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North Korea Threatens US With Preemptive Nuclear Strike
jppiiroinen writes "North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric while the U.N. Security Council considers new sanctions against the reclusive country."
You dead, yankee scum!
How long will it take before an 'unfortunate accident' at one of these nuclear sites makes an end to their aspirations?
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The president should make an address and announce the following message for Kim jong Un "Come at me bro".
They said that if the US is about to start a nuclear war they reserve the right to make a pre-emptive strike, just like all nuclear armed countries do. There is no threat of action, merely a warning to the US that NK will defend itself.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Whelp, guess obama and Jong Un aren't gonna have that lovely conversation about basketball I was oh-so waiting for. /sarcasm
The statement said North Korea "strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950."
It's their standard MO and I hope it doesn't affect the UN's resolution. Another quote from North Korea:
"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to a preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," said the statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
More details from reuters on what the new sanctions mean as well as South Korea's push back.
...
And I'm pretty much done with any Slashdot discussion on this since the apologists and "MAD is good" folks have been mighty thick on these past few news stories. We have entered into the era of "Hey everybody, we have nuclear weapons now do what we say or we will nuke you!" Like a teenage gang member who found his first handgun
My work here is dung.
Seroiuslly. Don't respond, don't even acknowledge they are talking. Absolutely ignore anything everything they say.
It's like a child having a fit. If you ignore them long enough, they get tired and shut up.
Dear Glorious Whatever,
Look, little fella, I know you have something to prove and all, but really hope you didn't buy into your father's bullshit. Believe it or not the U.S. has absolutely no interest in restarting the Korean War. Frankly, we're kind of warred out right now. So please stick to playing basketball with Dennis Rodman and leave us out of your grandstanding and dick waving. We've already got enough of that at home.
We'll be happy to keep sending you D-list celebrities if you'll just STFU.
Yours truly,
The American People
P.S. I would point out the obvious fact that the U.S. will bomb your country back to the stone age if you try to attack anyone with nukes. But, looking at a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night, I'm not sure that would amount to much of a threat.
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
"Nuclear launch detected!" be followed by: "Battle-cruiser operational"?
For over 50 years the propaganda war machine has been putting out highly inflamed offensive speech declaring war on various entities, so really at this point until they actually fire that first missile, I wouldn't worry about it. And when they do actually fire that missile, they will be wiped off the map.
We went to iraq on a much looser pretext.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
...is if they're truly feeling suicidal or not.
If you think that they could get through anything like that alive you're smoking something.
It's not only the US or NATO that would strike either, it would be Russia and their buddies in China as well. There would be nothing left.
Go read Dune. When one family uses "atomics" then everyone else combines and destroys them.
If the US decided right now to nuke NK the bombs would be falling within the hour. Everybody knows that. And NK surely knows that if they somehow lobbed one of their weapons at us the response would be, well...excessive.
All this over sanctions. NK would rather try to make bombs and force the world to feed its citizens than figure out agriculture.
Crazy. North Korea is fascinating.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I would have thought that even the looniest dictator would think twice before threatening "weapons of mas destruction", "a mother of all battles", and so on.
Seems the FUD on oil and the Iraq war has proven to be quite sticky. Fact is, there are many other oil-rich countries that would have been a hell of a lot easier and convenient to take over than Iraq. Seeing as how the accusation is that the U.S. fabricated a case, it would have been just as easy to fabricate a case against any of them. If I had to plan such a thing, Venezuela would be the first to come to mind, but it's not the only one I would consider.
The war in Iraq was about one thing; Iran. Stabilizing the Middle East by reducing the amount of megalomaniacs by one. By calling Saddam's bluff (which was aimed more at Iran than the U.S.) the coalition slowed down a Middle-East arms race that was just getting started, but was going to speed up quickly once Iraq rebuilt its military capacity. One of the stated goals of the first Gulf War was to reduce their military capability for 10 years. Did the U.S. go about it the right time? Not optimal, but necessary, since it had been roughly 10 years since the first Gulf War. Did the U.S. go about it the right way? Definitely not. Rumsfeld screwed up the war strategy big time, starting with using half the troops that would have been needed for securing the borders. Nation-building and long-term occupation? No thanks; trying to quit.
North Korea presents a decent enough military threat overall, only because they've starved their people in order to pay for their military capability and have thoroughly indoctrinated them into fighting to the death to stay enslaved, but their tension with Japan and South Korea still does not amount to megalomaniac A vs megalomaniac B.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
do not underestimate the motivation, determination and creativity of those who intend you harm
false alarmism is a well understood concept here on slashdot
unfortunately, false complacency, equally dangerous, is not
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Oh, you mean 70 years ago, five years before North Korea started the Korean War?
Please tell the Germans they'd better announce the right for pre-emptive strikes on France in case that pesky Napoleon comes over the border again.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Why would I go to a right-wing, pro-Fascist science fiction novel full of grand guignol guff for advice on military policy?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
NK threatened this about a decade ago when we were getting ready to invade Iraq for no plausible reason, but apparently no one gave a shit. No one's going to give a shit this time either since NK still doesn't have a credible delivery system. People will suddenly start giving a shit by the time they DO have one.
Why do you think China's building all those ghost cities? Simple speculation run amok? pshaw!
If the DPRK's leadership would let the peasants go, China could probably accommodate them in the spare guestroom while they invest in remodeling NK on a China model. Once they're all safely chained to their workbenches building eyephones and have enough to eat, Bob's your uncle.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.
The vote Thursday by the U.N.'s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea's closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests — and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.
The new sanctions are aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programs.
I apologize for making it sound like the United States was the sole proposer of the new resolution -- I actually got that vibe from the DPRK press releases. I didn't know until I read this that China (at least is reported to have) co-authored them with the US.
My work here is dung.
I'm almost not joking when I say we could be staring at a "Mouse That Roared" real world scenario. They are dead broke and can't feed their people. Their infrastructure is collapsing as are many of their newer buildings that were cheaply constructed. There is no chance of them financially turning the country around within a generation and they are facing a complete collapse within a generation or less no matter what. They could be staring at the 60 billion we just blew rebuidling Iraq and we have only started there. It may be worth loosing a few hundred thousand lives for a 60+ billion dollar payday. If they loose a city or two we'll rebuild them and since around 20 billion went missing in Iraq between the war and the rebuild there will be lots of money to steal. Say they launch a nuke that blows up half way across the Pacific and we retaliate wiping out a city. They surrender conditionally, their leaders get some protections essentially, and they plead dire hardship due to the "war". We start shipping in food and building materials and Little Kim Jr retires to EuroDisney with a few billion in his pocket and is forced to live in exile. The remaining leaders line their pockets and we update all their factories and bring the rest of the country into the 20th century. Guarantees of not bringing Little Kim Jr to trial is the iffy potential deal breaker but the rest of the scenario sounds a lot like what happened in Iraq although Iraq was already a wealthy country. Kim could just hop the border to China who would likely set him up in a palace with what money he could steal and he could cut a deal with the remaining crooks to send him a cut of what they steal in exchange for arranging exits to China if the need arose.
A Scandinavian country should invade and conquer North Korea. Then we can call it Norse Korea.
If I wanted to get technical about things, I would suggest that technical people take back the word "technical" from the lawyers. Then we could tell things like they really are: that the war ended decades ago when people (mostly) stopped shooting at each other (and no, an isolated axe murder doesn't count), regardless of whatever some lawyer says after looking for signatures on a page.
Saying we've remained at war with NK is pretty much the same as saying we weren't at war with Iraq. Papers, signatures and legislative resolutions -- or their lack thereof -- don't serve as strong evidence of war; bullets, bombs, and their associated death tolls do.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I've seen many documentaries on North Korea, especially the Vice guide docs which are awesome.
But the entire country of North Korea lives like a Cult. Kim Jung- is just like a "Jim Jones" of Jonestown, he pretends he's some supernatural spiritual leader/god/messenger
the people worship their "dear leader" and even make homage and pilgrimages to the "supposed" birthplaces of Kim Il-sung / Kim Jong-il / Kim Jong-un. Each father passed down this "how the cult works" to the son, and the culture is so brainwashed in this cult they agree and believe everything.
There are rare interviews with some people who believe the leader has super powers, and that they actually believe that they aren't in a famine, they may not having nothing to eat by mouth, but they swear with teary eyes that their leader provides sustenance through the air and sun to sustain the people until food arrives.
I mean these people are batshit insane, the entire country is batshit insane all part of this cult. It's a hardcore religious cult "100 times" more fervent and hardcore than Jonestown ever would be.
Eventually this "dear leader" will realize with all the sanctions his country will die off and people will die of starvation and he may likely be assassinated under growing paranoia. So what happened when Jim Jones paranoia reached epic levels? well out came the Flavor-Aid and Cyanide.
I really believe the same thing will happen with North Korea, except it won't be Flavor-Aid and Cyanide...
it will be suicide by nuke, the leader's missile may not reach America but he can reach Japan or China or possibly the American coast if lucky. And he will launch his nukes and the entire countries people are ready to die already.
watch interviews they have a prophecy of nuclear war already, that a blinding flash will carry them into heaven with their dead leader to watch over them for eternity. Almost taking the story of Christ and applying it to the countries leader.
So the people want to be vaporized they are so brainwashed that it's part of their religion. So as a final suicidal act, I could very well see North Korea launching some weak nuke over to some country then getting rained on by hundreds of tactical nukes laying waste to everything left of North Korea which in the people's eyes fulfills their prophecy which in their minds North Korea will win all wars!
thats how their religion and cult of personality is setup, so that even if they lose, in the country's dogma they ultimately win cause if wiped out they spend eternity with their leader.
it's a really fucked up place and cult.
if you have never seen it watch this documentary, it was mind blowing how the entire country is brainwashed and the entire country is a cult that works just like Jonestown
Part 1 of 3 - http://youtu.be/24R8JObNNQ4
Part 2 of 3 - http://youtu.be/xw46Ll-Zy4s
Part 3 of 3 - http://youtu.be/3HJj85K_7MQ
Crazy documentary, and I never thought an entire country could be in on the cult so hardcore.
US: ~28,500
SK: ~639,000 active duty
~2,900,000 reserves
~300,000 paramilitary (possibly partially overlapping with reserves)
NK: ~1,106,000 active duty
~8,200,000 reserves
So, the US has 1/30 of SK, roughly, and 1/60 of NK, not counting reserves.
The US presence is more a physical manifestation of a guarentee that the US will assist SK in event of war than a serious threat. Its along the lines of the US presence in Europe during the Cold War - not nearly enough to stop a Soviet assult, just there to reassure the people there that the United States was serious about assisting with European defense. The real plan, in both cases, is that the troops in place will delay the advance of invading forces till reinforcements can arrive.
Data summarized from multiple Wikipedia articles.
The North Korean regime is based on several odd pillars.
One is that the Korean people are racially superior to others; their naturally superior, child-like nature is why they've been repeatedly conquered in the past. Kim is their mother-protector who gently guides them while sheltering them from the evil, corrupt world outside. They are encouraged from a young age not to think about things, merely to embrace their instincts and emotional reactions; as the naturally most superior race, their instincts are pure and right and thinking too much can lead them astray.
A corellary to that is Americans are inferior half-breeds who can't help but be aggressive war-mongers and Korean baby-killers. Not even American women and children can be spared or trusted because their nature precludes it. Korean mothers are told if they leave their kids alone with American children, the American children will attack or kill theirs because of their nature. That isn't treated as a weakness by the way... Merely a result of the natural state of Korean innocence. In fact the Chinese, Europeans, Africans, et al are all inferior races, naturally untrustworthy, and beneath contempt.
Second is that the NK population is well aware they have a reduced standard of living, but it is a sacrifice they must all make to ensure they aren't conquered by a foreign power again... Necessary to preserve the superior race of the Korean people. It's the military first policy. The information firewall has been down for some time - that's why they came up with the military first policy as a way to explain the discrepancy. Think Germany in January 1945. They've obviously lost the war, yet they fight on... Some even fanatically so. Why? Why bother showing up to build tanks? Why volunteer for suicide missions? To protect the homeland (and what else can you do anyway?)
So without an ever-present enemy threatening to massacre the Korean people in a genocidal rage, an enemy that can't be reasoned or negotiated with, the reason for the NK's existence is removed.
Remember: they have been repeatedly promising that when the US is vanquished from the penninsula, the one true master race will finally be united.
When you understand these things, NK's actions make plenty of sense.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)