Korea
Paul Melville Austin
I don't normally jump on the
end-of-the-world-worst-case-scenario-doom-and-gloom bandwagon - but I
think the world became a much more dangerous place.
At present it seems the world community (at least as reflected by the
UN) is prepared to act as one. Supposedly there was a security council
meeting this morning where nobody defended North Korea and the whole
meeting was wrapped up in a remarkable 30 minutes.
But even acting together - what should the nations of the world do?
If sanctions are imposed, North Korea will declare them an act of war
and instigate further provocations.
If we impose economic sanctions, the most likely result will be the
starvation of millions of North Koreans and virtually no effect on Kim
Jong Il.
If we do nothing, North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to anybody who
wants them, including Iran, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.
If we do nothing, other states will see they can develop nuclear
programs with impunity.
If we attack North Korea with conventional forces they will probably
throw a nuclear weapon at Japan or South Korea. Plus, even if they
refrain from a nuclear strike, they have a million man army.
If we threaten a nuclear attack, Kim Jong Il will assume we are
bluffing.
If we really launch a nuclear attack, we bring nuclear war into the
politcal arena as a viable political tool. Plus we kill many hundreds
of thousands of innocent North Koreans.
So what do we do?
IsaacKuo
Paul Melville Austin wrote:
> So what do we do?
We lob the problem at China and say, "Hot potato!"
China wants to be the next great superpower.
This is their big chance to act like one.
But seriously, if China decides it's in their best
interests to fully participate in a comprehensive
arms blockade of North Korea, the potential
problem of them selling nukes to others can
be controlled.
Isaac Kuo
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
Paul Melville Austin wrote:
> If we do nothing, North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to anybody who
> wants them, including Iran, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.
I seriously doubt Al Queda or Hezbollah can afford Kim's prices, and in
any event he can probably be bribed into keeping his bombs to himself.
Bruce
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
Paul Melville Austin kirjoitti:
> But even acting together - what should the nations of the world do?
Not give a damn.
Okay, some weirdo in Asia just happens to be bellowing "our words are
backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" So what? Jesus Christ, this ain't
"Civilization". Just ignore the bloody idiot.
Assuming that the folks in Beijing or Tokyo are concerned, well, it's
_their_ problem.
> If we do nothing, North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to anybody who wants them, including
> Iran, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.
The last two couldn't afford Kim's prices even if the Junior for some
odd reason wanted to enlist them as customers, and Iran can make its
own bombs, thank you very much.
(I'm not particularly troubled by the idea of the mullahs having a
bomb, either. If some dude who thinks that his name is written in the
Lamb's book of Life and who claims that he has heard divine voices in
his head instructing him to invade Mesopotamia can have access to the
WMDs, hey, by all means, give the same privilege to the Ayatollah.
Perhaps after that, the Vatican will think twice before issuing
Byzantine quotations in public. Incidentally, I'm reminded of the fact
that the world doesn't have a Catholic Bomb yet. What the hell, perhaps
the Kaczynski twins will detonate one and drop it on Lukashenko. The
more the merrier.)
> If we do nothing, other states will see they can develop nuclear programs with impunity.
Um, so? The Non-Proliferation Treaty is pretty much a dead letter,
anyway.
Cheers,
Jalonen
Dennis Brennan
jussi....@faf.mil.fi wrote:
>Incidentally, I'm reminded of the fact
> that the world doesn't have a Catholic Bomb yet.
*cough*France*cough*.
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
Dennis Brennan kirjoitti:
> jussi....@faf.mil.fi wrote:
>
> >Incidentally, I'm reminded of the fact that the world doesn't have a Catholic Bomb yet.
>
> *cough*France*cough*.
Since it's a secular republic where the division between the religion
and the state is observed even more strictly than in the United States,
I left it out on purpose.
I'm not _that_ ignorant or absent-minded.
