about Kim Jung Il's taunts and threats?

Actual sanctions... as opposed to useless UN Resolutions.

about Kim Jung Il's taunts and threats?

Sniper.
Maybe the carry through will get his kid.

should steam to NK waters

a show of force

they're promising a missile launch aimed at Hawaii for the 4th, taking that thing out on the launching pad would send a nice, clear message...:heybaby:

all that plus, put the screws to china to sit on this monster.

China is not going to buckle under for us anymore. If it wasn't for China picking up our bonds the USA would probably be bankrupt. It is coming to the point where we will cater to China in some ways shortly.

If we let N. Korea think they are significant then they will think they are significant. I think we should trade Deval Patrick for the two reporters and call it a day.

His youngest son and his older son are at odds with each other, with the younger one being chosen as successor. That's good news for the world.
I say play the games and wait them out - soon, they'll be an internal power struggle and things will unravel. At the very least, the regime will weaken significantly and the opportunities for diplomacy will increase greatly. In the end, NK will moderate out of necessity.

His youngest son and his older son are at odds with each other, with the younger one being chosen as successor. That's good news for the world.


Berry GooT :btu:

If it wasn't for the hundreds (thousands?) of Chemical/Bio warheads on many thousands of hidden/buried artillery pieces pointed at Seoul I think the South Koreans would run roughshod over the North after taking a beating for a few days. Seoul would be a mess for a long time, even without nukes. It is obviously believed the Norks can build a nuke but can they build it as a deployable weapon? And if not, for how long?

What little NK has to trade with is pretty bad; missiles or nukes, nukes or missiles. Stopping their limited shipping to search for embargoed goods really needs to be done.

If they decide to a lob an ICBM at Hawaii, shoot it down with Aegis ships and THAAD. This is what those billions of (wasted?) dollars was designed for. Then bomb them further into the stone age.

Russia and especially China are not happy with losing the Norks as a buffer between South Korea (and her allies) so expect China to lean on Kim some more, and not for our benefit. China probably benefits most from the status quo, a bug in our butt and a buffer zone.


** Warning, Not Safe For Work or in front of little kids :rotf2: **

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b49Iwfp8U-U

China is not going to buckle under for us anymore.

Why do you think this is a "US" problem we need China to help us out on?

China has a lot more to loose from a North Korea problem than we do. If things go downhill China stands to see millions of North korean refugees as well as serious regional disruption that they do not want.

North Korea has little to nothing to gain from a real conflict, they do have a lot to gain from the rest of the world thinking they're nutty though.

It's the exact same game that Iran and other countries play with the USA day in and day out. Fact is they know we're really very limited in how much influence we can exert without international cooperation, so they play the "we're about to loose it" card and laugh while we squirm.

Iraq has shown than if and when we do go in long, it can be a massive headache that the public doesn't want to repeat.

This is perhaps the lasting damage from Bush's blunder, and something Obama dare not repeat.

What's not been noted in this thread is that the new sanctions which allow inspection of North Korea bound ships suspected of moving military materials was heavily endorsed by both China and Russia.

Even North Korea's old friends have become weary of their erratic little sibling.

-spence

I'm sure that we have a sub or two just waiting for him to get froggy.

Sniper.
Maybe the carry through will get his kid.

so you believe in the Bush doctrine?

No, but I believe we have been %$%$%$%$ing around with him long enough.
the difference is, HE has nukes, how effective is debatable... Saddam didn't!

No, but I believe we have been %$%$%$%$ing around with him long enough.
the difference is, HE has nukes, how effective is debatable... Saddam didn't!

he HOPED to....
AP
Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada

‘updated 6:57 p.m. ET, Sat., July 5, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

No, but I believe we have been %$%$%$%$ing around with him long enough.
the difference is, HE has nukes, how effective is debatable... Saddam didn't!

8 years ago, Bush, the moron, called N Korea, Iran, and Iraq,- the axis of evil.
look at the headlines today, was he a brilliant visonary, just lucky or did his proclamation cause the current issue (preempting spence on that).

Bryan, look back at the history. Sadaam was more of a pita tha KJI and Iraq FIRED upon our planes patrolling. Dont want to open the Iraq debate but you are swaying your logic.

Repeal China's most favored nation status (should've been done almost 20 years ago)repeal CFTA and stop all imports. We can build anything we need here in this country.

We'll lift the embargo once they get NK under control.

he HOPED to....
AP
Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada

‘updated 6:57 p.m. ET, Sat., July 5, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

The yellowcake in question was still under UN lock and key just where we left it. It doesn't sound like Saddam's ambition was all that strong...

-spence

I think the UN was monitoring the "Oil for Food" program as well :jester: lock and key?

Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.

I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world," and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again." BUBBA CLINTON

On February 17, 1998, President Clinton, speaking at the Pentagon, warned of the "reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." These "predators of the twenty-first century," he said, these enemies of America, "will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

Later that spring, the Clinton Justice Department prepared an indictment of Osama bin Laden. The relevant passage, prominently placed in the fourth paragraph, reads:


Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.

Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney involved in the preparation of the indictment, testified before the 9/11 Commission. He said the intelligence behind that assertion came from Jamal al Fadl, a former high-ranking al Qaeda terrorist who before the 9/11 attacks gave the U.S intelligence community its first intimate look at al Qaeda. According to Fitzgerald, al Fadl told his interrogators that bin Laden associate Mamdouh Mahmud Salim (Abu Hajer al Iraqi) "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they wouldn't work against each other--sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend--and that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was there, which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons."

Several months later, after al Qaeda bombed two American embassies in East Africa, numerous Clinton officials cited an Iraq-al Qaeda connection as the basis for retaliatory U.S. strikes against the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

On August 24, 1998, the Clinton administration made available a "senior intelligence official" who cited "strong ties between the plant and Iraq." The following day, Thomas Pickering, undersecretary of state for political affairs and one of a handful of Clinton officials involved in the decision to strike al Shifa, briefed foreign reporters at the National Press Club. He was asked directly whether he knew "of any connection between the so-called pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum and the Iraqi government in regard to production of precursors of VX" nerve gas.


Yeah, I would like to consult my notes just to be sure that what I have to say is stated clearly and correctly. We see evidence that we think is quite clear on contacts between Sudan and Iraq. In fact, al Shifa officials, early in the company's history, we believe were in touch with Iraqi individuals associated with Iraq's VX program.


Five days after that, U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson appeared on CNN and pointed to "direct evidence of ties between Osama bin Laden" and Sudan's Military Industrial Corporation. "You combine that with Sudan support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX, and you combine that, also, with the chemical precursor issue, and Sudan's leadership support for Osama bin Laden, and you've got a pretty clear-cut case."

Sandy Berger, then Clinton's national security adviser and now a top adviser to the Kerry campaign, made the connection in an October 16, 1998, op-ed in the Washington Times. "To not have acted against this facility would have been the height of irresponsibility," he argued. The Clinton administration had "information linking bin Laden to the Sudanese regime and to the al Shifa plant."

Berger explained that al Shifa was a dual-use facility. "We had physical evidence indicating that al Shifa was the site of chemical weapons activity," Berger wrote. "Other products were made at al Shifa. But we have seen such dual-use plants before--in Iraq. And, indeed, we have information that Iraq has assisted chemical weapons activity in Sudan."

Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism official under both Clinton and Bush, confirmed this in an interview with the Washington Post on January 23, 1999. Clarke said the U.S. government was "sure" Iraq was behind the VX precursor produced at the factory. The story continued, "Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan."

More recently, former Clinton defense secretary William Cohen affirmed the Baghdad-Khartoum connection in testimony before the September 11 Commission on March 23, 2004. Cohen told the panel that an executive from al Shifa had "traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."


was the UN also monitoring all of this???

selective memory must be great....

Just tell China to handle it,
or we'll declare bankruptcy,
not pay on the bonds they own,
and restructure as the New United States
with Rush Limbaugh as Dictator.

I think they would put a stopper on North Korea pretty damn fast.

Just tell China to handle it,
or we'll declare bankruptcy,
not pay on the bonds they own,
and restructure as the New United States
with Rush Limbaugh as Dictator.

I think they would put a stopper on North Korea pretty damn fast.

Smartest thing you've ever said :agree:

-spence

I think the UN was monitoring the "Oil for Food" program as well :jester: lock and key?
Facts are facts. Saddam didn't touch the yellow cake the UN put under lock and key.

Later that spring, the Clinton Justice Department prepared an indictment of Osama bin Laden. The relevant passage, prominently placed in the fourth paragraph, reads:


Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.

Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney involved in the preparation of the indictment, testified before the 9/11 Commission. He said the intelligence behind that assertion came from Jamal al Fadl, a former high-ranking al Qaeda terrorist who before the 9/11 attacks gave the U.S intelligence community its first intimate look at al Qaeda. According to Fitzgerald, al Fadl told his interrogators that bin Laden associate Mamdouh Mahmud Salim (Abu Hajer al Iraqi) "tried to reach a sort of agreement where they wouldn't work against each other--sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend--and that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was there, which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96, or the spring of '96, there were efforts to work on jointly acquiring weapons."

And here's what he actually said.

FITZGERALD: And the question of relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida is an interesting one. I don't have information post-2001 when I got involved in a trial, and I don't have information post-September 11th. I can tell you what led to that inclusion in that sealed indictment in May [1998] and then when we superseded, which meant we broadened the charges in the Fall, we dropped that language.

We understood there was a very, very intimate relationship between Al Qaida and the Sudan. They worked hand in hand. We understood there was a working relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, and they shared training. We also understood that there had been antipathy between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was not viewed as being religious.

We did understand from people, including Al-Fadl — and my recollection is that he would have described this most likely in public at the trial that we had, but I can't tell you that for sure; that was a few years ago — that at a certain point they decided that they wouldn't work against each other and that we believed a fellow in Al Qaida named [Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, aka Abu Hajer al-Iraqi], tried to reach a, sort of, understanding where they wouldn't work against each other. Sort of, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

And that there were indications that within Sudan when Al Qaida was there — which Al Qaida left in the summer of '96 or spring '96 — there were efforts to work on joint — you know, acquiring weapons.

Clearly, Al Qaida worked with the Sudan in getting those weapons in the national defense force there and the intelligence service. There were indications that Al-Fadl had heard from others that Iran was involved. And they also had heard that Iraq was involved.

The clearest account from Al-Fadl as a Sudanese was that he had dealt directly with the Sudanese intelligence service, so we had first-hand knowledge of that.

We corroborated the relationship with Iran to a lesser extent but to a solid extent. And then we had information from Al-Fadl, who we believe was truthful, learning from others that there were also was efforts to try to work with Iraq. That was the basis for what we put in that indictment. Clearly, we put Sudan in the first order at that time as being the partner of Al Qaida.

We understood the relationship with Iran but Iraq, we understood, went from a position where they were working against each other to a standing down against each other. And we understood they were going to explore the possibility of working on weapons together.

That's my piece of what I know. I don't represent to know everything else, so I can't tell you, well, what we've learned since then. But there was that relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other.

It's amazing, quite astonishing really, how every post you make appears to distort reality.

-spence

what did I distort? perhaps you ignore reality, like everything that occured up until the Iraq invasion AND ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T AID YOUR OBSESSION WITH BUSH WHACKING, kinda the same way the left ignores the Carter years when referring to past bad economies...you live in an alternate universe Spence Alynski, he may have not touched the yellow snow but wouldn't it's existence ALONG WITH ALL OF THE OTHER CRAP BURIED AND LAYING AROUND THE COUNTRY be factored into the question of what to do with a tyrannical and unpredictable regime that continued to sponsor terrorism, supress it's people and ignore umpteen UN sanctions for more than a decade, he played games with UN inspectors, he played games with the UN...HE WAS THE MOST AMBITIOUS DICTATOR IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME, VICIOUS RAPE AND TORTURE WAS HIS NATIONAL PASTTIME....THE CLINTONISTAS COMPARED HIM TO HITLER...but he a wasn't all that bad...really, just isolate him, keep piling on the sanctions as he bribes and games and waves his middle finger...

hey, that's exactly what NK and Iran are doing to Obama Chamberlain, redicluing, taunting, waving both middle fingers at the guy that wants to sit down without pre-conditions and and charm their pants off...this is just great..:bshake

how does the UN have any credability on anything???

It's amazing, quite astonishing really, how every post you make appears to distort reality.

-spence

By "post you make", I think you mean "Conservative editorial you copy and paste."

When it comes to the shipment of illegal arms, blockade the destined port
until NK allows onboard inspection.
While they have a lot of submarines and patrol boats they only have one frigate to defend.

If they send a missile any where near Hawaii, armed or unarmed, knock it out with the Aegis BMD system,
then send a #1000 lb. bomb down Jung IL"s chimney,Kadafi style.
See if he's a fast learner like Omar.

By "post you make", I think you mean "Conservative editorial you copy and paste."

be nice JD, OBAMA copy and pastes everything that he says...you know full well that any of what you call "informed opinion" is either dismissed or attacked by Spence with "where's your evidence lowly earthling!!!", it's a no win, he's so caught up in his spinning game that he doesn't know what the truth is except to turn everything into either a "perhaps this was Bush's greatest failure" or "what the Obama administration was actually saying is either truly genius or perfectly brlliant"...pretty funny to watch and to prod the little guy....:chatter....I can't even count how many Bush Greatest Failures there have been according to him..hey Spence, how are those unemployment claims trending now?

be nice JD

Just busting stones. Caught 20+ fish yesterday and did a ton of work at my girlfriend's parent's house, no time to bicker in here lately.:cheers: