A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention….

A person that will stand up for what they believe is right, despite what their party thinks, despite the fact that it may not “look” popular to those that do not have the same information in front of them, yet they stand firm in their decisions, that…

Would Kimmie be anywhere so brave without the knowledge that he could always count on the protection of the U.N. members who have shafted us every time N.K has escalated the nuke issue to critical? Without the U.N. would Kimmie even have any big friends to play games with?
Maybe China and Russia would have even ‘changed the situation’ by now.
Now we are faced with trying to prevent atomic weaponry from leaving N.K.

With the current diplomatic weenieism at the U.N. perhaps millions (billions?) could die in a cataclysmic nuclear chain reaction.

Disbanding the U.N. could save our lives.

This was definitely not an unsuccessful boosted weapon.

Ya wanna rephrase that and hit me with it again? I think I know what you meant . . .

The problem is, without knowing what the device was capable of, we can’t judge the success or failure based on seismic data. Without knowing the intent of the program, we can’t guess the intended capabilities of the device either.

Broadly speaking, the North Koreans wanted a big bang, and judging from the reaction of ‘the international community’, they got what they wanted.

If the goal is not sustained combat but to deter “casual” airstrikes on North Korea (to decapitate the regime or take out weapons programs) then the artillery is more than adequate for the task. It really constrains our options if there’s nothing between “all out war” and “do nothing”.

The October surprises continue. Will they affect the vote of Evangelicals and Conservative women?……

Under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, what would be the further impact placed upon this region, in the event of accidental launchings, or hushing the effects of a underground test accident?…

I don’t like the North Korean regime or its destabilizing influence in a region of the world where I plan on making my life and where the love of said life lives… but I do like the thought that their weapon design and engineering doesn’t work.

Two 0.5-2KT explosions is not what they were hoping for, methinks.

Another commentator said it best: The North Korean nuclear engineers are now officially the worst ever!

If true.

The artillery alone could be devastating for South Korea. As William C. Triplett II noted in his 2004 book Rogue State, North Korea is capable of firing “between 300,000 and 500,000 artillery shells per hour on the Seoul metropolitan area.

This is all find and dandy but it does not answer the question of what we are capable on inflicting on them, logistally, militarily, and economicaly. They have no logistics or resoures for sustained combat. It’s not 1950 anymore. China would be forced to drop their Charade game with thier little pet cobra and resupply N.K. with logistics and supplies from their incredible network of underground tunnels created between China and N.K. over the past 55 years. These tunnels make the DMZ tunnels to South Korea look like worm holes.

Precision boming them, yes, but they are dug into hardened sites in the sides of mountains, and it would take a while to eliminate them all. Seoul would eat thousands of shells in the meantime.

North Korea tested it’s nuclear weapon over the weekend depite the warning coming from its neighbors, the US and the UN. So much for waiting until the end of the year.The United States said today it will seek U.N. sanctions to curb North Korea’s imp…

I find it strange that he would pull a stunt like this that would help the Bush administration. If he lked working with a democratic administration then wouldn’t he have waite to test after the mid-terms? The Dems who worked so hard with Kim must really be peeved that he ruined their current smear of a gay-republican child molester and thrust national security to the front of the agenda agian. Where is the love? That quintessential moment of the toast with Madeline Albright now really seems like he was playing the dems for all they were worth. Could it actually be that Kim Jong-Il is really a sick man that doesn’t much care who is in power or who he bargains with? That would fly in the face of Harry Reid’s call for a different sort of negotiation or any sort of negotiation for that matter.

Dems: This is a wake up call. SICK REPUGNANT DICTATORS ACTUALLY EXIST!!!

Goes to show that there are some people for whom talk is truly cheap. Kim Jong-Il is one of those people. It is time to stop negotiating and show him that we are not a weak nation and that we are not crippled by our own ridiculous politics. Kim Jong-Il, by testing a nuclear weapon, has called us to arms and action. We need to respond in a meaningful way and I dont mean in a UN meaningful way…

This was definitely not an unsuccessful boosted weapon. The NK’s won’t be able to make, much less test, boosted weapons until they have a working implosion design, which it appears they do not.

I mentioned before that it’s technically possible to make a fission device with a low yield (below 1kt), but it requires a technical capability the NK’s don’t have.

If this was indeed a dud, it probably means a failed implosion device. It makes me wonder why they wouldn’t use a much simpler gun device for an initial test. Perhaps that is yet to come.

CP,

Carpetbombing does little against artillery in bunkers. Precision strikes would be necessary, but there are so many targets that it would take a lot of time. This isn’t even considering the time needed to dismantle the air defense network to allow such strikes. By the time we got to the point in the target list where we can attack the emplaced artillery en-mass – well, let’s just say there would be a lot of rubble in Seoul.

N. Korean test was subsurface…

No, the 1998 Pakistani tests were underground, just like the recent North Korean test.

Without knowing the intent of the program, it would be impossible to know if these tests were ‘duds’, or were intentionally small devices, given the small quantity of plutonium available to North Korea, to prove the validity of the design. Multiple, small detonations could well signal a methodical approach to a sophisticated research and development program.

The most frightening aspect is not that North Korea has apparently developed a working design, but that North Korea would be willing to sell the engineering details to the highest bidder. As difficult as it would be to embargo shipments of hardware, it would be impossible to contain transfers of engineering blueprints.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-06/04/content_448644.htm

Obviously, nuclear non-proliferation is a dead horse, starting with Pakistan, then North Korea, and soon Iran having nuclear weapons.

Nti.org is a 501(c)3 organization founded by Ted Turner, Sam Nunn, and others, but this historical summary appears to be a reasonable representation.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/NK/Nuclear/index.html

Iran and NorK are trying their best to provoke 1) our country into an attack or 2) the American people into civil violence. If the explosions turn out to be a bluff, we can all give thanks for the restraint of the Bush Administration.

If it turns out the explosions were nuclear, well, Iranians were present at the July 4th North Korean missile test. North Korea had to test a nuke before Iran would take delivery and pay.

How about we send you?

Need a ride to the airport, bub?