N. Korea has nuclear missile capability to hit US territory

parados wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
parados wrote:

I guess if ole Georgie hadn't been so concerned about those non existent WMD in Iraq he might have thought about N Korea back when it was possible to deal with them.

And he would have been in exactly the same situation he was in with Iraq: it is not known for sure whether they have nukes, but at least now it is possible to deal with them.

You are criticizing him for not doing in North Korea what you are critcizing him for doing in Iraq.

Not at all. I never said he needed to attack N Korea. I said he needed to DEAL WITH THEM. That would include negotiating or getting inspectors into the country. Both of which are solutions that could well have prevented N Korea from taking all its plutonium out of storage and refining enough to make 6 nukes.

By the way. In 1991 North Korea had enough plutonium for 2 nukes according to CIA reports at the time. Clinton's solution kept the rest from being refined.

I am under the impression that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently. They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things and finally someday somehow use some of them. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead. Fortunately, that will not happen with Iraq.

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Quote:

Catch up on your reading. You're behind. He is relinquishing control. There will be a vote for the first time in 24 years. Democracy is spreading like wildfire..

When will this vote occur? The only thing so far is just a proposal to possibly change Egyptian constitution to allow a vote. No vote has been scheduled with other candidates. No vote has occurred to change the constitution yet. It is likely that several parties that might actually contend will be banned from participating. You seem to be counting your eggs before they hatch here.

Statement of Egyptian Counsel on March 29th.

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Wake up!!! Splash some water on that face. I think we know who has been at the hairdresser, Mr. No News Reading Man. The Saudis HAD an election.

They HAD one. The people demanded it.
Bushie.... 5,......................... Kuvasc......He don't know.

The House of Saud still runs Saudi Arabia. The vote was only for 1/2 the local positions. The other half were appointed. Women weren't allowed to vote. Again, you are counting eggs.

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Quote:

I am under the impression that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently. They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things and finally someday somehow use some of them. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead. Fortunately, that will not happen with Iraq.

Your impressions don't seem to align with the facts. North Korea was allowed to get to this stage because Bush pulled out of the deal and North Korea after that refined plutonium. The plutonium for 6 nukes didn't exist until after Bush threatened North Korea in his "axis of evil" speech.

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kuvasz wrote:

You idiots supported a war whose primary cause was false and you still won't admit it..

You're in a room with other people. There is a locked suitcase in the room. You know that there is a 40% chance that it contains a bomb. Some people want to evacuate the room and call the police bomb squad, while some think it's an alarmist move. Finally, the people who want to call the bomb squad prevail. The police are called, they bring in the bomb squad and evacuate the room. It is discovered that there was no bomb in the suitcase, even though there actually had been a 40% chance at the time the bomb squad was called.

The people who didn't want to call the bomb squad are dancing with glee chanting "We were right, there was no bomb!" Yet, they were not only not right, they were idiots. The only sane move with a 40% chance of a bomb was to find out for sure. The analogy is, of course, imperfect. I don't know exactly what the probability was, at the moment of invasion, that Hussein had retained his WMD. The analogy does, though, illustrate the point that if there is a significant probability of an awful, awful danger, it needs to be resolved.

What happened with Iraq is surely going to happen again and again as WMD come within the reach of less wealthy and sophisticated countries. Iraq was just the leading edge of the iceberg. We will be in the position again of believing that some insane dictator has WMD, but not knowing for sure. If we have any sense at all, we will be prepared at some point to invade, if other means do not succeed in a reasonable amount of time.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

The analogy is, of course, imperfect.

It would work if Iraq had been evacuated before the US invasion took place.

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old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
The analogy is, of course, imperfect.

It would work if Iraq had been evacuated before the US invasion took place.

You seem to be saying that the analogy is invalidated if there is a cost or negative consequences to "calling in the bomb squad" to investigate. It does not invalidate the analogy. A decision like this is always a balance involving questions like:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger is real?
3. What is the cost of investigating the danger?

In the case of WMD in Iraq, #2 above, the consequences of an evil madman with doomsday weapons are very grave indeed. My main point, though is the fact that the danger when checked did not materialize does not have the significance the liberals claim. Just as in the analogy I made to a suitcase that might have a bomb, the decision to resolve the possible danger can be absolutely the right one, even if it later turns out that it wasn't there.

