including US allies - result: invasion.
N Korea: nukes, strong conventional army that can wipe out Seoul in hours: no invasion.
The lesson therefore for evil dictators is NOT to disarm - in fact get those nukes as quickly as possible! Then no-one will dare invade you. Oh and build up your conventional army and station it right at the border of your nearest neighbour that is most important to the US. Basically if you look weak the US will invade. If you look strong (nukes, big army, chemical weapons etc.) then the US will not invade. Fairly simple.
To be specific, the seismometer is on the HMC university campus, and the university is in Claremont, CA (check the site). Wouldn't there be a propegation delay between Korea and California? Could that delay compensate for the ~9-hour time difference?
Oh, for crying out loud! Everyone and his mom are speculating about "teh bomb". Consider the options in a rational manner, for once, please. Even if this is the /dot:
Possibility number 1: A nuclear explosion. If it was a nuclear explosion, remember that it happened close North Koreas's north eastern border with China. If that is the case, remember that the prevailing winds will blow the fallout either north or west, in which case the fallout will cross over into China, and you can bet your sweet apple pie that China will not take lightly to radioactive fallout from a neighbouring country, or the winds blow the fallout east in which case both Japan and Russia (Yes, George, Russia is just across the way over there) will raise living hell, or the winds blow the fallout south in which case South Korea gets to crap their collective pants. Either way, the international media will find out really fast about it.
2. It was an accident such as the one a few months ago, when a train laden with chemicals went up into the air. Given that NK is poor as hell and workplace safety not a major concern, this is the most likely cause. If this is the case, it is possible that it will take a long while until the media discover it.
3. It was a military accident at a missile site, where one exploding missile set off the rest, a la Chinese firecrackers. If this is the case, the NK's will probably try to keep it as secret as possible as it would be hugely embarrassing to the fuckers who routinely make huge boasts about their military and have this obsession with saving face.
> and i'm sure he'll become more sane, have less weapons, and become less desperate as time goes on.
It's called "death".
Eventually, Kim Jong'll get ill, and croak. Eventually, so will the weird cult-of-personality nation he's crafted.
Every day we keep him relatively peaceful is a day closer to the inevitable fall of the regime through natural causes.
From the BBC article: "A crater caused by the blast could be seen from a satellite, an unnamed official in Beijing was quoted by Yonhap as saying."
;)
Forest fires cause lots of damage, but generally they don't make huge craters visible from space.
That coming from a U.S. official. We also see:
"The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire."
Last I checked, forest fires don't leave a crater, which was also reported. The U.S. official they're quoting is apparently clueless.
All the GPS satellites and a few other to boot are equipped with what is called "Bhang meters" which can detect the very special two-peak light-signature of an atomic explosion.
No natural phenomena have ever set off the Bhangmeters mistakenly.
If this was a nuclear test-shot, the US government know about it by now.
The question is if they choose to ignore the raw data, just like they did on 22 September 1979 when the joint South African/Israel test shot were fired.
Poul-Henning Kamp -- FreeBSD since before it was called that...
That you have NO idea what the fuck happened over there. You are sitting in front of your computer, relying on third or fourth hand stories of the event. So trying to declare that you know which is true and false, at this point, is pretty stupid. I would also note that CNN is a considerable more credible news source than Yahoo news.
So, what really happened? Well, I dunno, but neither do you. If you assume that it was a nuclear blast, you are taking that on faith. There is little in the way of second hand confirmation and you sure as hell have NO first hand information.
So while I'm not saying that CNN isn't wrong, please let's lay off the bashing until there is more information.
They will then proceed to level Seoul with entrenched artillery, killing (literally) millions of people and destroying the main city of an advanced, friendly, and economically-important nation.
That will make quite the point to everyone. However, being as the point they'll get will most likely be "the USA is a bunch of trigger-happy psychopaths who don't give a damn about causing millions of deaths in friendly countries", I'm not sure it's a point we actually want to make...
