WTF Are the North Koreans Smoking Now?

[TimothyC]

The good news so far is that the Kaesong Industrial complex is still open.

Gov't wants to ensure safety of S. Korean nationals in Kaesong
SEOUL, March 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Tuesday that it wants to ensure the safety of its citizens working at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea and has set up a contingency plan to deal with sudden developments.

"In light of grave developments, top priority has been placed on ensuring the safety of South Korean nationals at the industrial park," said a ministry official, who declined to be identified.

Safety concerns come as North Korea detonated a nuclear device on Feb. 12 in defiance of warnings by the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). It has also threatened to turn Seoul and Washington into a "sea of fire" for advocating new UNSC sanctions and starting annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve military exercises that the North views as a rehearsal for an invasion of the communist country.

He said the safety issue was spoken about in detail by new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae at a meeting of senior officials earlier in the day. The minister made it clear in talks with reporters Monday that Seoul does not have any plans to withdraw from Kaesong or use it as a tool to pressure Pyongyang.
The official said Seoul maintains 24-hour contact with its representative office at Kaesong, and all South Koreans working for the 123 companies at the complex have been told to be careful about what they say or do. On average, there are some 700-800 South Koreans at the complex on weekdays.

"The representative office has been told to immediately contact Seoul in case of strange behavior by North Koreans," he said.

Despite the concerns raised, the North has so far kept open the military communication link with the South that is used to permit movement of people and vehicles over the demilitarized zone (DMZ). This is in contrast to the severing of the communication links at the truce village of Panmunjom.

"All movements across the DMZ are moving without a hitch," he said.

The ministry source, meanwhile, said that Seoul is currently in the process of working with other countries to implement the UNSC sanctions and not thinking of carrying out independent actions of its own.

"Slapping more sanctions will depend on what actions are taken by the North down the line," he said.

He pointed out that Seoul already has one of the most rigorous sanctions slapped on the North, which was given for the sinking of a South Korean warship in the Yellow Sea in March 2010. Seoul currently bans all contact and exchange with the North with the exception of the Kaesong complex.

He added that Seoul remains open to offering humanitarian assistance to the North that could push forward trust building, between the two countries, but made clear no specific plans have been laid down because Pyongyang is currently taking steps to fuel tensions by unilaterally nullifying the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War (1950-53), and all past non-aggression pacts signed between South and North Korea.

[Broomstick]

Cutting off communication seems like a very bad idea. Has North Korea ever done it before ?

As noted by a later post, it was a non-military line to a border village that was cut, not the military hotline. I can't recall specifics of a prior incidence of this, but let's just say I'd be surprised if they hadn't done something like that in the past.

Part of what North Korea wants is a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War, instead of the armistice that leaves the peninsula still technically in a state of war.

Actually, what NK wants is the South to become part of North Korea - though how they would assimilate millions of South Koreans with decent educations, accustomed to a democratic style government, and familiar with high technology into their blinkered, keep-the-masses-ignorant, low tech society I have no idea.

It also wants security guarantees and other concessions, direct talks with Washington, recognition as a nuclear weapons state, and the removal of 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.

Well, shit, we all know they're a "nuclear weapons state", is this a way of saying they want a seat on the UN security council? Not all the other nuclear powers have that, only the US, China, Russia, France, and the UK have that, everyone else eligible takes turns (and you don't need nukes to get a seat there).

Direct talks with Washington, DC? Is that really a problem? Well, yes, because the assumption will be that such talks are mainly an opportunity for the Current Leader to be portrayed as taking on the Evil Bastard Scum-sucking Americans or whatever they're calling us these days, basically a photo-op for internal consumption. But talks have been offered in the past in various formats with little to nothing gained.

Removal of 28,500 US troops in South Korea? Hmm... wouldn't that make it easier for NK to invade SK? Anyhow, that is something for South Korea to decide because, like it or not, "Korea" is actually two different countries at present.

South Korean and US officials have been closely monitoring Pyongyang's actions and parsing its recent rhetoric, which has been more warlike than usual.

It does need to be noted that NK rhetoric always gets more belligerent during US/SK military exercises, so some of the bluster is likely that, although the threat of nuke first is a new addition.