Furthermore, we don't know that much about when or how the WMD were destroyed, if they were. It may well be that the only reason they weren't in Iraq when we went in is our years of threatening grave consequences.

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Ah, we had this discussion before, Brandon. You made it very clear, re your

Brandon9000 wrote:

3. What is the cost of investigating the danger?

that you are okay with 'costs of investigating' which go up to a couple of thousands of lifes.

As long as it's not your life, huh?

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Brandon9000 wrote:

old europe wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
The analogy is, of course, imperfect.

It would work if Iraq had been evacuated before the US invasion took place.

You seem to be saying that the analogy is invalidated if there is a cost or negative consequences to "calling in the bomb squad" to investigate. It does not invalidate the analogy. A decision like this is always a balance involving questions like:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger is real?
3. What is the cost of investigating the danger?

In the case of WMD in Iraq, #2 above, the consequences of an evil madman with doomsday weapons are very grave indeed. My main point, though is the fact that the danger when checked did not materialize does not have the significance the liberals claim. Just as in the analogy I made to a suitcase that might have a bomb, the decision to resolve the possible danger can be absolutely the right one, even if it later turns out that it wasn't there.

Furthermore, we don't know that much about when or how the WMD were destroyed, if they were. It may well be that the only reason they weren't in Iraq when we went in is our years of threatening grave consequences.

the problem, as i state on the thread i just started is that saddam let in the weapons inspectors and they left only because bush said that saddam was hiding things from them and he told them to leave, because the american army was going in.

you have a selective memory recalling only things that fit your conclusion and disregard inconvenient facts, such as the UN reports on WMDs by Hans Blix and Internation atomic energy commission that stated clearly that it was highly improbable that saddam had any active WMD programs, let alone WMDs themselves.

and let us be clear here, by the term WMD that means nukes, because dickhead cheney was running his mouth off spouting about mushroom clouds over american cities. he was not calling for attacking iraq over tactical tear gas weapons.

he was scaring americans with the threat of nuclear devastation, and there was no reputable intel concerning that. in fact, intel showed the opposite to be true.

and another thing, right wingers always try to blur the issue on WMDs. what the inspectors destroyed prior to 1998 were conventional tactical weaponry, intermediate range missiles with a range of over 125 KM and tear gas mostly. real WMDs never were found, nor was it believed that saddam was hiding nukes, or biological weapons before the weapons inspectors were told to leave by clinton in 1998 prior to the Americans renewing harsh bombing of Iraqi military targets.

the only people who said they had such weaponry were gross ideologues who had something to gain from the invasion, and they never proved it. what they did was delete information that undermined their positions and "sexed-up" the data to make conclusions not based upon the facts

this is the major crux of the john bolton affair, he rejected for purely political reasons intel data thar undermined the bushevik causa belli and attempteg to have the people fired who objected to the distortions.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

You seem to be saying that the analogy is invalidated if there is a cost or negative consequences to "calling in the bomb squad" to investigate. It does not invalidate the analogy. A decision like this is always a balance involving questions like:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger is real?
3. What is the cost of investigating the danger?

In the case of WMD in Iraq, #2 above, the consequences of an evil madman with doomsday weapons are very grave indeed. My main point, though is the fact that the danger when checked did not materialize does not have the significance the liberals claim. Just as in the analogy I made to a suitcase that might have a bomb, the decision to resolve the possible danger can be absolutely the right one, even if it later turns out that it wasn't there.

Furthermore, we don't know that much about when or how the WMD were destroyed, if they were. It may well be that the only reason they weren't in Iraq when we went in is our years of threatening grave consequences.

Wow.. lets just pretend we didn't know then what we knew then. This is so much garbage Brandon.

Inspectors were in Iraq. Inspectors were actively searching for any weapons. Inspectors said there was no real evidence of any such weapons. The inspectors were going to continue to search

We knew a LOT about when and how the WMD were destroyed. At that time UNSCOM said they had overseen the destruction of 97-98% of the known weapons. There were only suspected but not proven bio and chemical agents that were possibly still out there. All of the nuclear material was under IAEA seal. Your claim that we didn't know where most of it was or if it was destroyed is made up.

There was not a 40% chance of there being a bomb in the suitcase to use your analogy. Someone with very real knowledge said there was no bomb there but you kept insisting that we must call the bomb squad and blow the entire area up just to make sure. Now when you were proven wrong the last time you demand that we believe you this time. Sorry, but I will trust the real adults rather than children that continue to cry wolf.

To answer your 3 questions above.
1. the odds were only about 10%
2. The danger wasn't that great based on the possibilities of what he really could have had or even what was suspected at the time based on real undisputed intelligence. Inspectors were making it difficult to actually hide let alone make anything usable.
3. The cost of letting the inspectors do their jobs? small. a few million.
The cost of doing it your way... $300 billion, thousands of lives and counting.

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old europe wrote:

Ah, we had this discussion before, Brandon. You made it very clear, re your

Brandon9000 wrote:
3. What is the cost of investigating the danger?

that you are okay with 'costs of investigating' which go up to a couple of thousands of lifes.

As long as it's not your life, huh?

Balanced against a million lives that could be lost if Hussein secretly continued to perfect and amass WMD, yes.

You almost act like someone who is brain damaged. As I pointed out, one can view a problem of this type as being decomposable into 3 factors:

1. What is the probability that the danger exists?
2. What are the consequences if the danger exists?
3. What is the cost of resolving the question definitely?

This is both simple and clear, yet you continue to act as though only factor 3 existed.

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parados wrote:

Wow.. lets just pretend we didn't know then what we knew then. This is so much garbage Brandon.

The only valid way of assessing the correctness or incorrectness of the invasion of Iraq is to ask what the conditions were at the time the invasion occurred. Assessing it in terms of what was later discovered is an invalid criterion. Far from being garbage, this is the only valid way to judge the invasion.

parados wrote:

Inspectors were in Iraq. Inspectors were actively searching for any weapons. Inspectors said there was no real evidence of any such weapons. The inspectors were going to continue to search

Hussein had been shining us on for years and years. All he had to do was verifiably show that he had destroyed the WMD, but instead he did things like this:

"Nov 1996 - Iraq blocks UNSCOM from removing remnants of missile engines for in-depth analysis outside Iraq."

and this:

"Jun 1997 - Iraqi escorts on board an UNSCOM helicopter try to physically prevent the UNSCOM pilot from flying the helicopter in the direction of its intended destination. The Security Council issues a presidential statement, deploring the incident and demanding that Iraq permit UNSCOM to carry out its air operations anywhere in Iraq without interference of any kind."

Source

parados wrote:

To answer your 3 questions above.

1. the odds were only about 10%

Perhaps. Perhaps not. You certainly haven't shown this.

parados wrote:

2. The danger wasn't that great based on the possibilities of what he really could have had or even what was suspected at the time based on real undisputed intelligence. Inspectors were making it difficult to actually hide let alone make anything usable.

If he had still had his WMD and development programs, which is what factor 2 is defined to consist of - the consequences if the danger is real - if even one WMD had ever been used in a populated area, the consequence could be as high as perhaps a million dead. It is hard to know exactly without knowing the exact type of WMD, but numbers like a million would certainly be attainable with bioweapons or nukes if you count the people who die over the first few months as a result of the attack.

parados wrote:

3. The cost of letting the inspectors do their jobs? small. a few million.
The cost of doing it your way... $300 billion, thousands of lives and counting.

Still better than what might happen with WMD in Hussein's hands.

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kuvasz wrote:

In their endless desire to see every diplomatic standoff through the prism of 1938, conservatives want to cast themselves in the role of the guys who put an end to appeasement -- in this case, in North Korea. So they're the ones who said 'this far and no further' -- as the Brits and the French did in Poland with the Nazis.

Quote:
Almost. We don't want to seem like the guys to end the appeasement. We're going to end the appeasement. There is a difference.

But there's a problem with this analogy, and an infinitely revealing one. The Brits and the French knew what they were going to do if Hitler called their bluff. They had a plan: go to war. And they did. They had, in a word, a plan.

What's the administration's plan with North Korea? They don't have one.

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What makes you hink they don't have a plan?

The line taken on this point by administration defenders is, what do you want us to do? Go to war? They've got nukes and forty thousand of our soldiers are there ready to get slaughtered and they can destroy Seoul and on and on and on.

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Half right. It is not time in the progression of events to go to war. You have to try less violent means first. You know, proceed in increased escalation.

This line of argument is supposed to shut up administration critics because who wants to be in the position of encouraging the administration to go to war.

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You had been teetering on the verge of addressing the issue, and you've fallen into an abyss. I shall pledge to de-crevice you. I know it is foreign to you and most Democrats, but the Republicans aren't putting on a play for critique. They have been for a decade, and are now laser sure of their foreign policy. They have altered their former Realist paradigm, and now hone in on the internal aspect of a country that requires change, instead of forcing it from outside. (It is complicated.) They prefer not to have hostilities. They have a structured method of dealing with situations like this--and they take into account who they're dealing with, and the social setting in the country. It is a MUCH more careful method of dealing with geopolitics, and it has a win-win goal.

No one with any sense craves war. Even a war you could easily win. It's immoral, but for the hard hearted, it creates ill reverberations that cross the world and come back to you. That means it the last resort--but it IS a resort. And, not one we (Realists)shy from using.

But it doesn't end the argument, it just gets it going. If war is such an ugly and unviable option -- and it is -- then why in the hell did they provoke this situation in the first place?

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This is where you disconnect with basic relationships, IMO. Parent to child is one example. If you think cutting someone off from their blackmail money is provoking war--you are misguided. If one parent gives their child a chocolate bar for doing their homework, the child becomes conditioned that he is owed a chocolate bar for doing his homework. He loses sight of the fact that his homework is his responsibility and no one owes him anything for it.

If the other parent discovers this parenting error, and says to the child, "Listen, I disagree with this situation you have going here. Your teeth are filled with cavities, your pants are too tight, and it's just not good for you. Hell, I think you're borderline diabetic. No more chocolate for homework."

And the kid begins a sit-in, wherein he refuses to do any homework. His grades suffer horribly, and his teacher calls you to inform you. The kid begs for you to intervene on his behalf, or he can't play basketball on the school team!!! And, if you are a good parent, modelling appropriate behavior, when you finish laughing, you tell the kid he'll have o work it out with his teachers and his coaches. He did the crime, he'll talk to the people who are more closely involved with his complaint.

He screwed you., and he's screwing himself long-term. You're not going to bail him out. Because you know if you do, his behavior will get worse, and he'll screw you again.

He may fail. But, if you continue to pay him off, while he's getting his way, ...he'll want more and more, and still do whatever the hell he pleases, until he blows your brains out one night, and takes the DeSoto for a joyride.

Or, short answer-- We didn't provoke him.

It's a really good question and one the administration and its defenders are entirely incapable of answering.

Quote:
It's very easy to answer. Just not so easy for some to understand.

You only get to seem tough and principled and Churchillian if you draw a line in the sand and then have something to follow it up with. You only get credit for pointing out what everyone already knew -- that the 1994 agreement was an imperfect one and perhaps only a stopgap -- if you've got something better. If you don't, you just look like a fool.

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Yes re the 1994. Happy we agree on that. We do have something much better. Watch and learn.

The administration says it has a plan: isolate the North Koreans economically and diplomatically. But how serious a plan is that?

Quote:
Deadly serious. It is a last effort to resolve without military. It does cause suffering, but less suffering that a quick, overwhelming strike--which is what we'd have to do. An embargo has a couple of promises. One is to collapse the leader's position, and the other is to foment a coup. Don't you think it should be tried before a horrible attack?

Are we going to get the Europeans to withdrew their offer of membership in the EU? Please. North Korea has virtually no diplomatic or economic relations to start with. Their most serious one is with China. And that would make our entire policy dependent on the good will of a country whose influence in the region we're trying to stem, not augment.

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Ding! You're CLOSE!!! They need China, and that is who they will deal with. I have no doubt that a rational North Korea would be welcomed into the group of nations. You damn well can't let them in as they are. Good behavior is rewarded with another carrot. But a healthy one---not a bribe.

More to the point, in the situation the administration has painted us into the NKs have a lot more cards to play than we do. Short of doomsday scenarios like lurching across the DMZ, they can shoot off a few more test missiles or try to sell more missiles to other bad-acting countries. Of course, they can just kick back and start frying up plutonium in their reactor, every new ounce of which will destabilize the region profoundly.

Quote:
This is true.

Of course, getting rolled by those sorts of threats is simply untenable. We can't blink just because the North Koreans won't put any limits to their provocative actions. But that just makes the point. We're in a very bad situation. The administration has sat us down at a card game in which we're holding a fairly weak hand. Conservatives are free to play Churchill if they've got a better plan or the will to force a better solution. Since they have neither, they've got to put away the cigar and bowler hat.

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It is shocking to me that you think the US has a weak hand. We're holding all four aces. And, we do have a plan. (However, they had better have an "after plan contingency, and since they screwed up that oplan last time, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do it again.) I really don't think it will come o that--but as crazy as Kim Jung Il is, it could.
Tough talk sounds great until your opponent calls your bluff and everybody sees there's nothing behind the trash talk.

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Do you REALLY think we can't back up what we've said?

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George planned for this TWO YEARS AGO.

You can sign up as a Republican at any local voting precinct!

---------------

Destroyers deployed to Sea of Japan. Part of the Plan. #1

Anyhow, I think if he put this in motion 2 years ago, he has a plan.

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Lash wrote:

Do you REALLY think we can't back up what we've said?

No one really doubts that, Lash. But this too raises serious questions as to your mental state.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

I am under the impression [what's new there.] that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also an evil madman pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently and demand any insane thing.

They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option using our vast array of WMDs. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things as fast as we do and finally someday somehow use some of them as we have. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately, that could never have happened with Iraq thanks to our fearless leader .

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JTT wrote:

Lash wrote:

Do you REALLY think we can't back up what we've said?

No one really doubts that, Lash. But this too raises serious questions as to your mental state.

Please put some more effort into your posts.

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JTT wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

I am under the impression [what's new there.] that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also an evil madman pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently and demand any insane thing.

They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option using our vast array of WMDs. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things as fast as we do and finally someday somehow use some of them as we have. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately, that could never have happened with Iraq thanks to our fearless leader .

You seem to be unable to make much of a counter-argument yourself, or at least, this doesn't qualify. This is a very hard post to answer, because it's so disorganized, rarely consistes of complete sentences, and is kind of all over the map.

I will note the following, though. The fact that I can buy a gun, doesn't mean that I think an ex-con should be allowed to own a gun. The argument that because America builds nukes, it should feel comfortable with Saddam Hussein doing so is absurd. Furthermore, the fact that we were responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a rather poor argument when I post that I don't want someone to do the same thing to us. How does that help us protect ourselves? In short, your arguments are pathetic and illogical, which is perhaps why you declined to make any coherent response.

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Lash wrote:

We don't want to seem like the guys to end the appeasement. We're going to end the appeasement. There is a difference

This is exactly the mindset to which I was referring. Appeasement is not the issue, since North Korea is not talking about grabbing the Sudetenland for Lebensraum. The North Koreans, crazy as they are have attempted to protect themselves from the US by making it as difficult as possible for the US to move against them. They are crazy, not stupid and know that the US could wipe them out which a flick of the wrist. But they also know that which deters the US from moving against them militarily is that US (more likely Japan) would also sustain massive damage that would wreck havoc on the world's economy. Few people think that Japan, with the world's second largest economy would be spared from devastation.

The North Koreans have made this plain by lobbing their missiles into the Sea of Japan just north of the main Japanese islands. And now, recent Pentagon reports reveal that the North Koreans can hit the mainland US with missiles.

Dealing sensibly with this issue is not appeasement but walking back from the potential for nuclear devastation in three countries.

And the Bushevik "cunning" plan has made it more, not less likely.

I wrote

Quote:

But there's a problem with this analogy, and an infinitely revealing one. The Brits and the French knew what they were going to do if Hitler called their bluff. They had a plan: go to war. And they did. They had, in a word, a plan.

Lash wrote:

What makes you hink they don't have a plan?

I think they have no plan because there is no evidence of one. That which they have attempted has simply left the situation deteriorate over the last 48 months to the point where the North Koreans have now more nukes than 4 years ago, the West no longer has active camera monitoring equipment that watches the North Koreans at their breeder reactor, and now the North Koreans have the capabilities to attach nukes to 2 and 3 stage missiles capable of hitting the continental United States.

Seriously, if you think this is a "cunning" plan that the Busheviks are working from then it is one worthy of Captain Parmeter and F Troop'

Lash wrote:

Half right. It is not time in the progression of events to go to war. You have to try less violent means first. You know, proceed in increased escalation.

This will not be simply "war," it will be devastation, nuclear devastation on a scale unprecedented in human history.

Lash wrote:

You had been teetering on the verge of addressing the issue, and you've fallen into an abyss. I shall pledge to de-crevice you. I know it is foreign to you and most Democrats, but the Republicans aren't putting on a play for critique. They have been for a decade, and are now laser sure of their foreign policy. They have altered their former Realist paradigm, and now hone in on the internal aspect of a country that requires change, instead of forcing it from outside. (It is complicated.) They prefer not to have hostilities. They have a structured method of dealing with situations like this--and they take into account who they're dealing with, and the social setting in the country. It is a MUCH more careful method of dealing with geopolitics, and it has a win-win goal.

No one with any sense craves war. Even a war you could easily win. It's immoral, but for the hard hearted, it creates ill reverberations that cross the world and come back to you. That means it the last resort--but it IS a resort. And, not one we (Realists)shy from using.

Recent events in Iraq, and this week with Iran pledging to defend itself against US military invasion show that the "laser sure (of their) polices" of the Busheviks do not conform to objective reality.

Do we have to rehash all the remarks made by the Bush administration about how Iraqis would welcome the US with open arms, how the cost of the Iraqi invasion would cost the US no more than $1.8 billion, how Iraqi oil would repay for rebuilding what the Americans destroyed?

Few things that the Busheviks have said have come to pass, not in Iraq, where that country is closing in on civil war and where the US is has now spent $300 Billion on this adventure, not in Iran where the Iranians have decided that if the US attacks they will unleash world-wide terrorism on a scale unprecedented, nor in North Korea, where the US boycotts have not brought the North Koreans to the negotiating table.

Your remark:

Lash wrote:

They have altered their former Realist paradigm, and now hone in on the internal aspect of a country that requires change, instead of forcing it from outside.

is not supported by facts. In Iraq, the US used force from the outside, and did not work in a non-violent manner to achieve its foreign policy goals.

Your remark:

Lash wrote:

They have a structured method of dealing with situations like this--and they take into account who they're dealing with, and the social setting in the country. It is a MUCH more careful method of dealing with geopolitics, and it has a win-win goal.

is also not supported by the facts. In fact, the Bushevik administration exhibits no such discrimination in dealing with foreign policy. They use a consistent meme of "our way or the highway," that lacks nuance and an understanding of cultural and historical factors.

Lash wrote:

This is where you disconnect with basic relationships, IMO. Parent to child is one example. If you think cutting someone off from their blackmail money is provoking war--you are misguided. If one parent gives their child a chocolate bar for doing their homework, the child becomes conditioned that he is owed a chocolate bar for doing his homework. He loses sight of the fact that his homework is his responsibility and no one owes him anything for it.

If the other parent discovers this parenting error, and says to the child, "Listen, I disagree with this situation you have going here. Your teeth are filled with cavities, your pants are too tight, and it's just not good for you. Hell, I think you're borderline diabetic. No more chocolate for homework."

And the kid begins a sit-in, wherein he refuses to do any homework. His grades suffer horribly, and his teacher calls you to inform you. The kid begs for you to intervene on his behalf, or he can't play basketball on the school team!!! And, if you are a good parent, modelling appropriate behavior, when you finish laughing, you tell the kid he'll have o work it out with his teachers and his coaches. He did the crime, he'll talk to the people who are more closely involved with his complaint.

He screwed you., and he's screwing himself long-term. You're not going to bail him out. Because you know if you do, his behavior will get worse, and he'll screw you again.

He may fail. But, if you continue to pay him off, while he's getting his way, ...he'll want more and more, and still do whatever the hell he pleases, until he blows your brains out one night, and takes the DeSoto for a joyride.

Or, short answer-- We didn't provoke him.

We most certainly did provoke Kim Jong-Il to further dig in his heels by Bush personally referring to him as a tyrant and gangster who was killing his own people.

As true as what Bush said, even at the height of the Cold War, American Presidents did not go around personally insulting the leaders of nuclear powers like the Soviet Union and China. The fact that George Bush does indicates that he is an idiot who is incapable of controlling his mouth in dangerous situations.

