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.'"

Comments

Well....From the TFA-

[thewldisntenuff]

"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

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Black Parrot]

"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!

Just about any big explosion will create a mushroom cloud; I saw one from a tank car explosion one time.

However, the reported 2+ mile diameter of the cloud is troubling. Surely radiation detectors will sort it out within a day or two.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[kfg]

Reminds me of those WWII era Civil Defense movies I saw once in a history class...

Yeah, I saw that one in school too. Then we all went into the cloak room, got our coats, then marched into the school basement to practice ducking and protecting ourselves by holding our coats over our heads.

You weren't paying enough attention in class though, it wasn't a WWII era movie. It was. . .are you ready for it?

A Korean Conflict era movie.

KFG

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[logicnazi]

Nah, it is very much in the government's interest to be a reliable source. This not only means not jumping to conclusions but also not trumpting news which is likely to cause the public to leap to a conclusion. A news organization has the luxory to announce maybes and possiblys about serious security issues, the government does not.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Read Icculus]

What's China going to do? Those nukes aren't for protection against China I can tell you that... although they work for that too.

No the ball is in our court now, and as they have nukes... well I'm not too sure what the move is. It just goes to show other nations (Iran), that stepping things up is probably the way to go if you don't want to be the next Iraq.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[tmasssey]

Nuclear blasts create a double pulse of light due to the physics of the blast itself. Read more here.

See? I *knew* that reading all 1800 pages of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears would come in handy...

I know, it was only 800 pages. It just *felt* like 18000... That book would have been much better as a 400 page book.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[gad_zuki!]

A couple thoughts:

1. Lots of things can cause mushroom clouds. It may even be the case that NK is blowing up something (lots of TNT) to impress their own people and keep morale up while scaring everyone else. It may also be the case that they just detonated a nuke.

2. Why are we hearing about this today? Any large explosion can be detected through vibrations. You can't set off a nuke without the world knowing.

3. Clinton and the democrats safely contained these crazy dictators. I don't think the "war on terra" is going to scale up very well to nuclear war. That said I hope people would think twice before they vote for Bush again this year.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[zaxios]

Those nukes aren't for protection against China I can tell you that

Actually, China is the closest thing North Korea has to a friend. The threats of nuclear development are for three main reasons: intimidate South Korea and Japan; provide more material for propaganda and awe at the power of the state; and most importantly, as a bargaining device to use with the rest of the world (namely the U.S.) to secure more aid, avoid sanctions, etc. Anyway, if North Korea is testing nukes, their bargaining power just increased exponentially. It's also a massive failure of international diplomacy in respect to Pyongyang and all attempts to manage North Korea.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[incom]

Maybe they staged it. A large ordinance detonation used to make the world fear their nuclear power.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[timeOday]

Searching around, the NY Times recently reported conflicting expert opinion in recent days over signs that the N Koreans were preparing to detonate a nuclear weapon, and what the implications would be.

One senior intelligence official noted that preparations the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare or a negotiating tactic by North Korea, while other officials speculated a test could be intended to influence the U.S. presidential election in November.

This is going to be an issue in the election starting now. Do we have any choice but to play ball with the N Koreans?

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[ericdano]

What do you mean, safely contained these crazy dictators??? Read up on your history. Do you want to keep sending these guys money and stuff?

No. It's simple, no nukes and we'll be nice to you. North Korea does not have anything. Instead of trying to build industry, they would rather live off UN and US free handouts. And that is what Clinton was doing. And all the while North Korea was developing a nuclear program. Good job Bill.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[robindmorris]

Duck and Cover is available from archive.org.

If you've never seen it, watch it and be very afraid.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[kfg]

Surely radiation detectors will sort it out within a day or two.

The explosion happened last Thursday. The fact that this is still a minor story with no confirmation is interesting.

KFG

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[cmowire]

Ummm.. Sorta...

First, a thermonuclear bomb will create a double pulse. A regular old nuclear bomb only creates a single pulse of light. The double pulse is because the fission explosion that is required to set off the fusion blast.

Doesn't matter. The planet is wired with detectors at this point to catch any "anomolous" explosions, through a variety of methods, in order to ensure compliance with the test ban treaty.

And second, you are using a poor rip of the wikipedia. Remember, just because one *can* fork and republish the content of a GFDL-protected work, doesn't make it a good idea.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[b0lt]

Er, no. North Korea and China are enemies. They just had mutual enemies at the time.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[stinky wizzleteats]

A large ordinance detonation used to make the world fear their nuclear power.

Not likely. If it was a real nuke, our sats would have picked up the gamma burst and we would have picked up the distinctive seismic signature. Those in power know as of right now whether or not it was a nuke, the question is - what will they tell us?

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Phleg]

Clinton and the democrats safely contained these crazy dictators.

I'll concede this point if by "contained" you mean, "implemented cosmetic measures which allowed these crazy dictators to build up the weapons technology and arsenal's their unveiling now."

Bush may not be helping much, but claiming that Clinton in some way "contained" the situation is laughable.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[bsharitt]

China has a lot of troops at the North Korean border. They can be used to protect them, but are mostly there to overrun them if they get too stupid

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[stinky wizzleteats]

Clinton and the democrats safely contained these crazy dictators.

From his pants to the plans to the W88 nuclear warhead, Clinton did not do a very good job of containing anything.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[gad_zuki!]

>"implemented cosmetic measures which allowed these crazy dictators to build up the weapons technology and arsenal's their unveiling now."

NK broke the reactor seals under Bush.

NK lauched long range missiles under Bush.

Rumors of NK's nuclear program growing in the past three years were under Bush of course.

Saddam disarmed under Bush I and Clinton. Saddam's own son-in-law told Newsweek they had no WMD anymore and the UN agreed that the "threat" Bush played up was a seriously distorting the facts. After the invasion, guess who was right?

Yeah, there is proliferation going on for two main reasons:

The Bush admin is focused on the middle east region and only cares about WMD as pro-war propaganda.

Other nations realized the lessons of the Iraq war weren't "with us or against us" it was "countries who really have WMD survive and don't get invaded." Works for Israel, it will work for everyone else.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Mycroft_VIII]

Mushroom clouds are an artifact of big explosions, not just atomic/hydrogen bombs.
One interesting ordinance is the fule-air explosive devices. Take two gases that are explosive when combined and ignigted and put them in two big tanks at a great presure then release it all at once and a split second later when the expaning mix covers a football field, but is still at very high (80+ atmospheres iirc) detonate them.
When first developed generals and such warned that thier use might be mistaken for an neuclear weapons.
If you've seen the movie outbreak the bomb they were going to drop to stop that plauge was a FAE munition.
The tell tale in this case of course would be the gamma radation signature as well as other factors, by itself a mushroom cloud just means a very big bang.

Mycroft

Mycroft

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[killjoe]

"stepping things up is probably the way to go if you don't want to be the next Iraq."

Yes. GW definately laid down the gauntlet. Unless you have enough power to cause serious damage the US reserves the right to invade you anytime it wants for any reason it wants.

It would be very wise for all nations to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The UN is unable to stop strong countries from attacking and invading smaller countries.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Simonetta]

Lots of things can cause mushroom clouds. It may even be the case that NK is blowing up something...

Agreed. Most likely this is a huge ammunition and munitions storage dump exploding as the result of an attempt to relocate it given the typical level of North Korean paranoia and unpredictability.

Why are we hearing about this today? Any large explosion can be detected through vibrations.

The nuclear powers of the area are undoubtedly monitoring the North Koreans as closely as possible for nuclear activity. Unannounced nuclear events are very sensitive because they can very quickly lead to an unbalance of the present truce between the nuclear powers. Any change in the global nuclear status can lead to runaway positive feedback loop which still could result in an nuclear exchange if not controlled. The scenarios portrayed in the films The Sum of All Fears and Crimson Tide are examples of this, although they were perhaps a little overplayed for purposes of making a good entertainment.

It's hard to understand exactly why the North Koreans are announcing to world that they are completing development of a nuclear device. Generally countries that do this try to keep the knowledge of research as secret as possible, and will avoid confirming possession of such devices at all costs. If you admit that you have a nuclear device, then you are responsible for whatever happens to it.

Say there are three countries near to each other, countries A, B, and C. Neither of them likes the other and each of them has a history of seriously bad behavior to each of the other. Suppose country B has developed a nuclear device in total secret and country A announces to the world that it is ready to test a device that they have just developed. If country B were to trigger its secret nuclear device in country C, then country A would get the blame for it. Countries C and A would have a big war to the benefit of country B alone, who remained neutral and undamaged.
This is one example of a scenario that can get seriously complicated very quickly. Since the stated goal of all countries is to NOT have anyone use these devices in any conflict, no one wants to have small regional conflicts promote a runaway nuclear escalation.

If this was a nuclear detonation today in North Korea (which I doubt), all the countries in the area would sort out amongst themselves the situation before confirming that it was a nuclear event in the global news media.

In today's climate, any small country that deliberately precipitates an unannounced nuclear event runs the serious risk of losing its sovereignty. In other words, it would be invaded by everyone else in the world and its government disbanded in the interest of preserving the present nuclear truce and balance.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Waffle Iron]

First, a thermonuclear bomb will create a double pulse. A regular old nuclear bomb only creates a single pulse of light. The double pulse is because the fission explosion that is required to set off the fusion blast.

The way I remember it, all nuclear explosions create a double pulse. The interval between the pulses depends on the size of the explosion. Fission bombs are measured in milliseconds and may not be perceptible to observers; the largest thermonuclear bombs have a delay between pulses of about a second. In an H-bomb, the time between the fission trigger and the fusion reaction is measured in microseconds, so that's not an issue.

The effect is due to the physics of the expanding fireball. The initial reaction directly emits light, which is seen as the first pulse. Right after this, the expanding ball of opaque plasma surrounds the bomb debris, obscuring further light. The plasma itself is hot and bright, however, and as its surface area grows the total emitted light increases again. This is seen as the second pulse.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[zCyl]

Take two gases that are explosive when combined and ignigted and put them in two big tanks at a great presure then release it all at once and a split second later when the expaning mix covers a football field, but is still at very high (80+ atmospheres iirc) detonate them.

You forgot to add "stand back".

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[kfg]

I disagree. A confirmable nuclear test in North Korea is what George has been secretly praying for; since he warned us of it. His entire administration rests on the premise that he is God's chosen bulwark to protect us from the forces of Biblical style evil with which he has formally implicated North Korea.

It would be used as a rallying flag for the faithful and a tool to strike fear into the hearts of "Middle America" almost instantly.

Also, do not fall into the trap of believing that the press is quite that pliable. You can get the press to print your lies, but you can't get them to quote your lies accurately or reasonably persuade them to shut the hell up in any sort of uniform manner.

Also, do not fall into the trap of believing that the American press is the only press in the world. There is also lack of official confirmation from China, England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan or even South Korea.

The fact that the story comes solely from a South Korean paper quoting an anonymous Chinese source is also interesting.

If I were to view this story cynically I would take the opposite point of view to yourself. I would be inclined to believe it is a story manufactured by the Bush administration for the purposes of buttressing themselves just before the election, or manufactured by the South Koreans as a ploy to spur American aid and native patriotic fervor.

Well, ok. As it happens I am pretty cynical. I don't entirely discount the latter possibility at all, or rather that a real explosion did occur, so the story is not actually manufactured, but is being "spun" for political purposes by the South Koreans.

Time might tell, but as these things go a lot of time has already passed.

KFG

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[quax]

Memo to you: This equates to mass murder. NK did as of now not attack your country.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[saden1]

Germany and Japan have constitutional laws preventing them from having a military. They both have peace keeping forces but no sizable armies to wage war or even protect themselves. If anyone, however, has the capabilities to raise a well equipped military they are it. Toyota and BMW can undoubtedly produce military caliber vehicles in no time. People don't know this but Japan once flirted with building infrastructure to manufacture and mass produce aircraft for the aviation industry but was deterred from doing so by the United States.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[flacco]

Memo to you: This equates to mass murder. NK did as of now not attack your country.

dude, apparently you didn't get the memo. it isn't mass murder, it's a "pre-emptive strike on an emerging threat."

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Cracell]

who said they didn't? Not like the government would have any reason to tell us, we'd just run already like idiots, they have nukes, we know that, and now they just wanted to make sure one would work, no big deal...I think

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[neurojab]

>Sure we have another choice. We can blow them to hell

Yes, General Ripper. That will ensure the purity and essence of your precious fluids.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[badasscat]

Um, guys.. North Korea hasn't attacked anyone, um, ever...

Jesus, how old are you? Maybe you'd better read up a little bit on a little thing called the Korean War.

The NK's are not going to commit suicide by taking on the U.S.

I'd hate to have listened to you on Dec. 6th, 1941. Or Sept. 10, 2001 for that matter.

I'm not agreeing with the guy who says we go in and nuke them first. But the alternative to that is not to deny that this is a real problem. This is a real problem. The North Koreans do act irrationally at times (especially with Kim Jong Il at the helm), they're very desperate, and there's at least a possibility they'll use their new nuke capability as a deterrent to our power, which will allow them to once again invade the south. They've been saying they want reunification ever since we pushed them back out in the 1950's. What they really want is the south's wealth. This is how wars start.

Technically, the Korean War is not over. This is why we have 37,000 (I guess now 25,000?) troops sitting in between the two countries - because they're two countries at war and we are under a UN mandate to keep them apart. At least until such time that they agree to formally end the war, or peacefully reunite. The North could do these things at any time. They choose not to, while still saying they want reunification. What do you think that means? It means they want reunification on their terms, with their system of government, and their leaders... and the only way they'll ever get that is through another invasion.