The ministry has warned that the North's government would "evaporate from the face of the Earth" if it ever used a nuclear weapon.

That's what I would think.

The White House also said the US is fully capable of defending itself against a North Korean ballistic attack.

Hmm... our anti-missile technology isn't infallible, but then, I'm no expert on current systems. This true or near enough not to matter.

North Korea has said the US mainland is within the range of its long-range missiles, and an army general told a Pyongyang rally last week that the military is ready to fire a long-range nuclear-armed missile to turn Washington into a "sea of fire."

While NK might currently be able to reach Washington state, they can not reach Washinton DC at this time. I wonder if anyone in their government understands or gives a damn about the distinction?

North Korea has a variety of missiles and other weapons capable of striking South Korea.

And that's really the biggest worry, I think. South Korea and also Japan.

The canceling of the armistice looks like it's internal propaganda. The article does say they have threatened to cancel the armistice before, but no mention of them claiming they have actually done it.

Oh, they've "cancelled" the armistice several times in the past, just as they've fired on South Korea, sunk ships, and so forth, it's just that the South (or anyone else) hasn't gone to war over it.

[Broomstick]

Oh, for the benefit of those who don't read Korean but do read English: The English edition of the Chosun Ilbo. Not surprisingly, they have more in-depth coverage of the issues in this thread than most other English-language media. I have added it to my list of international news sources.

There is also the English edition of the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Worker's Party of Korea (North) and is a glorious example of what the NK government puts out as propaganda news. It reads like the Onion and would be good for a laugh if it wasn't for the fact this is actually intended to be a serious source of information. However, it's not always available on-line.

[Broomstick]

It seems the US is bolstering anti-missile defenses on the west coast and in Japan. Interesting...

Also, remember I mentioned I couldn't reach the on-line Rodong Sinmun? It seems North Korea was under a cyber-attack. Or maybe they staged the outage themselves.

From the Chosun Ilbo:

N.Korea 'Under Cyber Attack'

North Korea has fallen victim to a massive cyber attack since Wednesday morning, a senior South Korean government official said. He added Seoul is trying to find out who is behind it.

"Internet resources of the country have come under a powerful hacker attack from abroad," Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency, which has a branch in Pyongyang, reported on Wednesday night. The country's websites apparently all went offline until late Thursday afternoon.

They included propaganda outlets like the Rodong Sinmun, the KCNA news agency and Naenara, which are blocked in South Korea.

An expert at a government-funded think tank in Seoul said it is unlikely that an attack on this scale was launched by an individual hacker since all websites with North Korea-based servers were affected and the attack lasted for two days.

The official insisted the South Korean government has nothing to do with it.

"It's inconceivable that the Internet network of the North has been under hacker attack for such a long period of time," said Ryu Dong-ryeol at the Police Science Institute. "It's likely that the regime has staged the incident itself as a way out of its current international impasse."

[Todeswind]

Well I'm heading to Seoul, wish me luck. Hopefully it won't go to hell.

[Alkaloid]

I'd just like to say I find the collective North Korea related panty clutching and simultaneous war boners of Americans on the internet at the moment to be both disturbing and hilarious.

[Stark]

I'd just like to say I find the collective North Korea related panty clutching and simultaneous war boners of Americans on the internet at the moment to be both disturbing and hilarious.

I would too, but like I said it has an impact on American policy and thus might actually cause bad things.

[Alkaloid]

Well yeah, that's why it's disturbing.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd just like to say I find the collective North Korea related panty clutching and simultaneous war boners of Americans on the internet at the moment to be both disturbing and hilarious.

Why is it panty clutching to be nervous and upset when someone says they will fire nuclear missiles at your house?

[CaptHawkeye]

I'd just like to say I find the collective North Korea related panty clutching and simultaneous war boners of Americans on the internet at the moment to be both disturbing and hilarious.

Why is it panty clutching to be nervous and upset when someone says they will fire nuclear missiles at your house?

You do realize that most of the world has good reason to believe America is more likely to do something stupid here than North Korea is. Right?

