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North Korea Missile Launch Fails
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a 'communications satellite' into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload 'falling in the Pacific.'"
This might be a great opportunity to see exactly how far advanced their missile/rocket program is, assuming we've got salvage vessels in place to pick up the pieces.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
The US government and the popular media have been spouting this nonsense that it was a "failure."
BS.
I guarantee you the NK engineers learned from this "failure." Tests aren't failures as long as you learn from them. Since we don't know whether or what NK learned from this, calling the test a "failure" is pure speculation.
How is this a failure? They launched an ICBM that cleared Japan before hitting the water, thus proving they now have the capability to deliver a nuclear strike against Japan.
If this was a test to see what the effective range was of the missile, then they absolutely determined that and there was no failure. While I dislike the way North Korea interacts with the rest of the world, I find the highly suggestive wording of the write-up to be misleading and inaccurate.
I think we all knew the 'satellite' story was BS, so we can't evaluate the launch in terms of whether they put something in orbit or not. That part is irrelevant.
according to the US Northern Command and NORAD
Not to get all tinfoil-hat on everyone, but has anyone closer to a neutral third party got any information?
I don't doubt the NORAD report, but it might be nice to have a source without a vested interest make a report as well.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Unless the real goal was to prove that they can nuke Japan.
> if you ignore north korea, it will do progressively more and more dangerous things, all
> calculated to garner attention again. and then it will screw up, and then it can finally
> be taken down like the rabid dog it is
At the cost of how many hundred thousand South Korean (and possibly Japanese) lives?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Even if we get the launch, space is not something we have a lot of first hand experience with. Getting things to work in space is hard. The world is getting more experience now that we have an international space station, and more countries are getting experience operating in space. This can only help everyone long term as innovative solutions are developed.
One may fall to jingoistic and chauvinistic temptation when it comes to this, especially since we have been trained to fear those that are different from us, but I doubt that is useful here. From what I read, the trajectory was orbital, not intercontinental. As we have seen, there are much easier ways to deliver mass destruction than these vehicles. It could be that N. Korea wants to be in the space game, and have such things as communication satellites of their own.
And it would be good that the US does not get too cocky. We are stuck in LEO. To get back to the moon is going to require a learning curve after a generation of inactivity. At this point we may not want to fund it. People think we can magically make it Mars without any baby steps. If there is anything to fear it is that N. Korea is doing science while we are arguing over evolution.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You are aware that North Korea does shit that makes no sense? Like sending commandos in submarines to kidnap Japanese and South Koreans. Or DMZ violations, involving killing US troops. But ok...I'm sure Bush put them up to that...or made it up.
THL phish sticks
Why would any nation want to isolate itself the way the DPRK is isolated?
Same reason they might start a war they couldn't possibly win -- because their leader is an unpredictable nutjob.
bottom line, is the world doesn't trust countries run by crackpot dictators, and rightly so.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
An alternate hypothesis.
/.
First off, we know that NK does NOT have nuclear weapons. So please be quiet about them nuking everything.
Secondly, it would make no sense at all for NK to shoot anything. They are isolated, NK might make poor decisions but they won't choose to get every cubic meter of NK bombed.
We also know Kim is full of himself. If he lived 5000years ago we would have people building him giant pyramids as monuments to his greatness. At the moment, the greatest achievement a country can make is space travel. Sure the US did it first so what? Right now china, japan and india have space programs and hope to stick a man on the moon. Space Race Asian Edition. Many countries think NK is a crazy backwards land that can't do anything since they are under a horrible tyrannical rule. If anyone felt that way about you wouldn't you want to prove them wrong? Show them how awesome and advanced you are by making it into space.
