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North Korea Launches "Communication Satellite" Rocket

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the transmitting-a-message-of-sorts dept.

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."

40 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. First post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    First (and last) post!

    1. Re:First post! by soren202 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh no, I for one trust North Korea to tell the truth and do what they sa-

  2. Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Manip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The summary is just wrong...
    Nobody is suggesting (except the person writing this summary) that the payload of this rocket was anything more than a communications satellite.

    What the international community is concerned about is that this really isn't about the satellite and is instead just an excuse to test better ICBMs.

    North Korea is banned from launching ICBMs but allowed to conduct space exploration.

    1. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Multiple wrongs do not make a right, and you can't undo history. Putting effective ICBMs in the hands of someone like Kim Jong Il is insanely irresponsible.

      The childish "you do it, so can I can too" approach you're taking is precisely that: indicative of a severely socially maladjusted person with no grasp of the severity of this situation. Let me take a quote from your post and modify it to suite this situation: until you've got better than a third grade education in these matters, shut the fuck up.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    2. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by FiveDozenWhales · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The countries which already have them aren't ruled by a fascist megalomaniacal dictator, at odds with nearly every government in the world and keeping his own people in slavery. I'm not defending the possession of ICBMs, just suggesting that if there is one nation that should be kept from having them, North Korea is probably it.

    3. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by shoemilk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, for the past two to three weeks, I've heard nothing but "this is a missile". Maybe it's because I'm in Japan and watching Japanese news. The biggest concern that Japan had (or atleast presented to the public) is that the North Koreans suck at making rockets and there was a big chance that it would fall and hit the northern part of Japan.

      There were threats back and forth "If it comes near us we'll shoot it down"
      "Shoot it down and next time we'll aim FOR you"
      "We'll shoot it down no matter what"
      "We're readying bombers to bomb you if you do"

      To the person wanting coverage, what they've been saying on the news is that they're looking for where it fell so they can pull it up and make sure it was a communications satellite.

    4. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by cjfs · · Score: 5, Funny

      Putting effective ICBMs in the hands of someone like Kim Jong Il is insanely irresponsible.

      It's not as dangerous as it first appears. All you need to do is make a few hollywood blockbusters with the right theme and he'll disarm instantly.

    5. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Banned by who? The countries which already have them?

      The governments of the US and europe let me down more than they should, but they have a long way to go before they scare me as much as north Korea's government. I mean, I'd trust both Iran and Cuba with nukes before North Korea. Iran and Cuba seem to understand that building an atomic bomb is something you do so that you don't have to use it. North Korea on the other hand seems more likely to use it than not use it.

      Whatever it's about environment, peoples rights, weapons or whatever the same rules apply: Clean up in your own backyard or shut the fuck up!

      Rational thinking like that has very little use in real-world international politics, and none in dealings with north korea.

      It seems like you're suggesting that it's unfair that we have nukes and they don't. I suggest you go downtown, give an angry crazy homeless man one loaded gun and you keep another. By your theory, everyone is equal and everything should work out great over multiple tests. You can tell me how it went on monday.

    6. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by cong06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except it would make sense for us to "destroy" ours before we enforce our own hypocritical policies.

      If it was simply something we "did" in the past, then it's one thing, but our foreign policy requires us to basically tell everyone else what to do because somehow we're better then them.

    7. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Toonol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're better than North Korea.

      It's both naive and dangerous of you to think otherwise.

    8. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, it _doesn't matter_ if this launch was for a communications satellite. Just because this rocket contained a benign payload, doesn't mean the next one will. North Korea doesn't have the spare money to spend on building their own satellite launching systems when it's so much cheaper to buy a satellite launch from someone else. The next payload will be whatever North Korea decides to put in the rocket, and the expertise from peaceful rockets is amazingly useful for building missiles.

    9. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by batkiwi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, most of the western world is "better" than North Korea. That is not a criticism of their citizens, as they are just along for the ride.

    10. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, in which ways are we not better?

      Most nuclear powers don't let hundreds of thousands of people starve to death every year so that they can fund their military. For comparison purposes, the US spends around 4% of their GDP on their military. The DPRK? 30%.

      Most nuclear powers don't brainwash their people and shut out the entire outside world to maintain an iron grip on the populace.

      Most nuclear powers don't keep on the brink of war at all times and use threats to extract aid.

      But yeah, sure, it's not PC to say that some countries are better than others. I guess you'd be happy to move to Sudan or the DRC. After all, France or India couldn't possibly be any better.

    11. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by aliquis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No.... we're not "better," just much less likely to use them against others.

      Funny considering you're the only country who has actually used them in a war.

      And I doubt you'd hesitate once vs russia or china if they attacked first.

      Nothing say north korea will attack first either, but it will prevent them from getting attacked in the first place, as is the situation with all nuclear forces.

    12. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'll support us destroying our nuclear stockpile just as soon as I have 100% assurance that the rest of the nuclear-equipped nations are doing the same, simultaneously.

