Taking Bets:Follow

Oh it will be there. The question is how pissed off they are.

Frankly, war in NK is pretty much inevitable. Either a civil war erupts that causes NK to be annexed into SK (much to their dismay), or SK and NK go to war and NK gets absorbed into SK (much to their dismay).

I'm betting China won't be so willing to support NK in an actual war situation. Japan and the US have become huge trading partners with them, and a war that close to home will not only alienate both nations, but will also make the water and airways extremely unsafe. China's economy would suffer accordingly. They get too little out of NK to actually care when it comes down to the point where they have to choose--they'll either remain neutral or try and annex NK themselves, I'd wager.

While NK is certainly nuts, they aren't completely stupid. If they use a nuke, they are fucked--you can be certain that the response to a nation using a nuclear weapon on another nation would be massive.

China also REALLY doesn't want NK to attack. They've avoided publicly reprimanding them for a long time. If NK launches a full-out war, a lot of the west is going to place significant blame on them.

If NK decides to attack the island this time around, diplomatic relations will likely break and war will probably break out. Defeating them wouldn't be difficult if China would help (and there's a chance they would in a case of war).

The nukes are the biggest concern, realistically. We know the location of many of their artillery guns, and can take those out fairly easily with modern military technology.

But our current technology should allow us to shoot down a Korean missile while its still over NK. Which is still a pretty horrific scenario, but its the best we can do.

I don't see them actually using a WMD except as a last resort, though. As I said, it basically ensures that the world becomes their enemy in a very literal way.

Actually, as horrible as it is, them launching one could actually be a good thing overall. If we stop it before it hits SK (or Japan), then it could set the stage for a full-scale outcry against nuclear armaments that will help stop uranium enrichment in Iran and lead to actual nonproliferation in the US (which we have vowed to do many times, but seem to just be constructing more). Republicans in Congress actually want to construct more, and I have NO clue why. Isn't the ability to blow up the earth once enough?

Stop enrichment in Iran... but it is still cool for the US, the UK, France, Germany, Israel China, Russia, India and Pakistan to keep theirs. I don't think any nations should have them, but since the majority of the Western Nations do, 2 Semi Friendly East Nations do, 1 friendly and 2 semi friendly mideast nations do, I see no reason why the others shouldn't be able to.

I mean I know why everyone is against say Iran having them, but if Israel has them pointed at you, then you should be able to point some back. Kind of like how the US has been pointing them at NK since the korean war, and now they have the ability to point some back.

False alarm nothing to see here, NK has announced that despite their warnings they are not going to respond to what they perceived as a clear bait to escalate conflicts.

It's a terrific argument for the have-nots and I'd reasonably expect any have-not to want to be a have. It's also completely in the best interest of the haves to keep the have-nots as have-nots. If a guy broke into your home with a knife you wouldn't say "I have a gun so let's get you a gun and keep this fair", would you?

You are making the false assumption that we think we have the right to have these weapons. I don't think we do. I think we have them out of necessity.

Personally, I don't think having the ability to wipe out millions of people in a single blast is something that should be distributed equally to anyone that wants one. And I think the reason why is fairly obvious.



The US is currently fighting to get a treaty through Congress that would require both us and Russia to cut our number of nukes down to 1550 and our launchers to 700. There's quite a bit of Republican opposition to the treaty (and some Democratic, I'd imagine, though I don't know).

Besides these two, every other country in the world that signed the NNP treaty has cut their numbers of atomic weapons. Don't blame the "West" for what's, realistically, the fault of these two nations. And on our part, it's because we have this assinine gov't that's split in half on every issue with no third party to tip the scales.

We THINK Israel has nukes, but they've been mum on it. But they never signed the above treaty in any case.

The problem is that Iran and North Korea DID sign that treaty, and then sought uranium enrichment hidden from the rest of the world. (North Korea withdrew after signing, but Iran is still on record as saying they wouldn't seek nuclear arms).

Why should nations not have free access to these weapons? Because they can fucking destroy the world, that's why. There's absolutely no reason for there to be that many nukes in existence. It's bad enough having them in the hands of gov'ts were pretty sure would never use them. Just letting countries who attack others for national entertainment have them is retarded.



You are acting like it was just some guy with a microphone screaming that the Iranian election was rigged. It almost certainly was.

Furthermore, no one here has argued that gov'ts need to be like the West. I have no problem with a stable communist nation having a nuke (at least no more than I have regarding a stable republic). The problem is that these nations are incredibly unstable, which means we have no clue who will come to power and into posession of nukes, and are pretty ******* insane as it is. There's no reason a decently stable communist/socialist nation couldn't emerge. They'd have to have one hell of a moral and politically savvy leader though, or choose socialism via a republic. China's gov't could totally stabilize once the horribly corrupt systems are gone.