[The Romulan Republic]

America, despite all its faults, has not, so far as I am aware, ended an armistice and threatened to use a nuclear weapon in this situation.

[CaptHawkeye]

You're right, we just invade countries on unconvincing intelligence, bring countless hardships to millions of bystanders, and threaten our Allies for not standing by every decision we make. Not to mention all those violations of the Geneva Conventions, American's own civil liberties, etc.

It's telling how much people are ok with as long as their quality of life is high though.

[mr friendly guy]

The thing is, when America says we will invade Iraq because it has WMDs even though our evidence is not convincing, are you more likely to believe that, as opposed to NK saying wah wah we will, we will nuke you. This is not a trick question.

[The Romulan Republic]

You're right, we just invade countries on unconvincing intelligence, bring countless hardships to millions of bystanders, and threaten our Allies for not standing by every decision we make. Not to mention all those violations of the Geneva Conventions, American's own civil liberties, etc.

It's telling how much people are ok with as long as their quality of life is high though.

I never said I was okay with those things. I know America has done horrible things. How about having an honest discussion?

But some of those things happened during different administrations, and though they are ruthless and unethical, none of them are lunacy like threatening to use a nuclear weapon first.

Do you actually think its wrong for Americans to be worried about someone threatening to nuke their country?

[Simon_Jester]

You do realize that most of the world has good reason to believe America is more likely to do something stupid here than North Korea is. Right?

When was the last time the US randomly decided to torpedo another country's military units?

The thing is, when America says we will invade Iraq because it has WMDs even though our evidence is not convincing, are you more likely to believe that, as opposed to NK saying wah wah we will, we will nuke you. This is not a trick question.

So because North Korea routinely makes death threats and then doesn't carry them out, that makes their death threats tolerable?

The mere fact that the threats are made is a sign that something is very wrong, and that taking basic steps to protect yourself is reasonable. It's not like the US is launching a preemptive attack here or anything. Or that anyone is talking about launching such an attack.

I cannot believe you expect the US, or South Korea, to just ignore this shit because (more or less) "North Korea lies all the time so who cares if they threaten to launch a nuclear attack?"

This seems so incredibly dishonest and ridiculous that it's hard to describe. If you can't consider yourself to be in danger when someone specifically says "we'll turn your capital into a sea of fire," then when the fuck can you? Is the US somehow required to ignore naked threats because of the Iraq War?

And as I asked before, if North Korea expects the right to say whatever horrible murderous threats they like without anyone caring, then how do they ever expect to make their nuclear deterrent matter? They're setting themselves up to be the boy who cried wolf here.

[CaptHawkeye]

The thing is, when America says we will invade Iraq because it has WMDs even though our evidence is not convincing, are you more likely to believe that, as opposed to NK saying wah wah we will, we will nuke you. This is not a trick question.

North Korea's behavior of recent months is nothing new at all. They're using the same exact, tired posturing routine that was chic for Communist states for decades. North Korea's behavior is typical of the tough-guy posturing of a Stalinist state towards foreign powers. When in fact their concerns are overwhelmingly focused on internal issues. Baseless threats being a means to an end.

The problem with America's baseless threats is that they have frequently proved to be based, in fact, on actual promise of violence.

I never said I was okay with those things. I know America has done horrible things. How about having an honest discussion?

I don't care what you're ok with.

But some of those things happened during different administrations, and though they are ruthless and unethical, none of them are lunacy like threatening to use a nuclear weapon first.

You would be wrong.

Do you actually think its wrong for Americans to be worried about someone threatening to nuke their country?

Do you realize how fucking much I hate how condescending you're being with this question?

[Rogue 9]

But some of those things happened during different administrations, and though they are ruthless and unethical, none of them are lunacy like threatening to use a nuclear weapon first.

You would be wrong.

Do you think nobody will actually read what you link to? The article you provide describes the North Koreans threatening to destroy South Korea, and Secretary Clinton offering the North Koreans a peace treaty. In what way is that the United States doing something on the scale of threatening to nuke somebody?

[Simon_Jester]

North Korea's behavior of recent months is nothing new at all. They're using the same exact, tired posturing routine that was chic for Communist states for decades. North Korea's behavior is typical of the tough-guy posturing of a Stalinist state towards foreign powers. When in fact their concerns are overwhelmingly focused on internal issues. Baseless threats being a means to an end.

Did Stalin or Khrushchev ever explicitly say they were going to launch a nuclear attack on a neighbor?

The problem with America's baseless threats is that they have frequently proved to be based, in fact, on actual promise of violence.

Interesting note: Bush's threats at least afforded Hussein a way out: he could have simply thrown open the borders, said "come see for yourself, I have no weapons of mass destruction." His decision not to do that... it might have been inevitable, but at least he had an option. One that would at least have grossly embarrassed the Americans, if not prevented the attack entirely.

North Korea does not seem to have offered South Korea* an alternative. They said "we exercise our right to attack you, war has begun." Granted they seem to not actually be shooting... but how the fuck is South Korea supposed to interpret "we will shoot you, the cease-fire is over?" What is that supposed to mean if not a threat of nuclear death?

*Are you too upset about the US's unforgivable evils to consider a negative US response as valid? OK. Fine. So just ignore the US, let's talk about the threat to South Korea, a nation which has no means of defending itself from nuclear missiles and no nuclear deterrent of its own. They're an innocent target here.

Do you actually think its wrong for Americans to be worried about someone threatening to nuke their country?

Do you realize how fucking much I hate how condescending you're being with this question?

So the answer is... yes?

Because bluntly, that's what it comes down to. The only way to say "this is stupid panty-clutching" in this situation is to assume that it is wrong to object when someone says "I am going to drop a nuclear bomb on your house." You may think it's condescending. Frankly, I think it's a sign of how kneejerk and dumb anti-American sentiment can get, when the US isn't even 'allowed' (so to speak) to object to "we will drop a nuclear bomb on your house."

No one would expect Russia or China or Iran or for that matter North Korea to laugh that off. The idea that any nation should laugh that off strikes hard at the very idea of deterrence. How is deterrence supposed to work when a naked threat of nuclear attack is OK, routine behavior from some countries? We risk stumbling into a nuclear war completely by accident if that's normal behavior.

Maybe some day North Korea will actually be trying to warn someone, and will not be believed. Maybe some day another nuclear power in the region* will be trying to warn North Korea, and the North Koreans won't take it seriously because they routinely threaten nuclear attacks and nobody gives a shit.

This cannot be a reasonable way to run international relations, and it's ridiculous that people expect everyone outside North Korea to behave as if nothing was wrong.

*(like Japan or South Korea, both of whom will probably want the bomb to feel secure, just like Iran does now)

But some of those things happened during different administrations, and though they are ruthless and unethical, none of them are lunacy like threatening to use a nuclear weapon first.

You would be wrong.

How is that even a response.

You're taking something North Korea did, and asserting that it proves the US committed an act of lunacy?

[CaptHawkeye]

Do you think nobody will actually read what you link to? The article you provide describes the North Koreans threatening to destroy South Korea, and Secretary Clinton offering the North Koreans a peace treaty. In what way is that the United States doing something on the scale of threatening to nuke somebody?

Could I not be more clear about the nature of that link? He's asserting, against my own assertion, that N.Korea's posturing is not par for the course this time. He's wrong, and now you just look like a tit.

Did Stalin or Khrushchev ever explicitly say they were going to launch a nuclear attack on a neighbor?

The error being made here of course, is to directly apply the circumstances befalling the Soviet Union to North Korea.

Interesting note: Bush's threats at least afforded Hussein a way out: he could have simply thrown open the borders, said "come see for yourself, I have no weapons of mass destruction." His decision not to do that... it might have been inevitable, but at least he had an option. One that would at least have grossly embarrassed the Americans, if not prevented the attack entirely.

Oh please, the Bush Administration was going to drum up a way to invade one way or the other. WMDs were simply the most convenient grab-a-casus belli in the war room. You're also disregarding that Hussein felt such an option was unacceptable, because it would weaken his position against Iran. So Bush offering such a thing to him is frankly irrelevant.

North Korea does not seem to have offered South Korea* an alternative. They said "we exercise our right to attack you, war has begun." Granted they seem to not actually be shooting... but how the fuck is South Korea supposed to interpret "we will shoot you, the cease-fire is over?" What is that supposed to mean if not a threat of nuclear death?

Do not try to change the topic. We're talking about the reaction Americans are having to N.Korea's threats. Americans are acting like Kim is Hitler 2.0. The same attitude they had about Saddam Hussein which we all remember led to a peaceful reconciliation only involving hundreds of thousands of deaths over a decade of war.

It turns out simplifying international politics to the black/white spectrum is just something people do. Which would be fine, were it not also a people known for impulsive invasions on sovereign states.

The rest of your post is basically just speculation, so what could I say to it?

[Simon_Jester]

Do you think nobody will actually read what you link to? The article you provide describes the North Koreans threatening to destroy South Korea, and Secretary Clinton offering the North Koreans a peace treaty. In what way is that the United States doing something on the scale of threatening to nuke somebody?

Could I not be more clear about the nature of that link? He's asserting, against my own assertion, that N.Korea's posturing is not par for the course this time. He's wrong, and now you just look like a tit.

You're right, we just invade countries on unconvincing intelligence, bring countless hardships to millions of bystanders, and threaten our Allies for not standing by every decision we make. Not to mention all those violations of the Geneva Conventions, American's own civil liberties, etc.

It's telling how much people are ok with as long as their quality of life is high though.

I never said I was okay with those things. I know America has done horrible things. How about having an honest discussion?

But some of those things happened during different administrations, and though they are ruthless and unethical, none of them are lunacy like threatening to use a nuclear weapon first.

You would be wrong.

Hawkeye, that's the whole conversation you're referring to right there. It does not mean what you think it means. I get that you're mad over the Iraq War, but how about we both agree that chemical-imbalance posting is a bad idea?

Did Stalin or Khrushchev ever explicitly say they were going to launch a nuclear attack on a neighbor?

The error being made here of course, is to directly apply the circumstances befalling the Soviet Union to North Korea.

OK. How, exactly do North Korea's circumstances justify threatening to massacre their neighbors every couple of years and unilaterally assert that ceasefires are over? Why does this justification not apply to the USSR?

If you don't have an answer for that question, then cut the posturing. You're making a fool of yourself.

Interesting note: Bush's threats at least afforded Hussein a way out: he could have simply thrown open the borders, said "come see for yourself, I have no weapons of mass destruction." His decision not to do that... it might have been inevitable, but at least he had an option. One that would at least have grossly embarrassed the Americans, if not prevented the attack entirely.

Oh please, the Bush Administration was going to drum up a way to invade one way or the other. WMDs were simply the most convenient grab-a-casus belli in the war room.

OK, I challenge you. Prove it. Prove that the Bush administration would have proceeded unchanged with its plans if it was proven that Saddam had no WMD. If nothing else, I'd love to see you explain how the plans would have been unchanged when millions of Americans and several foreign countries suddenly turned around and went "wait, he has no WMD, we're not supporting this."

The false belief that Hussein had WMD was critical to Bush's entire strategy. If Hussein pulled that out from under him, I think the Bush administration would have wound up flailing around like a Three Stooges routine, not just shrugging and carrying on. But obviously you have super-secret recordings of Darth Cheney making other plans...

You're also disregarding that Hussein felt such an option was unacceptable, because it would weaken his position against Iran. So Bush offering such a thing to him is frankly irrelevant.

So Saddam Hussein decided... let me get this straight.
1) I signed a treaty at the end of the Gulf War, which I started by invading Kuwait, promising to throw away all my WMD.
2) I then decided that it was important for me to deter the Iranians by making everyone in the world think I had WMD, despite promising not to.
3) So when the UN wants to check my compliance with the treaty, I stop them, because that might make the Iranians realize I don't have them, making them more likely to maybe attack me in the future.
4) So when the US says they will attack me right the fuck now for having WMD, I continue this policy, because I am too much of a dumbass to trade a small risk of being attacked by Iranians later for a huge risk of being attacked by Americans and a multinational coalition right now.

