North Korean Missile Raised To Firing Position, Says US Official

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CNN: "North Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position, feeding concerns that a launch is imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday. This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive government, and a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in the region. In the latest daily tough talk from the North, a government agency is quoted by the state-run media as saying that 'war can break out any moment.'"

Comments

And... it's gone

[earlzdotnet]

Sounds like a perfect excuse for a preemptive strike

Re:And... it's gone

[jadv]

Preemptive strikes are only allowed on targets approved by the Halliburton Company.

Re:And... it's gone

[emho24]

Worried? No
Tired of war? Yes
Tired of hearing the rhetoric? Yes

Re:And... it's gone

[X0563511]

Yes, detonating nukes nextdoor to China - what could possibly go wrong?

Re:And... it's gone

[X0563511]

Al Qaeda: actually attacked us.
Iraq: no comment. I think this one was stupid as well.
North Korea: China's autistic little brother.

Surely you might see why blowing up NK might not be a wise choice...

Re:And... it's gone

[phantomfive]

North Korea acted like this three years ago, five years ago, seven years ago, fifteen years ago....this is how they act. It's not about war weariness in the US.

Re:And... it's gone

[PraiseBob]

No. Intelligence reports suggest that they can't fit a nuclear warhead on any kind of missile with decent range. Plus, their missile tests are falling way short of reaching anywhere but South Korea, China, and maybe Japan, and their test success ratio has been low.

There is basically no scenario in which North Korea can start a war and "win". The regime can kill a bunch of people at the cost of their own lives, but that is something only religious fanatics do. They are bluffing to get sanctions lifted, and clearly trying to bluff the US into a pre-emptive strike, in order to paint themselves as a victim. It won't work, but they don't realize it because their analysts work for a totalitarian regime and can't provide the unvarnished truth to the leadership.

It's a sad situation all around. I mostly just pity the north korean people for their inept leaders.

Re:And... it's gone

[lgw]

All politics is local. As I see it, the son is making these ever-more-silly threats as moves on an internal-politics chessboard, trying to retain the power his dad accumulated.

If you think his rants are being ignored, I'd say that's missing his actual objective. People around him are judging him by his rants, and the outside world isn't really the audience for them.

Re:And... it's gone

[Somebody Is Using My]

At least not until North Korea is defeated and South Korea is left with the unhappy task of trying to integrate their economies and cultures.

Germany faced a similar problem when the Communist Bloc collapsed and East and West Germany were re-united, but at least that unification didn't start with open warfare and didn't require them to undo three generations of increasingly strident anti-Seoul propoganda. Plus, they still had Poland as a buffer between them and Russia (which was facing its own set of problems at the time, too). But it's economy was weakened and pushed into a deep recession before it finally recovered

A unified Korea, though, will have all sorts of problems in the beginning. It might end up - in twenty years - as an amazing economic superpower but the interim is likely to be quite painful. At least the Germany's economies were similar (both were highly industrialized). What does North Korea have to offer South Korea except for problems? Millions of untrained, starving peasants bred to hate their cousins? A decaying infrastructure that will soon be a century out of date? A border with the century's next superpower? Such a task might not just ruin the south's economy; it might push it over into an abyss causing enough chaos from which alternatives like the Kim's long regime seem sane in comparison.

I don't envy South Korea, I really don't. Their options seem equally shitty at the moment: either live with an increasingly unpredictable madman to the north, or junk their economy for half a generation. And sadly, no matter which they way they chose, it still seems as if they may face a massive loss of life. I imagine at this point their sole hope is that Kim family gets thrown out and replaced by a more sensible group who are willing to gradually integrate the two countries into a unified natio Alas, the likelihood of that happening - especially without the massive loss of life - seems increasingly slim.

Re: And... it's gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing us to NK? You're a moron. We aren't acting like psycho nut jobs threatening other countries.

What, you mean by forcing other countries to adopt your absurd copyright laws? Tying your foreign aid to making sure people don't get birth control? Sending Monsanto crop as food aid and telling people they can't keep see to plant another crop? Installing a new dictator because he claims to be friendly to the US but still treats the citizens like shit? Refusal to abide by WTO rulings that goes against you and claiming it's not legitimate, but using it to suit your own purposes? The whole Iraq war which has been proven to have been started for fabricated reasons? Spying on other countries? Extraordinary rendition whereby people are kidnapped out of countries without any oversight? Bombing civilians and calling it cost of doing business? Generally acting like assholes like Americans are want to do?

Sorry pal, the US may not be quite as beligerant as NK, but you're hardly keeping your fingers out of pies.

Sorry, but American foreign policy has been on the edge of 'psycho nut job' for decades now. The tendency to treat everyone else on the planet as subservient to yourselves, and lots of other things.

Individually, America has some really nice people. Collectively, America is full of assholes. It ends up causing an awful lot of people to decide "fuck you guys".

Somehow you have an expectation that the rest of the world is here to support US interests when you refuse to acknowledge the interests of other countries.

You're the moron.

Re:Wasnt /. supposed to be news site about compute

[schivvers]

I believe this would fall under the "stuff that matters" part of the slogan.

should've quoted down more

[rjejr]

Here's the paragraphs further down the page - "After the raising of the missile Wednesday, it was not clear to U.S. officials why the North Korean government did not proceed with the firing. The U.S. official cautioned that the raising of the missile could have been just a trial run to ensure the equipment works or an effort to "mess" with the United States and the allies that are watching for a launch at any time." This happened yesterday. If it was important there would have been at least 1 big explosion by now.

No sources quoted - none.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Isn't it awesome that we have entire news stories telling us we're on the precipice of war - without one single person quoted? CNN doesn't even bother to include a tag like "quoted on condition of anonymity" anymore - they just take their directions from the White House press office and fill in "official" wherever it would have made sense to have a real person substantiating a dubious claim.