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North Korean Nuclear Facilities, From 30,000 Feet
Harperdog writes "Niko Milonopoulos, Siegfried S. Hecker, and Robert Carlin analyze terrific overhead photos of North Korea's nuclear facilities, discussing the rate of building and what the photos show. Also points to options for dealing with North Korea and their energy needs."
The North Koreans, aided by Burmese workers, are constructing a concrete-reinforced underground facility that is '500ft from the top of the cave to the top of the hill above'," reads the cable, published by the Guardian newspaper.
Some 300 North Koreans were working at the site, the authors said, although the cable suggested this number was improbably high.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says that for months there have been persistent reports in the press and specialised journals suggesting that Burma is building a nuclear facility with North Korean help.
Another cable released by the whistle-blowing site suggests that China, Burma's most powerful ally, is growing impatient with the country's leaders.
Frankly, this is what happens when powerful nations have nuclear weapons and smaller ones want them too to defend themselves. And remember that U.s. is still the only nation on planet to ever have used nuclear weapons. Against civilians, no less.
N. Korea and Burma are oppressive dictatorships. It is in no one's desire to let these countries have or retain nuclear weapons. The democracies of the world should do all they can (and thankfully they are) to disarm and dissuade these nations from their nuclear weapons. Thankfully, the US shows no intention of giving up this fight.
From what I've seen in history, only democracies nuke civilians.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
"N. Korea and Burma are oppressive dictatorships. It is in no one's desire to let these countries have or retain nuclear weapons."
Indeed, its only oppressive democracies that should be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
A more important question is, should fair and relaxed dictatorships/democracies be allowed to have them ? Hmm, but i guess they wouldnt need them, because they dont go around trying to bully people all the time.
Perhaps having nuclear weapons is a sign that a country is oppressive ?
If that's the case then democracies only nuke Japan, so they have nothing to worry about.
You often hear about the nuclear bombs and the horrors caused by those. It's a sexy story: A new weapon so powerful that nobody truly understood what it would do... A single massacre of civilians to end a war... It makes for great movies and great ethical arguments. Nothing like the cold and calculated cruelty, such as firebombing, that was utilized by both sides but perfected by allies when effectively destroying European cities.
For those too lazy to go to Wikipedia, Firebombing is a nasty tactic: The first wave of bombers attacks infrastructure (roads, electricity, firefighters, roofs of buildings), the second one contains powerful incendiary bombs. The fires are difficult to put out (due to the first wave) but there is also an added benefit: The people who managed to get into shelters have pretty good chance of suffocating to death as the whole city block is in flames for hours. This was used over and over again against civilian targets.
Not that ordinary bombing wasn't bad enough: It's nothing like the romanticized idea of a couple of people in a small bunker in their backyard. I've visited the old bomb shelters of Berlin: There are airtight rooms that can't be opened from the inside (if they run out of air there, opening the door would just result in them consuming all the oxygen from the rest of the shelter, too. It's better to just open the door from the outside after the raid is over and see if the people are still alive or not). There were dozens of people tightly packed into relatively small space, being very still and hoping that the air would last. At the beginning of the wars, there were indicators to tell how much oxygen was left (three at different levels and they'd change color when the oxygen was out near the roof, near the center and near the floor) but those just caused panic and were removed soon. As the number of raids grew, it no longer made sense to leave the shelter for extended time periods. The managers removed doors from toilets because by removing all the privacy, they were able to somewhat lower the amount of suicides (Several each day) that people committed in the shelter. This was all caused by the good guys.
To point out something "nice" from the Axis portfolio... The siege of Leningrad: The only place and time (as far as I'm aware of) in the modern western world where cannibalism actually became a widespread problem among the civilian population of a major city.
So... yeah. Nuclear weapons were bad but I don't think they're nearly the worst things that happened in those wars. I wouldn't even list them in top 3 (though they would get into top 10). This is also why I always feel a small amount of outrage when Americans talk about how they're at war (or even two wars): USA pays some people to risk their life overseas, some of which then end up dying. That's an invasion or perhaps expensive armed conflict or something, but hardly equivalent to being in war.
Could you please compare the bombing of Hiroshima with something more "acceptable", such as the repeated firebombings of Dresden? In your comparison, please include comparisons of number of lives lost, percentages of military to civilian deaths, personal property losses, infrastructure losses, and the military value of all those losses.
