Is there any kind of down side to it? Does any country actually care about them, or have they mostly just sat up there and thrown tantrums that have irritated the whole world?
Yes. Unless we want to wait and see if they knock out our power grid first, which would leave us without power for a year or more. Do you want to risk that?
I would be willing to take that risk before committing what would effectively be an act of genocide but I would have no quams if fat boy could simply be taken out then see who would be willing to replace him.
So, you think the government would crumble and the people would play nice if we took out their head? And, you're willing to risk your own life to test the theory?
I think they would be hard pushed to find a new leader willing to take on the risk of repeating the fate of fat boy. In respect to risking my life in order to possibly save countless thousands of lives, I am truly surprised that you even have to ask that question. Every soldier on active duty puts their life on the line, I have done it in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and the Gulf with no chance of me ever having the possible chance of directly saving countless lives, so in short my answer is YES.
The US habit of 'intervening' in other countries internal affairs have have already been noted and documented in a great many history books worldwide. Bombing an entire nation out of existence would cost the US its last shred of credibility as a nation worth having any dealings with. Before overt action is taken in North Korea there must be clear and unambiguous provocation from North Korea, such as bombing areas in the US heartland (Guam dont qualify in this context, it US-ness is in dubious).
Once such bombings have taken place everyone will stand by and applaud when US infantry (not bombs) move into North Korea and destroy every shred of military force, Bomb production and delivery capacity the country have. Even then it would be a VERY good idea to avoid VMDs, cluster bombs and whatever else might harm North Koreas civilian poculation and infrastructure. A spanking; not a vipe-out.
But until then Diplomacy should be considered as the only means The US have to defuse North Korea.
As for dropping nukes on North Korea. collateral damage in adjacent countries is so impossible to avoid that it is not an option.
This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at September 15, 2017 4:16 PM MDT
Having previously stated that North Korea was watching the U.S. actions and warned of unspecified retaliation against new sanctions, the committee statement branded the Security Council “a tool of evil,” and claimed: “Now is the time to annihilate the U.S. imperialist aggressors. Let's reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness.”https://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-plan-reduce-us-ashes-sink-japan-wipe-out-south-korea-664642
Umm... so, knowing that they said that, do you still think we'd be meddling in the affairs of other countries and that they haven't provoked us?
Sure, they want Japan and South Korea gone too, but they're gunning for us.
"Japan is no longer needed to exist near us."
“The South Korean puppet forces are traitors and dogs of the U.S. as they call for ‘harsher sanctions’ on the fellow countrymen. The group of pro-American traitors should be severely punished and wiped out with fire attack so that they could no longer survive,” the statement read, before concluding that the country will keep pursuing “self-defensive nuclear force.”
Yes. Hostile rhetoric carry no more weight than calling North Korea "The Empire of Evil".
By all accounts what they have is at most 15 nukes, most of them Minies (and possibly, but most likely not, one Hydrogen bomb). It will take a lot more than that to "reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness". That phrase more properly translate to "let us reduce less than one thousandth part of the US heartland to something a little bit ashier."
Yes, one nuke in a major city would kill a lot of people. But invoking the as a reason to "Strike First" is a fallacy that got exploded a long long time ago. By such logic Britain. France, Israel, India. etc, etc. should also be immediately nuked "to smithereens". For the simple reason that "They too can do us harm."
Premptive strike Is simply not an argument anymore. GWB made very sure that it could never again be used as an argument for or as a justification of an attack.
This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at September 16, 2017 12:16 PM MDT
"At most 15 nukes"? So just how many nuclear weapons does it take to ruin someone's day? But that number is wrong (or very old). US military intelligence puts the number of North Korean nuclear weapons at around 60, and growing. The real question is how many are small enough to be delivered in the nosecone of a missile? (Most of them, apparently.)
