Report says N Korea they may attack Hawaii?!

[RJDiogenes]

^ I'm not too sure about that. The people there seem to resemble Borg Drones more than people. It's hard to tell how a populace brainwashed from birth will react to an insane order by their equally insane leader.

Maybe, maybe not. I've never been there, so I don't know what it's like. There have been plenty of places where a populace brainwashed since birth has rebelled. And the Soviet politburo found out that those in power can't really take the support of the military for granted.

 

[SPOCKED]

Hmmm. I bet they're trying to target where Obama grew up!

What part of the Dark Continent are they gonna hit?

WTF?? Why are you going there, TLS?

Well what do you suck on when you've got no power? Arrogant, overweening pride.

Kinda like how CleverWombat "owns" TNZ?

And this has WHAT to do with the topic? Get your TNZ out of this forum for cripes sake.

 

[miraclefan]

Hmmm. I bet they're trying to target where Obama grew up!

What part of the Dark Continent are they gonna hit?

WTF?? Why are you going there, TLS?

Well what do you suck on when you've got no power? Arrogant, overweening pride.

Kinda like how CleverWombat "owns" TNZ?

And this has WHAT to do with the topic? Get your TNZ out of this forum for cripes sake.

EXACTLY! thank you SPOCKED, I don't want this thread closed because somebody wanted to play politics. This thread is about the possible threat of NKorea attacking a member of the U.S.A. or any other nation.

 

[Lookingglassman]

They aint going to do this. If so they would be stupid because Kim Il dumb would have just invited us to bomb him back to the stoneage.

 

[miraclefan]

They aint going to do this. If so they would be stupid because Kim Il dumb would have just invited us to bomb him back to the stoneage.

I thought they were already in the stone age?

 

[SicOne]

Well what do you suck on when you've got no power? Arrogant, overweening pride.

Kinda like how CleverWombat "owns" TNZ?

And this has WHAT to do with the topic? Get your TNZ out of this forum for cripes sake.

Well...when he mentioned the words "suck on", "no power", and "arrogant, overweening pride", CW came unbidden and immediately to mind. I see the rest of you nodding right along, gentlemen.

But, my bad, I won't mention it again. Rebuke accepted. Forget I said anything.

Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

 

[Major Chord]

^^No, just an era before color film...

I'm honestly not too concerned about all this. I really doubt that he'd attack America...I mean, even if he is crazy, I don't think he's lost all common sense. And, if he did try anything, a) the attack is thwarted by *insert some fancy countermeasure here*, and we retaliate, destroying the regime, and installing a favorable government (however long this may take, if it were to happen, I'm pretty confident that it would eventually play out like this), or b) an attack succeeds, Americans die. We retaliate, and almost certainly, exponentially more Koreans die than Americans, and we end up destroying the regime, and installing a favorable government.

 

[tharpdevenport]

IF it hit one of those really bad areas that even Dog the Bunty Hunter is skittish about going in, well...


I think it's saber rattling too. But what if he really had lost his little pea-sized brained mind and does strike? I think his followers think he's bluffing, but if he does strike, he may find himself going the way of Ceasar.

 

[SicOne]

The guy looks like he is on Death's door. Maybe he just wants to go out with a bang.

...And given how much of an insane attention whore Kim is, I wouldn't put it past him to trigger some kind of "last hurrah" for his divine dynasty if it came to that.

It's terrifying, really. Kim Jong Ill can send off the nukes and then pass onto the afterlife without having to deal with the decades of repercussions all the while going down as the man who nuked America. With North Korea's hyperbolic propaganda machine I could see him being hailed as the man who ended Western Civilization and brain-washed masses believing it. They could even give his title an upgrade and call him The God of Victory or something like that. *shudders.*

I don't see any of this. Even if a couple of loyal dimwits executed the orders that you suggest. It would be an awful, but fleeting moment. Not long from now, North Korea as we know it will cease to exist. Nothing that country has done, or may do, will have a significant impact during our lives.

An interesting question comes to mind, however...as China was allied with North Korea during the Korean War, and indeed sent troops into NK to fight against United Nations forces, does NK at this time fall under China's nuclear umbrella, much as Japan and South Korea fall under ours? If NK indeed utilizes crude nuclear weapons against South Korea, would China stand idly by while (if) we respond in kind?

Because, according to the downsizing of nukes during the (George H.W.) Bush Administration, the United States allegedly removed all short-range warheads (artillery shells, Lance surface-to-surface missiles, what-have-you) from South Korea; this, combined with the near-elimination of seafaring warheads (i.e. carrier-based aircraft-delivered), would leave us with no effective way to respond to a NK nuclear attack except with (1) bombers, which Chinese interceptors enmasse may deter, (2) Minuteman IIIs, which have never been launched in anger, and (3) Trident SLBMs, which have target packages designed for static targets and are not rapidly retargetable to take advantage of marshalling NK ground forces or movable artillery.

And the Minutemans would have to flyover Russian (and perhaps the edge of Chinese) territory to reach North Korea, while any SLBMs would also have to flyover Russian territory unless fired from the mid-Pacific, in which case the warhead trajectories would also threaten Beijing and much of industrial China.

I guess the biggest question of all is, would the American political leadership respond in kind to a limited nuclear attack on an ally?

 

[Lindley]

Well, the nice thing about being much more advanced in the nuclear arena is that we could send low-yield tactical nukes in if necessary, without inflicting massive civilian casualties. (There would still be some, probably).

So would a US counterattack use nuclear capabilities if NK did first? Maybe. But I think we'd restrict them to military targets as much as possible.

I read a book by John Ringo in which Osama bin Laden kidnaps a bunch of American college girls and threatens to execute them. The girls are saved, of course, and bin Laden is killed in the process. However, to send a message to the country which allowed this to take place, the base he used is then leveled with a minor nuclear warhead. That's the sort of thing I could see happening.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

It's terrifying, really. Kim Jong Ill can send off the nukes and then pass onto the afterlife without having to deal with the decades of repercussions all the while going down as the man who nuked America. With North Korea's hyperbolic propaganda machine I could see him being hailed as the man who ended Western Civilization and brain-washed masses believing it. They could even give his title an upgrade and call him The God of Victory or something like that. *shudders.*

One nuke isn't going to end western civilisation. It'll have the overall effect of ending North Korea's civilisation forever, sure.

I suppose terrifying is a bad choice of words, as it makes it seem like I'm scared of the events in the following sentences myself. So I'll change that to "It's Disgusting, really." Obviously, the United States would go on after such a hypothetical event. But the majority of the citizens of North Korea have little access to information outside of what their Dear Leader and his government give them and if you're not a member of the army you starve. Their government has already stated they have "Invincible Military Might" and so there are people who believe it. If Kim Jung Ill did manage to bomb to Hawaii thousands of brain washed people the worship around him would only sky-rocket.

I guess what I'm saying is that this man can go to his grave thinking of himself as the strongest dictator in the history of the world and he'll be surrounded by a mass of people who also believe that -- and even the people who are wary of the regime will have to pay lip service to him if they don't want to die or go to prison camps. If he were to live long enough after the bombing to have the world on his tail and be taken out of power he'd lose the (perceived) respect of his people and face an unfavorable death and he might be forced to deal with the fact that maybe all of his delusions are just delusions -- at least in his own head; he probably wouldn't admit it out loud to anyone.

I always find it disturbing when people and political entities can distort the truth and people actually believe the distortion. A symbolic gesture like a nuke in Hawaii would just send wave after wave of propaganda and distorted truths in the country.

 

[SicOne]

Well, the nice thing about being much more advanced in the nuclear arena is that we could send low-yield tactical nukes in if necessary, without inflicting massive civilian casualties. (There would still be some, probably).

So would a US counterattack use nuclear capabilities if NK did first? Maybe. But I think we'd restrict them to military targets as much as possible.

Yeah, but I don't know (none of us would really know, actually) if the U.S. military is currently digging low-yield nuclear warheads that we could mate to Tomahawks, bomb guidance packages, et al and dusting them off for possible use. In the Cold War days, that stuff could be made ready within hours (if not immediately ready for use), but nowadays they're all in storage...which significantly reduces their deterrent value.

And with everything the pols are dealing with domestically, I don't think the whole NK situation (with a slim-to-none chance of a NK missile reaching Hawaii) rates very high on the American political leadership's attention scale.

By the time we could get nukes into the area to respond to NK nuclear aggression, I think cooler heads would prevail and Obama would believe he would look like a bully beating a younger, smaller, weaker child if he resorts to crude nuclear warfare on the Korean peninsula with more advanced (and more numerous) American nukes, and the U.S. response would probably be more along the lines of non-nuclear "shock-and-awe"...especially if radioactivity began to spread to China and/or Japan.

Problems may arise afterwards. Like, if the U.S. does NOT respond to a NK nuclear attack with nuclear attacks of their own, how will that make the nations who reside under our nuclear deterrent umbrella (most notably Israel) trust our ability, or willingness, to deter?

And if we're busy with a limited nuclear war on the Korean peninsula, would Israel take advantage of that to hit Iran, especially now that it looks like the Members Only jacket guy "won" the election and keeps denying the Holocaust will remain in power?

Furthermore, should Israel strike Iran, with U.S. forces in Iraq in between them, where does that leave us?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Obama and Company could have aproblem on their hands with the American people's reactions, too. There would probably be alot of passionate anger right off of the attack and there would probably be a public desire to strike back. If Obama didn't react in a way that gave the populace assurance, there could be a "He let us get bombed and he's not going to do anything about it!" mentality to be dealt with.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Just like with 9/11.

 

[Triskelion]

It's terrifying, really. Kim Jong Ill can send off the nukes and then pass onto the afterlife without having to deal with the decades of repercussions all the while going down as the man who nuked America. With North Korea's hyperbolic propaganda machine I could see him being hailed as the man who ended Western Civilization and brain-washed masses believing it. They could even give his title an upgrade and call him The God of Victory or something like that. *shudders.*

One nuke isn't going to end western civilisation. It'll have the overall effect of ending North Korea's civilisation forever, sure.

I suppose terrifying is a bad choice of words, as it makes it seem like I'm scared of the events in the following sentences myself. So I'll change that to "It's Disgusting, really." Obviously, the United States would go on after such a hypothetical event. But the majority of the citizens of North Korea have little access to information outside of what their Dear Leader and his government give them and if you're not a member of the army you starve. Their government has already stated they have "Invincible Military Might" and so there are people who believe it. If Kim Jung Ill did manage to bomb to Hawaii thousands of brain washed people the worship around him would only sky-rocket.

I guess what I'm saying is that this man can go to his grave thinking of himself as the strongest dictator in the history of the world and he'll be surrounded by a mass of people who also believe that -- and even the people who are wary of the regime will have to pay lip service to him if they don't want to die or go to prison camps. If he were to live long enough after the bombing to have the world on his tail and be taken out of power he'd lose the (perceived) respect of his people and face an unfavorable death and he might be forced to deal with the fact that maybe all of his delusions are just delusions -- at least in his own head; he probably wouldn't admit it out loud to anyone.

I always find it disturbing when people and political entities can distort the truth and people actually believe the distortion. A symbolic gesture like a nuke in Hawaii would just send wave after wave of propaganda and distorted truths in the country.

This is the kind of "reality" I have to deal with pretty much every day. Delusions, conceits, unexamined selves, individual invalidation, I could go on. You pity such a mind; but you defend against its aggression. And you don't bother trying to reason with it, expose evidence, get at truth - unless you like a dagger in the back. (I've seen a lot of passionate, articulate, active teachers squeezed out for it).

For some, it's never about truth, but about being right. Collectivism exploits this human weakness of ingroup/outgroup bias. Social identity hinges on difference and discrimination. Racism and stereotype are not only tolerated, they are social values and necessary for legitimacy. People like this cannot validate human rights or individual rights for others, because they are not fully-realized individuals themselves. You don't give others what you can't afford for yourself. Truth, for people arrested in a two-year-old "me" bubble, is simply rationale. It does not exist outside one's personal awareness and faulty constructs.

(That's why they'll never embrace or understand spirituality, but rather, random luck).

I promise you - regardless of outcome, NK will vilify the west. Oh, they may appreciate a change in regime; but will never appreciate the costs - or the unnecessary suffering of their own doing.

The other side of this is the parasitism of attacking the US. The only reason for this is power. You claim legitimacy by picking a fight with the biggest power you can. If the richest country in the world were East Timor - then East Timor a boogeyman would be. That's the real reason why the US is hated by some - it's very existence provokes deep psychological insecurities and conceited comparisons/denigrations. They cry "live and let live" - but it's the opposite of their true attitudes. If they are so strong - why do they need to constantly bring up the US? Why is every other thing they say a comparison, in which the US fails?

This deeply entrenched insecurity is going to exact a price. In China, they are attempting to fill the void with money and material. They ignore history and culture at their own peril. And the hole in the soul will never be filled. I ask my students - name a figure. How much money is enough? In six years I haven't gotten an answer.