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The 7 - Current Events & Politics - PDRK: We Have The Bomb Register and log in to post!
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Grimis
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#1 Posted on 10.2.05 0719.04
Reposted on: 10.2.12 0720.32
    Originally posted by CBS News, This Morning
    North Korea says it has nuclear weapons and will no longer participate in the six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

    Diplomats have said that North Korea has acknowledged having nuclear arms in private talks, but Thursday's announcement is the first time the communist government has said so directly to the public.

    "We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever-more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

    DPRK refers to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

    North Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. "The present reality proves that only powerful strength can protect justice and truth."

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Luxembourg Thursday as part of her first diplomatic mission in her new post, was quick to comment on the announcement from North Korea.
Well, this was bound to happen.

The more disconerting thing is not that they have the bomb. I think we all assumed by the this point that they had something in the works. But the most important thing is trying to get them back to the table for the six-party talks.

The more belligerent the PDRK stays in their relationship to us, the more we are going to have to rely on the Chinese and the South Koreans to bring them to the table, and unfortunately that undermines our geopolitical situation.
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#2 Posted on 10.2.05 0928.07
Reposted on: 10.2.12 0928.44
Well, between Iran and PDRK, we have found the Weapons of Mass Destruction. They just happen to be in all the countries we didn't set on the march towards freedom.

I just can't help but feel like this news just makes the decision to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq look like a poor use of resources. Our military is thin to the point where we're stuck admitting in public that we can't invade Iran even if we wanted to, and hoping the Europeans will fix that mess for us. We're hoping China will bring PDRK into line. It is really nice that Iraqis got to vote and try to set up a democracy, but at what point do we have to say that we have basically just embarked on the largest humanitarian mission in human history, and how long do we remain on that mission?
Guru Zim
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#3 Posted on 10.2.05 1210.29
Reposted on: 10.2.12 1211.01
Don't you think that maybe we forced the issue on them?

I'm just speculating - I have no ties to DPRK (obviously) but it seems with Rice saying things like she did yesterday about Iran that the world is clearly receiving the "Do what the U.S. wants or we will invade you" vibe that we are putting out.

Isn't a country allowed to be sovereign, or did the we get that taken away from everyone else? Much as I hate it as an option, mutually assured destruction seemed to work to keep everyone at bay (us included) during the cold war. This may be the only option that these nations see available now that the U.S. is out nation building.

I doubt that this would be as tense of an issue if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan and Iraq recently.
Grimis
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#4 Posted on 10.2.05 1242.59
Reposted on: 10.2.12 1244.52
    Originally posted by Guru Zim
    Much as I hate it as an option, mutually assured destruction seemed to work to keep everyone at bay (us included) during the cold war.
And it did. The problem is that the Chinese are the only ones currently capable of ensuring a MAD situation, but they are more concerned with beating us economically which they see (correctly) as being easier than beating us militarily.

EDIT: made this interesting point:
ekedolphin
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#5 Posted on 10.2.12 2115.15
Their government lives in constant fear of invasion (and makes their citizens do the same), so they felt they had to get The Bomb to the exclusion of all else.

Despite the fact that North Korea doesn't even have electricity and running water in most of the country, and their citizens are so poor that any one of the meals I had today-- even the Rice Krispie Treat and cup of hot chocolate from Starbucks-- would be the most substantial meal an average North Korean citizen would have in a given month.

Read this book sometime; it really opened my eyes to how bad it is over there.

(edited by ekedolphin on 10.2.12 2216)
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#6 Posted on 11.2.05 1142.52
Reposted on: 11.2.12 1145.13
Click Here (story.news.yahoo.com)


So why not have the one-on-one talks? As North Korea asserts, the United States passion for removing leaders from power makes them nervous. I can understand that. Spokesman Scott McClellan still insists that the six-way talks are the way the US needs to go. But if North Korea won't resume those talks, why not the one-on-one?
Grimis
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#7 Posted on 11.2.05 1151.21
Reposted on: 11.2.12 1152.54
    Originally posted by pieman
    But if North Korea won't resume those talks, why not the one-on-one?
Legitimacy. If the US has one-on-one talks, that makes them a legitimate power on par with China, Russia, the US etc. Having the multiparty makes the PDRK one of many involved with the talks.

