N. Korea Suggests It Can Strike U.S. First

[phantom power]

Thanks a bunch for bringing pre-emptive war doctrine back into fashion, Bush.

SEOUL, South Korea -
North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North's official news agency. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.

"As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike," the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States."

Last week, the communist country warned that it had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it would strengthen its war footing before joint
South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this weekend.

The spokesman also said it would be a "wise" step for the United States to cooperate on nuclear issues with North Korea in the same way it does with India.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/nkorea_us;_ylt=ArlZUhpCb4eKQ.CF8Gnf8uis0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Dragonbreathp9d]

1. Bush walked right in to that one

unfortuneatly he is dragging all of us with him

[AngryOldDem]

23. Sure did.

Whatever made him think that such a strategy would be ours, and ours alone?

Anyone could have seen this coming. So...does that move North Korea ahead of Iran on our Next Country To Hit list?

[Mithras61]

28. Not only COULD anyone have seen this coming...

but W_rong was also advised that it likely WOULD happen way back when he first started pushing his doctrine of pre-emption.

[ozymandius]

26. Can you imagine the reaction if Iran's leader said this?

Jeebus. We'd be at war already.

[AndyTiedye]

31. Maybe Bush**ler WANTS NK To Nuke Us. NK Can Only Hit BLUE States

I don't think Bush**ler or DarthCheney would mind one bit if California got nuked.
He might even help them do it.
:nuke::scared:

[auagroach]

39. Alaska a Blue State?

n/t

[AndyTiedye]

42. Why Would Anyone Bother Nuking Alaska?

I wasn't really counting Alaska. It isn't exactly a target-rich environment.

[donkeyotay]

2. What's good for one egomaniac is good for another

If preemption for any hunch is policy for us, I don't see how we can deny it to all other nations. Sovereign nations and international law have been replaced by, "I've got a gut feeling."

[unblock]

3. even the "gut feeling" crap is a lie.

we know too much about how they cooked the intel to give him even that much.

he went into iraq
(a) to get revenge on saddam / "finish the job" poppy started;
(b) to disrupt oil supplies to keep prices high for domestic oil company profits;
(c) to be in a good position to control all of the middle east's oil; and
(d) to permit the defense industry to binge at the trough of american bloodlust.

it had NOTHING to do with democracy, wmds, freedom, liberation, defense, or any other crap this administration has pretended was a rationale.

[donkeyotay]

8. I choose answer "d"

(d) to permit the defense industry to binge at the trough of american bloodlust.

Many of the same patriotic companies are also running congress and helping us vote while they're keeping us safe through the Homeland Security Dept. of Wealth Transfer.

:patriot:

[unblock]

10. i meant it as "all of the above"

THAT'S the iraqi war coalition.

[Voltaire99]

40. (e) to create new geographical space for market expansion

Another reason for invasion was long-term economic strategy--call it imperial survival. See this 2003 analysis by George Monbiot:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,897766,00.html

[Copperred]

16. karma.....

[arewenotdemo]

36. and "absence of proof is not proof of absence"

[LynnTheDem]

4. Sure it can; it's called THE BUSH DOCTRINE.

Reap what bush sows.

[SpiralHawk]

5. My pre-emptive flame

I know that you know what I am thinking about writing, and likewise I know about the FLAME you are planning for me.

Therefore, let me say, pre-emtively: screw the whole stupid freeping lot of you, and a pox upon your genetic strain unto the Billioneth Generation of your malformed offspring.

[ugarte]

7. Shit, you hit me first! Now I'm screwed...nt

[ugarte]

6. "I'll pre-empt you before you can pre-empt me

Oh no, you won't. I'll pre-empt your pre-emption. Not if I pre-empt you first..."

This is heavy intellectual stuff, this Neo-Con pre-emption policy.

[David__77]

9. No one will bat an eye at this.

Bush has made it safe for such military strategies. It's actually wise from a strategic standpoint. If Saddam Hussein had followed this strategy, it would have proven far more costly to the US war effort.

[TrogL]

11. Doesn't that mean Dubya has to invade North Korea?

No, wait, Dubya only invades countries that don't have WMD's. That means Canada had better get some so it doesn't get invaded.

[daleo]

12. They would never do it

But part of MAD is claiming you could if you wanted to.

This is the world we live in now, and have lived in since the late 1940's.

[phantom power]

18. Unless, of course, the right leaders are actually insane.

Bush's mental health is dubious, ditto for the rest of his cabinet. Furthermore, he is influenced to some unknown degree by christian rapturists. Futhermore, he's got the Pentagon drafting up policy positions on the use of small tactical nukes.

I don't know much about Kim Jong, but I've read various people who claim he's not quite all there either.

I truly don't know what any of that really means, if anything. But I no longer rest easy in the assumption that no leader would ever be crazy enough to go nuclear.

[daleo]

19. Insane leaders have always been a concern

So far we have had Stalin and Nixon, each of whom was pretty near certifiable at times. Thatcher was pretty nuts, Reagan was verging on senile, and Mao might not have been all there at times.

I wonder if a leader really can order a nuclear strike all on his own, or if others in the command chain have some kind of practical override?

I guess we have to hope for the best. I agree with you about both Bush and Kim Jong.

[phantom power]

20. I think a leader can order such a strike. However...

others in the chain of command can also choose to disobey such an order. That might be construed as mutiny, or treason, or something. But they could do it, and clearly, a reasonable person might consider avoiding a nuclear war worth being courtmarshalled.

It seems that Bush believes he has been given the authority to order pretty much anything he pleases. Unitary Executive, Commander In Chief During War Time, etc. Whether or not he ever gets it in his head to order nuclear strikes is a matter for speculation.

