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North Korea Conducts Fifth Nuclear Test -- The Largest One Yet (cnn.com)
TMB writes: As reported by CNN, North Korea has conducted its 5th nuclear test, the largest yet at 10 kilotons.
Before the test was reported, Slashdot reader hcs_$reboot reported: A magnitude 5.3 earthquake has been detected in North Korea, amid reports the country had been preparing for its fifth nuclear test. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said it had been an "artificial quake." The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor had been detected in the north-east of North Korea, close to a known nuclear test site. The earthquake occurred close to the surface, the USGS said. The shallow depth and precise timing of the quake suggests it was man-made. North Korea says it has tested a nuclear warhead and that the test showed the warhead "has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets."
Not quite but close. Then the "axis of evil" speech happened and it all went to shit.
Maybe it would have gone to shit anyway, but by 2006 they were setting off nukes. Personally I think an approach other than Bush's of insults and perpetual vacation would have had different results.
Here's what happened as a list of events from someone far more careful to avoid bais than I.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron
Can we assume that one day North Korea will attack something? I've always thought that they're just posturing, but this most recent "test" makes me hesitate...
North Korea is the buffer between China and the US forces, a North Korean attack would lead to the regime's fall and probably a reunification into a strong pro-western country which I'm sure China doesn't want. Despite all the saber rattling I'm fairly sure Kim wouldn't try pulling it off alone. In fact, I think China would tell him that in case of a unilateral attack they'd roll in and occupy North Korea themselves before US-led forces could do it. Even if 99,99% of the population is ignorant some must know the real state of the country and its technology, this is not Nazi Germany. This is a backwater podunk with a not-so-unwarranted paranoia after being named in the "axis of evil" and the invasion of Iraq. Fuck what everyone else thinks, it's better to have the arms to defend yourself and act like you could use them. He'd be right at home in the US, in another life.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You ignore the fact that the South is well documented as being as aggressive toward the North over the border prior to the invasion, and indeed again it is well documented that it was the South which started many of the skirmishes and exchanges of gun fire that blighted that period. Syngman Rhee is on record that he wanted to conquer the North by any means necessary.
And no, concentrating on one side while *explicitly* saying that is what I am doing does not in any way diminish the acts of the other side - especially when the point is to dispel the very polarised image that people have of the North and South during the Korean War. Trying to say otherwise is merely an ad hominem attack rather than engaging in the discussion.
At that point in time, the South were every much the bit as brutal as the North - hundreds of thousands forced into reeducation camps, hundreds of thousands executed, tens of thousands killed in up risings etc etc etc.
But it would seem that people like you don't like that side of history being brought up - to people like you, the South is completely innocent, and *that* is quite disturbing because it means you arent willing to look at the history of the region in a dispassionate or detached manner...
Shia? Sunni? You give them too much credit if you ask me.
If you do a poll, my guess is that the result would be that Shia is some comedian, Sunni is what California is, and over there in that Arab desert is one big homogeneous mass of brown skinned towelheads that wanna kill the American way of life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The OP pointed directly to the 1950 invasion as their point, so that is what I talk about - and if you read my comments in full, you would note that I accept that NK today is run by nut jobs, but that doesn't change the situation back then.
Its also worth noting that South Korea never signed the 1953 Armistice Agreement which resulted in the "permanent" partition of Korea into the North and South - it was signed by the UN and the North, but not the South. Odd that...
Meanwhile, the South hasn't exactly seen a great 75 years itself - coups, assassinations, martial law, political murders, torture of dissidents, dictatorships etc etc
Virgins? I'd rather have 72 slutty girls who knew what they were doing.
No denying that the South was very nasty from the 1950s through the early 1982s, from Rhee to Park to Chun. Purges, massacres, and even a nuclear weapons program. However, trying to draw too many parallels doesn't work either because the patron states behind both regimes had very different approaches. Given Rhee's unsavoriness, fear of a Southern led invasion triggering global war, and the broader political instability in the late 1940s, the United States never really bothered to equip the ROK with the heavy weapons needed to wage an offensive campaign. At the start of the Korean War, their forces were pretty much a glorified gendarmerie, and the United States held the leash tightly to prevent a war. The Soviets on the other hand, had no restraints and fully equipped the North Koreans with the latest heavy weapons and green lighted an invasion.
Even as you go through the Cold War, the United States played a very careful balancing act, trying to prop up the South while actively constraining them from launching a reunification campaign (that could spiral into WWIII) and actively squashed any efforts by the South to become a nuclear state. The North has always been much more openly aggressive, maintaining a forward positioned posture and threatening invasion at every turn.
There's also still no overlooking that the South has evolved into a relatively liberal, democratic society that is a responsible global player. Whereas the North is still very much an old school totalitarian dictatorship which continues to flout international norms.
I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War.
I noticed that last night. When reading about this nuclear test I noticed that the article was referring to the South Korean president as Ms. Park, so I looked her up ( I didn't realize they had a female president). She's the first female president, and the daughter of Park Chung-Hee, who led a military coup against the government and is described as a strongman dictator who led the Third Republic of South Korea after the coup, then in 1972 he declared martial law and made the constitution much more authoritarian (which led to the Fourth Republic of South Korea), before being assassinated by the chief of his own security services in 1979. That eventually led to the Fifth Republic of South Korea, which lasted until 1987 and now they are the Sixth Republic of South Korea. His daughter Park Geun-Hye is the sixth president of the sixth republic (11th president overall, and the 18th presidential term). So yeah, it's definitely a bit complicated.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black