Not to mention that:
a) The Asian region will have an economic meltdown, crippling the world economy at a time when the US economy is already fragile.
b) China - nuclear-armed and fast becoming the world's other superpower - will be pissed
. c) North Korea's Special Forces - the largest in the world - will be only too happy to spread their knowledge, training, and manpower to anti-US terrorist groups.
d) North Korea will suddenly be much more open to the idea of sharing its known nuclear capability with anti-US terrorist groups.
Do you really think that's such a good idea?
You are just fucking insane.
People today have a very very bad understanding of nuclear weapons. The US has 'clean jacket' nukes that leave little fallout. The reason for this was that they were designed to be used on a battle field that US and NATO troop would walk thru hours after the weapon was set off. The fallout from a few small nukes on NK millitary targets would be much less then you think. Whats the reality here? I mean if there was ever a way in NK the US would use nukes in the 1st day. NK has a 1 million man army on the boarder with SK.
Remember, there is no such thing as an inhuman weapon. It is a weapon. Its job is to kill the bad guy in the quickest fastest means that you can! The is no difference between a SMALL nuke and a flight of B-52 full of 100's of 2000lb bombs.
So tell me? Should we give a county aid that because it uses all it has to keep 1 million people in the army? Why should we prop up a failed system that wants to destory us and kills its own people. Over a million people died in NK in the last few years becaue they did not get enought to eat and it is their GOVERMENTS fault. I do not make any deals with the devil.
I used to think that you could reason with people. That you could talk things out. Then I saw what the Iraq soliders did to the people in Kuwait. I saw what they did to the children. I saw a body strapped to a metal bed with the car battery sitting next to it. I have seen what the rebels in Columba did to the women and children in the villages. I do not believe in god, but I sure hope there is a hell!
> weapons against the PRK to destroy every military installation, followed by a rapid invasion to secure
> the countryside and assure there can be no belated retaliation.
Are you sure?
First, a few things to consider:
a) Seoul would be flattened, killing millions of civilians.
- How do you think the rest of the world would view us if we caused the death of millions of another country's civilians just because we're concerned about a possible future threat?
- How many people would curtail their business with the US as much as possible because of this ruthless disregard for other nations, throwing the most massive possible brakes on our economy?
- How many people would be tempted to turn a blind eye towards anti-US terrorism, or even donate money towards curbing a sociopathic superpower?
- How angry would China - the emerging other superpower - be that we'd nuked right beside their country? How likely would technology and materiel from China "accidentally" be "stolen" by anti-US terrorists?
b) North Korea has the largest Special Forces contingent in the world, with over 100,000 well-trained soldiers.
- With over a dozen tunnels dug to well behind the DMZ (see same link), how much of South Korea would remain intact?
- With that many guerrilla-trained fighters in highly mountainous terrain, how many tens of thousands of Americans would die invading and occupying the area?
- How many thousands of those Special Forces soldiers would lend their training and personal skills to anti-US terrorist groups?
- We saw the fear a single, poorly-trained pair could create around DC with the "sniper" killings; what about hundreds of Special Forces-trained infiltrators conducting operations inside the USA months or years later?
c) North Korea has nuclear capability
- How many American soldiers would die when the few nukes that NK has were used against concentrations of US forces?
- How many American civilians would die when NK nukes were given to anti-US terrorist groups?
- How many American civilians would die when NK nuclear technology and knowledge was shared with anti-US terrorist groups?
> The time to destroy an enemy is before they are strong enough to hurt.
It's far, FAR too late for that.
As a counter-weight to the continual cries of "diplomacy is useless!", consider the Cold War. The USA and the USSR didn't fight each other; all of their contact was (essentially) diplomacy. Yet the situation remained (relatively) peaceful, and eventually the danger went away.
Diplomacy clearly can work. We just need to realize that there's a world of options between appeasement and all-out war. This ain't a black-and-white issue, and you can't make a black-or-white choice and expect a good outcome.
> That's about two Canadian Armed Forces' worth of troops
Don't underestimate them -- some of those guys are tough enough to wear skirts.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you have to deal with them diplomatically it would have really helped if the president did not includ them into the axis of evil when giving a puplic speech. Not very diplomatic now, is it?