Perhaps, if you have enough background, you could compare the overall losses to both German and Japan during and immediately after World War 2.
And, if you're up to the task, maybe you could explain why the US military still has a surplus of Purple Heart medals, to the tune of a quarter million of them.
Nuclear weapons are terrible, I'll grant that. But, so is a 500 pound incindiary bomb landing in your living room. To the dead people, there is no difference.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You call the 1973 war "Israel attacking its enemies?" Lay off the crazy juice.
Obviously, you don't understand Iranian politics. The president of Iran has a bit of power. A little bit, that is. Real power rests with the "Supreme Leader", Ayatollah Khomanie (spelling). The Ayatollah draws his power from his circle of Ayatollahs, who run the country behind the scenes. The president is little more than a figurehead. Our own president in the United States has much more real power than the president of Iran.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Is making the error to think countries like NK and Iran will use nukes because dictators are irrational madmen. Sure, they're 'mad' enough but that doesn't make 'm irrational. Launching nukes would mean imminent self-destruction and is akin to walking up to a battalion of tank with a single round of .22.
The only motivation pursuing nukes is for gaining more means to play the political game. Dictators use ideology (ie. Stanilism, religion) to mobilize citizens to maintain or expand power and/or resources. The rest is a game.
If you are so naive to believe entire countries act as suicidal maniacs then you're being fooled by the same tools dictators use, only we call it 'peace', 'democracy' and 'stability'.
From what I've seen in history, only democracies nuke civilians.
And it's a good job they did too. For practically everyone including Japan.
Why? By that point, the war was pretty much over anyway. The only two at least semi-sensible arguments for using the nukes was: a) it'd likely make an invasion of Japan unnecessary and b) we have them, so we might as well just use them.
Given the fact that Germany had to be pretty much completely invaded before it surrendered is a sure sign that while a) actually worked, it would not have cost more than employing the nukes. Compared to the cost of getting to the point of invading the home-turf, the actual act of doing it is much less costly. And the USA were already ready to invade the home-turf of Japan at that point, so the down-payment was pretty much already done.
And if you look at the post-war recovery speed, both Japan and Germany did not differ much, so invading Japan would have worked just as well as nuking two cities full of civilians -- only that the former is somewhat less morally questionable, as it'd have mostly killed armed soldiers, instead of unarmed civilians and would've given the individual soldiers at least a chance to surrender.
So, given that fact a) is neither really pro-use nor fully contra-use, the most likely reason why they used the nukes was simply b). They had them, they wanted to test them for real, so they tested them for real. All in all, it just shows the banality of evil, and that a democracy is not immune against committing morally questionable or downright morally evil acts.
Oh, and using the argument "But it saved the lives of US-American soldiers" -- while certainly right -- is even worse, as it simply shows that your moral compass is blind in certain areas. It is basically trading the few or your own for the many of the others -- and good luck with morally justifying that without sounding just like those who you set out to defeat.
See, the North Koreans DID disarm and were working with the US to develop nuclear power that was capable of producing power, but very hard to weaponize. But apparently doing so actually required thought and subtlety to international relations, something Republicans are apparently incapable of actually comprehending. Come in our cowboy man-child president who scrapped the whole deal, called North Korea "evil", and then was shocked when they re-started their weapons program. Same with Iran, and then he, and Obama for that matter, decided to go after the people who WERENT developing WMDs, letting all dictators round the world know that if they develop WMDs they are safe, if they don't, then they will get killed so the president can prove what a "man" he is. Bush was the biggest failure of a president in the post-civil war era, and Obama is only SLIGHTLY better.
Monstar L
Adding to parent, they could probably have made their point by nuking much less densely inhabited areas. Instead they decided to go for maximum civilian casualties.
Germany was only partially invaded by the western allies, the russians did the lion share including the brutal Berlin battle. Japan's final battle by comparison was relatively peaceful.
As for civilians being killed, were these the same civilians who congratulated their sons for the mass murder they committed? I note Japan has never made reparations for their many war crimes.
The world at the time was tired of war, invading all of Japan by the US alone would have created a terrible cost, not just in soldiers lost but in retaliation by US soldiers against Japanese civilians. Lots of german women were raped, not that anyone could give a shit about it but the Russian soldiers were hardly in the mood to restrain themselves after having fought through the evidence of german war crimes to be nice to those same germans.
What would US soldiers have felt about the japanese people if they had to fight through Japan with more and more evidence of Japanese war crimes to fuel the already bitter hatred of the Japanese?
I also find it highly likely that you are willing to sacrifice soldiers without actually ever having served. An armchar moralist. Gosh, we need more of them. Easy bet you think Iraq was about oil while topping up your SUV.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think any Russian General older than 60 would disagree that invading Germany was easy and low cost, compared to a nuke. Seeing as we had to completely strip a bomber to it's bare minimum, and fly it off a deck not meant for that platform, I would challenge the premise, "We were ready to invade." We would have had no air superiority, against a Kamikze ready force, which had to go huge distances via boat to arrive. This is just begging to things to go wrong.
Yes, and the US government has been very much better. The track record of at least 50 wars in less than half a century, Nuking civilian cities and killing or causing the death of millions in those wars is a very good record for your so called democracy.
... possibly
If there is one country which should not have the right of having nukes, that's the US. The US has used it before.... will use it again
Germans are not Japanese. Germans were willing to surrender (to Brits or Americans, at least). Japanese were not. When the US invaded Okinawa, even civilians made pointless attacks against US troops, while many committed suicide. Now adjust for the fact that Okinawa isn't considered a proper part of Japan, and is very small and you'll have some idea what would have happened on the mainland.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How about "it saved the lives of millions of Japanese"?
Could the US have just contained Japan until it collapsed? Sure. It wouldn't even have taken all that long, really. Things were pretty grim in Japan in August 1945 - lots of homelessness, and significant problems with production. They were short on every kind of raw material, and the food distribution system was in such dire straits that many factories couldn't operate because their workers had to choose between coming to work or obtaining food. (You don't usually think of "do work" and "obtain necessities of life" as mutually exclusive things, after all - but the official ration was down to starvation level, and so people did what they could to obtain more... which moved more food out of the official distribution system and into the black market, which made it worse for everyone else, which meant even more people had to spend their days getting food instead of working...)
The transportation network was in ruins. The harbors were mined, the transports were being torpedoed one after the other, the rail bridges were bombed, the ferries were wrecked.
On top of that, the winter of '45/'46 was one of the worst on record for Japan. Even with food aid from occupying US forces, hundreds of thousands of Japanese starved to death. That's with us providing bread instead of bombs...
The bombs killed something like 110,000 people, and that's regrettable. But pretending that Japan would have surrendered in August '45 without the nukes is foolish, and every month the war dragged on, the death toll for the Japanese civilian population continued to rise. Things had degenerated to the point where even if the US had literally quit and gone home - just said "forget it, we're declaring peace and not attacking any more" - more Japanese civilians would have died in the next year than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That's not even considering the nightmare scenario, where central governance in Tokyo collapsed and Japan's forces overseas could not be brought to surrender. Little Japanese garrisons on a hundred small islands in the Pacific, in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and along the front in China... many of which would require sharp fighting to dig out. Or you could just try to starve them out, of course, but if you take that view of it, you might as well hang up your humanitarian hat...
It's true that nobody in the US high command was thinking of how many Japanese lives the bomb would -save-.
Nuclear weapons are terrible, I'll grant that. But, so is a 500 pound incindiary bomb landing in your living room. To the dead people, there is no difference.
There's a big difference to the dying. All things considered, it's less horrible to bleed out in a couple hours than to die of radiation poisoning over a couple weeks.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Or we could have stopped Alcoa from selling the aluminum to Mitsubishi that they made into Zeroes that they crashed through the decks of our planes.
Or we could have stopped Prescott bush from knowingly funneling millions to Hitler's S.S. One of his contemporaries was arrested for selling a great deal of fuel to the Nazis too, can't find his name right now though, sadly. But only AFTER he sold them the fuel, so that the Nazis would be able to continue to fight and so that we could seize the proceeds.
The simple truth is that we helped fuel that war intentionally for our economic goals.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And the USA were already ready to invade the home-turf of Japan at that point, so the down-payment was pretty much already done.
Uh, no. There are two big differences. One is getting the troops to the Japanese homeland. The invasion of Germany was possible because of D-day. That was a pretty costly maneuver (in manpower lost and equipment), even though it was only a short hop across the Channel. Invading Japan would have meant massive amphibious landings supported not from the US homeland, but from small island bases.
Couple that with the Japanese willingness to fight to the last man, and the invasion would have been a bloodbath. So yes, a) was a valid reason.