NK is a bit nutty and isolated from the world. Clearly they must be assholes. But lets look at both sides. The korean war 'ended' poorly sure. Remember the end of WW1 where the global community basically fucked Germany in the ass after winning? Which lead to the bitchiness allowing/causing WW2. A mistake we did not repeat after WW2. So we decide to not trade with NK. Even put up trade barriers/embargoes internationally. Many thousands of people starve in North Korea while the world at large says, give up tyranny and we'll help you eat. (how well does that work?). North Korea is stuck on an island with enemies to the south. Enemies that are much better funded and better armed. They are also probably jealous of the fact and maybe a little pissed that their neighbors are doing so well. They need a bargaining chip. NK starts developing nuclear technology in the early 90s. Out of fear the US promises to provide electricity and normalized trade in exchange NK would disassemble their nuclear plants and join the NNPT. Korea agrees! They take apart their factories. The US changes to the republican party. They do not provide electricity, they do not normalize trade, they spit in NKs face. Bush calls NK part of the axis of evil and lists them as elligable for preemptive nuclear strikes. How the fuck the north koreans are the badguys in this one is beyond me. They were willing to normalize international relations given the chance and it was thrown in their face. So of course they will begin work on nuclear weapons again, they need a bargaining chip.
Clearly NK does not have a good human rights record. Clearly it is terrible that people are starving. But the US policy of Good vs Evil is NOT helpful. Isolating a country, not letting them trade with you, threatening them, hating them does not help. I don't understand the idea that we can fix the problem by giving them an ultimatum they cannot possibly accept then never talking. It is like the 'hard on crime' laws that never seem to help either. Maybe if we offered a hand to NK that we dont use to stab them with they'll be a bit more trusting. Maybe with more money and education, a link to the rest of the world they can join us. A country cannot be evil it isn't a demon or even a person. If we keep going as we have how can you EVER expect countries like North Korea and Cuba to rejoin the rest of us, or maybe the truth is you don't really care.
(man this went longer than I intended, sorry
I don't buy it. They have a pretty solid dictatorship going with heavy communistic leanings. This displeases a lot of governments besides the US. If they wanted to be the world's friend, they could just not act aggressively (it's not like South Korea is really waiting for their chance to strike, they are fine letting North Korea just do their thing.) So, why the attitude? Let's look at Cuba, they learned the hard way that a missile "defense" strategy is a good way to lose friends, but for the few decades since, they have been going along fine with no militaristic tendencies and they haven't been overthrown by Turks n' Caicos or one of the many other nations drooling at the chance to storm Havana.
So is North Korea really a bogeyman? I think they give themselves a lot more headache than anyone else tries to pin on them. Why not just set up a "cute dictatorship" by declaring Kim Jong Il "familial monarch" (britain I am looking at you) or "prime minister" (russia I am looking at you) and then hold an election to find a "president" to give things an air of democracy. That way you can at least say you are trying, even if you still do things like invading peaceful neighbors (russia, again.)
That being said, it is nice (as a US citizen) having an international jerk around, it makes the US not look so bad.
Seriously, how about we stop eating the BS they feed us and doing a little analytical thinking for ourselves for a change? Anyone?
Okay.
Why would any nation want to isolate itself the way the DPRK is isolated?
This question is nonsensical. It's the kind of rhetorical fodder to feed those who are incapable of actually engaging in logical analysis and thinking for themselves. Anyone who does so would immediately note that a nation cannot want anything, as it is a non-physical abstraction incapable of independent thought. Possibly you mean, "why would the leader of a nation want..." or "why would the party leadership want..." or "why would the man on the street want...", but of course the answers to all these questions are likely to be different. Making the question nonsensical forces the reader to rationalize it in their own manner, and thus causes the largest number of readers to act as if this is a sensible question, and treat what you're saying with a "yeah, man, you're right" attitude even when you're not saying anything. This is why questions like this one you're asking here are so powerful tools against people who don't actually analyze very well, they even repeat them without noticing they are contentless rhetorical tools.
The real problem for you here is, if you actually make a sensible question out of this, no matter which way you go, it either has a sensible answer, or it's immediately obvious that it's not a relevant question. It's easy to come up with reasons why a dictator would want to isolate a country (and the DPRK is not the only example of this, see Burma, for example, or any number of isolationist regimes of many nations over the years). It's maybe not to easy to see why the man on the street would want it, but then it hardly matters what they want in a non-democratic country.
