Nuclear tests in North Korea have, according to them happened. The US intelligence agencies responsible for knowing what happened… don’t.
Kim Jong-il is full of bluster, Japan is hopping mad, South Koreans are protesting in the streets…

Korean test seen as only partial blast
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 13, 2006

Four days after North Korea tried to set off its first nuclear bomb, U.S. intelligence agencies think the blast detected by seismic sensors was a plutonium-fueled device that did not fully explode.
“The working assumption is that what happened, more likely than not, was an attempted nuclear test that fell far short of being successful,” said one U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence assessment.
There is still no confirmation that North Korea succeeded in creating a nuclear explosion, and so far no radioactive particles that would confirm a successful nuclear test have been detected. The Washington Times first reported Tuesday that U.S. officials were having doubts, based on preliminary data, about North Korea’s boasts about having successfully tested its first nuclear device.
The latest intelligence estimates of Monday’s test at a nuclear test site near Kilju, in northeastern North Korea, put the size of the blast at 0.2 kilotons, or the equivalent of 200 tons of TNT. A plutonium-fueled nuclear device normally creates a much larger blast, in the range of 5 kilotons to 20 kilotons. A kiloton is the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.
The detected explosion likely was produced by the conventional high-explosives used to split the plutonium atoms and produce a nuclear explosion, one official said. A second official said, “There was a yield that was in the several hundred ton range, but it at least partially failed.”
Complete analysis of the data could take weeks, the officials said.
Plutonium-fueled bombs use a core of plutonium that is surrounded by conventional high explosives. High-speed electronic triggers are used to set off the high explosives, which apply pressure to the plutonium and produce the nuclear blast.
According to officials, the North Koreans informed China’s government that the test they planned to carry out would produce a 4-kiloton explosion. That size indicates the North Koreans were trying to test a small warhead that likely would fit on a missile. The North Koreans have several types of ballistic missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, medium-range Nodong and shorter-range Scuds.
Still, the top U.S. military official was noncommittal when asked yesterday by reporters whether North Korea’s detected explosion was nuclear or merely conventional.
“It is not yet determined — with any degree of assurance — what exactly they tested,” said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Other explanations for the relatively low size of the detected blast include that North Korea did create a small nuclear explosion, but that seismic waves from it — it registered as a 4.2 on the earthquake scale — were muffled by an underground cavern, the officials said.
A third theory that intelligence agencies are examining is that the detected explosion was only a conventional explosion that North Korea is trying to fool the world into believing was a nuclear test, the officials said.
So far, aircraft and other sensors nearby the site of the explosion have not detected any radioactive debris. But while the detection of minute amounts of such materials would confirm a successful nuclear test, the officials warned that even if no sensors detect radioactive particles, a partially successful test would remain a possibility.

News World powers closer to sanctions on N. Korea: “U.N. powers moved closer on Friday to slapping sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test after Washington, responding to China’s concerns, proposed a resolution that specifically rules out milit…

The Herald has an excellent 30-second primer for those unclear on why there’s no military option.–Allah

Kim Jong-il’s army is dug into mountains within 40 miles of the border, protected by layers of rock, steel, and concrete, which make a pre-emptive strike with anything less than nuclear warheads pointless.–Ian Bruce in The Herald

More accurately, then, there’s probably no military option that the American rulers are willing to use. Their pity for the Iranians and the North Koreans amounts to cruelty toward the Israelis and the South Koreans.

I’ve called for their public execution before, and I’m not going to give up until it happens.

RIH, b.j. and shrillary clinton.

Clinton, Bush Follow Same Appeasement Strategy: Two very different administrations and yet one very similar policy when it comes to rogue states and terror-supporting governments: appeasement. In Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick writes that while th…

(It ain’t Michelle, but, hey, we try….)

Those ill tempered liberals have cooked up a few more recipes for disaster, spilling the concoction in their typically sloppy manner, then denying they had anything to do with the mess. As legitimate Americans suffer the latest round of “Dummycrat follies”, it’s time to clear the air.

If you had any doubts about the monumental failings of Bill Clinton, let this fact laden blogpost put your mind at ease. Yes, it’s true: Clinton was not only a liar and serial rapist/molester, but his bungling resulted in the deaths of thousands of American men, women, and children at the hands of Islamic murderers. It is also true Clinton’s legacy involves a very dangerous situation on the Korean penisula. Of all the foibles and stumbles of the “Klintoon Kampers”, the North Korean saga may prove to be the deadliest.

Let’s not revisit every Clinton malfeasance. You don’t have time and I don’t have the temperment. (You’ll get bored and I’ll go bitch slap some liberal.) But, let’s review the North Korean situation in its proper context, then add just a dash of the soon-to-backfire Democratic Mark Foley “outrage” to this visit of what’s right and reasonable.

If you are a liberal — or one of the enablers in the Democratic Party — possessing the gall to suggest the current crisis involving North Korea is the making of George W. Bush, please find the nearest high rise building, climb to the roof, and swan dive into the dumpster below. Just as the lion’s share of failure to defend against Al Qaeda’s attack on US interests (that would include New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania pastureland) lies with Clinton and his operatives, boasts from the clinically insane North Korean leadership clique of having conducted a nuclear detonation are more residue of the Clinton adminstration. North Korea could only dream of possessing a nuclear weapon — China and Russia would never arm them with such a capability — before Ross Perot ushered the Clinton era into America’s history. It took a bungling moron like Clinton to transform a rock tossing loudmouth into a nuclear armed blackmailing bully.

North Korea is a military state. Everything they do revolves around their armed forces. American liberals cower and shudder at the prospect of actually confronting such a dedicated entity. Of course, American liberals cower and shudder at the prospect of disarming inner city teenagers, so naturally, a nation of psychotic militants will most certainly loosen their bowels. Enter one lying, sex consumed shyster named Clinton. Add the most ill advised foreign policy in American history (well, it’s hard to run Jimmy Carter off the number one spot, but we must in this case), and millions of Asians now live under the very real threat they soon will die in a nuclear blast. Thanks to Clinton’s legacy on failing to curb Al Qaeda’s growth worldwide, North Korea may very soon become the chief exporter of nuclear weapons to terrorists. What’s a few hundred million dollars between friends?

North Korea demands bilateral discussions with the US. Anyone care to know why? I spent a tour guarding UN/US interests in the Korean DMZ, standing toe to toe with North Korean guards. Those “one on one’s” with the North Koreans at Panmunjom didn’t accomplish anything but temper my desire to smash those punks into puddles of bloody goo. It is safe to assume the KPA personnel we personally met didn’t come away with any “warm and fuzzy” feelings after having spent time with the resident American soldiers. It’s all ego driven. To sit across from the US delegation, spewing propaganda, beating their bony little chests, and trumpeting their “relevance” would be the high point of their day.

If the North Koreans press another military confrontation on the Korean penisula, the stakes will be raised to new levels, thanks to Clinton, Albright, Berger, et. al. Now, not only will the US, South Korea, and their allies be forced to inflict massive blows early, battlefield commanders must have nuclear armed resources cocked and loaded. While every big fight has a nuclear component, that option would not be raised unless conventional weapons are judged incapable or the enemy’s use of nuclear weapons are imminent. North Korea is begging to be destroyed by the US military; it is up to the North Koreans how that is accomplished.

A conventional conflict in Korea would be very costly in innocent lives. South Korea is a prosperous and lively nation of fifty million hard working souls. The North Koreans would inflict casualties on the South Korean population just to terrorize them into not taking up the fight. Lobbing missiles and artillery into South Korean population centers is about all the North Koreans can accomplish — their military would be defeated in short order by the vastly improved South Korean armed forces, supported directly by US forces in the region.

Fortunately, the North Koreans don’t have the delivery system for a nuclear weapon in their current inventory. Fortunately, the North Koreans don’t possess the technology for building nuclear warheads that will fit on missiles. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton and company gave them the ability to acquire and develop both. Just ask the Chinese how well those ballastic guidance systems work on their newly developed ballastic missile inventory. The Chinese military drinks a toast to Bill Clinton and the morons in his administration every night.

You get the picture. A couple of days ago, the junior senator from New York, Clinton’s wife, Hillary, declared it was the “failed policies” of the Bush adminstration responsible for the North Korean situation. Only a sheer moron would fall for that. Or, employees of several liberal news organizations.

Finally, once the investigations into this clown Mark Foley have concluded, it will be revealed Democrats sat on this idiot’s instant messages to teenagers until they felt some political advantage could be taken. By insisting GOP leadership be held accountable for the conduct of a liberal Democrat pretending to be Republican is more hyprocrisy brewed in the liberal kitchen of all things hypocritical. Democrats are the party of failure because they are failures. They spin, twist, lie, cheat, and distort. Thankfully, Americans don’t tolerate their foolishness for very long. Not anymore — and not when the stakes are so incredibly high. Be it the handling of some homosexual idiot like Foley or a deranged lunatic like Kim Jong Il, America needs nothing from Democrats except to watch the tailights of the bus — hauling the whole damned bunch into the septic tank of history — vanish over the horizon.

Allah’s got the details here…….

And I thought the 9th Circus Court had the monoply on three-ring events. It seems that Russia and China are not in favor of hard sanctions against North Korea in response to their non-nuclear test earlier this week. And is anyone surprised by this d…

Then open the borders and deflate the balloon from the bottom of the food chain.

This may be the opposite of the current philosophy but a peaceful resolution to an ugly situation might be an incentive.

The border is hardly all controllable by the Koreans and if the peasant class will start sneaking across (we have proof this works) in large enough numbers, the majority of the country will want to follow.

Korea is a fragile enough economy that a flood of refugees (sound familiar) would make the regime fail.

In China’s case, Japan’s already a client state but they’re not ready to drop their nuclear taboo. We can’t put a gun in their hand if they won’t take it.

If North Korea continues rattling its saber, Japan will almost certainly re-arm … it would be suicidal for them not to do so. And as far as nukes goes … I figure once the taboo drops (which it is precariously close to dropping now), it would take all of about 15 minutes for the Japanese to build one that works, unlike the Norks or Iranians.

China and Russia had better wake up or they are going to end up in a strategially worse station than they would if they put the brakes on Mr. Ronery.

NYT link, so here’s the skinny. “Experts” (whatever) argue plausibly that the Norks seek nukes not to blackmail the West, but because they are accutely aware their conventional military will be quickly decimated in a conventional war. The military i…

Did anyone not predict that Russia and China would prevent sanctions from being imposed on North Korea, making the Bush administration look foolish? What is the strong response going to be, President Bush? I don’t blame Japan for losing all confidence in us.

So … the world’s leaders apparently feel “illicit activities such as counterfeiting, money-laundering or narcotics” and “abuses of the international financial system” are all okay?

Could we have been any more wrong about Condoleezza being the future of the Republican Party? The world blows her off as if she’s Jimmy Carter.

that China is the problem — and not an asset toward developing solutions.

Expansionist China’s global strategy includes using proxies to create threats and low-level wars in multiple theatres (i.e. near Iran and Venezuela) so that the US becomes unwilling to respond anywhere.

Well, DUH.

If Japan becomes a nuclear power, it will be because the Japanese recognize that we have become a useless friend, and they had better start looking after themselves.

Using North Korea as a proliferation proxy gives China plausible deniability as it creates rogue states protected by nuclear deterrants. Our own politicians and bureaucrats have a vested interest in pretending China is an ally against North Korea, because this means our diplomacy-as-usual can continue, and no action need be taken against China itself.

Such a posture is merely a form of temporizing, of being seen as working together with other large nations to forge diplomatic solutions. The end result is that China and Russia have a free hand to create nuclear weapons-equipped nations around the world as they wish.”

Even the Islamists are afraid of China in my eyes.

Watching intently from the sidelines: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And more, many more.

This really SUCKS! I don’t know if what I feel is worry , or a little fear for the first time.