The US stance on North Korea has ben far too soft, but your call to arms is worrisome.
First, it is true that you have no diplomatic stance if you have no power. However, there are many types of very influential power that fall short of "things that go BOOM." (Some of these actually work against people who are literally starving.) Second, having the ability to project military force is very different from exercising it unilaterally.
And the bit about using nuclear weapons? Maybe if this weren't a world where using nukes tends to have *consequences.* I can think of some very large, very powerful nearby countries (who are politically, militarily, and economically important to the US) who would be less than overjoyed to have uncontrolled fusion going on in thir backyards. And I can think of maybe 200+ countries who would be immediately leery of a country so prepared to disregard these consequences.
And this sort of knee-jerk hawkism gets moderated +4? Are all long, grammatical posts automatically labeled "insigtful"?
Thank you. Happy for every American slashdot reader who has not gone bloodthirsty crazy. Helps me to maintain my believe in humanity.
I don't think China will react very well when they'll see a huge number of nuclear warheads going in their direction. And even if for some miraculous reason they understand and believe that the warheads are not going to China I don't think they will react very well to the fact that part of their population could die from the nuclear fallout coming from their neighbors and I don't think they will see from a very enthusiastic eye the fact that a military force is wiping out north Korea and positioning itself directly on their border. At least last time it happened they didn't stay there just watching.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
large ordinance explosions like the ones used in mining show many smaller spikes because of delays between primary charges. these delays are not characteristic of high ordinance, they are put there on purpose. a large amount of high explosive set off all at once would show the same spike that nuclear weapons do.
Ya, let's provoke a nation that is under the leadership of a crazy guy who probably wouldn't bat an eye at killing all this citizens by launching a nuke at a bunch of US carriers or at Seoul. When the crazy guy has a gun you don't point your gun at him and start yelling at him. You talk very nicely and don't make any sudden moves until you are sure you can get the gun away from him before he shots you, himself, or any of the innocent people who happen to be nearby. We can't use the same tactics against NK that we did with USSR; at least they weren't crazy. Power hungry and a little mean, but not crazy like the leader of NK.
Space for rent, inquire within
So? You guys have been at it for over fifty years.w
All of the those Japanese seismic research post picked that incident at 0200UTC, Sept 10. The ABU site, first on the list, the seismic pattern line goes straight off the page. BTW, 11AM Pyongyang and Seoul time would be 0200UTC.
Actually, I suspect that this admin did NOT think about N.K. Right now, we are maxed out with troops deployed on 2 fronts, about 11K in Afghanastan and about 140K in Iraq. It is known that we will have to increase the troops in Iraq to about 160-180K in order to control it. Well since we did not get the job done, Afghanastan is slowly falling back under control of Al Qaeda. We are about to step up the numbers of troops in Afghanastan in a big way (I suspect that is why the draft board is being set back up). The problem is that afghanastan had a bigger landmass( also more difficult terrarain) and higher population than Iraq. IOW, we need more troops than is currently in Iraq. It is probably for this reason why we are taking troops out of other countries. But one of the countries is S.K., right at a time where N.K. has obviously aquired a nuke (I am guessing on monday, that we will hear all about it). This implies that the admin did not give NK a second thought when making decisions to invade Iraq.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is the right and duty of the North Korean government to build nuclear weapons. For christ's sake, we have called them a rogue state, listed them as part of the "Axis of Evil". Do you expect them to just sit there and wait for us to march in? I fully support their right to build weapons to defend themselves. Given that we have decide that pre-emptive war is OK, I fully support their right to Nuke the U.S. as a pre-emptive move. Wake up people! We have opened up a pandora's box with our pre-emptive doctorine and soon every country in the world will be pointing nukes at us. Good for them I say. Maybe some real threats as opposed to have-been dictators will make the idiotic American public wake up and start asking why our foreign policy leads to so much anti-Americanism.
There are not many AC comments that make me want to reply but this is one of them.