You know how many nations got nukes? Because the fall of the USSR turned them into candy on halloween. That's why we worry that terrorist organizations have some--and the issue with these groups isn't that they believe something different, it's that what they believe involves a massive amount of death all around. Sorry, but I'm perfectly willing to say that they shouldn't have one.

And you are retarded if you think the US gov't is more corrupt than North Korea.



Rdmcandie, meet the straw man. Straw man, meet rdmcandie.

It has nothing to do with us thinking we are right and they are wrong and everything to do with thinking they'll use a nuke to wipe out an entire CITY without provocation.

For the record, that wasn't idiggory. It was rdmwondercandie or whatever.

Proof to back this up? Or is it just that NK is corrupt to your definition of what a government should be doing. The simple matter of fact is you don't know, I don't know id wager no one that posts here knows what NK is actually like. I personally can not draw comprehensive comparison, bu I do know that all govt's are corrupt it is inevitable, but since I do not live in other countries I can not properly gauge the corruption for comparison. Neither can you.



Actually most terroist organizations have petty much the same message. They want the US and other western governments to stop sticking their nose into places they don't belong. Which is a pretty over the top way of saying, mind yer business, let us mind ours.



Seriously you "think" they have nukes, everyone in the world knows they have nukes, you can thank france for that for providing them the capability to produce enriched nuclear materials, oh and the US for providing them with their missiles. What is not certain is the quantity they have, during the Yom Kippur war in 1973 confirmed they had at least 13, possibly 20. It is rumored that with production available they have between 200 and 300 currently.

They have nukes, and you can bet your *** they are pointed at Iran.



Again do you have actual proof, not just some report you read put out by some random media outlet. Were you there to count the votes, were you there to monitor the voting practices. If not then your opinion means sh*t. Again it is no different then saying 2000/2004 were rigged elections.



and these countries where "our" nukes are pointed don't have a similar privilege to think the same? Why can we premptively point our sh*t at them, but they can't point it back. All it takes is one ****** in any of the 10 major players to push a button, they should be awarded the right to deter any motion like that.


@ Joph.
I completely understand that, but condeming a person/govt/country for trying to level the playing field is utterly ridiculous, especially when the brunt of criticism comes from the country with more nukes than any other.

Edited, Dec 20th 2010 12:17pm by rdmcandie

And you are pitching cultural relativism, which is stupid. I'm going to assume you have never taken an ethics course, so to sum it up very messily--"If you hold that what is ethical is entirely due to what a culture believes it to be, then you have no right to criticize them for actions they believe to be right." Who cares if NK stock piles 2000 nukes and Kim-Jong-il decides, on his death bed, to take the rest of the world with him. That's what he's mandated, and we have no right to judge!

Frankly, if you think North Korea is less corrupt than the U.S., you have issues. That isn't to say the U.S. ISN'T corrupt (I live in New Jersey, btw, widely considered the most corrupt state). It's just saying NK is worse (and by a huge degree).

North Korea is ruled by a dictator who treats his people as a hobby, forcing them to do ridiculous things for his pleasure like they were dolls. He rules using militaristic force and any opposition to him (vocal or militaristic) is severely punished. He is incredibly aggressive and regularly launches unprovoked military attacks on civilians (such as sinking fishing boats or firing on South Korean villages). He spends money on frivolous ventures and military armaments instead of buying his people food (because they are starving). He remains isolated but demands that the rest of the world GIVE him this food, despite the fact that NK is rich in uranium mines and they could easily set up a global trade for it.

I could keep going, but I think I'll just randomly stop there. The guy's actually ******* insane. Oh, one more thing, in the 90's, we negotiated to stop some NK aggression against SK. Wanna know how? We let Kim-Jong-il meet Michael Jordan. That's what you want in a leader--someone who makes state decisions based on fancy.

I was JUST going to say this

But then again... dude... Jersey Shore. I'd take 100 Blagojeviches over one more Snooki reference in popular culture.

I see your quartet of criminality and raise you a DJ Pauly D (who played in Gainesville a few months ago), The Situation, and a JWoww.

I argue that while your villains contributed only loss of public confidence, blatant disregard for the laws of our land, and a terrible waste of taxpayer money, these villains commit crimes against humanity on a frequent and alarming basis, as well as proliferating the fist pump (undoubtedly the most vulgar symbol in the history of world, being developed by Satan Himself and then rejected as being just too evil) in popular culture.

Also, as a note I've never watched Jersey Shore and only know of Snooki from a South Park episode. I had to look up the names on wikipedia.

n00bs.

It's fairly clear that humans are incapable of learning from their past mistakes. I've kinda given up trying.

Also, it doesn't help that American children are taught a history in which the US never does anything wrong, so they never learn the mistakes to begin with...