You point to States like the US, UK, Russia, India, China, Pakistan (Israel doesn't have "nukes", at least officially) and say that they should be destroyed just because they have "nukes". But you let out one tiny fact, one very important concept; Mutually Assured Destruction. That concept due to either direct nuclear exchange or via various protection agreements/treaties (think NATO and the Warsaw Pact) is what kept most nuclear nations in line (you blow me up and my buddies with the BIG arsenals will take you out). That's what (barely in some cases) kept a nuclear exchange from actually occurring to date (Pakistan almost squared off with India a few years back and China and the Old Soviet Union were within hours of heating up the atmosphere back at the end of the Reagan administration). To make that case the worst case there's always Ohio-class subs with Trident missiles with multiple nuclear payloads, that MIRV thing (and the Russian equivalents) sailing the seven seas ready to destroy the "first striker" in any such conflict. But with newly emerging nuclear powers like North Korea and Iran that prohibition doesn't exist. There's virtually nothing to destroy in North Korea other than a bombastic madman and the Islamic religious zealots believe that it is Allah's will to destroy the planet with "fire" so that Paradise can take it's place.
And yes, even a single nuke will likely kill millions of people in the USA, not just a single city, without harming a single person with the initial "burst". And that will be the real horror. A high altitude "burst" would unleash an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy most of the electrical grid ("pole-pigs" would sustain insulation arc-overs that would destroy them) and most anything connected to it. Even automobiles and diesel trucks with their computer-controlled ignition systems would likely be rendered inoperable. Transportation and food processing would stop immediately. So would water and sewage processing. People would be on track to starve to death in a matter of weeks, or die of thirst much sooner. And those would NOT be pleasant deaths. I would assess this differently if we still had an agrarian economy with food production and processing more widely distributed, with many preserving their own food by "canning" (freezing won't work as there'll be no power to run the freezers), but today virtually no one raised their own food or has a stock to sustain them for any length of time.
That potential danger, that horror of horrors, very much justifies a preemptive strike.
(And as to your GWB comment . . . you have no clue as to how things would have turned out had he not taken the actions that he did, none!)
Your first paragraph argues that north Korea is really dangerous and must be destroyed, and simultaneously say that they probably don. have delivery systems for more than mini nukes. the second paragraph argues that they are 'safe to destroy' because they cannot really destroy the US. Which is it? try to get real will you.
I did not say "states like the UK, Russia, etc should be destroyed. I said that "by the logic the question is proposing they should".
Actually I had a pretty good idea how GWBs invasion of Iraq would turn out: a) Instant loss of Iraqi support for the occupying army b) a long drawn-out infighting thereafter while the situation got worse and worse. I argued that on several forum before the invasion actually happenend. By the way, did you ever wonder why he sent the National Guard to be the initial invasion force, You really should do some research into that.
If you want to object to what I say, I would suggest you actually read it before writing your rebuttal.
This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at September 16, 2017 11:21 PM MDT
I think that it's you that needs the remedial reading lessons my friend. And then start to read up on nuclear weapons technology and the deployment of such weapons.
But no, my first paragraph makes no argument as to North Korea's danger to the rest of the world nor does it call for its destruction. It merely states that your nuclear device count numbers for them are wrong based on US military intelligence. I'll take their numbers over yours any day of the week. Oh, and it strongly implies that even one nuclear weapon in the hands of a madman is one too many.
"Mini" reefers to the size and weight of the device, not to its yield. For example the W80 thermonuclear warhead in the US arsenal is about 12-inches in diameter and about 32-inches in length. It weighs in at a svelte 290-pounds and packs a wallop of up to 150-kilotons. (The yield can be set anywhere from 5-kilotons to that maximum (speaking of which wasn't the yield of North Korea's alleged thermonuclear test somewhere around 100-kilotons so it could be roughly that same size?) We "mail" those W80's to their destinations on Tomahawk cruise missiles. We have slightly larger devices with 5-times the yield (the W88), up to 14 of which can be sent out on Trident II launch vehicles.
"I did not say "states like the UK, Russia, etc should be destroyed. I said that "by the logic the question is proposing they should"." No, you didn't, but you implication was crystal clear on that point.
GWB did NOT send the National Guard to be the initial invasion force in Iraq. That's pure horse hockey, just like the rest of your made-up allegations on the subject.
So again, I don't buy into your BS in the least. How about you coming up with some credible proof, if you can.
Yeah, the US probably shouldn't have "intervened" in world affairs back in the 1940's. But then again if we hadn't a LOT more people would be speaking German today and you know how hard German verbs are to conjugate. Or how difficult it is to write in Japanese.