The South is in denial about this just like you are. But I don't know how many Pearl Harbors or World Trade Centers or Mauretanias or Archduke Ferdinands or whatever you want to come up with - I don't know how many of those you need before you realize that some countries in this world, and some people in power in very high places, are very dangerous and they will hit you and hit you hard when you least expect it. (Yes, I include George Bush in this statement - I'm not voting for him come November, and I didn't vote for him last time either. I'm no hypocrite, just being realistic here.)

So what should we do? Who the hell knows. It's fine for me to say that, but the problem is our government seems to be saying the same thing. We need some sort of strategy and we clearly have none now. Somehow, someway, we have to get these nukes out of NK's hands. Maybe eventually that does mean military action of some kind. Not yet, but it really depends on them. But this is a country with a bad history, with a tyrranical leader and in a current state of war with their nearest neighbor, which happens to be a US ally. Their nukes can already reach Alaska and soon will be able to reach California. We need to deal with this and not pretend the problem does not exist.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Ghostx13]

Gods yes! Lets appease them so they can bend us over a barrel! What a great idea! While were at it we can apologize to Germany and Japan for WW2. In fact, fuck it, everyone hates the US so lets just disarm and let them kick the shit out of us. God knows we deserve it.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[k98sven]

the question is - what will they tell us?

The truth. There is more than one government in the world, and they can't seem to agree on any single thing. How could they keep a secret among themselves?

Besides that, there are plenty of civilian radiation detectors out there. A guy I know who worked at the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden told me that back in 1986, they found out about the Chernobyl accident way before anyone in the Swedish government. (And quite some time before the Soviet authorities admitted anything had happened)

Although they did have a few worried hours trying to figure out where the radiation was coming from, before they realized that it actually had come from outside the plant. The isotope composition told them pretty quickly that it was a reactor failure, and not a bomb. Calculating backwards from the prevailing winds then gave them a pretty good guess of which reactor it was.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[wdr1]

Are you insane? Do you know anything that you're talking about? For the record, North Korea has attacked someone. When North Korea launched a massive attack, crossing over the 38th into South Korea -- for reference, it was called (oddly enough) the Korean War.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[eSavior]

what will they tell us?
That throwing your cigarettes out the window in NK is NOT a good a idea...
CNN NEWS ARTICLE

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[southpolesammy]

Ok, you're possibly correct on many counts. But the things I'm seeing so far from the Washington spindoctors look suspicious to say the least. One report on CNN said that an American official believes it was a large forest fire. Could you imagine the diplomatic exchange here (apologies to Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and the rest of the loonies):

North Korean official: We've tested a nuke near the China border.
US official: No you haven't.
NK: Yes we have, and we have the seismographs and radiation signatures to prove it.
US: 'Tis but a scratch. It was probably an earthquake.
NK: There's a big stinking radioactive hole in the ground!
US: We've seen worse.
NK: You liar!

[NK tests a second time over the Sea of Japan -- blast seen from Pusan, South Korea and Fukuoka, Japan]

NK: There -- everyone has seen it. Victory is ours.
US: Hah!
NK: Look you stupid bastard! We've tested twice now, and your own radiation-monitoring satellites confirmed it!
US: No they haven't.
NK: Look!
US: It's just a flesh wound. Could just as easily have been a forest fire.
NK: In the Sea of Japan?!?
US: Chicken....

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[kfg]

. . .there were no nuclear weapons until the END of ww2...so i think the duck and cover vids were from Teh Cold War. . .

Yes. Original poster was not paying attention in a lot of classes, nor thinking very hard about the material either, but I decided not to be quite so blunt about it as your post. As originally formated my post included your observation, but I deleted it before submiting, not wanting to give the impression that it was my intention to insult.

Shake a few brain cells maybe, which can be unpleasant enough, but not insult.

I'm starting to dread the phrase "I took a class" more and more each year.

KFG

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Anonymous Coward]

Those in power know as of right now whether or not it was a nuke, the question is - what will they tell us?

Well according to CNN those in power have told us what it is, and I quote:

The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.

Ya...right...forest fire...

And they wonder why everyone thinks that the government is involved in so many conspiracies. A forest fire is going to create a mushroom cloud and a crater? A forest fire is going to create a seismic event? I so can't stand the lies anymore. I can't wait until November 2nd, and I can get rid of them!

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Guppy06]

"One senior intelligence official noted that preparations the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare or a negotiating tactic by North Korea"

Which means that the "ho-hum" we're publicly seeing might simply be Washington's response. "Oh, that was supposed to be your bomb? It was kinda hard to tell. See, we thought you guys were working on nuclear weapons over there, and... well, shucks, we've seen bigger conventional explosions."

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[JInterest]

NK broke the reactor seals under Bush.

Actually, we don't know that, since we never had any confirmation that the reactors they were actually using for weapons research were ever "sealed" to begin with. The PRK's assurances were taken at face value. The breakdown in talks was due in no small part to years of PRK refusals to allow outside experts to confirm that they had dialed down their weapons program at all.

NK lauched long range missiles under Bush.

The PRK has had missle programs for decades, and their long-range missle development began long before George W. Bush became president. The notion that they developed such a program in three years is laughable. You obviously have no idea of the technical challenges involved.

Saddam disarmed under Bush I and Clinton

The many thousands of Kurds and Iraqi Shi'ites gassed during Bush I and Clinton would beg to differ with you. Most likely many of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were transferred to the Syrian desert, much like contraband oil exports were.

countries who really have WMD survive and don't get invaded.

Actually, most nations believed that the Iraqis still had WMDs, in no small part because Saddam hinted they did, so you logic fails. Of course, I suspect your argument is more politics than logic to begin with.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Guppy06]

"I thought the troops were there to keep the hoardes of dirty, malnourished North Korean refugees from fleeing North Korea to seek a better life in China."

No, that's what the North Korean troops on the border are for. They shoot to kill. The refugees caught in China and sent back across the border intact are the unlucky ones in comparison.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[MrWa]

I couldn't agree more, killjoe.

The logic behind the US's preemptive strike strategy boggles the mind. All we have done is solidify the opinion that the only way to deal with the US on anything close to a even standing is to develop nuclear weapons - real weapons and not "nuclear weapon related programs" - or you are fair game for some major bullying from the US government.

Now that the world has seen how we handled Iraq and North Korea in parallel - one a real threat, one a fake threat - it is obvious that being as strong as North Korea is preferrable to being like Iraq (all bark, no bite.)

Looks like more interesting times are headed our way...

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.

Ya...right...forest fire...

Or... The cloud could be the result of everyone eating too much kimchee during the festivities.

Hey, it's just as plausible as a forest fire!

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[cHiphead]

US companies were intrinsically involved in profitting from the food for oil scandals.

Haliburton
run by DICK CHENEY

Vote appropriately.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Citizen of Earth]

It's also a massive failure of international diplomacy in respect to Pyongyang and all attempts to manage North Korea.

Did anyone actually think that diplomacy would work? You cannot negotiate with psychopathic dictators. They don't keep their end of the bargain. Diplomacy will not work to make North Korea or Iran abandon their nuclear programs. Only a "regime change" will. It's almost comical to watch the 'International community' try to deal with Iran's nuclear program, though it will be a little less so when a western city gets vaporized by terrorists. The UN is still having meetings to decide if they should have meetings to ask then Iranians to stop. What a joke!

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[d474]

CNN article~

The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.

Ok, fine. The $64,000 question then: Is there in fact a forest fire?

Are they trying to tell us they don't infrared satellite imaging technology with some crack team of IR image analysts to draw some sort of definitive conclusion??? Because if it was a nuclear blast, we have a right to know.

I mean, to quote some anonymous 'US Official' as saying it 'could' be the result of some hypothetical means nothing. Well, certainly, it could be the result of any number of things, but why would a forest fire cloud make the news 2 days after the fact?

There are dozens of forest fires going on all over the world at any given moment. So for some "large mushroom cloud" to make the news 2 days after it happens only to have a US official give some limp wristed cover story should be insulting to the intelligence of all of us.

It's bad enough that North Korea keeps their people in the dark about national events, but for our own country to do so is pretty depressing.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Citizen of Earth]

The UN is unable to stop strong countries from attacking and invading smaller countries.

The UN is also unable to stop smaller countries from developing atomic weapons. The UN is unable to do much of anything. Witness Iran's nuclear program if you want to see the UN's pathetic and dangerous ineffectiveness. There is only one body in the world that can stop psychotic dictators from getting the bomb, and it ain't the UN.

It is interesting Lybia, which was further along than anyone had suspected, took heed of the Iraq invasion.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[GrayArea]

Japan spends nearly $50 billion a year on its military (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rank order/2067rank.html). Mitsubishi actually manufactures a custom version of F-15 for the Japanese (defense) air force (http://www.mhi.co.jp/aero/english/productf/b02.ht m). Get your facts straight.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[king-manic]

Um...yeah we were. We weren't the ONLY power (like now) but we were a power. Remember WWI, when we were a deciding factor in the Allied victory over the central powers? We were included in the peace talks afterwards, though we weren't necessarily listened to. After that, we still had less overseas involvement than in post WWII, but that doesn't mean we weren't a power.

The US wasn't the deciding factor, it was simply a factor. IT hedged how much terrortory the germans could take. Withouth the US in WWII Russia woudl have taken more land, and nothign more. The germans never had a chance. Same in WWI, The US helped shorten the wars but Russia won them.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[maxpublic]

You should be thankful the UN is a joke. If it weren't it'd be the first credible step to a one-world government. I can't think of anything more horrifying than a world government able to impose its will on everyone, everywhere.

Max

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[John Newman]

Same in WWI, The US helped shorten the wars but Russia won them.

Erm, Germany beat Russia in WWI, fair and square and damn near total. The war on the Eastern Front was over in Nov. 1917. By the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans occupied all of the Ukraine, the Baltic states, Poland, the Crimea, and a further chunk of the Black Sea coast; they also grabbed a large slice of Belorussia just because they felt like it. Russia was done. They were saved from Germany's harsh terms only by Allied victory in the West. The contrast with WWII, which Russia might have been able to win on its own, was striking.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[daiakuma]

Yes, North Korea has attacked someone. Once, more than fifty years ago, it attacked what it considered to be a renegade government (which had just declared itself independent from the North) installed by an occupying power. The occupying power responded by bombing North Korea into the stone ages, and by committing various other atrocities. The occupying power was the USA. What the US did in Korea makes what it did in Japan look like a tea party. The war may be called "the forgotten war" (because the US of course finds it convenient to forget an extremely shameful episode), but North Koreans have not forgotten what the US did in their country. Since 1953, North and South have been in stalemate. Neither wants to launch an attack on the other, but neither trusts the other. In particular, the North still thinks of the South as a puppet of the US and, quite rightly, does not trust the US one inch. It is good that the North has nukes, since it means the stalemate will continue. Which means peace.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[quax]

Whow. Pointing out that nuking NK in a preemptive strikes is mass murder counts as flamebait here. Amazing.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[maxpublic]

The logic behind the US's preemptive strike strategy boggles the mind

The logic is fairly obvious, actually. Governments create crises to remain in power, increase their power, and to quell protest against the amassing of that power. Crises are an excellent way to oppress your own citizenry while justifying your actions to the more gullible members of your nation.

There is no profit in a solved problem. Unsolved problems are the method by which politicians remain in power, along with those who support them. The worse the problem, the more one can profit on the fear and uncertainty of the citizenry.

If you want to create a problem, openly targeting three hostile nations as "the axis of evil" is a great way to do so. If they don't act quickly enough to fulfill their role as 'the enemy', invade and conquer one of them. That'll get the other two moving at double-time to present a credible threat, if only to prevent the invasion and conquest of their own countries. And by doing so, they become exactly what they've been labeled: dangerous enemies!

The logic is beautifully Machiavellian.

Max

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[mrogers]

Thank you, Paul Wolfowitz. Speaking of regime change, which of the following countries has, under its current regime, pre-emptively attacked another country?

1. North Korea
2. Iran
3. The United States

Clue: it's also the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[quax]

Why exactly? (Except for my stupid mistake of writing "2nd" instead of "cold").

I would think that correcting a post that misstates that my country doesn't have an army is very much on topic.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Master of Transhuman]

Why would France or Germany give a shit? They're in Europe. North Korea is in Asia.

Japan already cares. That's why they are aiding the US in provoking the North with ship interdictions and harassment of the NK ferry. They are also joining the US in "interdiction exercises" in October. The Japanese have decided that a war between the North and the US which ruins their trade competitor South Korea is good for business. Of course, if the North sneaks a nuke into Tokyo Bay in one of their infiltration subs, the Japanese will be informed otherwise.

And any notion of North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists is a joke. Dictators do not sell nuclear weapons to terrorists - too risky for them personally. And the North doesn't nearly have enough nukes to be selling them to anybody - not if they want any deterrence against the US.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Igmuth]

Well, thats not exactly a minor mistake... It's like writing
"The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal makes a good meal for visiting tourists"
instead of
"The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal makes a good meal of visiting tourists"

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[HeghmoH]

And, yes, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to apologize for Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Dresden, I could see. Maybe even Nagasaki. But Hiroshima? What's the apology going to say? "We're sorry that your country went on a total rampage across half the surface of the planet for fifteen years. We're sorry that your ancestors were so totally fucking crazy that the only way to get them to admit they'd lost was to kill millions of people in a blockade, kill millions of people in an invasion, or kill hundreds of thousands of people in a shocking demonstration that could not be denied. We're sorry that, in the end, we chose the fastest option with the least loss of life."

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Ed_1024]

I blame extreme overclockers: Transcript from last few seconds "I think I can get 2 more Mhz out of the FSB, loo..."

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[love2hateMS]

Look at the facts. The U.S. has by far the most powerful military in the world. All of Europe combined can't even touch the U.S. military-- I don't mean this to question Europeans' bravery. It is really an economic and technological division.

