North Korea continues to threaten with nuclear attacks.

[muy_thaiguy]

http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-says- ... 09134.html

Basically, they're scrapping the armistice and promising to nuke the US. At this point, even China is demanding heavy sanctions on them (their only real ally). Though the sanctions listed in the article are head scratchers, tensions really seem to be building on the Korean peninsula.

[AndyDufresne]

I'm currently making my way through MASH. I can't wait for MASH: The New Millennium where they send back the few remaining cast members that are still alive.


--Andy

[muy_thaiguy]

I'm currently making my way through MASH. I can't wait for MASH: The New Millennium where they send back the few remaining cast members that are still alive.


--Andy

Good show. Have all 11 seasons on DVD. Plus it helped me stay sane through 2 knee surgeries where I was stuck in bed for about a month a piece.

[BigBallinStalin]

Note: This is a regrettable unintended consequence from the Dubya Bush administration, so we should keep this in mind in order to better understand North Korea's reaction to previous US foreign policy.

Which armistice are you referring to?

North Korea never fully agreed to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), so how can it be held accountable to a contract it never fully agreed to?

Also, if you think North Korea's "scrapping the armistice" is alarming, then you should consider the US' missile defense systems which violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, and its ongoing efforts in developing missile defense systems (under the Bush and Obama administrations).

[AndyDufresne]

Which armistice are you referring to?

I think he means the one that stopped the Korean War. From NY Times Article:

In recent days, with the resolution set to pass, North Korea characterized the sanctions as part of an “act of war” in its escalating invective against the United States and its allies. Earlier this week it declared the 1953 armistice that stopped the Korean War null and void and threatened to turn Washington and Seoul into “a sea in flames” with “lighter and smaller nukes.”

...

The spokesman [of the DPRK] said that North Korea was no longer bound by the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War — and its military was free to “take military actions for self-defense against any target any moment” — starting from Monday, when it declared the cease-fire was terminated.

--Andy

[Sackett58]

"South Korea's military said in a rare warning on Wednesday that it would strike back at the North and target its leadership if Pyongyang launched an attack."

Getting a little more personal targeting the leadership.

[patches70]

Hahah! That's what I do when North Korea makes threats like this. Hell, they fire off a missile and they can barely even hit the ocean.

Kim Jong Nutbag-'I bomb you to death America!"
Me- <yawn> "Well, it's been fun talking with you Dong, let's have lunch sometime. Cya!"

[tkr4lf]

Surely Un realizes that launching even one nuke anywhere spells the death of his entire country, right?

I mean the U.S. has how many nukes? N.K. has how many? And they don't even have any long-range missiles to deliver the nukes? Exactly.

[BigBallinStalin]

Surely Un realizes that launching even one nuke anywhere spells the death of his entire country, right?

I mean the U.S. has how many nukes? N.K. has how many? And they don't even have any long-range missiles to deliver the nukes? Exactly.

He does. In my opinion, this is posturing--which of course should be appropriately reacted to (e.g. South Korea mobilizing its military). The general pattern of North Korean international affairs is this:

1. NK complains/launches a missile.
2. NK, China, US, Japan, and others make a bunch of noise over the diplomatic cables and TV news stations.
3. NK receives foreign aid.
4. repeat

Tangent: Sanctions on net harm North Korean civilians and further promote their dependency on the government.

[Symmetry]

This is what you get when one of your major diplomatic channels is a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey.

No, seriously, that''s how two of the world's nuclear powers talk to each other.

OUR MAN IN PYONGYANG (OCTOBER 8, 2007)

Egan, who has run Cubby’s for twenty-five years, is well known in Hackensack, though not solely for the quality of his ribs. For nearly fifteen years, he has served as a kind of unofficial ambassador—a go-between and a gofer—for the government of North Korea. He is, as he puts it, “Kim Jong Il’s guy in New Jersey.” Dozens of photographs on his restaurant walls offer testimony to Egan’s improbable involvement in international diplomacy. Among the pictures of friendly Giants and Yankees are several images of besuited, slightly ill-at-ease-looking Asian men posing at Cubby’s. “That’s Minister Han, before he became Ambassador here,” Egan said to me, pointing to a youthful, bespectacled man in a blue suit. (Han Song Ryol, who joined North Korea’s U.N. delegation in 1993, ended his tenure as Ambassador last year and returned to Pyongyang.) “And that’s Ambassador Ho Jong.” (Ho left his post in 1994.) In another photograph, a gentleman with the same black hair and grin as Egan stands with a beaming young female athlete, Kye Sun Hui. “That’s my dad at the Atlanta Olympics, in ’96,” Egan said. “She won the judo title when she was just sixteen. She’s a hero in North Korea. She still asks about me.”

In one corner of the restaurant is a photograph showing a dreary skyline, shot from what looks like a viewing platform. “That’s Pyongyang,” Egan said. “That’s when they gave me my pin.” The pin to which he refers bears an image of Kim Il Sung, the father of North Korea’s Stalinist state, who died in 1994, and whose son is Kim Jong Il, its current leader. North Koreans wear similar pins as a sign of respect for their head of state. Egan keeps his pin in a small, cluttered back office at Cubby’s. “I’m told there are only two Westerners that have pins—me and some guy from Romania,” Egan said. “I got the pin at the end of my first trip. They inducted me into their family. They said, ‘You are part of us.’ I thought, When in Rome, I’m Roman.”

Above a corner booth at Cubby’s is a clipping from the front page of the Times, dated November 3, 2002, with the headline “north korea says nuclear program can be negotiated.” (At the time, North Korea—formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or D.P.R.K.—was still three years away from announcing that it had detonated a nuclear device.) Ambassador Han is quoted as saying that his country was willing to dismantle its secret uranium-enrichment facilities, in spite of having been branded by President George W. Bush, in that year’s State of the Union address, as a member of “an Axis of Evil.” The Ambassador, the article recounts, had asked to be interviewed by the paper: “The North Korean Mission contacted the Times through a New Jersey restaurateur, Robert Egan, who is the chairman of a trade group that has worked to improve ties between the United States and North Korea.” Egan, explaining his identification in the newspaper of record, said, “You have to have a reason to move around in a country like that, so the North Koreans made me the president of the U.S.A.-D.P.R.K. Trade Council, or some president of some trade council.”

[thegreekdog]

There is nothing wrong with a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack New Jersey.

[Symmetry]

There is nothing wrong with a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack New Jersey.

You should read the whole article. It's hilarious, and kinda depressing. Also long, and slightly unwilling to directly say the guy has mafia ties.

[john9blue]

well, if they go for chicago then it's been nice knowing you guys. i'm within a half mile of the sears tower basically 24/7 so my odds of survival are about 2%

[DoomYoshi]

Wow. So North Korea is acting out the Little Mouse that Roared.

Let's hope they don't come to Wall Street.

[Lootifer]

I'm currently making my way through MASH. I can't wait for MASH: The New Millennium where they send back the few remaining cast members that are still alive.


--Andy

Good show. Have all 11 seasons on DVD. Plus it helped me stay sane through 2 knee surgeries where I was stuck in bed for about a month a piece.

[hijack]
Whatd you have done?
[/hijack]

Oh and on topic I am usually an non-interventionist (across borders); but f*ck it, just get rid of them. If you are demonstratably insane and in control of a nation then executive order kgo.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm currently making my way through MASH. I can't wait for MASH: The New Millennium where they send back the few remaining cast members that are still alive.


--Andy

Good show. Have all 11 seasons on DVD. Plus it helped me stay sane through 2 knee surgeries where I was stuck in bed for about a month a piece.

[hijack]
Whatd you have done?
[/hijack]

Oh and on topic I am usually an non-interventionist (across borders); but f*ck it, just get rid of them. If you are demonstratably insane and in control of a nation then executive order kgo.

If the consequences weren't so significant, then I'd be just as neocon/hawkish as you on this issue.

[Lootifer]

Yeah, and, depressingly, I am, to be honest, on your side.

WHY BBS WHYYYYY!?!?!?!

Also check out that comma usage, shits off the chain.

[Shape]

I think the whole North Korea thing is kinda awesome in a guilty pleasure sorta-way. I mean, who doesn't love drama? Also, I think Kim Jong Un is just the silliest man on Earth. The U.N. needs to realize North Korea ain't stopping shit and sanction the crap outta them.

-Shape

[thegreekdog]

There is nothing wrong with a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack New Jersey.

You should read the whole article. It's hilarious, and kinda depressing. Also long, and slightly unwilling to directly say the guy has mafia ties.

You can take my post as a willingness, on my part, to say the guy has mafia ties.

[BigBallinStalin]

Yeah, and, depressingly, I am, to be honest, on your side.

WHY BBS WHYYYYY!?!?!?!

Also check out that comma usage, shits off the chain.

[BigBallinStalin]

I think the whole North Korea thing is kinda awesome in a guilty pleasure sorta-way. I mean, who doesn't love drama? Also, I think Kim Jong Un is just the silliest man on Earth. The U.N. needs to realize North Korea ain't stopping shit and sanction the crap outta them.

-Shape

Yeah, the high stakes of having millions of people dead really turns you on, right?
[/sarcasm]

It's definitely exciting though, but it's important for people to remain cool-headed while making the Big decisions. Otherwise, you get huge support for really dumb wars based on lies (e.g. Iraq-US War 2.0).

[Symmetry]

There is nothing wrong with a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack New Jersey.

You should read the whole article. It's hilarious, and kinda depressing. Also long, and slightly unwilling to directly say the guy has mafia ties.

You can take my post as a willingness, on my part, to say the guy has mafia ties.

*Imagines Kim Jong Un in Sopranos opening*



*Concludes that it would be awesome*

[Shape]

I think the whole North Korea thing is kinda awesome in a guilty pleasure sorta-way. I mean, who doesn't love drama? Also, I think Kim Jong Un is just the silliest man on Earth. The U.N. needs to realize North Korea ain't stopping shit and sanction the crap outta them.

-Shape

Yeah, the high stakes of having millions of people dead really turns you on, right?
[/sarcasm]

It's definitely exciting though, but it's important for people to remain cool-headed while making the Big decisions. Otherwise, you get huge support for really dumb wars based on lies (e.g. Iraq-US War 2.0).

Oh, certainly! Obviously war would be tragic, especially the people dying part. But I will point out there is a reason why the most tragic stories make the biggest headlines!

-Shape

[AndyDufresne]

North Korea Declares 1953 War Truce Nullified

show: Article

I still don't think much will happen though.


--Andy

[BigBallinStalin]

If North Korea was erased from the Earth, does this mean that it would reappear on the Moon?