Well for starters, moving 4 million people around in the United States is an impressive exercise but not overly complex. There is an excellent infrastructure in place to handle large movements of people when required. You also have vast geographic areas to move the displaced people to. Florida has a population density of roughly 114 people per square kilometer compared to South Korea's 494 people per square kilometer. Simpling finding space to move the evacuees to will be much more difficult in South Korea.
The other thing to consider, South Korea is, for the purpose of this discussion, essentially an island. There is no place to move people to outside of the country unless by sea or air. This greatly complicates the evacuation scenario. Assuming you could cram 10,000 people on to a large cruise ship, you would need 1,100 of them or 22,000 747's each carrying 500 people.
The third item to take into account is stealth. Given the paranoia gripping the government of North Korea, I believe it would be quite impossible to displace 11 million people in the South without the North knowing about it rather short order. What possible conclusion could be drawn by the North when 20 per cent of the population decides to move somewhere virtually at the same time, other than military action is imminent. At that time, the North's only possible response would be to attack so as to inflict the most possible damage in a pre-emptive strike. When this happens, the evacutaion will not be complete and civilians will suffer huge casualities. Compounding this, the invasion force (most likely U.S. lead) will not yet be in a strategic or tactical position of advantage.
In other words any evacuation plan for South Korea will have only a very minimal chance for success.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
Clickable link.
This graph shows that something began happening 450 seconds after 2:00, then suddenly grew a lot at 550, then there was a number of large spikes until about 700, after which things began to calm down.
Could a nuclear explosion produce such a signature ? Could there be a difference in the speed of seismic waves that could cause this ?
What I don't understand is the calm start. One would imagine that a nuclear (or any other) explosion would cause a sharp spike at the beginning and then fading echoes, not small rattle that takes a hundred seconds to grow to its maximum.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Airburst nukes don't give off a lot of radioactive fallout. I think we can assume that if North Korea was testing nukes in the open, they took precautions to minimize radioactive fallout. It makes no sense to poison their own land.
...which is why they are testing this near the border of China.
Everybody seems to be willing to poison the outskirts of their own land or preferably an old colony as far away from the homeland as possible..
Check out Marshall Islands, Christmas Island, French Polynesia for the American, British and French 'nuclear testing facilities' respectively.
Seriously though, of course we have a choice. We didn't cave in to the USSR, I don't expect us to give a cowtow to N. Korea.
It seems likely that the main thing that N Korea wants out of this is to deter us (or others) from attacking them. We didn't attack the USSR and, yes, possession of nuclear weapons is a good reason to not attack N Korea either.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Also note that the USSR was never truely desperate, whereas the north koreans are more or less starving.
Of course Georgie-boy's talent for diplomacy will solve all our problems... NOT.
Hell, W. will probably be happy to start Armageddon, the final showdown between Good and the Axis of Evil.
No this is nothing about the US army being stupid. The fact that you don't get what I was implying means YOU are stupid though. The basic point is, if you are a tyrant, if you have a strong military that can cause a lot of damage then the US (or anyone else really) is a lot less likely to invade you then if it can walk in their taking hardly any damages. This is a basic truism in any conflict. However the fact that Iraq was invaded for WMD and being a "threat" and N. Korea not shows to tyrants that if you HAVE WMD (and the US is absolutely sure that you do) and it is aimed at a US ally ready to cause damage and you have a big army that can cause the US and its allies lots of damage then the US will not invade. So in the minds of tyrants throughout the world, what Iraq SHOULD have done is gone for nukes single-mindedly, and build up its military and stationed it on the Kuwait border with missiles and artillery aimed at the major cities. Ditto with Tel-Aviv. Basically it tells tryants "Build up your forces and build those nukes and chemical weapons and you are safe". Don't build them and you will die.
What the US has done with Iraq is to make military buildups and WMDs its primary reason for invading i.e. "pre-emptive war". The US has not left any room for subtlety or maneouver. It is black and white issue as presented by Bush who has dismissed all ideas of diplomacy and negotiation or shades of grey. The idea of this is to make a show of strength to the world saying "The US will destroy you if you do this". Basically the US is flexing its muscles to the world. However while it took out the weakest kid on the block when presented with a real fight i.e. N. Korea it has backed down and right now to the gang leaders on the block it looks like a pussy that is too scared to fight as long as they carry a gun or knife openly.
