US action in Iraq + US action (or lack there of) in NK + policy of preemption = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59498-2003Feb11.html quote: Over the past 12 months, Tenet said, North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Libya have all moved to obtain equipment to produce weapons-grade nuclear materials and the ability to deliver them as nuclear bombs.
Well, they had better get moving then. We have a 5,000 warhead head start on them. Arms race indeed. Two nukes makes you a kook with nukes (and a starving populace). 500 nukes makes you a world power. Besides none of these lunatics has a delivery system more reliable than, "Smuggle weapon into United States and detonate." Only NK has a missile with range and throw weight more than my right foot, and it's still far short of hitting the continental US. All these are liquid fueled weapons that require scads of infrastructure and stick out like Courtney Love's tits on satellite imagery. Believe me, we know where they are. Iraq and Iran all have SCuD variants with ranges less than 1,200 miles. At worst they threaten Israel. But they don't want to mess with Israel. Can you say, "Assured destruction?" Even the Chinese, the only other nation considered a serious nuclear threat has only figured out the solid-rocket thing in the last eight years or so and probably only has ten or so boosters capable of hitting the far western US. When China postures and says, "Is the US willing to trade Los Angeles for Taiwan" they are boasting. They mean Seattle. (Nuke Redmond, please!)
The CIA are just a bunch of commies. I made that obvious point before (and talkingpointsmemo.com has been riding that horse pretty hard too.) The Bushies' policies toward NoKo and Iraq are just nakedly counterproductive.
That is false. It has been known for awhile that N.Korea can hit the West Coast. In fact, it was brought up again just today: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/12/us.nkorea/index.html Sleep tight left coasters...
Exactly. Now those in FEAR of a West Coast annihilation via NK Super-Scud...that would get the North Koreans WHAT exactly...other than the end of their society?
Not quite. Key phrase in this Yahoo! Reuters article: "Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said North Korea had a three-stage Taepodong 2 missile that could reach the West Coast of the United States. But he added: "It has not been tested." See again above regarding Ms. Love and her boobies. Look man, if Mr. Dear Leader gets squirrely with his nuke(s) both he and the nukes will have a lifespan measured in minutes.
Quality post, but I just wanted to question this logic. You must know that under 2% of all cargo that comes into the USA through the west coast ports is inspected, right? So, let us say they are inspecting the cargo, which would be a few miles off the coast if suspicious or already in port... Boom! Close enough to still do much damage.
Page down on your link it says --> Sources and Resources "Chinese missile to threaten U.S. by 2000" By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES May 23, 1997. Does Bill Gertz really know anything about China? By the way, if NK sent one nuke to LA, and US sent 10 to Pingyang, who would lose more? Nukes are so hot right now them are like SUVs.
Here are some of the images of the North Korean nuclear facility taken in late Janurary. Notice the smoke stack shows that the power plant is active. reprocessing facility The smoke stack in actually coal powered, but it indicates that the reprocessing plant is now active. steam plant that provides power to reprocessing facility According to the site globalsecurity.org that facility was shut down one week later. quote from globalsecurity.org: Subsequent imagery, taken one week later, suggests but does not confirm unambiguously that the coal-fired steam plant appeared to have ceased operation. This sequence suggests that the operation of the plant in early January may have been intended to evaluate the readiness of the facility to support eventual reprocessing. The later imagery, suggesting that operations may have halted, is consistent with an interpretation that reprocessing has not begun. In the early 1990's, the Clinton Administration identified reprocessing as a "red line" activity that might provoke an American military strike against Yongbyon.
China is helping N. Korea with both missles and nuclear technology North Korea is an extremely poor country, and could not develop such good missle technology without clandestine help from an outside source. It is common knowledge that China helped Pakistan develop both its' nuclear bomb and short-range ballistic missles. China has also given missle technology to Iran's ballistic missle program, and once used a North Korean company to sell banned missle components to Middle Eastern countries. China is North Korea's largest trading partner and provides 70% of the crude oil that country uses. If they wanted to stop North Korea's nuclear or missle programs they could. Instead China sells 20 tons of tributyl phosphate in December to North Korea, which is commonly used to extact material for nuclear bombs from spent nuclear fuel. I think mainland China is helping North Korea with both its nuclear program and missle programs, and North Korea is a proxy for China's hope to destablize the region. They have a saying in China. "China and North Korea are as close as lips and teeth." We are fools for trading with mainland China until it develops some form of representative government. We should not be trading with that country, and should insted help economically those countries that would contribute to a more stable world like India. Just something to think about next time you see Made In China on something you buy.
Re: China is helping N. Korea with both missles and nuclear technology That and the slave labor that goes into the cheap Wal-Mart crap that Americans love so much.