Given that fact: it is hard to dispute that the U.S. is the LEAST imperialistic country in the modern world. Just look at the last century and compare the U.S. to England, France, Germany, Russia in terms of invading and then KEEPING POSSESSION OF other countries. There is no comparison. All of you anti-American Europeans should look at your own countries (particularly the incredibly corrupt and vile France government) before casting aspersions at mine. It is a FACT that the French, Russians, and Germans were selling huge amounts of military weapons and systems to Iraq in direct violation of the arms embargo after the first Gulf war. How do you explain the French anti-aircraft missiles with manufacturing stamps dated 2002 used in the second war?

I am so tired of the U.S.-bashing I'm losing faith in humanity. Despite one of the largest deficits in our history, the U.S. came up with 15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa. We went to Europe and asked them to add to that commitment. The vaunted, compassionate Europeans REFUSED to come up with a single dollar, saying they couldn't afford it. Give me a break.

The UN is a joke. Don't even PRETEND it has any legitimacy. Has anyone forgotten the massive bribery scandal that permeates the U.N.-- the Oil-for-Food scandal? Of course Europe has, because it doesn't fit into their America-Is-The-Source-Of-All-Evil world view.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[b-baggins]

Because we all know that American foreign policy in the middle-east is the moral equivalent of Japan's undeclared attack on Pearl Harbor, their invasaion and occupation of the Philipines and their campaigns in China, and that it is worse than the German blitzkriegs against Poland, Checklosovakia and France. Therefore any attack against America is fully justified.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[TummyX]

I think we're a minority here in /.

Geeks here like to think that by mirroring the american hatred of the rest of the world, they can be part of the intellectually superior and socially sophisticated crowd (and hopefully get laid at the same time).

These days it is 'hip' and 'cool' to be anti-American. They fail to see the long term goals in Iraq. Installing a successful liberal democracy in the heart of the middle east is the only way to bring lasting peace to the region and the world. I call these people liberal conservatives. They are afraid of change, they want things to stay the way they were pre 9/11. They think that by pulling back from the world the terrorists will leave the west alone. They think the only reason the terrorists attack is because of grievances, not because they want to take over the world (only the evil zionist amerinazi bushitler conpirators want to take over the world remember?). Those who doubt the Iraq mission are no different from those who doubted America's efforts to rebuilt post WW2 Europe and Japan. Back then they said it couldn't be done, was a waste of money and that the people would not be able to handle US-style democracy.

For those who doubt that we are suceeding in Iraq I suggest you go and read IraqTheModel (an Iraqi blog run by Iraqi brothers) and other Iraqi blogs linked from that blog.

Your example of the AIDS help that America gives to Africa is just one small example of the terrible hypocrisy that plagues the American hating world. No other country has sacrificed so much and given so much for complete strangers and yet you only see protestors in NYC protesting Bush's 15 billion dollar AIDs policy but you never see them protesting Europe's 0 dollar AIDs policy. You will also see them come from all over the country to protest democracy in action (the republican national convention - see this and this for an example of their "peaceful" ways) but you never see them stay just one day longer to protest the kidnapping and cold blooded murder of over 400 school children, parents and teachers in Russia by Islamic militants.

The world is in deep shit. Europe is being complacent about an impending danger (yet again) and the American hating socialists in America are allying themselves with radical islamics under the guise of "peace groups" such as international ANSWER (see this for an idea of what they're really up to). It really gives new meaning to the term "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". America has been here before, and America has suceeded before but it will take strength and visionary and determined leadership -- and despite the fact that I don't like many of his policies (or his religious tendencies), I believe the only candidate which can offer the security the world needs at this vital point in history is Bush.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing - EDMOND BURKE

Oh, and BTW, I'm not American. I'm a Vietnamese New Zealander.

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[MrMr]

Given that fact: it is hard to dispute that the U.S. is the LEAST imperialistic country in the modern world
Hard to dispute because you put fingers in your ears and sing 'I can't hear you' I suppose?

I am so tired of the U.S.-bashing I'm losing faith in humanity. Despite one of the largest deficits in our history, the U.S. came up with 15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa

Those 15 billion were almost exclusively intended to buy drugs from U.S. companies who manufacture them at less than 1% of that price. So this was only a thinly disguised attempt to subsidize the US pharma business and look like benefactors at the cost of the millions dying in Africa.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why exactly? (Except for my stupid mistake of writing "2nd" instead of "cold")."

You were going to write the "cold world war"? :|

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[MrMr]

Depending on the report you believe the cost is between 800 and 1800 million U.S. dollars, most of this money is spent on professionals like doctors doing the clinical testing and lawyers protecting the IP of the pharmaceutical companies.

The companies that have managed to do the same in the field of AIDS treatment, and provide it for less come from for instance The U.K, France, Germany and Switzerland. None of these would have been included in the 15 billon deal proposed by the the US government.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[flossie]

I think the phrase "don't bring a knife to a gun fight" could be applied here.

According to the BBC:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has said in the past Mr Bush would not have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had had nuclear weapons capable of use.

I think he is undoubtedly correct. As Robin Cook (a former British foreign secretary) said in his resignation speech immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq:

it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion.

If you really believe that the US will be able to march into S.E. asia and win a war, I suggest you have another look at your history books. If you think nuking another country into oblivion will make you safe, you have clearly learned nothing from 9/11 about the vincibility of even the strongest nations.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[RayBender]

A guy I know who worked at the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden told me that back in 1986, they found out about the Chernobyl accident way before anyone in the Swedish government.

I've actually worked there, and I remember that day. Now I really wish I hadn't spent a good part of that day outside in the rain. For years afterward there was a bit of a "hotspot" just north of Stockholm where that rainstorm had washed a bunch of stuff out of the cloud and onto the ground.

As for the possibility of civilians detecting a nuclear test - that depends on a lot of variables such as how the wind blows. Given the geography of the location, the cloud might go out over open ocean or over China, in which case you won't hear anything from civilians. Or it could blow over Japan, in which case some university scientists might notice something.

Certainly the U.S. knows if it was a nuke thanks to our satellite systems; but the current regime may not wish to publicise such a failure of their anti-proliferation policy just before an election.

In any case, I would have thought that the North Koreans would make an announcement if they had actually had a successful test. Why wouldn't they? I know they certainly trumpeted up their attempts at a space launch.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[flossie]

This is what happens when you let the UN negotiate ceasefires with psychopathic dictators.

What, peace for half a century?

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[aelbric]

Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki? Perhaps you need to revisit your history.

These attacks, although unnecessary in hindsight, were precipitated by Axis agression. Even rational people will turn the other cheeck for only so long.

I guess after Guernica, Rotterdam, London, Pearl Harbor, the Rape of Manchuris, Bataan, the Siege of Leningrad, the Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Malmedy, and countless other Axis atrocities, perhaps it is understandable that those three Allied attacks occurred. Regrettable, but warfare is insane.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[jerky42]

Russia withdrew from WWI, and gave the Germans a whole lot to go away. Lenin was nearly lynched for this. Russia's withdrawl from the war freed up thousands of Germans to come to the Western Front and join in a new offensive. The British and French were exhausted, and might have lost, were it not for the Americans.

Try wikipedia before making sweeping generalizaions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war_1#The_Eas te rn_Front_and_Russia

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Frequanaut]

" Germany has an army. During the 2nd world war it was the backbone of NATO"

That's right. If I remember correctly Hitler was a big proponent of allowing israel into the EU as well.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[CrosbieFitch]

It could be the old 'cry wolf' trick.

Keep on having strange, massive explosions at worrying times until eventually the media get bored about conjecturing whether they're nuclear or not and then one day you really do set off a nuclear bomb. And the media just goes "Yeah, whatever..."

The media is currently the biggest threat to global security. It encourages acts of terrorism (it simply can't help giving oxygen of publicity - until an atrocity is no longer newsworthy, and then more serious atrocities are invented to compensate), and also encourages tricks like this one of NK to deliberately make massive explosions unnewsworthy.

What's the solution? Maximise the ability for downtrodden minorities with grudges to vent their issues to large and relevant audiences - before they seek out 'oxygen of publicity' via other means.

It's better to communicate with the bitter and twisted BEFORE they attempt to communicate with you.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[flossie]

Nations at peace will be able to develop nuclear weapons. It is unrealistic to think that states in the 21st century will not be able to develop technology that the allies developed in the first half of the 20th century. The only way to reduce the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons is to reduce the need for them to possess nuclear weapons.

That requires at least two things. Firstly, countries have to feel safe from external aggression. I don't have complete answers for this, but it will probably require a massive strengthening of the UN or some equivalent international body. Secondly, the most aggressive nations on Earth will have to get rid of (most) of their nuclear weapons. That includes the US.

Whatever the solutions to avoiding nuclear proliferation, Bush's policies aren't part of them. Labelling a group of countries "evil" and then invading one of them is not the way to reassure N.Korea that they have no need to fear attack. It would also help if Americans could get over their hatred of all things communist. The US trades extensively with China, yet imposes sanctions on Cuba. If the White House could learn to respect the sovereignty of other nations, it might not need to waste such massive amounts of money on defence and security.

Re: Well....From the TFA-

[Glonoinha]

Well hell - to paraphrase Tom Clancy - that's the difference between fiction and reality : fiction needs to obey the laws of physics.

Actual write-up with a real picture:
No Wing F15

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[Bora Horza Gobuchol]

Geeks here like to think that by mirroring the american hatred of the rest of the world, they can be part of the intellectually superior and socially sophisticated crowd (and hopefully get laid at the same time).

That's right. And all the "hippies" protesting the Vietnam War in the 70's were just at the rallies to get laid and smoke pot. Ignore the tear gas, the intimidation, the bullets, and the fire hoses.

People died protesting the Vietnam War. It's likely that people will die protesting this one. Yes, some of the protest was fashionable - there was a culture war going on at the same time. But to say "oh, they're protesting because it's trendy" is to ignore the real arguments and issues at hand, and the very real determination they have to protest an illegal action.

Installing a successful liberal democracy in the heart of the middle east...

First: it's extremely difficult to "install" a democracy. It has been done, but only in countries in which millions died before being defeated.

...is the only way to bring lasting peace to the region and the world.

Really? The only way? As opposed to, say, finding a solution to the Palestinian crisis, which has been the touchstone of religious fundamentalism and terrorism in the region for the last 60 years?

They think the only reason the terrorists attack is because of grievances, not because they want to take over the world

Please show me how 9/11 was an attempt to "take over the world."

Bottom line: terrorism doesn't allow you to defeat nations. The goal of terror is to drive nations crazy with grief, fear, and anger, and nudge them in the direction you wish. It's not about defeating the enemy - it's about influencing policy. You need an army and modern weapons to take over a nation - not nineteen guys and boxcutters.

Yes, there are dreamers on the fringe that talk of a "Muslim world" and a "new Muslim empire". That kind of rhetoric even works with some people. The reality is cells working in the dark.

Those who doubt the Iraq mission are no different from those who doubted America's efforts to rebuilt post WW2 Europe and Japan. Back then they said it couldn't be done, was a waste of money and that the people would not be able to handle US-style democracy.

It's very different. No-one in the Allied countries believed that Japan and Germany should be left to their own devices after being defeated. Both nations had functional demoracies before being taken over by extremists pre WWII. In addition, their culture was one of obidience to central authority - imposing a system of governance was not difficult. There was a slow, dawning realisation of shame amoung the citizenry - a realisation that they had been, at best, misled. Both nations had largely homogeneous cultures. Finally hundreds of thousands of civillians had to be killed.

The situation in Iraq could not be more different. Iraq has never experienced democracy. It is riven by tribal, relgious, and cultural differences. Authority is at the behest of the tribal leader, the "strong man", or the iman - all of whom have different goals. Amoung the general populace (as opposed to English speaking, Internet connected bloggers) there is a tremendous feeling that Iraq did not deserve to be invaded and occupied - and the reasons for invasion have little to do with lofty ideals of "democracy". The war, to them, is about control of the region, politically and economically, by the US.

No other country has sacrificed so much and given so much for complete strangers and yet you only see protestors in NYC protesting Bush's 15 billion dollar AIDs policy but you never see them protesting Europe's 0 dollar AIDs policy.

Garbage. The EU has an annual budget of 800 million euros towards HIV/AIDS in the developing world. In addition, it pledged 120 million euros towards a Global Health Fund to combat AIDS this year. This

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[djeca]

Nice figures. But they don't mean much.

How much of that $15bn (over five years, remember, and with no guarantee that it will all be handed out) will actually leave the USA? How much will just be funnelled straight back into the pockets of US-based drugs companies and campaign groups?

Now look at the figures for the Global Fund. Note that the combined contributions to date from the big EU countries easily outstrip those from the USA (the combined total from the EU is $1.5bn, 50% more than that from the USA). If the USA is the largest contributor, that's because it has the largest economy.

Also read up on the disbursements the Global Fund has given out. (Yes, the Global Fund is transparent). Ask yourself why the USA would be unwilling to give more to the Global Fund. Could it be that the Global Fund is spending on education programmes that actually work, and on generic drugs sold close to the cost of production?

Re:Well....From the TFA-

[maxpublic]

Hey fuckwit, in case you haven't noticed or somehow missed the news, neither Iraq, Iran, or North Korea had ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the twin towers. In fact, the attack was launched primarily by radical SAUDIS backed by a very rich SAUDI ARABIAN acting through what otherwise would've been a third-rate terrorist organization.

Funny, I don't see anyone advocating the invasion of Saudi Arabia.