The kind of nuttiness that really, really scares me is this rapturist business. A guy like Stalin, Mao or Kim Jong might be nuts, but their nuttiness includes some measure of rational self interest. Rapturists, on the other hand, consider the end of the world as a cause for celebration. The end of the world is literally what they live for, what they pray for. And some of them consider it their responsibility to help make it happen.

[daleo]

22. I hope Bush is just lying about his religiosity

Otherwise, as you say, it is pretty scary. Ditto for leaders in other countries, including but not limited to Iran.

[Karmakaze]

32. Actually there is a story...

Of the closest the world came to nuclear holocaust. I wish I still had a link to it but the basic story goes like this - a Soviet satellite detects a thermal bloom from an area known to be used by US mobile ICBM launchers. The predicted flight time is something like 30 minutes. So with tension high, the Soviets decide that this is it and order a full scale retaliatory strike.

The man with his finger on the launch button however hesitates. He has a gut feeling something is wrong. Only one bloom was detected when there should have been dozens or hundreds. He hesitates some more. The leadership is going ape - believeing a traitor was dooming them all to death WITHOUT retaliation, and threaten him and his entire family.

Yet he hesitates. He can't push the button, he has come to the decision that this is NOT an attack and that HE would be dooming the world if he pushes the launch button.

Finally the "time on target" (the time the warhead is expected to detonate) passes. No nuclear explosion. They wait some more. Nothing. Finally the Kremlin calms down and orders the missile batteries to stand down. Subsequently it is discovered that a glitch in the satellite created a false thermal reading that prefectly mimiced an ICBM launch. There was no launch, just a bug.

If this man had not gone with his gut, full on nuclear war would have occured, with all the death and destruction that entails. One man and a button. It was that close. And no one outside the Soviet Union knew it until well after the fall of the USSR.

What do you think the reaction of the Soviet leadership was? Well they were horrifed that this one man was able to basically stand down their entire nuclear aresnal, so they ordered - and received - a new automated system setup so that once THEY triggered it, nothing could stop it. If that system had been in place that day, the world as we know it would have ceased to exist.

The US has long had such a system - hence the "Football". Basically the nuclear missiliers are constantly drilled with what appears to be genuine launch orders. Over and over again they start "the end of the world" only to be relieved when the missiles don't actually launch. They essentially become desensitised to the orders. They do it so much with nothing happening that the day the genuine order comes they will still think it is a drill. They will go through all the same motions, push all the same buttons, expecting nothing to happen, but it will. By the time they realise this ISNT just another drill, it will be too late.

[Roland99]

13. And right on cue!! Just when NK was being ignored over Iraq

back in 2002, now they pipe up when they're being ignored over Iran.

[wallwriter]

14. Nice work, George! nt

[madmark]

15. how many nuclear devices has NK made on Bush' watch?

The answer is what 8-9, 16? This makes Bush wmd case for the Iraq war, and the sabre rattling against Iran over nukes inane. The worst country in the world is making nukes with impunity and Bush has not done a damn thing about it. Yet he is using the thin threat of these other countries potentially working towards the same thing as a basis for war? The only way to rationalize this is that the current admin only moves against nations it thinks it can safely bully. A chickenshit mentality.

[sarcasmo]

17. The US is not the only country in the World that can use pre-emptive

strike. I say this is a good move by North Korea. If we invade Iran, look for Kim Jong lifts to send some missiles our way, that is if he has them that can reach the main land. Our Commander in Idiots coming invasion of Iran will start WWIII.

[anotherdrew]

21. doesn't matter, if N.Korea nukes us we'll just nuke Iran - per VP Dick

that's the plan right?

[Jacobin]

24. Two swaggering assholes as leaders of two countries:

Bush and whatever that guy's name is in NK.

[Mithras61]

30. That guy in NK...

is Kim Jong Il.

I don't know about his being a swaggering asshole, but everything I've seen about him tends to indicate a certain level of instability in his character. In fact, much of what I've seen makes me tend to believe he's as unstable as W_rong, but with greater intelligence and a greater willingness to sacrifice the children of his nation on the altar of patriotism.

[AngryOldDem]

33. Il vs. Bush

Anyone feel sick to the gut yet?

Il is insane. He would do anything for military power. Tony Hall, late of the UN and formerly my Congressional Representative, made several trips to North Korea to assess its hunger crisis. This man (Il) would rather spend money on nukes rather than simple food stuffs to feed kids. Hall's aide (who ran for his seat but lost to a shameless Bush toadie) said they saw people on the sides of roads literally looking for seeds to eat -- the food crisis there is that desperate.

I've always seen North Korea as a bigger threat than Iraq. Too bad W doesn't feel the same.

[tuvor]

25. Uh, guys? We have a little problem called 'Iran' right now.

Can we just deal with that first, before they acquire nuclear weapon capabilities, please?

[HuffleClaw]

27. bush ASKED for that sort of response with his mindless bluster

the moron.

[Generator]

29. I'm a sicko

I just had a grin at the thought of North Korea DEMANDING we give up our nuclear weapons OR ELSE. Whoa. Sometimes the idea that the US gets to decide who gets the killer toys just strikes me as absurd.

[madmark]

34. Of course NK can, bush let them build a nuclear arsenal over the last 6

years.

[buddysmellgood]

35. Remember when Saddam threatened us like that? And look at him now!

Man, we are going to go apeshit on North Korea. This is over the top. No cowboy like George is gonna take that shit. What kind of a pussy do they think he is? :sarcasm:

[truthisfreedom]

37. sigh. fearless leader is keeping us so safe... at least in Minnesota we

are far enough away to be an unlikely target. sigh.

[Rainscents]

41. Seattle is great target.

:scared:

[Rex]

38. Lil Kim sucker punches Monkey Boy!

"Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States." Pre-emptive strike is only used against regional powers. I doubt China would allow NK to have a nuke.