As to further intervention in Korea "cost(ing) the US its last shred of credibility" . . . who cares? Aside from the fact that all the illegal aliens that seem so desperate to get into this country by breaking US laws and risking the possible consequences seem to disagree with you consider that the USA is NOT here to win a popularity contest with outsiders, can't find any language in the US Constitution to the contrary.
But also remember that it was the United Nations that started the mess in Korea (after Joseph Stalin created the problem with his "selection" of the current "leader's" grandfather to run that failing State at the conclusion of WWII. The US was obligated to participate in that "police action" due to its UN membership. And true to what has become a UN tradition the USA ended up bearing most of the weight of trying to clean up that mess (with her hands tied by that "Oh, my; what will we look like to the rest of the world" thinking.
As to "diplomacy" . . . that's what's been tried with North Korea since 27 July 1953 and look where we're at with them now. They now have thermonuclear weapons and delivery capabilities (even without FedEx). That policy of diplomatic "appeasement" has given them the ability to reach a point where they're now a MAJOR threat to the security and safety of the rest of the world.
As the North Korean border is only about 40 miles from Seoul, the death of tens of thousands of its citizens would certainly be a downside. Because Doughboy won't go down without a fight. We also tend to forget that North Korea is made up of real human beings, not so different from you and I. A mass casualty count there certainly wouldn't be cause for celebration.
I wouldn't celebrate it. I think it's very sad. But, like Malizz says, I think we all have targets on us, and it may well be kill or be killed. If they want us, Japan, and South Korea dead- bombed to ashes, as they have said, should we really wait to see if they're bluffing?
But, you have answered the question as asked. There is a downside- loss of innocent lives. I will grant you that. Thanks you.
Do you mean that the UN should finish up the "police action" that they started back in 1950? Because the latest from North Korea is just a continuation of that original conflict, which still exists under a shaky cease fire agreement.
Do you really think that the UN can do anything other than extort money from the USA? Think about it. If the UN's efforts were unsuccessful with the money and military power of the USA do you really think they could do anything now? Or to put it differently how long do you think such a UN effort would continue before the USA was dragged into it to clean it up?
The North Koreans look on their leader as if he was a god so an assignation would only pave the way for someone that's possibility worse than him to take the "throne". A sound, overwhelming military defeat is the only way to deal with this scoundrel if he won't back down (just like Japan, complete with the "fireworks", if necessary). And so far it seems that his "allies" (China, and to a lesser extent Russia) have either not been putting pressure on him or if they have he's been ignoring it. A VERY dangerous game; not good.
Curiously North Korea seems to have "accumulated" a LOT of "technology" at a very rapid pace. Who would have thought that they would have had thermonuclear devices at this point without outside help and funding, other than the Obama Administration that actually knew about the "miniaturized nukes" about 3 or 4 years ago. (And I'm betting that that's thanks in no small part to North Korea selling "technology" and pitchblende, even yellow cake, to Iran, the recent purchases of which were made by using Obama's cash payment to Iran. So it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that their launch vehicles (missiles) now have, or will very soon have MIRV capability similar to that of our Trident II missiles. That means that the next missile that they fire could be another test, or it could mean that they're going to "nuke" Seoul, a few southern Japanese cities and make a last deposit as the missile passes over Guam with the launch vehicle itself continuing on a "non-threatening" trajectory until splashdown in the Pacific; or worse. So with that very real possibility looming, ANY missile launch towards any US protected territory should be considered an act of war, a reneging on North Korea's part of the 1950's "conflict" cease fire agreement.
And the USA is obligated to take action as there's treaties and other legally binding agreements in place that obligate us to protect Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa and other States in that part of the world from such aggression. Given that, it seems reasonable to "inform" North Korea that the next test missile that they fire will be destroyed in flight as soon as it clears North Korean sovereign territory (a risk if it is carrying a nuclear payload) and that we will them move immediately to invade their country and then actually do that. And should North Korea deploy a nuclear weapon of any kind, even as a test outside the confines of their sovereign borders, we will respond immediately and "in kind".
Of course if China and Russia doesn't want to see nuclear devastation so close to their borders maybe THEY should be the ones to reel him in . . . (I actually think that they're the ones egging him on.)
carbonproduct 