I think it would be mistake for the US to invade N. Korea. However its problem is it has built up too much expectations for itself. It is the guy who flexes his muscles and roars "I am the strongest. Challenge me and I will smash you to pieces. I will never back down. I know no fear." If you then back down after saying something like this (for whatever reason) you obtain an enormous loss of credibility in carrying out your threats. And because the US seems to be only willing to attack the weak it shows to the rest of the kids in the neighbourhood that as long as they have guns and carry them openly the big strong guy won't dare touch them, but if they don't have them he will smash them. That is he will only attack the weak. Hence the solution is not to be weak. I disagree with the war on Iraq make no bones about it, and I agree that the US is in a no-win situation in Korea, but I think that the US has brought this no-win situation on itself with all its "You are with us or against us" i.e. black and white bluster. Basically the US has made threats it should have known that it could never carry out. Iraq got smashed, but N. Korea has called the bluff successfully. Now N. Korea will be used as the example throughout the world on how to stop the US invading.
They don't have the technology to hit a ship, much less a battleship in the open sea. All they can do is blackmail us by threatening Japan and South Korea.
We can keep waiting for them to build longer range missiles capable of hitting North America too (while we and others supply them with food and fuel) or tell South Korea and Japan to deploy a lot of Patriot missiles, pray to various deities and kick the crap out of North Korea.
Very good analogy -- while you "talk very nicely", you better have the snipers deployed around... The nuclear armed submarines suggested by the grandparent article are the "snipers"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'll bite. ;) Because there does happen to be an empire that has a better track record than the US in military matters, even if we have beaten them at war ourselves.
No military force in the entire history of the world has had as many successive and dominating victories as the US had. Name one empire that stretched from the western shores of Europe back around to the Western shores of Europe.
"The sun never sets on the British flag."
Also keeping in mind, as always, that England gave its colonies independence over time. Few of them revolted (as far as I know, only 13 of them actually revolted, the rest achieved independence peacefully), and England can still lay claim in its history of having the largest empire ever in our small planet's history.
Not that your statements about our military are totally wrong, because our military is pretty damn good (even if somewhat accident-prone). Just that to say it's the best there has ever been is ignoring certain other empires. WWII, for example, the decisive European battles in WWII were fought in the Soviet Union. Many large and influential battles happened elsewhere, but most historians seem to agree now that Hitler was beat in the winter campaign in the Soviet Union.
And your statements also ignore our own losses. The Canadians burned the white house, if you recall. Also, Korea and Viet Nam weren't exactly victories.
So, yeah, that's it.
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Am I the only single person on Slashdot who would be happy to hear that north Korea demonstrated a nuclear weapon? It could be a turning point in the ongoing "cold" Korean War. It might make the US finally give up invading the sovereign half of Korea.
I mean... all you that hate socialist Korea so much... Have you ever asked yourselves WHY you fear a nuclear-defended north? What reason have they ever given us to fear them? Unless you're naive enough to buy the line that they sell weapons to "terrorists," I say your opposition is baseless.
Property is theft.
While it's been 15 years since I last read a seismogram in anger, the event pointed to above is about as clearly "teleseismic" as anything I've ever seen. Note the > 30 minute duration. That was a large *earthquake* from farther away than Korea is, not a (relatively low energy) blast source.
Looking at the reactions so far on /. I get the sense that people are soiling their pants over this. Try to step back a bit and have a more realistic look at things.
1. N Korea is a small country and however much one may dislike them, they are not in a position to attack and take over the world - or even the region, nuke or not.
2. Its not realistic to imagine terrorists smuggling an atomic bomb anywhere. These things are big and 'noisy' in terms of radiation. While one might imagine that a very rich organisation - say, al Qaeda - could actually smuggle one into USA, why would they? It's too much effort for too little effect, when it is so much easier to slam an aircraft into a building or something like that.
No, even if N Korea make a nuclear bomb, it only makes sense for them to keep it as a threat. The very fact that they still exist against all odds demonstrates that they may have a very bad government, but they are probably not on a suicide mission.
