N. Korea Suggests It Can Strike U.S. First

Thanks a bunch for bringing pre-emptive war doctrine back into fashion, Bush.

unfortuneatly he is dragging all of us with him

Whatever made him think that such a strategy would be ours, and ours alone?

Anyone could have seen this coming. So...does that move North Korea ahead of Iran on our Next Country To Hit list?

but W_rong was also advised that it likely WOULD happen way back when he first started pushing his doctrine of pre-emption.

Jeebus. We'd be at war already.

I don't think Bush**ler or DarthCheney would mind one bit if California got nuked.
He might even help them do it.
:nuke::scared:

n/t

I wasn't really counting Alaska. It isn't exactly a target-rich environment.

If preemption for any hunch is policy for us, I don't see how we can deny it to all other nations. Sovereign nations and international law have been replaced by, "I've got a gut feeling."

we know too much about how they cooked the intel to give him even that much.

he went into iraq
(a) to get revenge on saddam / "finish the job" poppy started;
(b) to disrupt oil supplies to keep prices high for domestic oil company profits;
(c) to be in a good position to control all of the middle east's oil; and
(d) to permit the defense industry to binge at the trough of american bloodlust.

it had NOTHING to do with democracy, wmds, freedom, liberation, defense, or any other crap this administration has pretended was a rationale.

(d) to permit the defense industry to binge at the trough of american bloodlust.

Many of the same patriotic companies are also running congress and helping us vote while they're keeping us safe through the Homeland Security Dept. of Wealth Transfer.

:patriot:

THAT'S the iraqi war coalition.

Another reason for invasion was long-term economic strategy--call it imperial survival. See this 2003 analysis by George Monbiot:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,897766,00.html

Reap what bush sows.

I know that you know what I am thinking about writing, and likewise I know about the FLAME you are planning for me.

Therefore, let me say, pre-emtively: screw the whole stupid freeping lot of you, and a pox upon your genetic strain unto the Billioneth Generation of your malformed offspring.

Oh no, you won't. I'll pre-empt your pre-emption. Not if I pre-empt you first..."

This is heavy intellectual stuff, this Neo-Con pre-emption policy.

Bush has made it safe for such military strategies. It's actually wise from a strategic standpoint. If Saddam Hussein had followed this strategy, it would have proven far more costly to the US war effort.

No, wait, Dubya only invades countries that don't have WMD's. That means Canada had better get some so it doesn't get invaded.

But part of MAD is claiming you could if you wanted to.

This is the world we live in now, and have lived in since the late 1940's.

Bush's mental health is dubious, ditto for the rest of his cabinet. Furthermore, he is influenced to some unknown degree by christian rapturists. Futhermore, he's got the Pentagon drafting up policy positions on the use of small tactical nukes.

I don't know much about Kim Jong, but I've read various people who claim he's not quite all there either.

I truly don't know what any of that really means, if anything. But I no longer rest easy in the assumption that no leader would ever be crazy enough to go nuclear.

So far we have had Stalin and Nixon, each of whom was pretty near certifiable at times. Thatcher was pretty nuts, Reagan was verging on senile, and Mao might not have been all there at times.

I wonder if a leader really can order a nuclear strike all on his own, or if others in the command chain have some kind of practical override?

I guess we have to hope for the best. I agree with you about both Bush and Kim Jong.

others in the chain of command can also choose to disobey such an order. That might be construed as mutiny, or treason, or something. But they could do it, and clearly, a reasonable person might consider avoiding a nuclear war worth being courtmarshalled.

It seems that Bush believes he has been given the authority to order pretty much anything he pleases. Unitary Executive, Commander In Chief During War Time, etc. Whether or not he ever gets it in his head to order nuclear strikes is a matter for speculation.

The kind of nuttiness that really, really scares me is this rapturist business. A guy like Stalin, Mao or Kim Jong might be nuts, but their nuttiness includes some measure of rational self interest. Rapturists, on the other hand, consider the end of the world as a cause for celebration. The end of the world is literally what they live for, what they pray for. And some of them consider it their responsibility to help make it happen.

Otherwise, as you say, it is pretty scary. Ditto for leaders in other countries, including but not limited to Iran.

Of the closest the world came to nuclear holocaust. I wish I still had a link to it but the basic story goes like this - a Soviet satellite detects a thermal bloom from an area known to be used by US mobile ICBM launchers. The predicted flight time is something like 30 minutes. So with tension high, the Soviets decide that this is it and order a full scale retaliatory strike.

The man with his finger on the launch button however hesitates. He has a gut feeling something is wrong. Only one bloom was detected when there should have been dozens or hundreds. He hesitates some more. The leadership is going ape - believeing a traitor was dooming them all to death WITHOUT retaliation, and threaten him and his entire family.

Yet he hesitates. He can't push the button, he has come to the decision that this is NOT an attack and that HE would be dooming the world if he pushes the launch button.

Finally the "time on target" (the time the warhead is expected to detonate) passes. No nuclear explosion. They wait some more. Nothing. Finally the Kremlin calms down and orders the missile batteries to stand down. Subsequently it is discovered that a glitch in the satellite created a false thermal reading that prefectly mimiced an ICBM launch. There was no launch, just a bug.

If this man had not gone with his gut, full on nuclear war would have occured, with all the death and destruction that entails. One man and a button. It was that close. And no one outside the Soviet Union knew it until well after the fall of the USSR.

What do you think the reaction of the Soviet leadership was? Well they were horrifed that this one man was able to basically stand down their entire nuclear aresnal, so they ordered - and received - a new automated system setup so that once THEY triggered it, nothing could stop it. If that system had been in place that day, the world as we know it would have ceased to exist.

The US has long had such a system - hence the "Football". Basically the nuclear missiliers are constantly drilled with what appears to be genuine launch orders. Over and over again they start "the end of the world" only to be relieved when the missiles don't actually launch. They essentially become desensitised to the orders. They do it so much with nothing happening that the day the genuine order comes they will still think it is a drill. They will go through all the same motions, push all the same buttons, expecting nothing to happen, but it will. By the time they realise this ISNT just another drill, it will be too late.

back in 2002, now they pipe up when they're being ignored over Iran.

The answer is what 8-9, 16? This makes Bush wmd case for the Iraq war, and the sabre rattling against Iran over nukes inane. The worst country in the world is making nukes with impunity and Bush has not done a damn thing about it. Yet he is using the thin threat of these other countries potentially working towards the same thing as a basis for war? The only way to rationalize this is that the current admin only moves against nations it thinks it can safely bully. A chickenshit mentality.

strike. I say this is a good move by North Korea. If we invade Iran, look for Kim Jong lifts to send some missiles our way, that is if he has them that can reach the main land. Our Commander in Idiots coming invasion of Iran will start WWIII.

that's the plan right?

Bush and whatever that guy's name is in NK.

is Kim Jong Il.

I don't know about his being a swaggering asshole, but everything I've seen about him tends to indicate a certain level of instability in his character. In fact, much of what I've seen makes me tend to believe he's as unstable as W_rong, but with greater intelligence and a greater willingness to sacrifice the children of his nation on the altar of patriotism.

Anyone feel sick to the gut yet?

Il is insane. He would do anything for military power. Tony Hall, late of the UN and formerly my Congressional Representative, made several trips to North Korea to assess its hunger crisis. This man (Il) would rather spend money on nukes rather than simple food stuffs to feed kids. Hall's aide (who ran for his seat but lost to a shameless Bush toadie) said they saw people on the sides of roads literally looking for seeds to eat -- the food crisis there is that desperate.

I've always seen North Korea as a bigger threat than Iraq. Too bad W doesn't feel the same.

Can we just deal with that first, before they acquire nuclear weapon capabilities, please?

the moron.

I just had a grin at the thought of North Korea DEMANDING we give up our nuclear weapons OR ELSE. Whoa. Sometimes the idea that the US gets to decide who gets the killer toys just strikes me as absurd.

years.

Man, we are going to go apeshit on North Korea. This is over the top. No cowboy like George is gonna take that shit. What kind of a pussy do they think he is? :sarcasm:

are far enough away to be an unlikely target. sigh.

:scared:

"Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States." Pre-emptive strike is only used against regional powers. I doubt China would allow NK to have a nuke.