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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."
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...
I am much less worried about them than Muslim countries with the bomb. North Korean rulers are ruthless and power hungry but rational to the degree that they don't want to be wiped out in a counter-strike. Many Muslims would see a counter-strike as an advantage, with millions of people becoming martyrs and getting their millions * 27 virgins.
Its a bit more complicated than that - the partition of Korea only happened in 1948, two years before the Korean War started, and *both* sides were making aggressive noises and movements toward the other, it was simply the North that first moved en mass south of the border to reunite the country. The South at that point was still building its military in preparation for its own invasion of the North, as well as disenfranchising a huge number of its own citizens who were communist or didn't support the US-and-UN imposed elections.
By the start of the Korean War in 1950, the South had imprisoned 30,000 communists, and had interred 300,000 more in "reeducation camps". They had also killed more than 60,000 of their own citizens in various quellings of uprisings by disowned groups. The North were doing their own similar thing, sure, but I concentrate on the South here because they are always the side which gets white washed when it comes to the Korean War. After all, you hardly ever hear that, in the early days of the war, the southern president, Syngmam Rhee, ordered the executions of between 100,000 and 200,000 of his political opponents in the Bodo League massacre.
The North today may be run by nut jobs, but do not mistake the cause of the Korean War as solely the Norths fault, nor on the same level as todays North Korea...
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
It is in the Quran, but it is not clear how to interpret it. 72 may be the actual number, or just 'a very large number'. Furthermore it is not clear if you get virgins or 'grapes'. Obviously you will not get 72 grapes, but this likely means that you will get 'infinite food'. This is actually likely, as in the times it was written hunger was an even bigger problem compared to today.
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 Saudi's already have nuclear weapons - who do you think paid for the Pakistani program ? It just happens that they are stored in Pakistan arsenals. If things went tits-up and the Saudi's [specifically the Royal Family and Government] found themselves on the wrong end of a Nuclear-armed Iran those weapons would quickly be moved to Saudi territory. Note the Saudi's bete-noire isn't, and never has been, Israel. [The Saudi Government considers Israel a convenient whipping boy but that's just to keep the punters in the Mosque and Souk happy. In reality they know that tangling with Israel would be a very, very bad idea and anyway they both have the same enemies]. The threat comes from Shia-dominated Iran whose population and ruling Theocracy are very, very unhappy with the way the Saudi's treat their own Shia minority in the East. Iran is not, and never has been an Arab country.
While the North does have a huge army, its main value (note I said "value", not "intention") is in its defensive ability - its artillery, bunkers, sheer weight of numbers etc. By and large, the NK military is still stuck in the 1960s, and would be decimated should it choose to cross the DMZ - it lacks serious armour, air support and mobility, and the NK supply chain is pathetic.
The nuclear option adds a certain ... flavour to the mix, but NK only have a few bombs, and those are questionable. Seoul may get nuked, it may not - for any chance of a nuke hitting Seoul, it would need to be either mounted on a rocket, or fired as an artillery shell, and both of those options require some serious technical ability which the NK's lack. Airborne delivery is out of the question, as any NK aircraft wouldnt get far into the South before being shot down. Hand delivery is a distinct possibility, but nuking Seoul doesn't win the North the war, and it would have no effect on the US troops in the South.
Hey, if we don't require the virgins to be straight it gets a lot easier to reach the quota.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
He's right. Early Arabic is a wonderfully ambiguous language; something that is a valuable asset to any religious text.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Virgins? I'd rather have 72 slutty girls who knew what they were doing.