The real danger (I have to say this, otherwise I'll get modded up) lies elsewhere: with people whose heads have grown too big and seem to tink they have a right to tell the world what to do.
Seriously though, of course we have a choice. We didn't cave in to the USSR, I don't expect us to give a cowtow to N. Korea. Seriously, expect a carrier battle group in the Sea of Japan ASAP if there isn't one there already. Expect half of the U.S. Navy including a dozen submarines loaded with 60 ICBM's each sitting off the coast of North Korea very soon. Oh, we'll be playing "ball" all right.
Seriously, you're talking out of your ass. First of all, an ICBM -- an InterContinental Ballistic Missile -- does not need to be delivered to the coast of North Korea. Secondly, it's generally believed that the United States currently has nuclear weapons in the area, so we wouldn't have to bring new ones in. But most importantly, support in the United States for preemptive action is weak enough even without the risk of nuclear war. No president in their right mind would use, or even threaten to use, nuclear weapons unless the integrity of the United States' own borders were under direct and imminent threat. We know that, and every nuclear newbie and aspirant on the globe knows that.
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Well, if CNN says it it must be true. I personally believe a "US Official" who states that a 4 KM wide mushroom cloud and blast are a result of a "forest fire".
I'd wait for confirmation form BBC, CBC and a few other sources before I buy the 4km mushroom cloud blast forest fire story.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Didn't crazy guy with a gun used to be more or less the definition of a terrorist, before it started to be redefined as "anyone the US think is acting suspiciously"??
Someone else already pointed out that NK has not signed the non proliferation treaty, but that I think is the least of your problems.
Simply put: pre-emption is a euphamism for aggression.
First of all you're right about them selling nuclear material, but blowing them up isn't the right answer. What is? I don't know for sure, I'm not an expert, but economic incentives and disincentives would be a good start. When GWB came into office all he offered was the stick. Remember that? No carrot. He doesn't deal with evil. (Well, until reality intruded and he had to). In addition to that inspections would seem to be viable.
They seemed to be working in Iraq, unless of course you've got some other agenda.
As for Reagan, I don't by the Fox Wisdom stating that Reagon spending this country to death brought down the soviet union. It's not that simple. It seems to me that it was a combination of corruption and social pressure and inept government that brought down the soviet union. There's probably a lesson there for us as well.
But lets translate the behavior you propose into everyday life:Let's say your walking down a street and see some thug looking at you in a menacing way. Let's even say you notice he's packing. Do you pull out a gun and shoot him before he does anything? You probably don't because it's illegal, antisocial and brings you to the same level of the person you're afraid of.
A better quesstion for you and all the warmongers in this country is do you wish you could? Is it your greatest fantasy to just blow everything up, to kill it all and stand above the mess?
My direct message to GWB: Fear and hatred are not viable foreign policies. The number of people who wish to kill americans will only increase if we continue to behave like scared bullies.
But the rest of the worlds opinion is not the most important reason to change our foreign policy. The most important reason is because it is wrong, immoral and counterproductive. But then again I don't expect the foreign policy of GWB to be much different than his domestic policy or anything else in his life.
Most fundamentally the problem with pre-emptive action is that you simply don't know what can happen. And killing thousands of other people, both your own citizenry and those of another countries, is too expensive of a price to pay.
Bush administration spin, which you have apparently swallowed whole:
In less than four years, Bush has already toppled two dictatorships, empowering the liberated people to form peaceful democracies.
Reality:
Afghanistan: Situation rapidly reverting to pre-war political condition, with most of the country in the control of brutal warlords.
Iraq: Full scale popular uprising, fomented by Al Qaeda, who had zero presence in Iraq until the US invaded, on the pretext of WMDs which don't exist. One thousand US dead with no end in sight. No workable exit strategy because we have spurned the help of allies who could have been useful in establishing a working civilian government in Iraq (France and Germany anyone?) The US is carrying the overwhelming majority of the financial burden (200 billion and counting) with no help in sight. The massive international good will toward the US after the 9/11 attacks has been completely squandered by Bush's treatment of genuine allies as annoying obstacles to be spurned, instead of friends to be trusted and consulted, (most of the world now hates us when they sympathized with us only 3 years ago).
