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North Korea's Secret Biochemical Arsenal
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics has an in-depth report on North Korea's biological and chemical weapons stock, which has been developed in secret and has gone largely unnoticed amidst the country's nuke threat. From the article: 'North Korea's Chemical and Bioweapons (CBW) program appears to be modeled on that of the former Soviet Union, which covertly constructed a massive biological weapons infrastructure within the shell of a civilian research organization called Biopreparat. Inside Biopreparat, the Soviets developed deadly agents that included weaponized forms of anthrax and pneumonic plague. Intelligence reports from the United States and South Korea list anthrax, smallpox, pneumonic plague, cholera and botulism toxins as leading components of North Korea's bioweapons projects.' "
I'm not at all surprised that NK has biochemical facilities and research, but I'm more interested in how PM found out specific details about it. That would be a better question.
A nuke is just one egg in a basket. Biochemical weapons do have their advantages, i.e. you can't expose some potential "refugees" with radiation and then have them "escape" from your side of the border to freedom. Give refugees something nasty like small pox though, and hypothetically, that'd be a lot cheaper and possibly more effective than a nuke.
You're 100% correct that we're fairly strapped for cash because of Iraq, as Bush has spent the combined budget for a full-fledged moon colony and a manned Mars expedition (which he promised in what, 2001? 2002?) in Iraq, with far less impressive results, but do you really think we've been hunting Osama bin Laden for even the last three or four years? Give me a break. Some people believe he may have even died of natural causes in 2002 but that sounds a bit far-fetched.
Just our luck that Bush's dad "had it out" with the one secular Arab nation in the Middle East, with the most advanced womens' rights, that didn't directly support al Qaeda, the one that didn't have any nuclear proliferation capabilities, as opposed to Pakistan, India, Iran, and North Korea, and as I imagine, many more in the future. Boomers are going to have childhood flashbacks of Bert the Turtle ducking and covering for the foreseeable future.
It's also worth noting that North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world (bigger than the People's Republic of China if you count reserves!), and if they do indeed possess chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, this would be very different from invading a sandbox that couldn't even fight off Iran (with our help).
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Wait, wait, wait.... You're blaming the left wing (and centrists, too, for that matter) for trying to hold Bush accountable for all of the lying and whatnot? Perhaps if his administration hadn't done it with Iraq, he wouldn't be blamed for it, and he'd be more willing to go after North Korea. Don't try to pass the blame - Bush and his administration are the ones who cried wolf, it's not the townspeoples' fault that they're not rushing in to save him this time.
Blame the intelligence services for all of the lying and whatnot as it was more that Bush that thought Iraq had NEW WMD's. (We found plenty of the old ones that had been "destroyed", but not the stockpiles required to make the headlines.) And, quite frankly, it wasn't just the WMD's. It was the soon to be disbanded Oil for food program, the firing on American and allied planes and soldiers, the assassination attempt of a former US President, and the 1.5 million innocent people killed by Hussein. Of course we need not forget Putin telling GWB that Russian intel believed that Iraq was planning an attack in the US. After all the flack that GWB took for not stopping 9-11 when there was intel, no matter how vague (Presidential Daily Brief: Al Qaeda determined to attack in the US), I understand why we attacked Iraq. If you bashed Bush for not stopping 9-11, then you really can't honestly bash him for attacking Iraq.
Besides, since we have the same intel on N. Korea that we have on Iraq, why would you support attacking N. Korea and NOT support attacking Iraq?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
So you're drinking the kool-aid and blaming the "intelligence failures" on the intelligence services? Not the administration, who attempted to discredit Valerie Plame's husband and his report that there was nothing to the Nigerian yellowcake story by outing her as a spy? And failed to listen to Hans Blix, who "accused the U.S. and British governments of dramatising the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the regime of Saddam Hussein." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix ). Maybe you should just admit that this was what Bush wanted, he did everything he could to make it happen, and it's his fault.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2771492&page=1
From what I recall from my European history class, Hitler actually refused to use chemical weapons. He had faced them during combat in World War 1 and knew enough about their effects that he was terrified of the thought of using them in trench warfare again.
Although that didn't stop chemical weapons from being used in some degree in the concentration camps.
I had a political science prof in college who made an interesting point about the war in Iraq. He argued that the war is NOT about oil and never was, reasoning that we could access the oil by corrupt dealings and underhanded collaboration with Hussein.
Instead, he believed that Bush genuinely believed that God told him to bring democracy to the country, and that he was obligated to obey.
I don't know whether I agree with the professor, but if this is true then that mindset is far, far scarier than an invasion for oil.
Oddly enough, I would be in no way surprised to learn that you got your +5 Insightful for speculating favorably on humanity self-exterminating from people who go apoplectic over Christians who believe in and look forward to the second coming.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell