North Korea Launches "Communication Satellite" Rocket

Mad Ivan writes "The BBC has just reported that North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, which they say is a communications satellite, but that the US and Japan fear may actually be a ballistic missile. Details are still arriving; the rocket passed over northern Japan on its way up."

Comments

Outstanding.

[palegray.net]

As if this regime needed to be any more creative to continue their quest to piss off the world. Yeah, U.N. sanctions don't really mean a whole lot these days (did they ever?), but this is ridiculous.

Honestly, if I thought for one moment that North Korea actually had peaceful space exploration motives in mind, about 50% of my objection to this would vanish instantly. As it stands, the regime is run by a madman with serious nuclear ambitions, something people tend to forget about.

Personally, I wish we'd dealt wish North Korea a long, long time ago... perhaps in place of Iraq. I'm certainly no foreign policy expert, but I have served in the military, and I've always considered North Korea a much larger looming threat to regional and global security than Iraq ever was (with the exception of the Gulf War, that is).

Re:Outstanding.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of the UN isn't to make and enforce international laws. It is only to provide a forum for discussion among nations. In that regard the UN has been quite successful.

Re:Outstanding.

[interkin3tic]

I for one cannot believe that the great powers, China in particular, continue to let this little pissant live.

It's all about perspective. Keep in mind that some of our foreign policy opponents say the same thing about the US and Israel. The two aren't similar in many ways, but they both do provoke in ways that serve some of the interests of the us/china.

In the case of North Korea, China gets a lot of leverage over Japan and the rest of the world. If you piss China off enough, they won't act like they're going to help your ongoing efforts to prevent North Korea from nuking japan. At least that's what I've heard from a few japanese scholars, take that with a grain of salt, but it does make some sense. Naturally, it's stupid if China is doing that, since China would be in a world of hurt if North Korea actually did start trouble.

I've also heard (although this sounds much more dubious to me) that south korea isn't really doing all they can to stop north korea from getting nukes, since both countries express an interest in eventually reuniting, there's some sense of "If they get nukes, when we reunite, we'll have nukes." Again, that sounds like complete conspiracy theory crap to me, but what do I know?

Re:capabiliy

[shoemilk]

Actually, that's not true, until now, the best they'd ever done was to launch some missiles into the Japan Sea (more like sputtered into). Which was why Japan was so concerned that this missile would fall on Japan. With this rocket, they wouldn't be able to hit Australia (according to the news reports I've watched), but they could get all the way to the northern part of the Philippines.

So, while the US is safe, the most part of Asia has to worry.

Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong...

[im_thatoneguy]

Honestly what are the chances there is a communication sattelite on that thing?

Even the most ambitious estimates didn't put this rocket into orbit.

What good is a 'communications sattelite' that flys over Japan for 10 minutes?

Also what are the chances any sizeable chunks of wreckage would survive impact? What do we intend to drudge up? Lint?

Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong...

[johnsonav]

There's no strategic rationale for them to build a nuclear bombThere's no strategic rationale for them to build a nuclear bomb

Sure there is. When was the last time the US invaded a nuclear power?

Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong...

[Gordonjcp]

I wonder how many people who think that countries like Iran and North Korea don't have the right to have nuclear weapons are also believe that everyone has the right to own a gun?