Max

They keep this up . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . they'll be more mushroom clouds over North Korea, and soon.

~~~

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

[Alcohol Fueled]

Someone set us up the bomb!

It's a good thing...

[wardomon]

all of our troups are in Iraq.

Re: It's a good thing...

[Black Parrot]

> all of our troups are in Iraq.

Yeah, but can anyone account for where James Bond was on Thursday?

Re:It's a good thing...

[Wyatt Earp]

It is, because a conventional war in the Koreas would be bad.

Terrible bad.

World War Two bad.

All of the US forces are not in Iraq, but for a war with the DPRK, the mobilization of the Guards and Reserves would make OIF look like a camping trip.

All the Guards and Reserve units in the western states of the US at a minium would be called up, as well as the Japanese Defense Self-Defense Force.

It'd ugly.

Re:It's a good thing...

[Phanatic1a]

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.

Re:It's a good thing...

[zaxios]

but at least the world is safe now from the bad Conan the Barbarian art he had in his tacky palaces

Yeah, but we still have to put up with Kim Jong Il's unbridled love of Titanic, and his habit of telling everyone all about it. I think I know which one's more deserving of a U.S. military response.

Re:It's a good thing...

[Wyatt Earp]

To respond to myself

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan -5 027-1.htm

"The DPRK will seek force ratios of 3-5 to 1 in armor, 6-8 to 1 in artillery, and 4-6 to 1 in infantry forces to mount an attack. In attempting to breach a well-prepared defensive position, the DPRK may be expected to seek even larger ratios. This undoubtedly would be the case in attempting to break through DMZ defenses.

Combined-arms operations constitute the foundation of tactical battle in DPRK doctrine. Utilization of the forward conventional corps, reinforced by the mechanized and armor corps, to fight from the DMZ to Pusan is called the Strike Force concept. This concept embodies how the DPRK is expected to fight, especially south of Seoul or in defense of the DPRK."

"Without moving any of its more than 12,000 artillery pieces, "Pyongyang could sustain up to 500,000 rounds per hour against Combined Forces Command defenses and Seoul for several hours" Gen. Thomas A. Schwartz said in testimony in March 2001 before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Schwartz heads the United Nations and ROK-US Combined Forces Commands and US Forces Korea.

Towards the end of the Korean War fighting in 1953, the Chinese were able to fire approximately 100,000 rounds per day against US forces, and the number of rounds per day was increasing. A 100,000 round day would be a light day in a new war.

In 1993 and 1994, when the North Korean nuclear question emerged as an international issue, the North deployed large numbers of improved 170mm self-propelled guns and 240mm multiple rocket launchers to forward positions close to the DMZ. This was apparently meant to threaten South Korea's security while calling for nuclear negotiations with the US."

"A major air campaign against northern forces would be required before the counteroffensive could begin. A US Marine Expeditionary Force (in division strength) and the 82nd Air Assault Division, along with ROK divisions, would launch an overland offensive north toward Wonsan from the east coast. Soon thereafter, a combined US-ROK force would likely stage an amphibious landing near Wonsan, and advance to Pyongyang. Subsequently, a combined US-ROK force would execute a major counteroffensive from north of Seoul aimed at seizing Pyongyang. This would be achieved either by linking up with the force at Wonsan, or meeting it at Pyongyang."

Re:It's a good thing...

[tehanu]

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.

Re:It's a good thing...

[rampant mac]

"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."

I know this is probably too late to get modded up, but I spent a year in Osan, Make no mistake, we weren't there to to protect South Korean. In fact, after arriving at Osan, we were briefed that we were, literally, nothing more than speed bumps, preventing the North's troops from advancing too quickly through the South. We were there to hold off the North's attack until reinforcements could arrive from Japan.

To get an idea how large their army was, they gave us a rough estimate that we would be outnumbered 100 to 1. Needless to say, during exercises, we would be laden down with about 15 pounds of ammo; Not because we didn't need it, but because it made us aware of what we were up against.

Re:It's a good thing...

[darkmeridian]

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.

A day before the invasion, everyone in Seoul takes ten steps that way.

Re:It's a good thing...

[ignavus]

"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."

Pussy Galore flies over them with an airplane armed with sleeping gas. She sprays it and it puts all the soldiers asleep. Then you march in and take over.

It worked in "Goldfinger". Oh, wait ... they *were* North Koreans, and they did it to US troops guarding Fort Knox. Back to the drawing board...

Re: It's a good thing...

[Black Parrot]

> That's about two Canadian Armed Forces' worth of troops

Don't underestimate them -- some of those guys are tough enough to wear skirts.

Re:It's a good thing...

[fucksl4shd0t]

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.

Misleading

[b0lt]

This probably isn't a nuclear detonation, since they would be instantly detected, due to the huge flash created. Back in the 80s, we had satellite technology to detect nuclear explosions. Don't you think we have it now?

Re:Misleading

[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

Re:Misleading

[xmas2003]

The double flash of a nuke is a very unique signature and yes, there are space assets looking for exactly this - read more about the South Africa test in 1979 - unknown if these same satellite can pick up the Slashdotting of my 22,000 Christmas Lights ... ;-)

Re:Misleading

[Spy Hunter]

There's no doubt our goverment knows whether or not the explosion was a nuclear test. The question is whether they would tell us. I guess they probably would, but you never know.

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.

Re:Misleading

[Blakey Rat]

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.

Re:Misleading

[glpierce]

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.

Re:Misleading

[xenocide2]

I don't see what makes a nuclear detonation any different than a non-nuclear explosion the same magnitude. Perhaps you could enlighten me?

Re:Misleading

[Phanatic1a]

The signal spectra. In other words, the same thing that makes the signature of an explosion different than the signature of an earthquake. Hell, the Fast Fourier Transform was originally used for the very purpose of distinguishing between earthquakes and nuclear tests.

Re:Misleading

[killjoe]

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.

Re:Misleading

[flacco]

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.

and i'm sure he'll become more sane, have less weapons, and become less desperate as time goes on.

Re:Misleading

[HyperCash]

What is wrong with this world. Do the people reading this post and moderating it up understand what they are reading?

The PRK is covered with military installations. This JInterest states that we should use "strategic nuclear weapons against the PRK to destroy every military installation." Yes, because nuking a country of 22 million people is the right thing to do.

You think WWII was bad? I agree, it was. But if you start a nuclear war in this day and age things will be much, much worse.

"Never underestimate the instinct of most tyrants for self-preservation." Which is why North Korea would never use a nuclear weapon unless attacked to begin with. They would be utterly and completely wiped out. There wouldn't be half a dozen North Koreans left alive.

I still can't believe a post basicly promoting the genocide of a population of 22 million people has been modded up!

What is wrong with you people. I watched the movie the gray zone the other night and I was amazed at what people would go along with in those circumstances. I thought how did that happen.

But all JInterest had to do was say OMG there is a big scary guy over there and he's bad and might hurt us and people are willing to go nuke a country. WHAT THE FUCK!

Burn my Karma, I don't care. This needed to be said. Fucking Sheeple.

Re:Misleading

[quax]

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?

Re:Misleading

[quax]

Thank you. Happy for every American slashdot reader who has not gone bloodthirsty crazy. Helps me to maintain my believe in humanity.

Re:Misleading

[killjoe]

You know I just don't buy the whole "he is insane" bullshit. Why is it that every leader who does something we don't like is lables "insane"?

I suspect he is very wily but certainly not insane.

Re:Misleading

[strider44]

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

Re:Misleading

[xsbellx]

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.

Re:Misleading

[Raffaello]

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.

Re:Misleading

[KagatoLNX]

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).

This was reported by CBS...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the cloud was produced by MS word...

Re:This was reported by CBS...

[brxndxn]

typical Microsoft bug..

Looks like Bush finally found...

[dameron]

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

Re: Looks like Bush finally found...

[Black Parrot]

> Are we gonna have to wait until he strikes oil?

I hear that South Korea has been sneaking barrels of oil across the border, hoping to provoke Bush into attacking the North.

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[WIAKywbfatw]

No, military action is only to be used against countries that have huge oil reserves.

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[Blakey Rat]

Because, uh, you can't DO anything about him without North Korea devastating Seoul first. The only way to deal with North Korea without the massacre of MILLIONS of people is diplomatically, and we're already making as many diplomatic moves as is possible... you don't hear about them as much because they're not as exciting as tanks rumbling through the desert, but they're there working to reunite Korea every day.

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[porp]

Yeah, that diplomacy has been going on for 51 years. It seems to have created Nuclear Weapons.

porp

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[chill]

You an an ignorant dumbass.

We invaded Iraq because:

1. We were already there.
2. They couldn't do shit about it.

We don't invade N. Korea because:

1. S. Korea
2. Japan

If the battles in Iraq spilled over into Iran or Syria, we didn't care. Saddam proved in Gulf War I that scuds aimed at Israel were a joke.

Kim Jong Il's missiles aimed at Seoul and Tokyo are a completely different matter.

N. Korea could be sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world and we wouldn't invade.

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[Wind_Walker]

How long can we ignore this crazy bastard, Kim Jong-il I mean?

I'm glad you cleared that up. I thought you were talking about Bush.

Re:Looks like Bush finally found...

[nyri]

How long can we ignore this crazy bastard, Kim Jong-il I mean?

He will stop acting like a lunatic (building nuclear weapons) immediately when you start ignoring him.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to note why North Korea is trying to build nuclear bomb. They are afraid of America. Bush announced that Iran, Iraq and N. Korea are axis of evil and invaded Iraq. Iran and North Korea immediately started building better weapons.

Also, why are you so afraid about others having nuclear weapons? It's you, Americans, who has a track record of using them.

those wacky north koreans

[voisine]

Those wacky North Koreans... at it again.

Re:Its a nuke.

[b0lt]

MOAB. Massive Ordanance Aerial Burst. Read all about it.

i r korea kekekeke

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear Launch... Detected

Am I the only one....

[rel4x]

....who looked at the title of this article, and wondered whether it was North Korea or the U.S. who dropped it?

Re:Am I the only one....

[pudge]

The problem is that we don't have reporters in North Korea. We have reporters all over the world, so when something happens, it takes maybe a couple of hours tops to get a camera on it. Not so in North Korea. It's essentially a blackout. It took days IIRC to get some closeup video of the explosion in North Korea in April, and it was very limited.

Re:Am I the only one....

[Bluetrust25]

There's nothing that makes a two mile wide mushroom cloud other than a nuclear explosion.

Actually, any large fire could create a mushroom cloud that big.

Last summer, we had a brushfire here in Los Angeles and the mushroom cloud it created was five miles wide. I'd love to post a link to the pictures I took, especially the ones where the cloud reached overhead and turned the ambient light orange, but sadly, it wasn't digital film.

Here's some photos from the news coverage.

Re:Its a nuke.

[rokzy]

since there are no photos, how about the possibility that some ignorant reporter only knows the adjective "mushroom-shaped" when talking about clouds from explosives?

like the way all bad experiences are always "harrowing".

Re:Its a nuke.

[lightknight]

Yeah, because NK has a lot of those lying around. What with the US just beginning serious production of the MOAB.

OK some quick facts here

[OverlordQ]

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.

Re:OK some quick facts here

[HorsePunchKid]

I'm all for skepticism, especially when it comes to worthless AP/Reuters echolalia, but it's definitely making the rounds. (Remove the word "blast" from that search, and you can sort of see how many are just repeating AP and how many have actually come up with their own story.)

Re:OK some quick facts here

[TopShelf]

CNN has a similar story up now, speculating that it might be the result of a forest fire...

Am I the only one....

[IoN_PuLse]

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.

The Time Frame

[Caraig]

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.

Re:The Time Frame

[Vellmont]

There's another possibility though. It's not the countries surrounding north korea (China and South Korea) want to play up a mushroom cloud. China is VERY closed lipped about anything, and South Korea is still technically at war with North Korea (it's still a cease fire with a DMZ between the two countries). Given that, it might be a little hard to confirm when there's likely no pictures, and anyone with satelites isn't talking right away.

Re:The Time Frame

[nordicfrost]

You sir, are a buffoon.

Because the rest of us know that the NK is a media blackout zone on the planet. To enlighten you, let me give you the rules for a journalist to enter NK:

1. No cellphones.
2. No cameras above 4 megapixels
3. No tele lenses for your camera.
4. NO CELLPHONES! That goes twice for sat phones
5. No recording devices.

Now, this is provided that you actually get in to the country. Because you don't want to enter it without a vise, since they WILL treat you as a spy and you don't want that. I applied for a visa and was denied, since I work as a journalist.

Trust me, if I had the opportunity to uncover this, reporting from the country, my (tabloid) editor would have it on the front page. Because, if this is nuclear (which I guess it isn't) it would be the foreign fucking story of the year.

hmm...

[1337 Twinkie]

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.

Oh fuck

[Paladin144]

Not really the news I wanted to hear. The last thing we need is that nutcase Kim Jong Il with nuclear-fucking-weapons! I was (and am) against the war in Iraq - Saddam never kept me up at night. Kim Jong Il, on the other hand, is a different story. This guy could be extremely dangerous. I can't really think of a good way to contain/eliminate him, but I'm thinking it would be a smart idea to do so before he starts LAUNCHING NUCLEAR FUCKING WEAPONS!

-=Memo to Bush=-
___________________
Wrong country, dude.

Re:Oh fuck

[evslin]

Don't worry, as soon as we get Skynet up and running everything will be fine!

allowed nukes

[slothman32]

I've always wondered why NK isn't "allowed" nukes but China is. What if suddenly Mexico of even Canada got them? Would we fight them? What if the current Iraq gov't gets them do we do another regime change on the one we put in?

Re:allowed nukes

[GaussianInteger]

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.

Re:allowed nukes

[usn2fsu03]

They signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty before backing out of it in January of 2003. Put simply, signatories to the treaty (that did not already have nuclear weapons)agreed not to produce nuclear weapons.

Re:Its a nuke.

[b0lt]