Cheers,
Jalonen
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
So which Catholic countries would be non-secular enough for their bomb
to be a "Catholic" one? Ireland has become rather more secular of late,
and I had the impression that the church has become less emotionally
important in Poland now that it no longer has a Communist regime to be
in opposition to. Dunno which parts of Latin America are the more
fervently religious: must it be a Vatican bomb?
best,
Bruce
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
> So which Catholic countries would be non-secular enough for their bomb to be a
> "Catholic" one?
I'll gladly pick the ones that you've mentioned.
> Ireland has become rather more secular of late...
Abortion?
> ... and I had the impression that the church has become less emotionally important in
> Poland now that it no longer has a Communist regime to be in opposition to.
Woo boy. The religion is a fearsome weapon in the Polish politics.
Witness the alliance of the Kaczynski brothers with Father Rydzyk, and
the innovation of capitalizing on the homophobia of practicing
Catholics in the last elections. Let me tell you, the religious right
in the United States are small players compared to these people.
(As I've said before, I'm not a Protestant. But stuff like this makes
me see the wisdom in the Swedish military actions during the 17th
century. Too bad that we didn't manage to finish the business back
then.)
Theoretically the Polish constitution guarantees a freedom of faith
(just like it did back in the Communist times...), but in practice any
non-Catholic group runs the risk of being categorized as a "cult" and
facing immediate political discrimination.
There's also enough unofficial discrimination going on. Vandalization,
violence, stuff like that, and whatnot. The attitude of the Church
towards these matters is... ambivalent.
Not that the Church is particularly monolithic on these issues. The
Polish Church in _itself_ is split on the liberal-conservative line,
and the past exploitation of religion in the national politics only
aggravated the division between the Torun and Kraków factions.
It's perhaps good that John Paul the Second died at the time that he
did, so he didn't have to look at the present godawful mess.
Perhaps there's an ObFuture on the future of religion in the European
politics here, but I can't be bothered to think of one. Watching the
ongoing demonstrations in front of the House of the Parliament,
complete with some weird-ass lunatic quoting the Book of Moses and
listening to the Christian Democratic rhetoric on why the fertility
treatment legislation is an anathema is already making me sick.
I don't care who fornicates with whom, and whether people choose to
beget their offsprings naturally or in ghola vats. As for religion, my
opinion on the so-called "world religions" that were conceived in the
Mid-East is well known. I scorn the people who humble themselves in
front of the crucified Hebrew or the masked Beduin and believe that
this gives them the right to arrogantly spread their sanctimonious crap
all around the globe. Personally, like Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, I
believe that shamanism and the ethics of war are the only _real_
faiths. Blood holds the ultimate truth. From the Gulf of Finland the
Yellow Sun will rise against the Cross and the Crescent, until the
Death bites their tongues off and takes them to the Bardo...
Cheers,
Jalonen
David Tenner
news:1160671494.4...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:
>
> So which Catholic countries would be non-secular enough for their bomb
> to be a "Catholic" one?
How about Argentina? It is true that the 1994 amendments to the 1853
Constitution removed the requirement that the President had to be a Catholic,
but Article 2 still reads "El Gobierno federal sostiene el culto católico
apostólico romano." (The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic
Apostolic religion.)
http://www.senado.gov.ar/web/interes/constitucion/capitulo1.php
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ar00000_.html
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
David Tenner
news:9p1oi216dapnvgb5j...@4ax.com:
>
> So what do we do?
>
Charles Krauthammer has proposed the following US policy:
"*Given the fact that there is no other nuclear power so recklessly in
violation of its nuclear obligations, it shall be the policy of this
nation to regard any detonation of a nuclear explosive on the United
States or its allies as an attack by North Korea on the United States
requiring a full retaliatory response upon North Korea.*
"This is how you keep Kim Jong Il from proliferating. Make him understand
that his survival would be hostage to the actions of whatever terrorist
group he sold his weapons to. Any terrorist detonation would be assumed to
have his address on it. The United States would then return postage.
Automaticity of this kind concentrates the mind."
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/150817
Krauthammer admits that this policy would no longer be possible if Iran
also got the bomb "because a nuclear terror attack would no longer have a
single automatic return address." (To him, this just makes it all the
more urgent to see that Iran does not develop the bomb.) He does not
address the point, however, that even if no additional nations develop
nuclear weapons, we cannot necessarily assume that any terrorist group
with nuclear weapons got them from North Korea. Even if we assume that no
*government* of any other nuclear nation would sell nukes to a terrorist
group, there is always the possibility of a "rogue general"--especially in
Pakistan.
Incidentally, I am not sure that Al Qaeda--to the extent that it still
exists as a centralized organization--could afford to buy a bomb from Kim,
anyway. It probably isn't as rich as some people think. One thing about
terrorism that makes it attractive to groups like Al Qaeda is precisely
that it is inexpensive:
"Firstly, Al Qaeda's terrorism is relatively cheap. The UN report
estimates the Madrid attacks - which killed 191 people in March 2004- only
cost about $10,000 (£5,600).
"The Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002 killed 202 people and cost
less than $50,000 (£28,000), as did the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania.
"Only the 11 September 2001 attacks cost more - the 9/11 commission
estimated that the plotters eventually spent between $400-500,000 (£223-
280,000) to plan and conduct their attack."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3606384.stm
I doubt that even Kim is crazy enough to sell nukes for *that* kind of
price...
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
eatfastnoodle
North Korea's conventional army is a joke, it simply doesn't have the
oil needed to fight a conventional war assuming China doesn't
intervene, not to mention its horribly outdated equipment and
not-that-high morale(North Korea soldiers often sneak into China to
steal things, that's not a good sign), as for its nuclear weapon, aside
from the mystery surrounding its latest "nuclear test", which still
doesn't convince me of its authenticity, I doubt North Korea has the
capability to nuke anybody except maybe part of South Korea. Still,
North Korea is very secure at least for now, the US, specifically, the
Bush administration, simply doesn't have the political capital to
launch another war, and although China is seriously pissed off by North
Korea, China have even less options than the US in term of dealing with
Kim Dynasty, it can cut North Korea off, but that will put so much
pressure on North Korea that it may well collapse, that will deprive
China of a buffer state between US military force and Chinese mainland,
and rid China of a potential power card whenever China decides to deal
with Taiwan(many Chinese believe China can offer to give up North Korea
if the US agrees not to support Taiwan, nobody knows how Chinese
leaders think about that, but quite a few in Chinese academia believe
the issue of North Korea can help China, to a certain extent, avoid
fighting the US or at least frustrate the US enough so that the US
won't come to Taiwan's aid in a timely manner if China attacks), plus,
the paramount issue in China is stability and economic growth, having a
failed state or a war next to China certainly won't help China deal
with its unemployed workers and hundreds of millions of peasants.
Therefore, my prediction is that nobody will attack North Korea because
nobody is willing or able to deal with the aftermath, and whatever
sanctions UN security council passes won't have much real effect
because China will bail North Korea out even if North Korea slaps China
in front of the world because China can't afford to lose North Korea
and it can't afford any instability near its border, so the North Korea
nuclear issue will drag on with China being angry and frustrated but
having no choice, US feeling powerless and anxious but can't do
anything, Japan feeling threatened and growing increasingly
nationalistic, South Korea drifting further and further apart from the
US.
Dennis Brennan
jussi....@faf.mil.fi wrote:
> I'm not _that_ ignorant or absent-minded.
I never thought you were. I figured that you had a rationale, which
you've provided.
-D
Dennis Brennan
jussi....@faf.mil.fi wrote:
> I'm not _that_ ignorant or absent-minded.
I never thought you were. I figured that you had a rationale, which
you've provided.
-D