If your principal news sources weren't the White House and press organs that parrot Bush Administration spin you might know some of this.
How is this different than a president who believes there is a man in the clouds who controls everything, that some guy 2000 years ago was born of a virgin, had magic powers and came back from the dead before flying off to the clouds, that people don't die and live forever in the clouds and so on and so forth? If you read about the president's beliefs, some Korean folk tradition about a water spring whose water has special powers starts to sound normal.
As you say, it seems to have been forgotten, especially by the US, but the real meaning of 'terrorist' is someone who uses violence to achieve a political end; who favours intimidating methods of coercing a government or community.
By that definition, a man walking into a restaurant with an Uzi and shooting everyone inside for no good reason is not a terrorist. A man walking into a restaurant with an Uzi and threatening to shoot everyone inside unless he's given a million pounds is not a terrorist. A man walking into a restaurant with an Uzi and threatening to shoot everyone inside unless the US pulls all its troops out of Iraq is a terrorist.
Of course, 'political' need not be concerned with international military policy; it could be anything from demanding better wages for employees of BigEvilCorp, to protesting about planning regulations in LittleTown. But it usually takes some basic level of lucidity and intent, so the 'lone madman' probably doesn't count.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
> US official suggests that the mushroom cloud might be
> caused by a forest fire. A little bit of physics knowledge
> [layman/common-sense] makes this suggestion laughable
You're missing the point. If the government can get people to argue back and forth about whether a forest fire would create a 2-mile cloud and a crater, the people won't spend time thinking Bush's missteps regarding North Korea (and foreign policy in general). Just like if you can get people arguing about the typeface of a typewriter, they'll ignore the fact that witnesses and records say that Bush did not fulfill his National Guard duties and we deserve to know why.
If you can get people to argue about a particular branch on a tree, they'll forget to consider the forest.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
You neo-cons cannot get this through your heads. Say it with me slowly: HAVING-A-DIFFERENT-POINT-OF-VIEW-DOES-NOT-MAKE-YOU -ANTI-AMERICAN. Just because someone disagrees with the war in Iraq does not make them Anti-American. Having the freedom to publicly disagree and agree is one of the most important rights built into the Constitution of this country. If anything, it is 'hip' and 'cool' to call anyone with an opinion different from a neo-con a crazed liberal wacko and simply ignore what they are really tryng to say.
1) Cut a deal similar to the 1994 Carter deal that the North Koreans violated (fool me once ...)
2) Attack North Korea and risk immediate massive civilian casualties in South Korea.
3) Drag China into the negotiations with North Korea and convince them to "curb your dog".
4) Close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears and shout "La La La La La ...".
Typical neo-con revisionist history.
1. We broke our agreement without clearly justifing it and proving the case first. I don't doubt NK was breaking their side of the agreement too. And by the way, it doesn't help when the leader of the US goes all mystical and talks about "looking to so someone's soul" (Putin) or calling countries an "Axis of Evil". You can think it, but it makes you look like Rasputin when you say it.
2. Simplistic answers to complex problems (another hall mark of neo-con thinking) almost never work.
3. May work, but gives China a letgitimizing role, sponsored by the US.
4. This is what we're doing now, doesn't seem to by working.
The problem with NK is Kim Jong and his millitary supporters. He's not just nuts, he's dangerous nuts. Even China knows this. The US had better start thinking about how to contain the rabid dog that is North Korea, 'cause that dog bites.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
There seems to be agreement on /. that:
1) there was a big crater
2) it didn't show up on anyone's seismometer
I don't know what happened in NK, but the above two statements, taken together, do NOT make sense!
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Let me be slightly more verbose than Zork the Almighty.
In the French Revolution or the American Revolution, a revolution was costly but possible.
Thanks to the march of progress, basically since about WWI, states have been constructed such that planning a revolution gets you, your family, and everyone within 100 yards killed instantly. Actually trying one gets so much military might dropped on your ass that there is no hope of survival or success. The Russians helped pioneered this so consult the appropriate history there. (Tsarist Russia started it, Stalinist Russia perfected it).
America can waltz into Iraq and tear apart the government for the exact same reason that North Koreans can NOT plausibly stage a revolt.
The ONLY way North Korea could have a new government is a military coup. Since the military is effectively "really" in charge, that's already happened.
Getting control away from a military-backed dictatorship is difficult--especially with the world's largest, most-armed military. Note that we haven't meaningfully accomplished this since WWII Germany and I'm still waiting to see what history will say about Iraq.
WWII was a lot like a movie. There were good guys and bad guys, but their motives were pretty much established as good and bad respectively. In North Kafghaniraq, American politics has created an America shady enough that no one (least of all our citizens) feels particularly good about our leaders motives (or intelligence, the jury's out on this one). In WWII, the Allies were "The Good" and the Axis were "The Bad". Today, local dicators (a.k.a. Saddam Jong Il) are "The Bad", the American machine is "The Ugly", and increasingly, local guerillas (too often terrorists) are being seen by the local people as "The Good".
It amazes me that certain modern, Middle-Class Americans can't understand that dropping bombs on the local oppressors doesn't give much hope to the people of Iraq (or North Korea). It baffles me when they are appalled that those same locals celebrate a local boy killing 3000 people in the land where the bombs came from.
Make no mistake, the same tendency that allows some good, pious, working people in America to write off thousands of Iraqi casualties as "acceptable losses" is what also allows some good, pious, working people in Saudi Arabia to write off 9/11. The stubborn resolve that drives George W. Bush is the same stubborn resolve that drives the resistance in Iraq (the irony is that a lot of that resistance is only slightly less foreign to Iraq then Occupying American is).
At this point Shawn Hannity will pop out and Bill O'Reilly will "stop my spin" by saying how everything is fine, we're right, they're wrong, let's bomb them. He'll give me some token point and then claim he's been fair and that his ranting insanity is just the "plain truth" with no "spin". When intelligent people delude themselves into painting a pretty world of us versus the "evildoers", it just makes me sad. Their cries of "sanity" and "common sense" just ring of "Let them eat cake".
The sad reality is that some people are so confident in their "Good Old Party" that they won't realize the damage being done until it is too late. A lot of die-hard Republicans need to study about NAZI Germany. Seriously. What's happening in Congress (similarities to the pre-NAZI Bundestat can be drawn, the consolidation of power that enables tyranny) right now should concern anyone that believes in rule by the People (although everyone seems to be looking at the Presidency as their silver bullet).
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
The small one would be track record. They've been a round a long time and in that time shown that they are generally an accurate source of reporting.
However the big one is first hand versus second hand knowledge. Yahoo does nothing but collect stories and publish them. They really have no way of verifying them. CNN has a massive reporting department that actually goes and finds and verifies stories. Means that they can check the information for themselves.
It's like why would either be more credible than the grandparent troll? Well, because he's just some random yoink relying on fourth hand information to form an uneducated conclsuions. No way to verify the info, just running with it.
Could you use a large conventional explosion, which this now appears to be, to mask the signature of an underground nuclear test ?
First, the seismic data seems to argue against it being nuclear. I therefore suspect accident rather than intentional acts, and given that this is sort of their "founding day" and the big propaganda day for their government, we may never see an official report about it from their government.
The area where this occured has large weapons depots, factories, missile bases, and the like. I therefore suspect that there was an accidental explosion in a weapons depot. Such an explosion would probably create such a crater and mushroom cloud and would not require a nuclear bomb.
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simpleton.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
-The US is not in war with North Korea.
-North Korea does not sponsor terrorism.
-North Korea does not posses any trheat to the US.
The inclussion of North Korea in the now sadly remembered speech was the result of a derided mind that can't understand political realities because is intoxicated with pseud0-religious messainism.
This guy, Bush, is a dangerous man and it is horribly terryfying t see how many fall for his charms (which ones? I just can't understand).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.