Whoa, that's not what I meant. The GP said that it was impossible, and I gave a counter example. Its not that hard to strap together 10k pounds of Octol and blow it up. This could even be psychological warfare, attempting to scare us. Who knows? We should wait before jumping to conclusions.

Your princess is in another castle.

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news King Koopa claims that the giant mushroom cloud which appeared at the former site of the princess's castle was not atomic but the result of a freak accident which occured when genetic micologists attempted to create a hybrid of the following mushrooms: 1up and BigUp. Apparently, the hybrid had been left near a fire flower and BOOM! Mushroom cloud.

Duck and Cover

[VeneficusAcerbus]

You mean this movie?

Remember what Bert the Turtle does!

Let's not jump to conclusions...

[iamdrscience]

Hey now, maybe it's a good mushroom cloud. You know, like umm... err... a cotton candy factory exploding. That wouldn't be too bad, right?

NYT: US Intelligence showed North Korea testing

[dahorowitz]

According to this New York Times article to be published tomorrow, Bush had received intel in the past few days that North Korea was preparing to test a nuclear device.

BBC Link

[MacDork]

Here

Not likely

[annenk38]

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.

Re:Not likely

[A1kmm]

The doomsday threat doesn't work if the attacking party thinks they can take down the entire nuclear capacity of the state before the victim can respond. However, given that North Korea alreay claims to have nukes, demonstrating that they do does not make them any more likely to come under attack.

However, if this is a first weapons test, then they probably don't have very well developed nuclear weapons yet, and some governments might take a "its now or never" approach.

Re:Not likely

[einhverfr]

Possession of the nukes all but guarantees immunity from invasion.

The large number of missiles and artillery aimed at Seoul is their current deterrant for invasion. Nukes would add to that substantially.

For example, if they could hit Seoul or Tokyo with their nukes, and still maintain teh firepower they have trained on Seoul, then they are safe, for the moment. However, if they think we are attacking them and hit Tokyo, then we have a doomsday scenarop.

Re:Not likely

[EvanED]

It would suck, but it would only destroy two countries, not the entire world.

Yeah, it'd only be 150 million people dead if those two countries are leveled; just your average day. Not a doomsday scenario at all...

Re:Not likely

[fucksl4shd0t]

"Our words are backed by NUCLEAR POWER"

heh

Re:Not likely

[fyngyrz]

It would suck, but it would only destroy two countries, not the entire world.

I think you underestimate the situation. Remember 9/11? Remember the US economy taking a royal crap over the loss of one building and a few thousand worker bees?

What do you think would happen if Japan, one of the world's most powerful economic engines, were destroyed or knocked out of play for a while?

"Suck" doesn't even begin to cover it. This isn't 1945. There are more ways to destroy a country than to blow stuff up. If Japan goes, I think you'll see lots of awfully bad stuff happen in the US and elsewhere.

More stories...

[antdude]

Google's News.

Re:More Korea

[Dr. Bent]

From the article you linked:

North Korea has said that news of recent nuclear experiments in the South has made it even more determined not to abandon its own weapons programme.

You know what else motivates the North Koreans into developing nuclear weapons? Rabbits. And the Goodyear blimp. And sock puppets. North Korea is going to justify thier weapons program using every wack-job idea they can come up with. The color of Bush's tie offends them, so they have to develop nuclear weapons to protect the North Korean people from that horrible shade of cornflower blue.

It wasn't US and S. Korean experiments that caused the north to develop nuclear weapons, it was US and S. Korean existence that caused them to do it.

Yeah, right...

[erick99]

From an CNN story post a few minutes ago:

The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.

Damn, we must look stupid to gov't officials.

Cheers,

Erick

China is the differnce here

[ahbi]

Remember the whole reason a North & South Korea exists is because China supported the Communist North.

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. ... yet.

Screaming about "oil" and "aren't they the same" really ignores significant differences.

Re:China is the differnce here

[ElGuapoGolf]

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. ... yet.

And don't, for a second, think that the US or the PRC really want to do that... ever.

This ain't the cold war. Our economies are so intertwined that a war between us would result in huge economic depressions, job losses, people going hungry, cats and dogs living together, etc.

Put it this way, if you lived during the cold war, you'd never pick up a piece of merchandise you bought from the store and see "Made in USSR" on the bottom. "Made in China" is farily common, last I checked....

NYT: Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concern

[scupper]

New York Times
Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concerns
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
September 12, 2004
http://tinyurl.com/5kb3d

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.

While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.

Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome.

If successful, a test would end a debate that stretches back more than a decade over whether North Korea has a rudimentary arsenal, as it has boasted in recent years. Some analysts also fear that a test could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there.

In interviews on Friday and Saturday, senior officials were reluctant to provide many details of the new activities they have detected, but some of the information appears to have come from satellite intelligence.

One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks. It was that changed assessment that led to the decision to give an update to President Bush, the officials said.

The activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear blast. But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit.

"I'm not sure you would see that in a country that has tunnels everywhere," said one senior official who has reviewed the data. Officials said if North Korea proceeded with a test, it would probably be with a plutonium bomb, perhaps one fabricated from the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that the North has boasted in the past few months have been reprocessed into bomb fuel.

A senior intelligence official noted Saturday that even if "they are doing something, it doesn't mean they will" conduct a test, noting that preparations that the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare tactic or negotiating tactic by the North Korean government.

Several officials speculated that the test, if it occurred, could be intended to influence the presidential election, though a senior military official said while "an election surprise" could be the motive, "I'm not sure what that would buy them."

While the intelligence community's experience in Iraq colors how it assesses threats in places like North Korea, the comparisons are inexact. Inspectors have seen and measured the raw material that the North could turn into bomb fuel; the only question is whether they have done so in the 20 months since arms inspectors were ousted. While Iraq denied it has weapons, the North boasts about them - perhaps too loudly, suggesting they may have less than they say.

On the other hand, the divisions within the administration over how to deal with North Korea mirrors some of the old debate about Iraq. Hard-l

Behind the curtain

[s-orbital]

Behind one these curtains is a weird, probably psychotic dictator with weapons of mass destruction? Can you guess which one?

A: Behind our curtain!

Re:Behind the curtain

[killjoe]

Wha? How can you say GW is weird and psychotic? God told him to run for the presidency, God elected him and God speaks through him. How can the warrior of god be weird and psychotic?

Re:Behind the curtain

[BJH]

So? You guys have been at it for over fifty years.w

NYTimes / Reuters blurbs

[Xac Slack]

These are from the NYTimes Reuters feed

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/inter national-korea-north-minister.html
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/inter national-korea-north-explosion.html
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/inter national-north-korea-explosion.html

Nuke or not?

[iamdrscience]

There have been a few posts already questioning whether or not this would be the result of a nuclear weapon. That's really not the point, is it? I mean, have you ever known a giant mushroom cloud to be a good thing?

If it was a nuke

[jmichaelg]

If it was a nuke, wouldn't Japan have noticed by now? When Chernobyl blew, Sweden was the first place to say something when their geiger counters went off. It took the Russians awhile to admit they had a problem.

Similarly, if it was a nuke, Japan's geiger counters have had plenty of time to go off by now.

Re:If it was a nuke

[klang]

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.

Ooops - No Seismic Activity Last Hour, Day, Week

[rm3friskerFTN]

USGS Earthquake Activity indicates nothing happened

See also this site

Recall that 9-11 even created a seismic event

--

I believe the SwiftVets

Re:More Korea

[rokzy]

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.

Little Known Fact

[Anonymous Coward]

All GPS satellites have detectors for a nuclear flash.

http://ares.redsword.com/GPS/old/sum_sat.htm

Re:Little Known Fact

[rnelsonee]

Completely OT, but funny - the detectors used are called "bhangmeters"... I had never heard this term before, so I googled it: Bhangmeters All satellites used for atmospheric nuclear detonation monitoring incorporate a detection device called a bhangmeter. Bhangmeters detect and record the distinctive double-humped optical signature of an atmospheric nuclear detonation. The name bhangmeter originated with some of the early skeptics who did not believe such sensing was possible. "Bhang" is a variation of Indian hemp that is smoked for its hallucinogenic impact. Apparently some thought that anyone who believed such an approach feasible must have been smoking hallucinogens.

Re:Its a nuke.

[Phanatic1a]

Besides, "mushroom-shaped" clouds form from all large explosions, not just nuclear ones. Set off a big bomb, and you suddenly generate a large amount of superheated gas in a pocket near the ground. This rises so rapidly that it generates vortices around its perimeter, and the rolling of these vortices draws up a column of smoke and explosion debris, forming the stem. Then when the rising gas reaches a higher altitude where it's just about as dense as the surrounding air, it spreads out, forming the cap.

A mushroom cloud could be from a nuke. It could also be from the explosion of a liquefied natural gas storage facility, or a MOAB, or cargo train filled with ANFO. It's not a tell-tale of anything other than a big explosion.

Keep you heads on...

[Boyceterous]

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!

Forest fire? Don't think so.

[Omega Hacker]

This CNN story claims that a 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: a mushroom cloud is caused by a large amount of superheated gasses, concentrated and hot enough to rise miles into the atmosphere before dissipating enough to break the cap. Unless they have had a multi-year drought and a forest dense enough to flash to many thousand degrees C in a very short period of time, there's no possible way the mushroom cloud was created that way.

Now, it's entirely possible that it is not a mushroom cloud, as it sounds like all the indications of its presence so far are satellite shots. AFAIK very few, if any, satellites can shoot pictures at a sufficiently low angle to actually get enough outline to confirm a mushroom cloud. Basic physics again: too low and angle, you get a massively distored image because there's a) more air in the way, and b) angle of incidence causes wild refraction.

If anyone can elaborate on (or correct) these two issues, please comment. I'd be glad to be proven wrong in some way, as a verified nuclear N.Korea is not a good thing. However, what we know so far is not promising.

Re:Its a nuke.

[jaxdahl]

Could it have been a small meteorite strike?

Online seismometers

[uberdave]

Are there any online seismometers that show this blast. A nuclear explosion would show one big spike, but large ordnance would show a series of smaller spikes.

Re:Online seismometers

[isolation]

Yes.....
Look at the data marked 3 days ago and compare it to the others. There is a spike.

http://www.physics.hmc.edu/research/geo/seismo.h tm l#days

Re:Online seismometers

[onco_p53]

Yes.....
Look at the data marked 3 days ago and compare it to the others. There is a spike.

A direct link to the image

Re:Online seismometers

[dbIII]

Hopefully NRO has at least one sat. in geosynch over the area

That's a little bit difficult - North Korea is a long way north of the equator.

All this technology and we're stuck with the same laws of physics as everyone else.

Re:Online seismometers

[rpjs]

Hopefully NRO has at least one sat. in geosynch over the area.

Uh, geosynchronous orbits are only possible 22,000 miles over the equator. You could have a satelite in geosynch above the equator on North Korea's general longitude, but I doubt even spy satellite optics are going to tell you much from there.

Re:Online seismometers

[stuktongue]

I have no specific knowledge of NRO or anything else spooky. However, from watching TV shows, etc., it is well known that "spy" satellites operate in low Earth orbit (LEO) or maybe medium Earth orbit (MEO). These orbits are polar, allowing the satellites to be tasked wherever imaging, etc., is desired. Think "Clear and Present Danger".

Re:Online seismometers

[servognome]

I wonder how much "noise" there is with all the natural seismic activity in Japan (3 large earthquakes in last week).
If anybody is interested there is a way to determine if the seismic activity is from an explosion or from an earthquake, or nuclear blast.

Re:Online seismometers

[passthecrackpipe]

Yes, because movies are the definitive guide to modern technology.

Re:Online seismometers

[davidsyes]

I believe there are SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) networks over there. A huge array of hydrophones has been in the GIUK (Greenland Iceland UK) gap. I believe the Strait of Malacca, the Formosa, ahem, TAIWAN Straits, the Korea Strait, Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and South China Sea have all been seeded (but not necessarily CEDED) by now.

(Yep, from age 8 or so until now I've been buying or studying whatever I could legally get my hands on about subs. I haunted the library, read a number of "accounts" of sub warfare and naval warfare in general, designed notional nuke subs (and frightened the hell out of my prospective recruiter in 1982 when he saw a 7-bladed prop on one of my drawings. I was covered: a Japanese diesel boat's stern was in one of the Proceedings mag and I promptly incorporated the fact into my drawing, especially when a few people calle my stuff "garbage" I went on to improve it and at one point, on my second command/ship, the ship's Cheng or maybe it was the MPA (Main Propulsion Assistant) tried to encourage me to go to naval drafting. I decided against it, as I want to design my work withoug exposure to or constraints imposed by classified or sensitive material. I designed 5 attack boats, and 2 boomers. I designed about 5 surface ships for NATO or US types of duties, all as hobby work. I recently designed a ship to supplant the DDG-51, and she can carry some 2,300 tons of fuel, has a range of some 10k nm, and can burst to 38-42 kts. She carries an array of real equipment, plus ducted thrusters near the bow, a keel fin set astern, and 3 telescoping auxiliary thrusters. She carries more helos than the DDG-51 flight II (DDG-79, if I recall correctly), has a successor radar to Aegis SPY-D, and carries more crew. All in only 562' lenght and 62' beam. It's for littoral warfare/defence, not mainly for transoceanic crusing. It is the 11th version of my modifications of the Burkes, the design of which I had a love-hate relationship, especially since the "Nav" politically deprived the first flight of hangar facilities to keep the DDG-51 from competing with the CG-47 program.))

Anyway, read "Blind Man's Bluff", about the US submarine force and the immense pressures the crews suffered due to keeping secret the fact they were being chased, depth-bombed, and almost destroyed on more than one occasion for making uninvited incursions to tap then-Soviet phone lines, doing dirty and dangerous work at the behest of the CIA, work the CIA should have risked its own ass for, not the sailors' asses.