      Obviously, this is never going to work. The cat is already out of the bag, so to speak. What's important now is determining the likelihood that an aggressive nation bent on insane policy will use nuclear weapons on their neighbors... oh, wait, that seems to describe North Korea.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    13. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by johnsonav · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?

      --
      ... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
    14. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Informative

      A friend pointed me to this site, (possibly NSFW depending on certain links) which has a couple of people going inside North Korea to shoot video. What they shoot is not concentration camps. It's not executions. It's not poverty (strictly speaking). It's just the completely bizarre world that is North Korea. I wish I could describe it, but my words just wouldn't do it justice.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    15. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by johnsonav · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny considering you're the only country who has actually used them in a war.

      Which has absolutely nothing to do with how likely we are to use them now.

      And I doubt you'd hesitate once vs russia or china if they attacked first.

      That's kind of the point of MAD. You don't think Russia or China (or the USA) hasn't used them lately, because of some warm-fuzzy humanitarian reason, do you?

      Nothing say north korea will attack first either [...]

      Of course not. But, most people would agree that they are more likely (no matter how small that probability may be) to launch a first strike than the US, Russia, or China. They are a relatively small, backward, unstable, and unpredictable nation. They simply have less to lose.

      --
      ... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
    16. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by amRadioHed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, the previous administration wanted us to believe Iraq had nuclear weapons when they invaded. Does that count?

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    17. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Joebert · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'll support us destroying our nuclear stockpile just as soon as I have 100% assurance that the rest of the nuclear-equipped nations are doing the same, simultaneously.

      Are you sure that's a good idea ?
      That would probably be a pretty big boom.

      --
      Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
    18. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Neon+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IMHO the West really has no business telling the rest of the world that they can't have nukes while the West still has them - this doesn't mean that we should give everyone nukes, it means we should damned well disarm to put everyone on an equal footing.

      Super idea. Lets all give up nukes, and go back to the days when war between major powers is again thinkable.

      And slaughter millions upon millions in the process.

      --
      Azural - instrumentals
    19. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the US:

      * Brainwashed population:They believed that Iraq has WMDs.
      Check.

      * Keep on the brink of war at all times:
      Dick Cheyney claimed that the War on Terror could go on "indefinitely".
      Check.

      As for your 4% figure, you have to include the military related R&D spending of all companies in the military industry, such as GE, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin and a bunch of others. Just because the US has privatized large parts of its military doesn't mean you can arbitrarily exclude them from the military spending figure. If you include all of these then you'll come to a hell of a lot more than 4%.

      Oh, and if you think that you can point to a bunch of government policies and conclude that your country is "better" than another, then the cultural attitude that you represent automatically, in my eyes, makes you worse than just about everyone else.

      --
      I hate printers.
    20. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They simply have less to lose.

      Actually, to further your point, the DPRK has a lot more to lose should their iron-clad grip on a starving, crushed population begin to loosen. They're likely to blame such an occurrence on Western influence, and resort to rather irrational acts.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    21. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Glad you admitted you have absolutely no idea what it's like to live in the United States. Yes, we have serious problems in our government. All governments have serious issues. It's the nature of government, period.

      If you are seriously attempting to compare everyday life in the U.S. to North Korea, you're completely out of your mind. I can write an opinion piece to the Atlanta Journal & Constitution declaring the President to be a bumbling buffoon, calling every Senator in Washington a bunch of dirty names, and expressing the opinion that Georgia's governor has terrible taste in suits. I run zero risk of being arrested for these acts.

      Such behavior would most likely get me tortured to death in North Korea at worst, or locked up for ten years and "made an example of" at best.

      Grow up.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    22. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was referring to the mythical ones that Rumsfeld kept crowing about in the UN. The ones that nobody believed existed because even the UN inspectors testified that, not only were they of the belief that they did not exist, but that Iraq did not have the capability to even manufacture them.

      But I'm guessing that you knew what I was referring to, but were deliberately misdirecting towards facts that suit your pre-conceived view of the world.

    23. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Plunky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It might help to keep in mind that while the Russians were more organized and had more power, they were sane. We're not facing mutually assured destruction, but North Korea would be more likely to nuke SOMEONE than the USSR.

      You know, back in the cold war days there was a lot of rhetoric about what the russians could do, were likely to do and wanted to do. But it turned out that much of it was fear mongering by the military industrial complex in our own countries that stood to make massive gains selling us weapons to counter that stuff.

      Welcome to the new enemy, same as the old one

    24. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      We knew they had weapons of mass destruction because we sold them to them - Saddam got Sarin gas from the USA. We also knew that they no longer had weapons of mass destruction because we sold them to them - and we knew the Sarin gas was expired. The ONLY WMD evidence found when we went in was some shells which had traces indicating they once held Sarin. Your comment is utterly devoid of value.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    25. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by DustyShadow · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't know which one of you is correct but this cnn article says this:

      "In a statement, Obama said the launch was "a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which expressly prohibits North Korea from conducting ballistic missile-related activities of any kind."

  3. Outstanding. by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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).

    --
    512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    1. Re:Outstanding. by aliquis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, U.N. sanctions don't really mean a whole lot these days (did they ever?)

      No, the countries with veto rights makes UN totally useless. North korea isn't one of those though.

    2. Re:Outstanding. by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is there isn't a good way to deal with North Korea. They have a massive army, a very fearful and xenophobic populace, and tons of weapons trained on South Korea. So you have two scenarios, neither of which is really acceptable:

      1) Conventional attack. You send in large numbers of conventional forces to destroy their army and occupy the country. This would work, but at the first sign of invasion, North Korea will fire their artillery trained on the south. This features lovely things like poison gas warheads and such and easily reaches major cities. There is going to be a large loss of civilian life and infrastructure in South Korea because of this. There is also likely to be fairly heavy casualties in the invading military force. While North Korea's military isn't technology advanced, it is very large.

      2) Nuclear attack. You target nuclear tipped cruise missiles, bombs, and perhaps even some ICBMs at all military targets of any note. The idea is a single coordinated massive strike that simply eliminates all their counterforce capability. Perhaps large population centres are targeted as well. Ok well ignoring the whole problem with world opinion on WMDs, you have the problem that this will cause a massive loss of life in the north that is not limited to, or even primarily, military. There's then all the problems with fallout, lingering radiation and all that other nasty shit as seen in Japan in WWII and Russia when Chernobyl blew up. You could potentially (though no guarantee) eliminate the threat to the south in one swoop and crush the north's military, but at what cost?

      Thus far there just isn't a good suggestion for how you'd deal with North Korea and not have it lead to massive loss of civilian life on one or both sides. Thus it isn't a situation anyone wants to get in to. There's also the question of how China would react. While they don't seem to be so happy with North Korea any more, they do still support them. Let's not forget that is where North Korea's military support came for in the Korean War.

      All in all there doesn't seem to be a good answer, so it is just kind of left alone.

    3. Re:Outstanding. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And it is exactly this kind of stupid dichotomy ("we must fight or die!") thinking that pushes countries to war.

      There are actually other, peaceful, solutions to this. E.g. NK was actually starting economical reforms much like China did in the early '80s, with special economic regions near the border, until the new president (the "CEO president") of South Korea took the hard-line approach to the North, which, unsurprisingly resulted in similar stance from the NK.

      Had NK been allowed to continue their economic reforms, there could be hope that it will eventually be more open much like China did without any wars breaking out.

      By forcing your opponent to either fight or curl up and die, don't be surprised when you got a fight in your hands. Although it may be a hopeless fight for your opponent, remember that you are the one taking all the hope from him in the first place.

      Even the Art of War said always leave a way out for your opponents, you don't want to force him into a "fight or die" situation, because that's when he will fight most fiercely against you.

    4. Re:Outstanding. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    5. Re:Outstanding. by Cbs228 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is another option

      3) Coup d'etat. Replace the paranoid, militaristic North Korean regime with a new government—possibly one backed by the United States or her allies. Since the North Korean population is unlikely to do this on their own initiative, they will need some assistance and logistical support from another world power. Another country could theoretically encourage a "friendly" general to seize power and then back him up militarily, politically, and economically when he does so. The U.S. has a long history of supporting anti-Communist coups via the Truman Doctrine, and we have even backed totalitarian dictatorships—so long as they weren't Communist.

      A successfully executed coup could be relatively bloodless, would leave North Korea's infrastructure and population centers (such as they are) intact, and would certainly cost less money and manpower than a full-scale invasion. However, the outcome is entirely dependent on luck: military leaders might succeed in launching a WMD attack on South Korea before they are deposed, the new government might not be sustainable, or the coup might be a complete and utter failure. Additionally, U.S. involvement would require our intelligence agencies to demonstrate actual competence, and a U.S.-backed coup could seriously impact our relations with China. Still, I think a coup would be a better option than a full-scale attack.

      --
      At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
    6. Re:Outstanding. by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?

    7. Re:Outstanding. by Toonol · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That point is often forgot. The purpose of the UN is communication. I have little respect or tolerance for the UN as it exists today, because of their evident desire to overreach their purpose. Still, I would hate for the UN to go away. It should have no power, though, besides the ability to assist member nations to conduct diplomacy.

  4. Re:Long-range rocket? You mean like Iraq's WMD? by gardyloo · · Score: 5, Informative

    But if they are really testing ICBM's (i.e. not expecting something to reach orbit) they would be a fool to announce it before hand.

    They'd be fools to not announce it beforehand. You do not go launching major rockets of any sort, young man, unless people are warned. Otherwise, you run the risk of being very swiftly annihilated.

      *slaps with rolled-up newspaper*

  5. Re:Coverage has been slow by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Any latest news about what is happening would be appreciated.

    Currently, the place where you are has NOT yet been nuked by north korea.

  6. Re:Coverage has been slow by EdZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7984254.stm It ditched in the ocean.

  7. Mort Sahl said it... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...in a faux-german accent, as a parody of Werner von Braun:
    "I aim for ze stars, but zumtimes I hit London"

    Dunno what a faux-Korean accent would be, but I expect a few one-liners like this about the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il and his communications satellite aspirations.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire