Is No. Korea missile firing being hyped for political gain?

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North Korea's missile firing is probably largely a product program demonstration. Missiles are one of the only thing North Korea has to sell. What a publicity stunt.

Everybody wins: North Korea sells more missiles, Japan has an excuse to invest and build more defense systems; China enjoys the pricking of Bush's ego; The Bush administration gets to use a new threat to maintain a republican majority.

What a deal!

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This latest episode in the North Korean drama will renew interest in the Missile Shield Defence. That trillion dollar exercise in stupidity still has some supporters. They will be rejoicing.

North Korea has been selling Scud-type medium range ballistic missiles for more than 20 years. Iraq under the Ba'athist regime was a prime customer in the 1980s, and the knowledge of it was so common among those who even casually track such matters that i first read about it in a wargaming magazine in the late 1980s.

That does not alter the fact that this is a disturbing development, as well as typical of the type of "negotiating" which is close to the heart of the bizarre Stalinist regime which Kim Jong Il inherited and has perpetuated. Both China and Brazil have long made a good living retailing medium range ballistic missiles right across the globe, but there is a significant difference. Neither China nor Brazil is in the grip of a totalitarian regime based upon the cult of personality of an egomaniacal, ego-centric dictator. As well, neither China nor Brazil has posed a threat, overt or covert, to any of their neighbors. There is no good reason to suspect that either China or Brazil have any designs on the territory of any of their neighbors, or that either of them would be willing to attack anyone in their region out of hand.

There is good reason to believe that if Kim Jong Il thought he could pull it off with impunity, that he would invade South Korea. There is good reason to believe that if he thought he could do so with impunity, he would launch at the least, conventional missiles at Japan. The only stabilizing factor in the crazy dance of death with this megalomaniac is his instinct for self-preservation. China knows this, which is why, reluctantly, they have been willing to broker talks between DPRK and the US, despite having no desire to acknowledge any American sphere of influence on the western Pacific rim.

Kim Jong Il's purpose in developing and demonstrating that he has developed an ICBM which can reach North America is two-fold: the first part of that is the sabre-rattling which has always formed a part of DPRK propaganda for domestic consumption, and inferential threat as a negotiating tool; the second part is Kim's desire to be able to suggest that were any effort made to bring down his personal regime, one of the consequences would be an ICBM attack on North America (Alaska or western Canada, either one will do) in a gotterdamerung.

Is it likely that DPRK currently has an ICBM capacity? The current tests actually seem to suggest that the possbility long considered reasonable that DPRK had a marginal ICBM capability capable of reaching the extreme west of North America (Alaska or the Yukon) might in fact have been incorrect, and that they have not yet reached that point. Is it likely that they are working toward such a capability? Without doubt--this sort of threat is essential both to the classic DPRK negotiating method, and to Kim's sustenance of his personal dictatorship based upon inferential threat.

It would not be reasonable to take today's tests as evidence of a real threat to Alaska or the Yukon. The Japanese take it seriously, though, because they know that their territory could be a target if DPRK paranoia deepened sufficiently. It is reasonable to assume that DPRK is planning to develop an ICBM capacity, and that they will attempt to demonstrate it for the reasons i've given.

Who cares what some rightwing nut jobs are ranting about with regard to a missile defense? As it stands right now, properly deployed Patriot missiles could deal with the threat of any part of DPRK's missile "hand" which they have tipped. It is always, however, worth taking careful note of the offensive capacity of the DPRK, because it is in the grip of a egocentric and selfish autocrat who had demonstrated throughout his career that he is willing to see his people starve in their millions to prop up his Stalinist regime.

Just because someone finds the Shrub and his Forty Thieves of Baghdad distasteful is not good reason to underestimate the surreal mentality of the DPRK and its dictator, nor the very real military threat which they pose.

Of course, they're not sitting atop the world's second largest proven reserves of light, sweet crude, so we needn't worry that the neo-cons want to invade them any time soon.

Just because someone finds the Shrub and his Forty Thieves of Baghdad distasteful is not good reason to underestimate the surreal mentality of the DPRK and its dictator, nor the very real military threat which they pose.
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Agreed. That unhinged nutcase is twice as loony as Hitler. Luckily he is not as powerful or rich as Schicklgruber was. Putting a prize on his head might work. There must be millions of Koreans who would like to see him gone.

Well get on with it then.

It sounds easy. Not much effort involved in putting a price on his head is there?

DI: I suggest that you do some online research into the Koreans who have managed to cross the Yalu River and who are living, often illegally, in China. They absolutely do not know that what they are being fed in the way of propaganda is not true. They may suspect it, but televisions and even radios are uncommon in the DPRK, and even were people to possess them, their electricity is not reliable. VOA and similar services do broadcast into the Korean penninsula, but it is a criminal offense to listen to them. (EDIT: i suggest a search criterion such as: "Korean+refugee+China.")

Most people living in North Korea live in a poverty so abject that westerners cannot begin to comprehend it. Think of Somalia at its worst in the early 1990s, and then consider that it has been like this for most of the last 60 years. Recently, in the last 20 years, the grinding poverty which assures that more than 90% of the population cannot even get enough to eat has been a fact of life in North Korea.

There have been some truly eye-opening, and heart-breaking, stories told by North Korean refugees who have made it out to China. What stands out in all the stories is that even though the people may not entirely trust their government, they really have no baseline upon which to judge what is propaganda and what is truth, and frequently implicitly believe that they are starving because that is what the West intends for them.

This is kind of like Idi Afukkinmin with possible nukes.

Disgusting as he is, he has a kind of very black humoured chutzpah in firing off his missiles on 4th July (remember Idi's "bananas for Britain" campaign, as hordes of Indian refugees fled his country bound for England?)

I wonder, though, what is now entering this situation, because it seems he has now thoroughly pissed off China>

Also, what effect this is gonna have on Japan's future policies re armaments?

It is true that saturation propaganda can turn people into willing serfs. It all reminds me of Jim Jones and the 914 fanatic followers who commited suicide for him.
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Hunger and suffering can slowly whittle away the enthusiasm for the divine leader. Let's hope that it happens in that tortured country, where most of the money is spent on arms.. These people deserve a better life.

That's an interesting line of inquiry. There have been increasing public calls for Japanese rearmament, and speculative fiction about Japan winning the Pacific war has been increasingly popular. There was a big flap about ten years ago (more or less) when an officer in the Japanese armed forces said that the Japanese should expand their military, and tell the Americans to leave their territory. Many newspaper editorials took a line of "well, he's just saying what a lot of us think."

The problem is, so much of the population has never known anything but Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. They know of nothing different, and have literally grown up believing that they starve because the West wants them to starve. If you think about, this crew have been in business for over fifty years, nearly sixty years now--so well over half the population has no other conception of life.

Re: Is No. Korea missile firing being hyped for political ga

Yeah, why would any reasonable person be worried about a fascist dictatorship that's just achieved nuclear weapons while claiming to have forsaken the idea, and is now developing delivery systems? Naturally, if we let North Korea do what they like, they'll be the last fascist dictatorship that tries it.

Brandon let's just kill everyone we disagree with, let's kill every nasty mean and misbehaved person on Earth.

When we get that done we can start killing each other because that's all that will be left.

Kill Kill Kill purge purge purge.

And peace will finally be achieved. Brandon, you're a f*cking genius.

no this has completely escaped my memory. I like bananas. Did we get any?

Dear mr Amin. Ended his days in Saudi Arabia I think, with a fridge full of human limbs...or was that someone else?

Wasn't Kim Jong Il the guy who had a wicked crush on Madeline Albright?

If he did I'll bet it didn't get him anywhere.

It was Madeline Albright, I recall him ogling her and the news media commenting on it-- and see, relations with N. Korea were so much better for the promise of love.

N. Korea is feeling left out. All the attention is going to the misbehaving child Iraq. What egos. A serious matter nonetheless. Notice how Bush is not going it alone on this one? He's learned. His phony-balony love affair with Putin seems to be seeing the light of day.