Ok, this s the most tense I remember things

[nadinbrzezinski]

In the Korean Peninsula...

That is all.

Back to us politics

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50143801n

[elleng]

1. Right, and the 'leader' is a manipulable kid.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. From that clip

SecDef Hagel is not discounting war. Or to be technical, the resumption of hostilities.

[Dawson Leery]

3. The kid is either stupid, a talker like poppy, or being intimidated by

the elders who still believe they can take South Korea.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I think we need to look behind door number three

The elders who still believe they can take SK.

Regardless, they launch...it will be a lot of dying...in the early hours before the speed bump can get reinforcements.

Anybody uses nukes...all kinds of bets are all kind of off.

[idwiyo]

5. Yeah, sure. "Iran is gonna get nukes" kind of lost it's edge. Lets try "NK is gonna attack US!"

And they HAVE nukes! YAY! Give us more money for Pentagon and give it NOW! Because NK is like totally suicidal and can't wait to get nuked back.

And general public buys it line hook and sinker.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Well...they DID actually say they were going to nuke us pre-emptively. I'm not sure

how that would be ignored. There's their usual stuff like "sea of fire" and "rockets comin' your way", but at some point we would have to take the threats--especially their announced intention to end us--seriously. That and there's a new female President of S Korea, new administration in China--they might be trying to take advantage of the temporary disarray.

[idwiyo]

16. Are they suicidal? Doubt THAT very much. As in: no fucking way. Posturing for sure, so what?

Do they have the delivery system to hit anything outside of South Korea that is not water? Where is a proof? Hint: no, they don't and anything coming out of Pentagon is equivalent of "mobile weapons labs", "yellow cake"' and "WMDs".

All that I can see right now is bullshit coming out of NK and we don't even friggin know why. All I know is that this shit stinks to high heaven and it has all the usual suspects involved.

[TwilightGardener]

17. What usual suspects? I don't think our administration is lying like the last one did.

I don't doubt the military's assertion that NK's nuke program is further along than they had thought--we've been giving them money, feeding them, and trying to hold talks, but I'm not sure what we were doing intelligence-wise. Possibly we took our eye off the ball for one war that was totally bogus and another that had some initial merit but dragged on too long. The bottom line is: nothing seems to deter them from their nukes. It's possible that they only intend it for power and blackmail reasons, or to sell the technology for cash, or maybe they really are nutz. I don't want us to bet wrong and lose lots of people--and they can eff things up pretty bad even if they never use nukes.

[idwiyo]

19. If you think for a second your administration is NOT lying to you... FFS, look who is running CIA,

Look who is sitting in Pentagon. for crying out loud, HOW MANY PEOPLE did Obama replace in both orgs? The same damn people who were there during Shrub are still friggin there. Or do you think they all were replaced with new and trustworthy ones? Do I have to remind you WHO was the last head of CIA and who appointed him? Remember the investigation by BBC and Guardian into torture prisons in Iraq?

jeebus, this reminds me about 90s when so many morons were jumping up and down happy because KGB changed its name to whatever the hell it is right now. FSB? Or something like it. Like that made it totally different somehow.

For the rest of it read the second reply to my post.

[TwilightGardener]

21. Brennan is somewhat questionable, but I don't know that he's a liar.

Hagel is certainly not known to be a liar. Sometimes wrong (being a Republican, he can't help it), but generally more honest than most. Because of the international reaction to NK's latest tests and antics, I don't think Obama or his cabinet are making this up.

[idwiyo]

28. Brennan is questionable to boot with his links to torture. Hagel at least has some cred.

But who are they working with? Who are the people they give orders to? How well ate those orders obeyed? How many actual cogs in the wheel did they replace? Who are those cogs loyal to? I'd say their own skins first and foremost and majority of them are dirty. They'd do anything to keep their positions, to protect their skins and to make life as easy for themselves as possible. So basically its same old, same old. Slightly more palatable front interface though.

I worked for enough very very big companies to know that to actually force any change sometimes entire departments have to be fired. Every single person. Otherwise everything will stay the same even though it looks different for outside observer or senior management.

[longship]

15. First, it is highly unlikely that NK has a nuke.

Let alone a deliverable nuke. Let alone a reliable delivery vehicle for anything, let alone a nuke.

Their last so-called test had the explosive yield of 6 Ktons, well within the range of conventional explosives, especially if you're gonna explode it underground where there is no limit to size. Any idiot can bury a weapon and blow it up; it takes considerable know how to weaponize it so that an airplane can deliver it, and considerably more expertise to put it on a missile.

This is, after all, rocket surgery... Er, brain science... Er, you know what I mean.

I highly doubt that North Korea has either a nuke, let alone a missile to deliver one. They can't even feed their fucking people.

There's no indication that their so-called nuclear tests were anything but duds.

But they can probably make a big mess of the Korean Peninsula if they wanted to. This time I don't think they could bank on help from the Chinese or Russians. I sincerely hope NK's leaders realize that, for everybody's good.

[idwiyo]

18. They might have a nuke if Russia ever gave them one. Doubt it, but lets say they do.

Everything else you said still applies.

Doubt Russia or China would allow NK to have a nuke war next to there borders. HIGHLY doubt it.

On the other hand, if anyone clearly benefits here, its Pentagon, The Gimme My Money NOW and Gimme ALL of It or We All Will Die! darling money making machine for Haliburtons of USof A

[longship]

20. First, no way Russia helps NK get a nuke.

And I don't know where you get the remainder of your suppositions about some alleged Pentagon war conspiracy.

Please let's not forget who is the CIC.

Plus, physicists the world over knew -- the same day -- that NK's last test was no nuke. Actually, they knew it before then. Weapons grade enrichment is not something a country can hide these days, at least not in any capacity to pose a credible threat.

A six kiloton explosion is no nuke.

[idwiyo]

26. USSR wasn't Russia of today. Even though I doubt they did give one to NK. About the only

Source of a nuke I could think about that NK might have gotten their hands on. Again, doubt it ever happen.

When it comes to CIC, would it be the same one who appointed BetrayUS to head of CIA? Same one who refused to prosecute torturers and war criminals? THAT one? And he gets his intelligence from where exactly? Oh, all new and shiny CIA/Pentagon he replaced with totally trustworthy people?



PS am not disputing that "nuke" tests were bogus.

[Posteritatis]

23. Why would Russia do that? (nt)

[idwiyo]

24. To piss off US, for starters. everyone keeps forgetting how close the relationship between

USSR and NK used to be.

But as I said, doubt they ever did.

[Posteritatis]

29. I don't even know where to begin with the silliness of that post. (nt)

[idwiyo]

32. Silly questions deserve silly answers. No?

[Posteritatis]

34. It's more "astoundingly ignorant assertions deserve dismissive responses." (nt)

[idwiyo]

35. In your case its: "can't really say anything better than "your don't know what your talkin 'bout"

[greytdemocrat]

6. Hey, what could go wrong??? nt

[indepat]

8. I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, having even gotten a call from D.C.

inquiring if I would go back (voluntarily) on active duty (Navy). That episode was really scary, but the adversaries then at least had a bit of common sense and a desire for survival, but no one has a clue what the current regime in N. Korea is up to or might do.

edited to add one

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Well, hopefully no need to make calls to retired personnel

I gotta wonder what is really going on in NK?

Paging dr. Freud.

[indepat]

13. Don't think anyone has a clue what they are really up to or might do:

hopefully it's just their young leader getting his jollies by blustering.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Read post 12

One insightful one I found

[WCGreen]

27. It was my fifth birthday and I remember how somber my folks

were at dinner, watching JFK on the new TV.

My dad got us in the car and drove around to show us the Nike Sites that were scattered around the Cleveland area. He told us that these installations were there to keep us safe.

I asked him about it before he passed on in 1988 if he remembered that and he told me he just wanted to get out of the house to give us something to distract us. He said he didn't want to be sitting home doing nothing.

[indepat]

30. No one could know how this would play out and very little playing chicken had thereafter

occurred until the N. Koreans started to feel their oats and wanted to impress the world with their cajones.

[drm604]

10. They'd have to be crazy to start something.

The problem is that they may very well be crazy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. They are at the point where they might feel

It's use it or lose it for the armed forces.

I still do not remember it this tense.

[kudzu22]

22. The abscence of dissenting voices and outside information

can lead a group to believe all sorts of crazy things. I don't doubt that's the case with NK's leadership. I hope they are just rattling our cage and hoping for money.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. What happens if North Korea collapses? By Harold Maass | The Week – Wed, Mar 27, 2013

North Korea shut down its last military hotline to South Korea on Wednesday, warning that nuclear war was imminent. The threat was the latest in a series of increasingly belligerent statements made by the Hermit Kingdom since world leaders imposed sanctions as punishment for the communist regime's recent missile and nuclear tests. Pyongyang has threatened to nuke both South Korea and the U.S

On the bright side, security experts say North Korea doesn't have the ability to strike the U.S., and war on the Korean Peninsula is far from inevitable. "The North's wild gesticulations are unsettling," but "this is the seventh time Pyongyang has renounced the 1953 ceasefire" with the South, Doug Bandow points out at The American Spectator. "War has yet to erupt." One can't take anything for granted, but there's little reason to believe that North Korea's untested young leader, Kim Jong Un, "and those around him have turned suicidal after the death of his father."

http://news.yahoo.com/happens-north-korea-collapses-154000983.html

We have speculated that this is likely what is going on. Though we have considered the fact that the generals want it.

[indepat]

25. Hopefully sanity will rule

[SidDithers]

31. Really? More tense than this?...

When you told us war between the Koreas was "pretty much imminent"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x42198



Sid

[idwiyo]

33. +1 Forgot about that one. Thank you for reminding.

[zappaman]

37. Any second now....

Stocking up on bananas and powdered milk.

[Myrina]

36. A friend of mine lives/works in Pohang, S Korea ...

... he's been there almost 10 years ... said this kind of posturing by NK happens every 6 months or so and doesn't do much more than raise eyebrows in SK anymore.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Putting their forces on short of war alert happens every six months?

[zappaman]

39. Yeah

Pretty much.