winter wrote: 
Friends are one thing, alliances between nation states are something else entirely.  Good relations are a good thing, permanent alliances are not.  Besides, if we mind our own business the chances of going to war - or making alliances - are much reduced.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Well, with all due respect to the Father of Our Country, I disagree. It's a bit late to go looking for friends when you need help moving, IMO. ("Dude! I just met you and you seem totally cool! Want to help me haul my furniture up and down stairs next Saturday?")

And if you're only a friend when you need something, are you a true friend or just a user? 

 winter wrote: 
I don't have a fly by link but that is not what was mentioned. Pretty sure.

 winter wrote: 
On this we shall agree to disagree.

I don't want a wall, just an unwillingness to interfere in the affairs of others.  George Washington argued in his farewell address that alliances are dangerous things, sometimes necessary in war but never in peace.  I don't see that that fundamental bit of wisdom has any less validity today.

 oldslabsides wrote: 

Big picture? We're all interconnected, like it or lump it. The oceans are a lot narrower than they were, and the cost of living behind a wall far outweighs the benefits, IMO.

 kurtster wrote: 
I don't think they've got any reason to attack us first. Their bombs aren't even as big as the first ones we built back in WWII. Yes, they're still dangerous - but consider that the inevitable counterattack (even with conventional weapons) would be far worse than anything they could dish out, and there's just no profit to be gained from striking first. 

I think the North Koreans and the Iranians both learned from Iraq: if you're going to bluster around at odds with the US, you'd better have actual WMDs instead of fake ones to back up all that hot air. Also it's a useful blackmail tool for the North Koreans - even if they can't hit us, they can hit Japan or South Korea pretty easily. 

Options? Keep talking, first and foremost. Work with the Chinese to pressure the North Koreans. If China stops supporting Kim Jong-Il, his regime's days are numbered - and he knows it. His obsession with isolationism and an excessively strong military has bankrupted his country. It's only a matter of time before it all falls apart. 

 winter wrote: 
I can live with the shame of the mistakes of past leadership.  Minding one's own business hardly seems shortsighted to me.

I think the "suitcase" bomb threat has been overstated in an attempt at fear mongering.  If it were really that easy, someone would have done it by now.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Well, they're working on resolving that. And since all you really have to do anymore is sell a bomb to some fanatical proxies and let them figure out how to deliver it, that whole "out of range"  scenario is fast becoming meaningless.

Besides, we committed to helping the South Koreans and Japanese protect themselves. It'd be shameful (and shortsighted) to renounce those agreements now that the going's gotten tougher. 

I know I'll get called an isolationist - at the least - but since North Korea has no weapons which are a threat to the US, the US doesn't have a dog in this fight.  Our military presence in South Korea (and a lot of other places) should be ended.  We are not the world's cop, dammit.

A lot of our current foreign policy problems can be traced to us sticking our nose where it doesn't belong; we should stop doing that.

 winter wrote: 

That's right we don't. The last ones were dismantled by Bush in 2003.  I don't have a solution for NK, other than a non existant weapon.

My point is through the process of talking to no end, the horse is out of the barn.  Closing the barn doors after the horse has escaped is meaningless.  All we can do is wait, we already have lost control of the situation. 

I am not advocating the genocide of the NK's, we don't have the right.  But if NK builds a missile and makes a successful nuclear attack on US territory, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  And we are effectively powerless to stop them.  Same with Iran.  Only proxies can act on our behalf, and I don't know of any willing to do so.

The burden clearly falls on the Chinese to solve the NK problem.  They created the monster, now they must slay the monster.  We should pull out of the region militarily and let the locals solve it themselves.  Perhaps my frustration is showing, but do we have any vital interests to protect in the region anymore ?  Guess I am in over my head here.

 jadewahoo wrote: 
There are other ways - better ways - than inflicting that kind of horror on the North Koreans. And while someone builds nuclear weapons and missiles to threaten us and our allies, they look like the bad guys. We irradiate their cities and we're going to look like the bad guys for a very long time to come. Talk about a great way to make new enemies all over the world!

 kurtster wrote: 
A) We don't have any neutron bombs. Several nations can make them, but none are presently known to deploy any.

B) Odds are the leadership of North Korea have their own bunkers to hide in. Odds are the people of North Korea - already starving and suffering - don't. I don't know about you, but I don't consider "well, you should've picked a better country to be born in" much of a guilt assessment.