Yet, we expect Kim to sit at the negotiating table? Perhaps in your bizarre universe the best method to get a paranoid adversary (who has nukes and the means to deliver them to your homeland) to negotiate is to insult them. However, in this world, one is cautioned against such emotional outbursts.

I wrote "

Quote:

It's a really good question and one the administration and its defenders are entirely incapable of answering.

Lash wrote:

It's very easy to answer. Just not so easy for some to understand.

So, why did the Busheviks act in a manner to provoke the North Koreans considering their past responses to such actions?

You can not have it both ways, in one, where, to quote you:

Lash wrote:

"They (Busheviks) have a structured method of dealing with situations like this--and they take into account who they're dealing with, and the social setting in the country."

The Busheviks have not taken in to account "who they are dealing with" nor seen to it that their own actions do not lead to war. In fact, I believe, like Iraq and Hussein, Bush wants war with North Korea and Kim Jong Il.

I wrote

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You only get to seem tough and principled and Churchillian if you draw a line in the sand and then have something to follow it up with. You only get credit for pointing out what everyone already knew -- that the 1994 agreement was an imperfect one and perhaps only a stopgap -- if you've got something better. If you don't, you just look like a fool.

Lash wrote:

Yes re the 1994. Happy we agree on that. We do have something much better. Watch and learn.

Apparently you missed the "nuance" of that remark. The '94 accords prevented a war on the Korean Peninsula with a country that had at best one or two nukes (and probably none), without the capacity to deliver them very far. The accord was the lesser evil, but what is Bush doing to prevent war this time? Insult Kim Jong-Il and rattle sabers in expectations that this will bring him to the negotiating table? Hardly so, since now, because of Bush's actions in 2001, the North Koreans have the capabilities to nuke Japan and the western coast of the US and are far more capable of inflicting damage on its adversaries, even if they themselves are incinerated.

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The administration says it has a plan: isolate the North Koreans economically and diplomatically. But how serious a plan is that?

Lash wrote:

Deadly serious. It is a last effort to resolve without military. It does cause suffering, but less suffering that a quick, overwhelming strike--which is what we'd have to do. An embargo has a couple of promises. One is to collapse the leader's position, and the other is to foment a coup. Don't you think it should be tried before a horrible attack?

You really need to get serious for a moment. The North Koreans want bi-lateral negotiations with the US, not a six-party negotiation, precisely because they want assurances from the US that the US will not attack them. They have no such concerns about attacks from South Korea, China, Japan, or Russia. So, they see no benefit in dealing in a multi-party negotiation with countries whom they are not worried about attacking them.

However, Bush does not want this, because he believes negotiating directly with North Korea will have gotten them what they wanted from their escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. In this Bush is adamant in not rewarding the North Korans for their actions. Perhaps in theory this type of reticence is okay, but the alternative is no negotiations, and more North Korean nukes, and the very real potential for North Korean made plutonium appearing on the black market.

You can call this nuclear blackmail if you like, but if the US does not negotiate, then with each passing day the North Koreans produce more plutonium, build more nuclear bombs, develop missiles with greater range, and will kill more Ameicans and Japanese when we eventually do go to war with them, regardless of wiping North Korea off the face of the Earth.

So, we arrive at only three alternatives, negotiate (bilaterally), allow North Korea to get stronger, or go to war, and with each passing day, we will lose more people and cities if we finally do go to war.

You and your Bushevik allies may chose Plan B or C because you do not want to "appease" North Korea. I prefer Plan A because I want a weaker North Korea and do not want war..

I wrote

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Are we going to get the Europeans to withdrew their offer of membership in the EU? Please. North Korea has virtually no diplomatic or economic relations to start with. Their most serious one is with China. And that would make our entire policy dependent on the good will of a country whose influence in the region we're trying to stem, not augment.

Lash wrote:

Ding! You're CLOSE!!! They need China, and that is who they will deal with. I have no doubt that a rational North Korea would be welcomed into the group of nations. You damn well can't let them in as they are. Good behavior is rewarded with another carrot. But a healthy one---not a bribe.

No, you are wrong and uninformed. They will deal with, and in fact want to deal with the US, directly. Even the Chinese have stated that it would be conducive to peaceful negotiations if the US dealt directly with North Korea and use the six-party talks eventually, to discuss other factors for mutual security in Far East Asia.

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Of course, getting rolled by those sorts of threats is simply untenable. We can't blink just because the North Koreans won't put any limits to their provocative actions. But that just makes the point. We're in a very bad situation. The administration has sat us down at a card game in which we're holding a fairly weak hand. Conservatives are free to play Churchill if they've got a better plan or the will to force a better solution. Since they have neither, they've got to put away the cigar and bowler hat.

Lash wrote:

It is shocking to me that you think the US has a weak hand. We're holding all four aces. And, we do have a plan. (However, they had better have an "after plan contingency, and since they screwed up that oplan last time, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do it again.) I really don't think it will come o that--but as crazy as Kim Jung Il is, it could.

I repeat: We have only three alternatives, negotiate (bilaterally), allow North Korea to get stronger, or go to war.

You and your Bushevik allies may chose Plan B or C because you do not want to "appease" North Korea. I prefer Plan A because I want a weaker North Korea and do not want war.

The only "contingency plan" the Busheviks have is war.

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Tough talk sounds great until your opponent calls your bluff and everybody sees there's nothing behind the trash talk.

Lash wrote:

Do you REALLY think we can't back up what we've said?

Back up? Are you serious? I used to work for DoD in what became a part of FEMA. I have seen the capability studies of the US (and Soviet ) nuclear arsenals. I have seen the radiation fall-out impact studies few civilians have access to seeing. We would wipe North Korea from the face of the Earth. But at what cost to us and the world?

Do you think that would be the end of our troubles? I do not. They will have just begun.

Once a war starts, no one, NO ONE knows how it ends.

We can not play games of chicken about nuclear war, because such cowboy diplomacy will destroy the world we know.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

JTT wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:

I am under the impression [what's new there.] that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also an evil madman pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently and demand any insane thing.

They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option using our vast array of WMDs. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things as fast as we do and finally someday somehow use some of them as we have. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately, that could never have happened with Iraq thanks to our fearless leader .

You seem to be unable to make much of a counter-argument yourself, or at least, this doesn't qualify. This is a very hard post to answer, because it's so disorganized, rarely consistes of complete sentences, and is kind of all over the map.

In short, your arguments are pathetic and illogical, which is perhaps why you declined to make any coherent response.

You are your own counter-argument, Brandon. These pathetic and illogical arguments were/are yours.

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JTT wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
JTT wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:

I am under the impression [what's new there.] that we're in this fix now because North Korea cheated on the deal that was made with Clinton, and sufficient verification had not been called for to discourage or discover it.

Yeah, we need to negotiate with North Korea, but you never want to be in the situation of negotiating with an evil madman while he points a gun to your head, even if you're also an evil madman pointing a gun to his head. He can demand any insane thing, and the most you can do is whine at him impotently and demand any insane thing.

They have now WMD sufficient to virtually preclude any reasonable military option using our vast array of WMDs. I just hope that they don't continue to manufacture and stockpile the things as fast as we do and finally someday somehow use some of them as we have. This should have been taken much more seriously before it was too late.

North Korea should never have been allowed to get to this stage, because if they use their nukes, hundreds of thousand of people (or more) will be dead just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately, that could never have happened with Iraq thanks to our fearless leader .

You seem to be unable to make much of a counter-argument yourself, or at least, this doesn't qualify. This is a very hard post to answer, because it's so disorganized, rarely consistes of complete sentences, and is kind of all over the map.

In short, your arguments are pathetic and illogical, which is perhaps why you declined to make any coherent response.

You are your own counter-argument, Brandon. These pathetic and illogical arguments were/are yours.

I think that if that were true, if the fallacies in my logic were so clear, you would make counter-arguments to my arguments, which so far you haven't done. The fact that you engage only in name calling without even an accompanying argument, or at best post argument fragments, would be more likely to indicate an inability to support one's view. I may engage in name calling, but it is pretty much always accompanied by a real defense of my viewpoint. What you are selling here, "I could prevail in this debate, but I am so far above you that I won't bother," is what people who cannot defend their views say, and constitutes only a forfeit.

0 Replies

N. Korea has nuclear missile capability to hit US territory

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