Leaflets were dropped for 2 days before the bombings by the CIA warning citizens that the cities were going to be destroyed, and many of them got out of town.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Yes and no. We were deeply into isolationism and trying desperately to ignore Germany. If you read "Beast in the Garden" you'll see our only interest was for them to pay back reparations. When our ambassador tried raising the flag on Hitler's "Final Solution," most thought the stories were made up, the Jews probably created the situation, etc. We "apologized" for any stories neg about Germany and then again, tried to get reassurances we'd get paid back.
I shared this point of view once... that the nukes were acts of state sponsored terrorism. I sought out quite a bit of info on the topics... I think most "woah" was a History channel special and an article about Operation Downfall (Not the Wikipedia one). But anything I has out would probably be included in this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
I am convinced that due to the world's need for a Japanese surrender (War can only end when one side is defeated or surrenders), the pride of the Japanese emperor, had the bombs not been dropped, the Japanese "civilian" deaths would have been greater in the months that followed, and the military deaths at least 3x higher on both sides. That, with conventional war. But maybe that's just propaganda.
And it's a good job they did too. For practically everyone including Japan.
You are more right than you think.
Many people don't know that the Soviets had just declared war on Japan, and, after defeating the Kwantung army, had occupied nearly all territories held by Japan on the continent. After that they were planning to invade the Home Islands. Had the nuclear bombs not persuaded Japan to surrender at that moment, they might have been occupied by the Soviet Union. That would have had serious implications not just during the war, but after, because we would have likely had the People's Republic of Japan. What standard of living would its citizens have had?
Have gnu, will travel.
Could the US have just contained Japan until it collapsed?
Seeing what happened to North Korea under near identical circumstances, I'd say "no". The US might be able to contain Japan indefinitely, assuming the USSR didn't ruthlessly exploit the situation, but they couldn't insure the collapse of Japan.
The CIA was formed in 1947 ...
No direct complaint about TFA (pretty pictures, nice analysis) but just _why_ were USAF recon photos released? This smells like more propaganda blackwash, like the [non] nukes.
Sure, everyone says NK has nukes after two tests. But look carefuly at those tests -- both sub-kiloton in yield. 0.5 - 0.7 kt . AFAIK, it is _extremely_ difficult to design reliable pits in that range. Much easier and safer to go for the typical 15 kt yield (less Pu/HEU). OTOH, it would be simple to make 0.5 kt from ANFO (ammonium nitrate - fuel oil) explosive in a mine with chosen radiowaste at the mine-mouth to leave the desired radioisotope signature.
The US mil-ind complex must be desperate to keep that bogeyman alive. China needs both whipping boys (NK, Burma) to corral its peoples.
Oh - I must add one thing that is often overlooked in discussions of this type. Japan had already been subjected to some of the more conventional firebombings, such as Dresden experienced. Those more typical bombings were even more horrible than Dresden, because the Japanese military-industrial complex was more spread out into poor neighborhoods, than Germany had been. They were more terrible, in that Japanese construction was vastly more flammable than German construction, causing the damage to be even more widespread, and more deadly.
And, those firebombings had not even put a dent in their will to fight.
Invading Japanese islands and mainland would have been a nightmare indeed. I personally believe that the bombs were a necessary evil.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The nuclear bombs didn't persuade Japan to surrender, it was Russia. The japanese were scared of the new weapon but they were really terrified by Russia entering the war. Most if not all the discussion in this thread is about variants of mythology. The US entered the war in order to get as big a piece of the cake as possible because the big players were dividing the world amongst them.
It conquered Japan because it could and because it didn't want to share it with Russia.
He meant this U-2.
Like, say, the bombing of Tokyo. It was firebombed and was the deadliest single air raid of the war. More than the atomic bombs. In terms of lives lost, buildings destroyed, people injured, etc, it was worse.
The reason that the atomic bomb raids worked so well is not their massive destruction, but the fact that one bomb could do that. The US did a god job convincing Japan it had a fleet of these bombs and would just keep doing it. They didn't say they only had three of them (one for the test, and the two they used).
This was the kind of thing against which there was no real defense. With conventional raids, there were hundreds of aircraft being used, which you should shoot down. You could inflect losses on your enemy, hope to wear them down. With this, they'd send in one plane and blow shit up. Shoot it down, another would come and do the job.