C) Seriously? You're okay with adopting the same rationale as al Qaeda? "It is unfortunate that the citizens of a nation should suffer as a direct result of its leadership. But we have as a nation and have been attacked for that reason only." So if it's only "unfortunate" that the innoncent should suffer for the wicked, where do we get off being outraged at a few thousand "unfortunate losses" on 9/11? Isn't that just the cost of doing business on the international scale? Would you perhaps like to explain to the parents of the kids who died in the Oklahoma City bombing that their chidlren's deaths were "unfortunate", but McVeigh needed to make a point about our increasingly tyrannical government and the poor little buggers just happened to be between the bomb and the Feds? It's immoral to kill innocent US citizens because their leadership is doing stuff you disagree with, but it's fine to inflcit far heavier casualties elsewhere for the same reason? I guess the Athenians were right: "the strong do as they will, the weak suffer as they must".

If negotiation and diplomacy fail - a distinct possibility here - we have all kinds of trained commandos and precision-guided weapons. Maybe it's very difficult to find exactly the right snake's head to hack, but that doesn't mean we should set fire to the forest and hope for the best. 

 jadewahoo wrote: 
right jadewahoo, this is precisely what i mean bad vibes ars good for nothing just bing them real gifts as every day the whole day is much more fun let eg. your president say something like this instead, nono lets put N korea on the spot off bad boy ,anyway;

PEACESUCKERS(mr.T)

 kurtster wrote: 
Neutron bombs? Neutron bombs? Do you have any fucking idea of the cancer rate induced by a neutron bomb? Do you have any idea of the toll of human suffering caused by cancer? Uh-huh. And still you are suggesting that we, as a nation, subject the innocent peoples of Korea, who are struggling merely to survive beneath the weight of a despotic dictatorship, to cancer of horrific proportions? Kurt, shame on you.

 sirdroseph wrote: 

Let Japan go Nuclear, China will more than likely shut lil Kim down, one way or the other. The last thing China wants to see is a Japan with Nukes.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Neutron bombs.  They were designed for just these kinds of occasions.  Its is unfortunate that the citizens of a nation should suffer as a direct result of its leadership.  But we have as a nation and have been attacked for that reason only.  So what makes NK different from us in that regard ?  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, even if the few measures in the millions, versus the many which measures in the billions.  The time has come to shit or get off the pot.  Are we gonna call the shots or merely react to the actions of a crazy madman ?  Remember, when dealing with crazy, THERE ARE NO RULES !

Or we withdraw from the world stage, bring all our troops home, isolate ourselves and lock down our borders (like that's gonna happen).  And wait for the shit to come to us while the rest of the world goes crazy.  Fallout from an overseas nuclear war will kill us in the end regardless.  Waltzing Matilda, anyone ?

 kurtster wrote: 
And the alternative is.........?

 katzendogs wrote: 
Yup.  Another test for our new prez, just as Biden had predicted.  Iran is providing assistance with missile technology and hanging around there in NK watching the tests and looking to buy warheads.  No big deal, business as usual.  China can deal with NK and Israel can deal with Iran.  We sure as hell are unable and unwilling.  We should take the European approach and just appease everyone.  Appeasement has a long record of success. 

From what I recall from last summer's winning election campaign, talking is the answer for everything.  Besides, what I've heard all my life is that "talk is cheap" and we are broke.  So be it.

 JustineFromWyoming wrote: 
Mmm, brings us back to the turnips and radishes we were speaking of earlier.  Ya sure you couldn't get some kimchi going by the time we get back there in a month or so? Kimchi makes even Budweiser taste good.

(But you sure don't look Korean)

 katzendogs wrote: 
It was on my mind this morning. I had 4 sessions of classes with teachers from Incheon scheduled today beginning at 6 am, teaching English. Two simply didn't attend. The third's session was all about today's funeral of former President Roh. It was estimated that over 500,000 attended the service. I watched a unedited clip from the LA Times site and saw many physical confrontations during the proceedings. Many are just devastated by this and it's not helped that the current S. Korean president is far more conservative and downright aggressive than President Roh was during his administration. My last session this morning was less than 5 minutes. My student was visibly upset and asked if we could talk another time. Of course I gave her my condolences and best wishes during this difficult time in her country.

Another of my students is secret service detail for the Blue House (S. Korea's home of their president). We talked 3 weeks ago and he mentioned at that time that he was upset that there was a scandal surfacing involving his former boss. I sure hope he schedules another session with me soon because I'm anxious to talk with him about the situation. 

Finally, one of my students, who has Kim Jung as part of his name, is a ringer for the whacko that's in Pyongyang. I think Kim Jong-il had a girlfriend in Incheon about 18 years ago... 

Holy crap! I just looked at the Wikipedia page and Kim Jong-il and I have the same birthday.  Gruesome family history.  Ewwwww...