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North Korea Says War With South Would Go Nuclear

Posted by Soulskill on from the cruisin'-for-a-bruisin' dept.

A reader writes "According to reports from the Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, and '[will] not be limited to the Korean peninsula.' The article goes on, 'The Korean peninsula remains a region fraught with the greatest danger of war in the world. This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).'"

9 of 608 comments (clear)

  1. Okie dokie then by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, and '[will] not be limited to the Korean peninsula.'

    So what they're saying is if tensions rise the only safe response is to proactively nuke North Korea until they glow.

    Well alllll righty then. B-bye now!

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  2. Wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Didn't we (and by we I mean the US and the UK) just finish "liberating" 2 other countries on much flimsier pretexts than this. We've got a crackpot dictator AND genuine WMD's (although the phrase WMD seems to be getting applied to anything larger than small arms nowadays) surely in the spirit of not being hypocritical warmongering oil fetishists we must now "liberate" North Korea.

  3. Genocide? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't like how the concept of total annihilation of a country is so easily bandied about. Not just this post, but all over the place. There are 24,051,218 people in North Korea (says Wikipedia), and only a large handful of them are actually causing this problem. How is it even conceivable to murder 24 million innocents (brainwashed, maybe; evil, no) because we don't like the guys in charge. Maybe the North Koreans can talk like that because the people talking are totally insane, but anyone else in the world shouldn't even have this cross their minds. Godwin called, he'd like to remind you that 24 million is four holocausts.

    1. Re:Genocide? Really? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, "suicide by cop" is where you provoke a cop into shooting you. Usually by making it seem like you're about to shoot them, and not giving them time to realize that you aren't.

      Whereas NK's actions have been carefully calculated to push the boundaries, yet not actually provoke a military response.

      It would be trivial for NK to provoke a shooting war, and with their state-run media still blame it on our aggression and "save face". They avoid doing so. Instead, they do just enough to remain a credible threat and bring the other parties to the negotiating table and win concessions.

      Their behavior matches that of someone who is interested in maintaining power, and acquiring as much more as they can. It does not in any way match the behavior of someone trying to commit suicide.

      The only change they are interested in is the transition from Kim's rule to his son's. Part of that transition is going to be Kim the younger establishing himself with the military. Taking an aggressive stance -- but not so aggressive that we actually attack and destroy his power base -- helps with that, and is completely consistent with what is happening.

      As if admitting the big lie, or their inability to do so, has anything to do with it. They want to keep the big lie running for another generation at least.

      So yeah, I'm quite sure they aren't suicidal.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  4. Re:This is tech news? by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Another thing that might be worthy of attention- one of the revelations to emerge from Wikileaks was the revelation that China was open to the possibility of a united Korea, under the control of Seoul. To suddenly discover that your ally (or the closest thing you have to one) is secretly wishing for your downfall is probably a real shock. Is it a coincidence that all this talk about nuking other countries is coming a couple of weeks after the release of that cable by Wikileaks?

    I think that some of those cables should have been released, but Wikileaks was extraordinarily irresponsible in deciding to release all of them. Some of this stuff is secret for a good reason, and a cable stating that China would like to see North Korea taken over by the South is exactly the kind of thing that could potentially destabilize an already unstable situation.

  5. Re:I'm so scared... by TheEyes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's easy to be nonchalant about it when you don't like in Seoul. If war breaks out, Seoul will get hit by North Korean artillery nonstop. The other major concern is that China would get involved, and nobody wants to see the US and China going at it, either directly or via proxy. If it weren't for those two reasons, Kim Jong-il and co. would have been wiped out a long time ago. The only thing that could make those risks bearable would be if the alternative is an aggressive, uncontrollable nuclear state, and that's exactly what North Korea is becoming.

    Nobody's on North Korea's side if they go to war, not even China. China's only interests in NK are, in order:

    1) Prevent millions of North Korean refugees from flowing over the border to China (it's not like they're going to go to their other neighbor through all the robotic sentry guns.

    2) Serve as a buffer between the pro-US South Korea and China's eastern border.

    China will support Kim so long as he remains a posturing blowhard, but the moment he actually tries to invade--and triggers all those millions of refugees that China dreads flowing into their country--they'll turn their backs on him instantly.

  6. Re:This is tech news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is once again assuming that North Korea didn't already know that little bit of info that directly pertained to them and was visible to three million people.

  7. Re:This is tech news? by justin12345 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless the initial press-only Wikileaks docs were leaked to N. Korea, this most recent flare up, which started when N. Korea shelled S. Korea and S. Korea shelled them back, started before Wikileaks took its dump. It seems more likely that Kim's failing health and the transfer of power to his youngest son are responsible.

    Also, starting a nuclear war in response to finding out you only (massive, nuclear armed) ally wants you to sit down and shut up seems counter productive. Not to say that anything N. Korea does is sane: but I doubt it was a secret to N. Korea that China wanted N. Korea to make like it wasn't there (though the kid might not have been happy to hear it). The Chinese have the most to lose by a destabilized East Asia, whereas the N. Koreans have virtually nothing to lose. I'm sure China has spoken to them directly about the matter. They probably said something like: swing your dick around a few times to save face about the shelling, then go back to barely being there.

    --
    Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
  8. Re:I'm sure they're by Mindcontrolled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing personal really, I guess that is the scenario, but calling not committing genocide on a scale shadowing everything that happened in the whole history of manking "literally inhuman restraint" seriously creeps me out. Are you sure your planners haven't returned their membership card to humanity quite some decades ago? Or do you mean by "literally inhuman" that those in power are indeed the Lizard People?

    --
    Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.