(I suspect by 84 this was the cause of major sub force attrition. I volunteered for sub duty while in my junior year in High School. I swore in at MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) Oakland, in 1983, but by 1984 at my second swearing in I was told the subforce no longer need volunteers. By about 1999 or so, I was reading in Blind Man's Bluff that USN sub sailors in alarming numbers conjuring up or creating offenses warranting discharge: claming homosexuality, drug addiction, fear of depth, stress, and more. It worked for some, but not all. After all, it costs a LOAD of money to train a sailor for up to 2 or 3 years before he even gets permanently assigned to a boat. Then, he may serve 3 or 4 more to fulfill obligations, tho some of the time is spent ashore training, assisting in training or as a trainee. Some wash out and are floated to the surface fleet, on occasion. Anyway, I did my 4 years in the surface fleet, almost 15 of my 48 months of it in training: 3 mos in IET (Initial Entry Training, or boot camp), 4 or 5 in BOOST (Broadened Opportunities for Officer Selection and Training, where I didn't want to be, but thanks to my recruiter...), 3 in Radioman School, a about March 86, 3 or so in High Level TTY/Teletype Maintenance, 2 weeks in Low-Level TTY, and a few weeks in liquid and dry toner copier maintenance. I only spent from Jan 85 to March 86 on my first ship, and Oct 86 to March 88 on my second. After all that, I was not sad I didn't get sub duty, and actually years later awoke in a nightmare that I was trapped in a doomed, sinking, creaking, poping, pressurizing sub, water boiling and rushing toward me.)

seyS divaD
David Syes

Re:Online seismometers

[zaibutsu]

Could you use a large conventional explosion, which this now appears to be, to mask the signature of an underground nuclear test ?

Troop numbers...

[WIAKywbfatw]

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?

Re:Troop numbers...

[The One and Only]

134,000: Number of US troops practically necessary to invade an established country, overthrow its government, and occupy a resisting population.

17,900: Number of US troops practically necessary for a manhunt.

Iraq and Afghanistan were two different missions. If you recall, the Taliban was overthrown with a total of zero US ground troops--just the Northern Alliance, US air support, and Pashtun warlords. Iraq had no indigenous anti-Saddam rebels, because Saddam killed them all!.

By your logic, the fact that I spend $200 a year on video games and absolutely no money for the air I breathe, proves that I consider video games a higher priority than my own preservation.

Re:Troop numbers...

[Gumber]

But is a manhunt what is really called for in Afghanistan?

The country is sliding back into the condition it was in before we invaded. Warlords control huge peices of territory, the Taliban are resurgent. It'll be another breeding ground for extremists and summer camp for terrorists they way things are going now.

Besides, you math is off. 17,900 is appearantly to few people for a manhunt in Afghanistan, given that Bin Ladin has evaded capture.

134,000 troops isn't enough to overthrow invade an established country, overtrow its government and occupy a resisting population. It wasn't enough to round up loyalists on our way to overthrowing the government, and it wasn't enough to properly secure arms depots, which is part of the reason it isn't enough to occupy a resisting population -- The average # of American soldiers killed per day is climbing, and has been since the transfer of power at the end of june; at the same time the US is rushing to turn security responsibility for more and more territory over to Iraqi forces. In other words, people are dying faster defending less territory.

Re:Troop numbers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq had no indigenous anti-Saddam rebels,

Ah duh, ever heard of the Kurds?

Not to mention there was an al-Qaeda group setting up bases in the north that also opposed Saddam.

Also all of al-Sadrs boys opposed Saddam too.

Re:Troop numbers...

[The One and Only]

I don't disagree. In fact, I'd agree with you. I'm also totally against the Iraq war. But as an opponent of the Iraq war, I don't like to see people use bad reasoning to support the Iraq war. How important an objective is to you is not the only consideration in how many resources you allocate to that objective--that was the main point I was making.

Re:Troop numbers...

[The One and Only]

Er, make that, "I don't like to see people use bad reasoning to oppose the Iraq war."

CNN: "North Korea cloud 'not nuke blast'"

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the article.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/09/11/nk orea.blast/

Re:CNN: "North Korea cloud 'not nuke blast'"

[Kethinov]

CNN's story says the same thing the Yahoo story does. CNN interprets the South Korean report as "it wasn't a nuke" and Yahoo, BBC, etc interepret more objectively. The facts are, we just don't know. And not much else creates a 4km mushroom cloud. Plus the timing is more than convenient for a nuclear test.

Re:CNN: "North Korea cloud 'not nuke blast'"

[Stalus]

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.

History eh?

[gad_zuki!]

>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?"

Re:History eh?

[quax]

Actually at the end Saddam gave them full access (scroll down 2/3 of the page).

Unfortunatelly this was apparently not as widely reported in the US as in Europe. I remeber hearing this news on the radio in my car back in Germany.

The UN inspectors concluded that Iraq in all likelyhood did not have any more WMDs. So they did a very good job indeed since we now know that this was a correct assesment.

The fact that the US nevertheless invaded Iraq is what irked France and my country (Germany) and as good friends and allies the governments of both countries tried really hard to convince the Bush adminstration that another Iraq war given these facts was a very bad idea. Alas to no avail.

Re:History eh?

[jadel]

Second of all, now where are those supposed weapons?

This is a very good question that I would like to hear an answer for. It wasn't just the US that was convinced that chemical and biological weapons existed.
Troops in Iraq have turned up small traces of WMD's as well as a binary sarin shell that Iraq was not supposed to be able to manufacture.
Unfortunately I've never seen an honest examination of where the intelligence was flawed and why. A sneaking suspicion I've had is that Hussein believed that he really did have the weapons and the CIA were reading his mail.

This was never a unilateral war until the US made it one.

It never was unilateral, The UK had a very large contingent and a number of other countries also sent troops.

Please! Everyone! Chill out

[bigberk]

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.

All Of You Who Are Frightened By This...

[Trolling4Dollars]

...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.

Other possibilities

[r_j_prahad]

Paektu-san (Mount Paektu or White Head Mountain), is an extinct volcano and Korea's highest mountain (2,744 meters). It's located on North Korea's northern land border. It may have sprung violently back to life like North America's own Mount St. Helens.

Also, forest fires occur there with some regularity (more than 130 at once this summer), and can produce large white mushroom shaped clouds under the right atmospheric conditions.

Let's not jump to conclusions. Oh wait, this is Slashdot....

Re:Forest fire? Don't think so.

[noogen]

The explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county blasted a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said

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!

Re:Ooops - No Seismic Activity Last Hour, Day, Wee

[goneutt]

The USGS FAQ on nuclear-seismic activity says that a small earth quake has the energy of abour 2000kilotons. If the NK are playing with fission they might reach 40-50 kilotons. The size of the explosion might fall of the bottom of that chart.

The fact that there are no sensors in north korea might be a factor. Also, india and pakistan were bragging about their nukes, NK might not be so open. And if the USGS has noticed something THEY might be quiet about it. They like rocks, not politics.

Possibly volcanic?

[NeuroManson]

While I don't have a degree in geophysics, I wonder if the mushroom cloud was volcanic in nature? N. Korea *is* close enough to the ring of fire that it could, perhaps in a fluke, have experienced a volcanic eruption, resulting in both a crater, and a miles wide mushroom cloud.

If I remember correctly, Mt. St. Helens wasn't expected to erupt either, except by geophysicists, and in comparison was a relatively unprecedented event (being that the only volconoes to erupt in a US territory within recent history were in Hawaii).

Re:Possibly volcanic?

[NeuroManson]

That's the problem. Seismometers haven't recorded it. Nuclear explosions, however, have a very distinct *thud* on the seismographs. Only one seismometer shows anything in the Pacific NW within the last two days.

Look up seismology during the demolition of the Seattle Dome, for example, there's a massive amount of data collected from dozens of miles away. Same goes for the WTC attacks. The WTC amounted to approximately a 1 kiloton blast when the towers fell.

Now on the other hand, there's S. Korea, China, and Japan, all have extensive seismic networks in operation. They should have shown *something* by now.

Re:Possibly volcanic?

[YoungFreud]

Someone posted this link to the F-Net Broadband Seismographic Network in Japan: http://www.fnet.bosai.go.jp/freesia/waveform/prev. html Now, if I put in Sept. 9th, I get the Waveform report for a selected station on Sept. 10th. Now on Sept 10th, at 0205-210UTC, many of the stations reported a major spike. In some cases (Abuyama, Nishitosa), the spike went off the page. In one case, at 242UTC, the Nishiokoppe station, on the north end of the island of Hokkaido, picks up the disturbance, weaker than most. Now, granted the date is wrong, Thursday was the 9th and Friday was the 10th. However, 0200UTC is 11AM Pyongyang/Seoul Time. Considering that we have heard about this now, three days after the fact, I wouldn't be surprised if South Korean and the US governments pushed back the date, only to unveil it when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

Own up boys...

[puddpunk]

Who farted?

Re:Ooops - No Seismic Activity Last Hour, Day, Wee

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's just great, but North Korea isn't in Southeast Asia.

Wars are Gods way of teaching Americans geography.

No, the time is wrong

[El Puerco Loco]

The spike is at 16:10 UTC which would be 2:10 AM in Korea. The article says the explosion happened at 11:00 AM.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[isolation]

Maybe the article is wrong.

Not that I want it to be a nuke but I would say the odds are leaning that way. Sep 9 is the aniversery of N. Korea going to the commies. What better way to show they have a big dick than to set of a nuke for the birthday party.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine Check out this Sizeooetwhatever in Japan http://www.fnet.bosai.go.jp/freesia/waveform/prev. html Set for "Selected Window" IZH 1day plot Date: 2004/09/10 (UT) Something bighappened at 2 AM, Same as the HMC plot, but this one is a hell of alot bigger. AKA so it was closer to this one than the HMC one. North Korea? Perhaps.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[YoungFreud]

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.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[ultranova]

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.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[Frogbert]

I have a friend over there in Japan, it was an earthquake.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[jrumney]

The Reuters article is more vague on the time, saying sometime between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. The only significant seismic event recorded in Fukuoka, the nearest station in Japan in that time period occured around 15:05 UTC on Wednesday (midnight local time) and lasted about 3 minutes. Someone else claimed an earthquake occured in Japan around that time, so whatever caused the mushroom cloud does not seem to have registered, ruling out a nuclear explosion. There is a seismic monitoring station at Incheon (INCN), which might show up any smaller activity in North Korea, but it seems that only US, Canada, Japan and New Zealand post their seismic graphs online.

Re:No, the time is wrong

[NegativeOneUserID]

I have a friend over there in Japan, it was an earthquake.

Shouldn't that be

It was an earthquake. I have a friend over there ... in Japan!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

don't be so innocent

[IshanCaspian]

Don't you realize how advantageous it is to release this information on the anneversary of the twin towers attack?

Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[Cryptnotic]

Of course we have a choice:

Would you like to play a game?
>list games
Ball
Global Thermonuclear War
>play Global Thermonuclear War
How about a nice game of Ball?
>No, I would like to play Global Thermonuclear War.
Very well...

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.

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[Aadain2001]

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.

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[Ralph Yarro]

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.

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[mi]

by launching a nuke at a bunch of US carriers or at Seoul.

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.

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.

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"...

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[azzy]

The movie was called 'Ball Games' ;)

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[twelveinchbrain]

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.

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[surprise_audit]

When the crazy guy has a gun you don't point your gun at him and start yelling at him.

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"??

Re:Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[pjt33]

Actually it sounds to me like the way we Europeans would describe a stereotypical US citizen.

Re: Do we have any choice but to play ball?

[gidds]

Not really, no.

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.

Check other data

[Rufus211]

check out this post in an earlier thread. This picture from Harvey Mudd (in LA, CA) shows that *something* happened last Thursday.

The seismometer is in California

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:The seismometer is in California

[ColaMan]

No.

Vibrations through the earth travel at many kilometers per second, depending on density.

There'd be a delay (thats how you can triangulate earthquakes and such) but not in the order of 9 hours.

Oh Christ, grow up, people!!!

[theolein]

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.

Re:I was thinking the opposite

[character_assassin]

But fear cuts both ways. If the American people feel they're threatened and their leader is truly asleep at the switch, I can see them running from Bush at full speed. All Kerry has to do is say:

"This is a prime example of the Bush Administration's incompetence. We have 135,000 troops in Iraq, we're pulling troops out of South Korea, and now it turns out that North Korea - our sworn enemy - was allowed to develop nuclear weapons."

He might even throw in some semi-facts about how Seattle and Los Angeles are now within range, and that a country that is starving to death might not think twice about selling nukes to Osama bin Laden. Now that's fear.

Craters and forest fires

[theolein]

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. ;)

Re:Craters and forest fires

[ajs]

A crown fire bad enough to make a mushroom-like cloud of the size reported would leave devestation visible from space that (at least from a satellite) would look exactly like a crater. Such fires create all sorts of amazing (and deadly) displays from mushroom clouds to tornados of flame.

You have to understand that crown fires (so named because they are hot enough and violent enough to burn the whole tree at once, not just the litter on the ground and the bark/limbs at the base) are one of the most violent natural disasters, outhshown only by the big 3: Typhoon, Earthquake and Volcano, and are FAR more powerful than the largest nukes we've deployed to date.

That's so wrong it's almost laughable

[Mal Reynolds]

"North Korea is the reason we went into Iraq" ? Talk about spin, where do you get this stuff?
You go on with the ridiculous suggestion that "everyone believed the WMD lies"?