Let's also not forgot, from the practical standpoint, that unless the Chinese are on board with reforms, there is no certainty that the Chinese are not helping the PDRK along...
Crimedog
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#8 Posted on 11.2.05 2151.22
Reposted on: 11.2.12 2151.22
    Originally posted by Guru Zim
    Don't you think that maybe we forced the issue on them?

    I'm just speculating - I have no ties to DPRK (obviously) but it seems with Rice saying things like she did yesterday about Iran that the world is clearly receiving the "Do what the U.S. wants or we will invade you" vibe that we are putting out.

    Isn't a country allowed to be sovereign, or did the we get that taken away from everyone else? Much as I hate it as an option, mutually assured destruction seemed to work to keep everyone at bay (us included) during the cold war. This may be the only option that these nations see available now that the U.S. is out nation building.

    I doubt that this would be as tense of an issue if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan and Iraq recently.


Welp, if this were anything other than North Korea trying to bully its way in to more money from other countries, I'd be more inclined to agree with you, Guru.

The PDRK does have the right to be sovereign, don't get me wrong. But I think Rice's statement was meant as a warning that not only would the U.S. take action if it feels threatened, but that dictators have to take in to consideration the fact that if their people feel like the U.S. would support them, they might just decide to see if they can knock off the guy at the top.

As for MAD, it worked. However, if the balloon would have gone up at any time during about the last 10 years or so of the Cold War, the U.S. would have emerged relatively unscathed while the USSR would have gotten whacked. Most of the Soviet missiles were in such disrepair that they wouldn't even have fired. Of those that would have, a large chunk probably would have self-destructed during their diagnostic tests or been way off target due to bad guidance mechanisms.

The Koreans have pulled this crap before. The difference is that now, instead of threatening to build nuclear weapons, they have. Obviously, that's a big difference, but the concept is the same. Their country is falling apart and Kim Jong-Il's trying everything he can to stay in power. If that means threatening a nuclear war, he's obviously not above that.

Here's the bottom line: if the North Koreans don't get what they want _ money, and lots of it _ things could get reallllll interesting. But there's no way anybody else would back North Korea's play on this. Even China, which as a general rule supports North Korea and tells us to go pound sand, knows that the U.S. would only respond in one way if North Korea pops one off _ by turning Pyongyang into a parking lot. Plus, if North Korea tries to invade South Korea, I wonder how many soldiers would realize that the South Koreans and the U.S. have a HUGE advantage in firepower, say "Fuck this. I'm not getting shot at when I haven't been paid in two years." and desert.

If I seem kind of flip about this, it's because I firmly believe that this is nothing more than posturing on Kim Jong-Il's part. He's after money again because he knows that he can't keep a hold on his country much longer without it.

As for Iran, I don't remember us saying we couldn't invade. It would be tough, that's for sure, but the U.S. military is still strong enough to smack around Iran. Remember: the amount of dead U.S. servicemen and women is ASTONISHINGLY small for taking over a country the size of Iraq. And it could be argued that Iraq had a military that was at least comparable to Iran's, if not bigger and better.

And with any luck, we won't have to invade. There's a small, but important, moderate movement coming up in Iran right now. If the mullahs aren't careful, they could find themselves on the wrong side of a revolution.

Iraq is the first domino. I think it's up to the other countries to decide how they want to fall. (NOTE: I'm not advocating rolling tanks through the entire Middle East. But I think democracy is a good thing, and the sooner the better _ and I include "allies" like Saudi Arabia in that statement. If it takes off right away in Iraq, we might just see it sooner.)

And, if the U.S. had not gone into Afghanistan, it would have been the worst possible move. Doing nothing more than sitting back and chucking cruise missiles into a country after a terrorist attack probably played a large role in emboldening Al-Qaida.
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#9 Posted on 14.2.05 0820.32
Reposted on: 14.2.12 0825.36
    Originally posted by Grimis
      Originally posted by pieman
      But if North Korea won't resume those talks, why not the one-on-one?
    Legitimacy. If the US has one-on-one talks, that makes them a legitimate power on par with China, Russia, the US etc. Having the multiparty makes the PDRK one of many involved with the talks.

    Let's also not forgot, from the practical standpoint, that unless the Chinese are on board with reforms, there is no certainty that the Chinese are not helping the PDRK along...


Grimis is correct. Also we reached an agreement with them one-on-one once before and they just ignored it. China is the key to all this and to a lesser extent South Korea and Japan.
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