Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

[toasty]

WASHINGTON - President Bush demanded stiff sanctions on North Korea Wednesday for its reported nuclear test and asserted the U.S. has "no intention of attacking" the reclusive regime despite its claims that it needs atomic weapons to guard against such a strike.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_19

Well why the hell not? Earlier, we attacked a country that had not actually attacked us or even threatened to attack us because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

Now we have North Korea, a country that HAS nukes, and IS threatening us:

In its first formal statement since Monday's claimed atomic bomb test, Pyongyang hailed the blast as a success and warned that any act to penalize North Korea would be met with physical retaliation.

"If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures," the North's Foreign Ministry warned in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219620,00.html

Seems to me like we ought to be running into NK, guns a-blazing, right?

Don't misinterpret this as me advocating starting a war with NK. If you had any lingering doubts about whether we actually believed that Iraq had nukes or posed an imminent threat to US security, though, this ought to put those doubts to rest. Clearly, WMDs in Iraq were nothing but a pretext and regardless of why we actually went in -- regime change, oil, revenge, whatever -- and whether it would have been a legitmate basis had it been so stated, it had nothing to do with a cache of WMDs in Iraq.

If anyone disagrees and can explain the obvious inconsistency, I'm all ears.

[Garrick]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

agree, but it does make sense why we attack iraq but not NK... i think we'd be initiating WW3 if we attacked NK. i don't tihnk we even thought about starting WW3 when we attacked iraq. there's a super fine line (more so than when we attacked iraq) for extreme circumstances (nuclear) now.

i don't know about everyone else, but the condition of our world is scaring the shit out of me. it seems like everyone wants to prove they have a bigger dick and i'm sorry, but you just create enemies when you try to prove you are top dog.

[thesightless]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

send in tom berenger and billy zane.

[Miroslav]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

Well, of course he's gonna SAY that he won't attack them... If I was preparing to cut someone's heart out, I'd say that to them too

Every played Risk? No room for philosophical consistency in these kinds of matters

[Garrick]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

send in tom berenger and billy zane.

don't forget sigourney weaver

[toasty]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

agree, but it does make sense why we attack iraq but not NK... i think we'd be initiating WW3 if we attacked NK. i don't tihnk we even thought about starting WW3 when we attacked iraq. there's a super fine line (more so than when we attacked iraq) for extreme circumstances (nuclear) now.

There are different players involved with the NK situation that has the potential to make it a broader conflict, but just the fact that NK is a nuclear state doesn't create any sort of distinction. After all, before we went into Iraq, we were told that Saddam HAD WMDs, that we knew where they were, etc.

i don't know about everyone else, but the condition of our world is scaring the shit out of me. it seems like everyone wants to prove they have a bigger dick and i'm sorry, but you just create enemies when you try to prove you are top dog.

Yep. Not good. Madman + nuclear weapons + willingness to sell them to the highest bidder - self-preservation instinct = dangerous circumstance.

[thesightless]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

don't forget sigourney weaver

was she in sniper? i forget

[Garrick]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

no, but she saved civilization from aliens taking over. 4 times (probably 3 times too many). she knows how to stop wars before they start!

[rubyraks]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

agree, but it does make sense why we attack iraq but not NK... i think we'd be initiating WW3 if we attacked NK. i don't tihnk we even thought about starting WW3 when we attacked iraq. there's a super fine line (more so than when we attacked iraq) for extreme circumstances (nuclear) now.

Really? With Iraq, we went into a region that already proved they hate us time and time again. With North Korea, we'd be going into a region that is slightly less hateful of the US. Iraq had friends in the region, NK doesn't. In fact the one ally they claimed to have, China, is quite pissed with the way that Kim made them look by doing the test against their wishes. I'd say we'd have a much easier time diplomatically taking out Kim than Hussein.

I'd be willing to bet that the third world war comes out of the middle east and unfortunately is not too far off...I'd say within 50 years.

[Garrick]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

i'm not an expert here, just saying what i feel. but you don't think kim jong ding dong is trying to provoke WW3? he is either a big bluff or he wants to destroy us. either way, the guy is an instigator. also, i think with N Korea pissing off all their neighbors plus some, this is just as big of a deal as the middle east, easily.

[rubyraks]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

I agree with what you're saying there, but by the fact that Kim's pissing off everybody makes it more likely to be a world unified response to him as opposed to a world division that would bring about WWIII.

[Jenks]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

North Korea is doing what they've done for years, Bark. They don't bite. They just want attention and aid and in the presence of a failed economy and a failing nation, they're looking for anything imo. On their last leg so to speak, which IS what's dangerous about the whole thing. I don't get their strategy tho- the people that are able to offer aid, are the people the people they're pissing off and the people that are going to impose economic sanctions on them thereby sending them deeper into the hole. I suspect it's a pride thing- they want help, but don't want to ask for it, and don't want to conceed anything for it because they're a soverign nation. Whatever Kim, can't have it your way.

China, their closest ally, if you can call them that, is reluctant to do anything that would cripple NK because in the event of a fallen government or a war, they're going to get a shitload of people crossing the border that they're going to have to deal with. Big fking mess. At least we've got unilateral support on this one, and it's the international community's issue not just a US issue. lets see if Bushy can fuck this one up too.

With regards to WW3, that won't happen because of Kim and NK. That will happen in the middle east, as ben said. And i'd argue it's already begun. Anyway, NK is fucked geographically, sandwhiched between SK, China, and Russia...with the US across the ocean, and virtually everyone against them, one false move in any direction and they're mince meat from all angles, and they know it. Hence the Bark of a nuke, but no bite. The most foolish thing they can do right now is detonate a nuke above ground on foreign soil. Toast i tell ya, burnt toast.

[Garrick]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

i haven't been paying attention to NK really at all until just recently when they decided to detonate. has anyone actually proven that they do have nuclear capabilities? i've been seeing lots of articles questioning whether NK even detonated nuclear explosives. could they be bluffing completely?

[Jenks]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

I question wether they do as well. And they could totally be bluffing, as that's really all they've got. Even if they did have a nuke, they don't have a missle that could carry it very far, or anything to aim it properly, they'd basically just be sending another one in the air hoping it landed on something, again, super foolish on their part. China would wipe them off the face of the planet.

What IS scary, is what someone already mentioned- it's not wether they have a nuke and plan to try to use it, it's that they have the technology and would sell it. And there are plenty of buyers out there for a dirty nuke (ie - just about everyone in the middle east not named USA.)

[toasty]

Re: Bush Won't Attack N. Korea

could they be bluffing completely?

Def. a possibility, but they did detonate something that was significant enough to register upper 3s-low 4s on the richter scale, so to the extent that they may be bluffing, it would only be as to how far along in the process they are. They are clearly doing something deserving of our attention, regardless of whether or not it would qualify as an "according to Hoyle" nuke.

I agree with Jenks that KJI would have to be a complete and utter lunatic to actually start lobbing nukes at other countries. That doesn't mean he wouldn't do it, though, because as far as I can tell, he is a lunatic. FFS, have you seen his shades?