Nice!…

China and Japan need to act on North Korea sanctions. Being two major powers in the area, Japan and China need to take some sort of action. North Korea threatens war if sanctions are brought upon them. It seems their nuclear strategy is working. No one…

Iran is next. Maybe months, maybe years, but they’re next. And liberals will want to blame that on Bush too, even though they fought against everything he did to prevent it, including stopping the appointment of Bolton the U.N….

Constant updates at Stop The ACLU: Someone tell Bush to push the red button! Update: Not looking good: In Seoul a foreign ministry spokesman said South Korea’s intelligence agency has detected a 3.58-magnitude seismic tremor, following North Korea’s …

Not a lot of information on this yet…will keep you informed and updated as this develops.
Here is the report across the line.
A South Korean government official said there is information that North Korea might have conducted a nuclear test Mon…

Drudge siren. Fox reporting. Bryan Preston’s thoughts from Friday: Diplomacy isn’t going to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. That’s the bottom line. North Korea sees nukes as its last best hope of survival, while the rest of the world (minu…

Japan, and China demand that N. Korea scrub the Nuke test. The leaders of the two nations met for the first time sense 2001 and agreed that a N. Korea nuke test would not be tolerated. There is still no set date for the test. …

Years later, during President Clinton’s two terms, North Korea received more American aid than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region. “In an astonishing reversal of nine previous U.S. administrations,” reads the Cox Committee’s Congressional…

1. North Korea detonates a nuke. Governments all over the world break out in cold sweats. The government of China brings down the government of Kim Jong Il with a blood less coup or with minimal fighting. World governments breathe a sign of relief, peace has returned to the planet. China engulfs North Korea which was their plan all along.
1.a If Kim Jong Il really is a Chinese finger puppet, then China secretly informs Iran, Al Qaeda, Taliban that nuclear bombs are for sale in North Korea, if used against enemies of China.
2. North Korea detonates a nuke. Governments all over the world break out in cold sweat. Iran, Al Qaeda, Taliban buy nuclear devices from North Korea. The Taliban detonates a nuke in Mumbai, with evidence leading back to Pakistan. India retaliates against Pakistan, Iran joins with India, and Iran overruns Western Pakistan, Southern Afghanistan. India and China take the rest of Pakistan.

2.a North Korea detonates a nuke. Iran announces it was an Iranian design, and that they now have nukes. Iran tells the United States that the US has 30 days to remove all US troops from Iraq. US forces are removed from Iraq, and the blood bath begins; ten times larger than Cambodia, Somalia, and Rwanda, combined. Iran overruns Iraq.
2.b . . . . .(see above) no warning is given, a nuclear device is detonated against US troops in Iraq, Iran invades, and with Shia allies overwhelm remaining US forces.
2.c …. (see above). When given 30 days to remove US forces from Iraq, US forces attack Iran. Russia, and China choose sides (or not). . . all bets are off.

3. After North Korea detonates a nuke, nothing happens except more talk at the UN. Without warning, a nuke is detonated in New York City, or Washington DC, or both. Everyone sentient being on the planet denies any responsibility. . .with no target to attack, and hurting from the strike, US does nothing more than withdrawing from the UN and ordering all UN personal out of the country.
3.a After nuclear strikes against a US city, the United States launches an attack against Iran, with every weapon available. China and Russia choose sides, all bets are off.
3.b Immediately following a nuclear strike against Washington DC, unconventional Islamic forces launch conventional strikes in nearly all major US cities.

4. North Korea detonates a nuke. Taliban uprising in Pakistan forces Musharraf from power. A new Taliban government take control of Pakistan, closely allied with Iran. Fighting in Afghanistan intensifies. Iran announces it now has nukes, and demands US forces leave Iraq.

5. North Korea detonates a nuke. Iran announces it has nukes, and threatens Israel, demanding the state of Israel be disbanded, and control returned to the Palestinians. Israeli, and US forces attack selected sites in Iran. Islamic unconventional forces launch attacks in all major US cities, and elsewhere, around the globe. All bets are off. . .

6. North Korea’s bomb doesn’t go off. . . . . .one can hope.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, absolutely no one on the planet could have known what those 19 hijackers were thinking when they got on the plane, except the decision makers who dreamed up the attack. The same holds true with these nightmare scenarios. We have absolutely no way to know what the principal actors in any of these scenarios are thinking, nor can any reasonable estimates of their force capabilities be determined.

Have a nice day.

If Japan has to go nuclear, in the long run it probably will spin out of Washington’s orbit.–Bryan

It’s best that any consideration of Japan’s future include Japanese demography as one of the starting points. According to Mark Steyn in America Alone, The Japanese have such low total fertility that their population is on course to shrink rapidly over the next few decades. It’s said that the average age of the Japanese will also increase rapidly due to the falling ratio of young adults and children to the elderly. It seems best not to expect the Japanese to escape their military dependency, unless they manage to produce a robotic army.

Breaking…Shots Fired in the DMZ

Something tells me my Uncle Carl didn’t foresee “Japs” with nukes back in, say, ’43.

For myself I think that if the DPRK were completely ignored and embargoed all concerned that the wait for Kimmie’s implosion wouldn’t be that long.
If he acts out bad enough to gain attention that would be license to toast the grey toad.

Yes China likes Kimmie as a distraction to their own abuses but what China likes more is our MONEY.
A small threat to derail the money wagon and No. Korean antics would be a less attractive diversion.

Of course this kind of maneuvering on the world stage would take timing and pluck.
We wouldn’t want to irritate such a good friend and ally as China or maybe they’re just that big of a threat.

Maybe just ignoring him would work as well as what we’re doing now anyway.

Why is this a big deal?
honora on October 6, 2006 at 2:12 PM

For starters, it would start a domino effect of events that could likely lead to war in the region. But at the same time it would also answer some questions. A succesfful test would take a lot of guess work out of whether or not they actually do have nukes. And, it may further energize North Korea’s neighbors to find a permanent solution to the problem of Kim’s regime.

For several years the U.S. has been operating under the assumption that Pyongyang has the bomb. But do we know for a fact that they have even one working weapon? Do they even know? Without a test, how could they? Even if they had the components, even if they assembled them, they could not know for certain the weapons would work unless they tested at least one. It would be foolish to assume otherwise, especially with weapons as complex as atomic bombs; the expression “fine North Korean craftsmanship” has yet to catch on. It is unlikely that Pyongyang is bluffing though. It would serve no useful purpose to threaten a test and then not carry it out. That would certainly damage North Korea’s credibility, to the extent it has any.

At the same time, little is known about Pyongyang’s nuclear program (the North Koreans kicked out international inspectors in 2002). The threat of a nuclear device test is just plausible enough to be worrisome. There is also the possibility, always present with the North Koreans, that they are simply bluffing to gain negotiating leverage. They have done that many times already. One thing is clear though, the U.S., China, South Korea, Russia and Japan have always agreed on a core principle: They don’t want nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

The clear & present danger is that North Korea testing a nuclear weapon would upset the delicate balance of the region and offer additional hope to prospective terrorist clients around the world, providing that India and Pakistan haven’t already. A test could also strain the alliance between the United States and South Korea, which has sought to engage N Korea militarily in the past, but hasn’t at the behest of the United States. A North Korean nuclear test could also prompt Japan to seek its own nuclear deterrent (MAD), intensifying historical tensions with China and South Korea, both of which suffered under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century. If China got dragged into war in the region, they’d certainly go after Taiwan, and we’d have to step in since South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are our allies.

A test would answer some key questions honora, but it would also start something that probably won’t end for many years and possibly not until after a lot of bloodshed. It’s probably more complicated than what I’ve suggested, and I’ve probably missed some key points, but it would get ugly for that region if they carry out a successful test.

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Today the headline on Yahoo is “U.N. to Urge N. Korea to Cancel Nuclear Test”

Every week it’s somebody…Annan, Bush, Rice,Tony Blair, The E.U., Jacques Chirac…”urging” some dictator/terrorist/wacko to desist from some atrocity/act of genocide/ you name it. Annan has urged Serbs to stop murdering Bosnians, Sudanese to stop murdering Darfurians (if I can call them that) and Syrian and Iran to stop supporting Hezbollah (or whatever terrorist flavour of the day they are supporting) and to what end?

Can anyone remember any international whackjob ever doing what the International community has “urged”? Ever?

In the west, we democratically elect leaders who we expect to apply common sense and principle to matters of international concern. We are told that we can look to NATO, the UN, the E.U., the Group of Six…you name it…to ensure our prosperity and security.

And how does that work out? NATO cannot get 2,500 soldiers to help finish the job in Afghanistan, the Group of Six negotiates endlessly with Iran, The U.N. Security Council is going to “urge” N. Korea to cancel nuclear tests (that’s going to work for sure…look at how sanctions helped).

Our leaders are craven, self serving, unprincipled cowards. They are not worthy of their electorates.

In the end, as a result of their gum flapping we will have nuclear weapons in North Korea, Iran, Japan and God knows where else. We will be less safe than before.

When I read that the U.N. will “urge” North Korea to cancel its nuclear tests, I get the “urge” to throw up.

This should be self evident I guess.

Perhaps if she was president she would have attacked N korea as soon as the missiles were launched. maybe not. But the bottom line is, unless she is president, she doesn’t make that call. She serves at the pleasure of the president.

(Under Billy Boy that line had a different meaning)