There were only 2 intelligence agencies that actually believed the Iraqi's had WMD, the US and the UK.. And as we now know, nearly all of that was based on the lies and forgeries by members of Chalibi's Iraqi National Congress dissidents. In fact, MOST of the world's intelligence agencies thought Iraq had No WMD. You can exempt the US CIA, but even our own State Department was incredulous. Why? Because there was only a single source for all these intelligence lies, and all they had was verbal assurances. There were no photos, videos, or any kind of hard proof. Even newspapers try to find dual sources for their stories. The CIA never bothered.
Even Saddam's biggest enemies, the Israeli's were humming the "no WMD tune" until 9/11 of '01. Mossad had been keeping track of all industrial imports to Iraq, and told the US prior to 9/11 of '01 that no significant shipments of WMD components or duel use technology had been imported. Sure, the Israeli's tune changed after 9/11 when they saw the possibilities of getting rid of Saddam. But they knew the truth, and that truth was ignored as it conflicted with the goal of invading Iraq.
Because of this, most of the world's intelligence agencies saw right through this charade. Our CIA and the Brits were alone among the major players in believing Chalibi's crap. And I think a lot of that was due to expectations set by Bush administration. They told the CIA to find proof of WMD in Iraq, so the CIA found someone willing to say there was proof.
You should do some research for yourself. Not just parrot everything you hear from the right (or left) leaning press. Use your brain, don't be a lemming.

Re:That's so wrong it's almost laughable

[adamruck]

Recently I spent some time with a CIA guy. He said that the Bush administration was very unhappy with the CIA for the first two years becuase the CIA wasn't delivering "correct" answers regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. Then after 2 years or so Bush and Cheney created a "intelligence unit" inside the whitehouse to "evaluate intelligence issues", and guess what, they started coming up with data that showed iraq had wmd's and such.

My point is, dont blame the CIA for getting the facts wrong, blame bush's intelligence(committee)

If it was nuclear, they know by now.

[phkamp]

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.

I guess we'll find out at the next Olympics

[Proc6]

If North Korean mutants take gold in every event, it was probably a nuclear explosion.

Well I would note

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:Well I would note

[necro2607]

What makes CNN more credible? That they have their own TV channel? That they have more money than Yahoo?

I'd actually consider Yahoo far more credible because they aren't as swayed by the influence of corporate sponsorships and similar bullshit very very likely used to influence how stories are reported among news networks like CNN, MSNBC and so on.

Re:Well I would note

[Zak3056]

I would also note that CNN is a considerable more credible news source than Yahoo news.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Yahoo is a news aggregator, and the story in question comes from the Associated Press. You can tell this by the huge orange "AP" logo next to the headline. The AP has plenty of credibility, and has been in the game for a little bit longer than CNN has--and by a little bit longer, I mean over 130 years longer.

Re:Fallout?

[Trigulus]

Its not magic fallout.. sheesh.. its over 3000 miles to Alaska, over 4000 miles to Hawaii and over 5000 miles to the west coast. Fallout is not quite this mobile. example from http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/enw77b 1.htm

From the 15-megaton thermonuclear device tested at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954--the BRAVO shot of Operation CASTLE--the fallout caused substantial contamination over an area of more than 7,000 square miles. The contaminated region was roughly cigar-shaped and extended more than 20 statute miles upwind and over 350 miles downwind. The width in the crosswind direction was variable, the maximum being over 60 miles ( 9.104).

Checking of facts?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Germany has an army. During the 2nd world war it was the backbone of NATO
...
> I suggest you better check you facts before you post.

Yes, quite.

Re:Checking of facts?

[quax]

Ups. What wired brain fart let me write "2nd" instead of "cold"? Guess it's time to go to bed.

Re:Checking of facts?

[JDevers]

Well, they had a pretty good army during the second world war too...

Re:I was thinking the opposite

[doublesix]

"This is a prime example of the Bush Administration's incompetence. We have 135,000 troops in Iraq, we're pulling troops out of South Korea, and now it turns out that North Korea - our sworn enemy - was allowed to develop nuclear weapons."

Bush turns around and blames Clinton, Japan, China, Putin, whoever. "Heck, boys, I put Korea on the axis of evil list, but I-raq had to come first."

Kerry shouldn't be campaigning on the fear ticket anyway - I reckon people are sick of fear

Whatever, I'm Canadian, WTF do I know?

It'll also make quite the point to our allies

[Anonymous Coward]

> We can blow them to hell, and make a point to any other rogue regimes

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?

Re:I am sick of this! Do the right thing!

[BawbBitchen]

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!

Are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

> We need the overwhelming application of military force, right now. That means using strategic nuclear
> 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.

Re:Are you sure?

[JInterest]

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.

During the so-called "Cold War" millions died in places like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, Guatemala, Nicauragua, Cuba, etc. over the course of decades as the "Superpowers" engaged in bloody and terrible warfare by proxy. You clearly need to re-read your history of the period.

How about a meteor strike?

[Weaselmancer]

Maybe this is a meteor strike, like the one in Tungusta, Russia in 1908?

According to this article, the Tungusta blast was around 40 megatons. The Hiroshima bomb was only 13 kilotons.

I'm not saying this is a meteor strike, but I am saying we should keep in mind that there are other explanations. Let's wait until we see some radiation readings before we reach a conclusion.

I guess you don't live in South Korea?

[Mal Reynolds]

If you and yours lived only 50 miles from the DMZ, I don't think you'd be spouting such nonsense.
As the poster above suggested, any move by the US would be met with decimation of the South Korean capital.
The North Koreans have enough artillery and incendiary weapons to make Seoul look like post WWII Dresden. Neither the US nor the South Koreans have enough weapons to destroy all those artillery positions before they've done their work. Yes, the US would eventually win. But it would take at least 1 to 3 months to fight North Korea to a standstill. Perhaps longer, as most of our forces are committed elsewhere.
You may be able to accept a few hundred thousand South Korean civilian casualties and the reduction of their capital to rubble. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that the South Koreans are not so anxious to risk that possibility. And that's just the conventional weapon threat. If the North managed to lob a single nuclear device towards the south, the casualties could run to millions.
I suggest you do your tough talking when it's the lives of your family on the line. In this case, the South Korean's have every right to drive the direction of these negotiations. It's their families only 50 miles away from the DMZ, not yours or mine.

Re:I guess you don't live in South Korea?

[flacco]

But he doesn't and that's the whole point. He doesn't care if other people die. He is a sociopath and like all sociopaths he has no ability to empethize with other people. To him dead koreans (north or south) don't matter. The only thing that matters is the supremecy of US military power and unquestioning obediance to his will.

incredible, what you can read into something, when you have a fixed preoccupation in your head about something.

the op's primary point seemed to be that NK would be a larger threat later than it is now. so, if you accept his premises, it would save more lives to deal with NK now than later.

you can argue over the validity of his premises, but you expose your ulterior preoccupations with this "supremacy" and "obedience" and "will" drivel.

Re:I guess you don't live in South Korea?

[flacco]

Like most americans the deaths of millions of brown or yellow people to him are meaningless

simpleton.

Nice recipe to start a global nuclear conflict

[ArcticCelt]

"We don't need more temporizing. We need the overwhelming application of military force, right now. That means using strategic nuclear 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."

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.

The time is right.

[scum-e-bag]

The spike is at 16:10 UTC which would be 2:10 AM in Korea. The article says the explosion happened at 11:00 AM.

Seismic waves take time to travel through the earths crust, just like a tidal wave on the ocean. It is possible that the wave took 3 hours to travel to the measrurement center at physics.hmc.edu

Those files have been slashdotted... anyone get originals?

See a crater from a satellite? So what?

[nysus]

Last week, I could easily see my swimming pool in satellite photos that are publicly available on the Internet. That the crater is big enough to be seen with a satellite really isn't significant.

Misleading statements

[AlphaPB]

The Republicans are trying to pin the blame on the Democrats, but according to an Utne Reader article this month it is the Bush adminstration that is quietly pushing for this.

HR163/S89 was a well-known attempt by Democratic Congressman Rangel to protest the war in Iraq (and also to elicit a negative reaction towards the current Administration from the American public). He very well knew that there would be no way for it to pass the House and the Senate, but sponsored it as a political statement.

It appears that the Selective Service system is gearing up for a new national draft, probably to be next spring. This draft is for both men and women from 18-25 but people with computer or medical training will probably be required to register them (and any new skills they acquire in these areas) until they turn 35.

Registration of training and skills, as far as I know, is something that occurs only once the draft has been implemented. What's technically required from the age of 18 to 35 is that the registrant inform the SSS of their current address, even though at the moment this is unenforced. Seriously, how many citizens remember to register their new address with the SSS when they move? The SSS had problems with tracking down registrants during the Vietnam-era draft.

Except for the issue of women in the draft (which Rep. Rangel included in the proposed bill to make it even more controversial), how has this changed from previous years? Are they really preparing for a "new national draft", or are you just saying so because you read the SSS's Annual Performance Plan? What exactly is it in the Performance Plan (and not Rangel's bill) that supports your claim?

The chances are the new draft ... there will not be deferments for college

Another misleading statement. There haven't been college deferments since 1971. The only deferment possible is until the end of the college semester.

There is also quite a bit on the resumption of the draft in Bush's "National Security Strategy" report dated Sept 20, 2002

Here's a link to the report in question. There was absolutely no mention of a resumption of the draft in the report. Where exactly, could you point out, should I read between the lines?

Parent is FUNNY not Insightful

[JNighthawk]

Who the heck modded that insightful? It's funny, not serious.

Re:Parent is FUNNY not Insightful

[Znork]

Cheney?

NK != Iraq

[rlp]

A little history - In 1994 Clinton sent Carter to negotiate a treaty with North Korea. The North Koreans agreed not to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of aid in the form of food and oil, and assistance in developing a "peaceful" nuclear program. The North Koreans then used their "peaceful" nuclear program with assistance from Abdul Qadeer Khan from Pakistan to develop their own nukes thus secretly breaking their agreement. North Korea also has an active missile programs and has conducted "test firings" of multi-stage missiles - shooting them over Japan. Japan is not very happy about this.

The U.S. with U.N. backing (the Soviet Union's UN ambassador had walked out - thus avoiding a veto) fought a war with the North Koreans in the 1950's. The war ended with an armistice in 1953 - not a peace treaty. North Korea has a 1.1 million man army out of a population of 22 million. They spend about 23% of their GDP on the military. The South Korean capital - Seoul is within easy artillery range of the North Korean border, and the North Koreans are believed to have a lot of hidden artillery in bunkers on the border. In the event of war, a lot of civilians in South Korea would die quickly. Finally, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il is a wacko. While his people starve, he imports large quantities of large items for himself (he favors Hennessy cognac). He's had Japanese citizens kidnapped to teach the Japanese language to North Koreans spies . He's a movie nut (owns 20,000 films) and kidnapped a South Korean movie director to make films about himself.

China is North Korea's largest trade partner and patron. However, with China's economic boom - China now trades far more with South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. Nevertheless, China is still wary of Japan - remembering the horrors inflicted on China by the Japaneses during WWII. Since the war, Japan has become an economic rather than military power, and it's pacifistic constitution (written by the US) ensures that it will not again become a threat to it's neighbors.

A nuclear North Korea threatens the balance in the region. It is not in the interest of China for South Korea to develop it's own nukes. It is not in the interest of anyone for the Japanese to develop nukes to counter the threat of nuclear armed missiles from North Korea. China's real nightmare - is if the region starts a nuclear arms race and Taiwan goes nuclear.

So, the choices are as follows:

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 ...".

Personally, I think the only viable answer is number three - and that's what we're doing.

Re:NK != Iraq

[buss_error]

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.

Re:To weird, this from CNN

[WindBourne]

s/image/explosion/

REUTERS - N.Korea blast unlikely to be nuclear

[ferrellcat]

HOLD YER HORSES!!! Reuters is now backpeddling a bit... http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml? type=topNews&storyID=581649&section=news

Re:Forest fire? Don't think so. - WRONG

[lombre]

This CNN story claims that a 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

pictures speak a 1000 words

ex 1

ex 2

you can find 100's of recountings of forest fires that have mushroom clouds

Good for them!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Forest fire? Don't think so. - WRONG

[servognome]

Smokey the bear says "Only you can prevent international nuclear panic"

Badger, Badger, Badger,...

[uss_valiant]

Badger, Badger, Badger, ....., Mushroom cloud, Mushroom cloud, Badger, Badger, .... Mushroom cloud, Mushroom cloud, Badger, Badger, ..., Mushroom cloud, Mushroom cloud, Badger, Badger, ...., a Snake, a snaake, snaaaake, a snaaake, ooou it's a snaaake, Badger, Badger, ...

FALSE ALARM - japanese seismograph at 2 AM

[Shmibbon]

The 2 AM seismic event is strongest at KIS. That's located in the middle of the south shore of Japan (Chugoku-Shikoku area). It also shows up strong on the north/south motion graph (first graph is up/down).

Check the previous days, there's plenty of spikes. It's just a damn earthquake in Japan.

Re:Forest fire? Don't think so.

[HeghmoH]

Going to a few airshows apparently trumps your layman/common-sense physics knowledge. Tiny airshow-level pyrotechnics can create mushroom clouds. Mushroom-osity is not unique to nuclear blasts, only the size is.

Radiation Increase on September 10th

[dorpus]

This radiation monitoring station in Ishikawa Prefecture of Japan, due east of the Korean peninsula, shows elevated radiation levels on September 10th. http://atom.pref.ishikawa.jp/RS25000.htm

L.A.Times article = He's insane

[spineboy]

The L.A. Times had an interestng article about a Japanese chef who worked for him for a while and then escaped. It included such info as Kim Jong Il II (sp?) has EVERY GRAIN of rice hand selected by a staff of women - imperfect ones are discarded. Food is cooked over fires made from a certain type of tree on a remote mountain that reportedly has special powers. Water too is from a "special" location. Made everyone in his hunting party take the same drugs as he was taking, after a spill from a horse. Always "wins" every competition that he is in.

He's either whacked or really, really different - I vote for the former.

Re:L.A.Times article = He's insane

[dave420]

And GW Bush thinks the world was created 4,000 years ago by a guy floating around on a cloud. Kim Jong Il is having tasty dinners every night - who's insane?

Re:Ooops - No Seismic Activity Last Hour, Day, Wee

[infolib]

Well, that's just great, but North Korea isn't in Southeast Asia.

Really? Where'd they move to?

East Asia. Let's see what Wikipedia says:

Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. It includes all of the following territories:
Brunei
Cambodia
East Timor
Indonesia
Laos
Malaysia
Myanmar (Burma)
The Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam

When you look at a map it is obvious that Korea is really pretty far to the north, which makes it reasonable that it's included with Japan, Taiwan and some Chinese provinces in East Asia.

It's amazing how many idiots are around...

[tehanu]

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.

Seismic Reading

[dorpus]

September 9th at exactly 9AM, there is a funny blip. http://www.hinet.bosai.go.jp/strace/24hour_wavevie w.php?orgid=01&netid=01&stcd=N.GENH&tm=2004090909& winnm=N_GENH

look look

[Anonymous Coward]

i know i'm just an anonymous coward,
but

do check out

http://www.seismo.nrcan.gc.ca/hplot_e.php

for 2004 09 09 16

Something happened at 16:40 UTC.

==================

For reference, also check out:

2004 09 05 15

which was the 7.3 Richter-scale Japan earthquake.

good reuters article

[Anonymous Coward]

here. They quote several alternate explanations:

"

Yonhap carried conflicting reports about the cause of the blast, quoting one source as saying it could have been a forest fire and another as saying it may have been an explosion of at a weapons depot or factory.
...
Other possibilities include a failed missile engine test, a high-explosives test as a precursor to a nuclear blast or an industrial accident, diplomats said.

"In the northern part of the country, there are a lot of weapons factories and underground missile bases. The rocket-fuel could have exploded in the underground base, or something," speculated Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.
"

Re: MORONS, your bus is leaving

[shutdown -p now]

Haven't you people heard of the Non-proliferation Treaty?

Yes, we did. Surprisingly, it is only binding to those countries which signed it. North Korea is, as of now, not a signatory.

i have a better question

[waspleg]

why did we invade iraq at all?

where is osama? why aren't the bulk of our forces still looking under rocks and in caves in afganistan?

fuck bush and fuck the idiots who will vote for him again, you all get what you deserve i just wish i didn't have to share it iwth you

eat my karma

Re:Gekiganger theorem of North Korean nuke detecti

[meringuoid]

Actually, Japan has quite an impressive military. They restrict military spending to a really small percentage of the national budget, but because they're so rich that small percentage gives them a total defence expenditure about equal to that of the UK.

Given the number of wars Britain manages to fight on that budget, I can't help but wonder what the pacifist Japanese are spending it all on. Giant robots might not be so implausible...

S. Korean government says it wasn't a nuke

[sofakingon]

From the Chosun Ilbo, the largest newspaper in Seoul.

I live here, so I pray to God it wasn't a nuke.

Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion

It was reported that there was a massive explosion Thursday around the town of Yongjo-ri, Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province. U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with North Korea and the Korean government all confirmed the explosion. A high-ranking government official said Sunday, It is true that a large mushroom cloud about 3.5 to 4 km in diameter was observed by a satellite at around 11:00 a.m. Thursday. It was not a nuclear test, but the explosion seemed to be three times bigger than the one that took place during the Ryongchon Station accident,± and added, Both U.S. and Korean intelligence authorities are investigating what caused the explosion.±

Chong Wa Dae Spokesman Kim Jong-min said, We noticed the explosion right after it took place and reported it to the president in writing during a National Security Council meeting. But we cannot decide the nature of the accident yet.±

The accident took place in a mountainous region 1,500 meter above sea level around Yongjo-ri, where it is known that there were many munitions factories nearby. In particular, the exact spot of explosion is only 10km away southwest from the Yongjo-ri base for Rodong 1 and 2 missiles and some 30km away from the Sino-Korean border.

There is much talk about the cause of the explosion. The government official said, If a nuclear test causes an explosion, we can detect it by reading satellite data. Thus, the recent explosion in North Korea was not caused by a nuclear test.± The intelligence authorities assume that an ammunition depot with over 1,000 tons of dynamite or an ammunition car may have exploded, or there may have been a chain explosion of chemical material or a big fire. Some Chinese sources argue that a massive explosion took pace in a munitions factory. Hong Sun-jik, director at the Hyundai Economic Institute said, Other than the assumption that it may be a simple accident that took place due to old facilities, we cannot exclude the possibility that the explosion may have taken place due to the lack of control of the Kim Jong-il regime, or it may have been connected to a secret feud over the successor of Kim Jong-il following the rumor of death of Kims wife, Ko Young-hee.±

Also, some strongly argue that it is not a simple accident because it took place on Sept.9, the Norths foundation day, which is considered a very important national holiday. Others argue that with Koreas nuclear experiments in the past at issue in the international community, it could be a false explosion by North Korea to intensify the Koreas nuclear issue. In other words, the North intentionally caused the explosion to deliver a message to the international community.

The government official said, We will be able to know the exact cause only after North Korea makes an official statement or intelligence authorities announces the results of their analysis.±

(Choi Byung-mook, bmchoi@chosun.com )

A Good Thing?

[mqduck]

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.

Calm down

[jandersen]

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.

Re:Calm down

[MyHair]

I'm not soiling my pants, but I am a bit alarmed. I'm more alarmed by the vague nature of the reports and the explanation-avoiding handwaving by U.S. public officials. I expect the U.S. and other Western governments to know within hours or at most a couple of days whether the cloud was a result of a nuclear blast. I know we don't exactly have the press presence in that area, but I'm sure we have bomb-detecting sensors of some sort aimed at NK given the nature of the diplomatic conflicts there.

I don't necessarily expect them to tell us all the details, but they could at least assert that there is no radiation detected and that's why they think it's not a nuke, if that's the case. This "we don't think it was nuclear" and casual mention of "it could be a forrest fire" is really weak. Why don't we think it's nuclear? It sounds like because it's harder to hide our heads in the sand if it is, or because it throws too big a wrench into the political campaigns.

By the way, while NK can't take over the world they could wipe out between tens of thousands and millions of people in short order and seem to be a bit of a crazy country anyway. And they've been developing missiles that could carry a nuke to the U.S. West coast.

Rereading my post I sound like I am soiling my pants. I'm not, it's just disconcerting that we're getting handwaving instead of hard facts about the report, and that reports of this didn't start trickling out until 2 1/2 days after the event.

Re:Calm down

[InfiniteWisdom]

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?

Um... when you look at the effect that knocking down two buildings had, what effect do you think it would have if half of lower manhattan was vaporised? And the whole New York metropolitan area left uninhabitable for years to come?

And remember, with an explosion this big it doesn't even have to make it past security or customs or anything. They could just let it go as far as it will and detonate it the second it is detected.

9/11 would look like a mere bruised thumb if Al Quaida managed to detonate a nuke anywhere near a big city. No matter how many planes they can hijack you can bet a nuke would be the ultimate victory. The psychological effect alone would shut down the whole nation.

It's not Nuclear

[janvo]

from cnn... http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/09/12/nkorea .blast/index.html

Re:It's not Nuclear

[JohnnyCannuk]

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.

Re:It's not Nuclear

[t_allardyce]

here

if Bush thought he had any chance of passing this off as a nuclear test, he would be infront of the cameras right now telling everyone how we must bomb them back to the stone age.

Or you need to do some more reading.

[tgd]

The US tested many sub-kiloton devices.

I suggest as a minimum reading a bool called the Curve of Binding Energy... I'm pretty sure its got a chapter talking about Ted Taylor's efforts to build micro-yield devices.

Either way, your comment is completely wrong. Its far more complicated to created small yield devices, but not even remotely impossible. Its extremely unlikely that North Korea did that, though. While creating a nuclear detonation is simple given enough raw fissionable material (US and Russia both had no failed tests with primitive technology until we started pushing the envelope for smaller and smaller explosions), creating micro-yield explosions is, and the details is one of the closest kept nuclear secrets in the US.

Re:Or you need to do some more reading.

[Jesus_666]

I suggest as a minimum reading a bool called the Curve of Binding Energy...

So, is it true or false?

Black Ops, anyone?

[niktemadur]

Supposedly the explosion took place very close to a weapons factory.

I'm just speculating, Tom Clancy style, about a joint American-Japanese-South Korean sortie, you know, James Bond-ish sort of thing. And on Kim Jong Il's grand celebration, to boot. Now THAT would be quite an embarassment to the Illuminated Leader.

Then, the well trained western media calls it something ludicrous, like a forest fire, a classic techno-thriller wrapup.

Now that I've read the end of the book, I'd like to go back and read a bit of character development, the romantic interest, etc. :-)

since the 1950's

[evenprime]

In practical terms it's impossible to build a nuclear bomb that yields less than about 5 kilotons.

We've had smaller nukes than that since the late 1950's. Our AIM-26A and AIR-2A air to air missiles typically had 1.5 nuclear warheads. Some of these had the even smaller 0.25 KT warheads.

More Info:

http://www.milnet.com/aamtab.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm16.htm

http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/genie .htm

U.S. strike?

[RayBender]

#begin tinfoilmode

Could this cloud have been the result of a U.S. strike against a North Korean nuclear facility? Maybe we located the place where they keep all of their bombs and just took it out?

#end tinfoilmode

I know, I can think of a million reasons why we shouldn't do something like that, but maybe we did anyway. It's not like this administration is beyond acting like cowboys...

Move along..

[t_allardyce]

Reading 'Mushroom Cloud Over North Korea' woke me up ;) but its abit of a dud. Move along everyone, nothing to see here. Firstly, if it was a nuke theres no way it would be hidden for 4 days - the US would certainly want the news out, hell even i would support a pre-emptive attack on that evidence, and even if the didnt, lots of people would want to know so a cover up would be hard. The radiation would be picked up, its not. Even that padded-cell case wouldnt do an above ground test in the small country, it would be below ground or over the sea (he himself would be at risk from the radiation!). Its not a US bombing raid on a nuke facility, nuclear weapons dont go off when you drop bombs on them, they do give off lots of radiation tho. Its unlikely to be a US mini-nuke (although that would explain a cover-up) again because of the radiation: if it leaves a crater, you're gonna get fall-out and even if not from that, you'd get if from the nukes they destroy! From the location its probably a missile test gone wrong or some explosives all stored in one place or fuel?

Re:Impossible

[TGK]

Not impossible, just hard. To be fair, I'd call it impossible for N. Korea to construct a 5Kt weapon given their lack of experiance in the subject matter.

With sophisticated facilities, extensive work done in neutron reflectors and fission enhancing substances (Tritium for example), it would be possible to construct such a weapon.

Think of it this way, the Manhattan project wasn't interested in a target yeild, they just wanted to make the concept work. All three of their first generation nukes tipped the scales around 15-20 kt. For all intents and purposes, it's fair to assume that 15-20 kt is the default size of your average nuke unless you engineer it differently. If N. Korea is trying to build the "lets see if this works" nuke, it's likely going to fall into that range.

Re: MORONS, your bus is leaving

[Frequanaut]

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.

Re:Impossible

[Travis Fisher]

You're wrong. Do a bit of web browsing about the threat of nuclear terrorism sometime. Try this paper for a start. What you're missing is that there is another critical factor determining the efficiency -- for what time period the assembly is critical. A group with limited resources trying to build a nuclear bomb for the first time is likely to aim for a device with a minimum of technical sophistication. This means one of two designs, corresponding to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One was the "gun design," so named because a slug of uranium is shot into another subcritical mass of uranium. The other is the "implosion design," where a hollow sphere of plutonium is surrounded by shaped charges of convential explosive, which when detonated compress the plutonium into a super-critical density. The problem with these designs is that if you do a shoddy job building the thing, the nuclear chain reaction will take off when the fissionable material is only partway to the final "assembled" state. Then most likely the nuclear explosion blasts the parts back apart before they ever reach the final assembled state, and this flying apart of the material makes things subcritical again before much of the nuclear energy is released. This can lead to arbitrarily small yields. This is particularly likely (or maybe almost inevitable) if a bomb is built with the less-refined "reactor grade" materials as opposed to the more-refined "weapons grade" materials. The less-refined material has a far greater proportion of undesirable isotopes which randomly decay releasing extra neutrons which will start the chain reaction before the optimal stage of assembly.

Kimchee Explosion

[Ranger]

They probably buried to much kimchee together and it reached critical mass. Rotting cabbage in an enclosed container produces highly explosive gasses. And when you bury them in a collective farm they usually pack them too close together. Then blammo. An enourmous cabbage cloud, not mushroom cloud, shoots skyward. I do understand that any kimchee that survives the inferno is pretty tasty.

Thank God they didn't do that on the Moon or it we would have lost it.

Re:Forest fire? Don't think so.

[sg3000]

> 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.

Reading over the comments . . .

[ReciprocityProject]

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!

Two things

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Germans? Forget it. He's rolling.

[istartedi]

Bluto: "Over? Did you say, 'over?' Nothing is over until WE decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

Boone: "Germans?"

Otter: "Forget it. He's rolling."

What it probably was

[einhverfr]

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.

It's reported as intentional

[Kalak]

North Korea has invited diplomats to visit the blast site of what is reported tpo be a "deliberate detonation of a mountain" as part of a hydroelectric project.

The spectacular start of a big project fits with the date of the blast in N. Korea.

Nothing to see here, please move along...

Which war? What are you talking about?

[jotaeleemeese]

-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).

North Korea Says Blast Part of Construction Projec

[dickens]

From the VOA:

North Korean foreign ministry officials have told British and Chinese diplomats that the explosion was the demolition of a mountain to make way for a hydro-electric plant.