US-DPRK relations are an artifact of the cold war,
...as is much of the current world power structure and even a number of nations, yes.
...and unlike the USSR, no state large enough to actually compete with the US emerged there, so the tiny country is being stomped on for no good reason other than for siding with the losing superpower from the twentieth century.
...as did a large number of countries at one time or another, which are not similarly isolated. This would indicate that the reasons for the isolation are more complex than this rather facile treatment. Without even going into details, it's apparent from even a cursory bit of logical analysis that most of what you've said here is wrong, incomplete, or meaningless (indeed, I would say the majority of what you posted was, in fact, "not even wrong").
Reading and thinking analytically, it's actually pretty hard to form a rebuttal to what you said, since you in fact said almost nothing. You asked a bunch of questions that were mostly vague and nonsensical, but to the extent you did say or at least imply anything, it would appear to be poorly thought out or ill-informed.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Uhm...speaking of analytical thinking... Would you care to enumerate the number of nuclear weapons that were fired by Russia or the US at each other during the Cold War? I mean...the whole point is to NOT USE THE FUCKING THINGS. That is what Mutually Assured Destruction is all about. The notion that you could "win" a nuclear war was pretty much entirely abandoned a long time ago. The only people that really have any intention of USING them are psychotic. (See Iran declaring that Israel should be wiped off the map, or Dubya asking for "tactical" nuclear weapons to be developed). The whole point behind them is to join the ranks of countries that can bring a tremendous amount of hurt, because if you can't nuke someone you don't get taken seriously.
Iran - May have nukes or very close - No invasion.
NK - May have nukes or very close - No invasion.
Iraq - Everyone pretended they could have nukes, but most people knew they didn't - Invasion!
Iraq got stuck in a pretty bad situation. Admit to the world they don't have nuclear capabilities and aren't close to having them and face the wrath of the Iranians or Saudies as the world looked the other way, or pretend they did have the capabilities and hope to God that no one would invade.
NK is going to be very interested in demonstrating that it has nuclear capabilities and the ability to deliver them (even if at a rather limited range). It sends the message "fuck with us and we will murder millions". Now, I agree that there has been a great deal of overly aggressive rhetoric, but those NK folks aren't exactly the most friendly bunch to begin with. In fact their leadership tends to show quite a bit of psychotic behavior. There have been people defecting from NK for years telling the world that ol Kimmy thinks he can fight with the big dogs and win. The really disturbing ones are the people that escape to China and are shocked by how "free" they are there.
Now...to answer why would any nation want to be that isolated...well...because it allows their psychotic dictators to rule with an iron fist. Some of these freaks are content with ruling their little corner of the earth with absolute power rather than expanding their lands and making it harder to control with absolute power. Ol Kimmy fashions himself to be a God much like the Egyptian Pharohs...that kind of nonsense doesn't really work out well unless you keep the people isolated from the rest of the world, and what better way to do that then enlist the aid of the rest of the world.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Why would any nation want to isolate itself the way the DPRK is isolated?
Seriously, how about we stop eating the BS they feed us and doing a little analytical thinking for ourselves for a change? Anyone?
Yeah, how about you do a little analytical thinking.
The GOVERNMENT of the DPRK isolates themselves so that they can stay in power. By being isolated, they have total control of their citizens and are able to prevent uprisings.
For North Korea, it's not about the welfare of the citizens, it's about maintaining the phat lifestyle of the people in charge. Having the potential to attack other countries (even if it is suicidal), helps ensure the North Korea will be left alone from international meddling and possibly even get some concessions for "giving up" nukes and ballistic missiles in the future.
Iran - May have nukes or very close - No invasion.
NK - May have nukes or very close - No invasion.
You forgot
Pakistan - Known to be hiding the most wanted man in the world, but is also known to have nukes - No invasion.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".