And you're saying that this line of reasoning is so sensible and obviously correct that no reasonable person would expect Hussein to back down?

Even granting that the invasion was wrong, which I've agreed with pretty much since it happened, that still makes you sound like a moron. What will you do for an encore, die fighting the police to stop them from searching your house for shit you know isn't there?


Besides, you're arguing that Hussein's decision was based on refusing to admit he'd complied with an international treaty, and making the world think he was breaking it. How is that not hypocritical? That's the same kind of disrespect for international law that you'd be jumping all over if it was the US doing it.

North Korea does not seem to have offered South Korea* an alternative. They said "we exercise our right to attack you, war has begun." Granted they seem to not actually be shooting... but how the fuck is South Korea supposed to interpret "we will shoot you, the cease-fire is over?" What is that supposed to mean if not a threat of nuclear death?

Do not try to change the topic. We're talking about the reaction Americans are having to N.Korea's threats. Americans are acting like Kim is Hitler 2.0.

Which Americans? Where? Me? Broomstick? Who the fuck are you talking about?

Or are these the imaginary Murca-freedom-idiots who live in your head?

As far as I can tell, most Americans are largely laughing the whole thing off; in my area we're a lot more worried about the sequester than we are about a North Korean missile landing on us. Despite the fact that both of those things are pointed straight at us, if you believe the news.

You think I'm "changing the subject." That's not the problem. The problem is that I am not bound to treat your delusions and sheer fucking contempt as though they were facts and reality.



The reality is, the US reaction to North Korea consists of:
1) Moving ABM assets to the West Coast, just in case North Korea actually, y'know, wasn't completely bullshitting us this time. This is known among smart people as "honoring the threat." It's what you do when someone says they're going to kill you. You take some precautions.
2) Making some diplomatic statements about how the North Korean government is a bunch of raving loony assholes. Which is not new. They are raving loony assholes. Everyone, no matter how much they hate and fear the US, will probably agree on this, with the possible exception of the people who have the North Korean secret police pointing guns at their head.
3) Maybe some military planning to coordinate with Japan and South Korea in case of war, which like (1) is a totally reasonable and moderate precaution to take when someone threatens to turn your capital city into a 'sea of fire.'

I fail to see how any of this is "panty-clutching."



Now, if you're talking about my reaction, I think the North Korean government is being incredibly stupid, short-sighted, and self-destructive. By constantly making nuclear threats, they make their neighbors more fearful. They make their neighbors more likely to want nuclear weapons of their own. They make war more likely, they make nuclear war more likely- a nuclear war they would probably lose. And to top it all off, they reduce their own future credibility if they ever need to use their nuclear deterrent to say "stop this or else we shoot the nukes." Because they're playing boy-who-cried-wolf every other year or so. If in 20 years they really mean it for a change, who's going to believe them?

This kind of ignorant, irreesponsible approach to nuclear strategy is exactly why everyone in the civilized world with any brains has been worrying about nuclear proliferation for the past fifty or sixty years. The more nuclear powers there are, and the more marginal and loopy the states that have them*, the more risk there is that hundreds of thousands of people will die in flames. If you don't grasp why people think this is a bad thing, please start reading books on the subject and leave us alone until the ignorance passes.
___________________

*By this standard, Stalinist Russia was not loopy. Tyrannical yes, killing millions of people yes, invading and occupying several countries against their will, even more than Bush-era US, yes. Loopy? No. Stalinist Russia having nukes was actually not such a bad thing. Maoist China having nukes could have been bad- remember the Cultural Revolution- except Mao sobered up when he realized what the weapons were capable of. I really hope the North Korean government follows Mao's example.

[Alkaloid]

I fail to see how any of this is "panty-clutching."

Well lets be honest here, because I didn't say the US government, I said Americans on the internet. Unless that all of a sudden includes the POTUS or the joint chiefs of staff or any reasonably highly ranked diplomat, I'm pretty sure the doesn't mean 'the US government is panty clutching.'

As for how I think the behaviour demonstrated by the stoic, freedom loving Americans I normally find scattered around the internet could be described as 'panty clutching,' well, I fail to see how the infinitesimally small increase in the chance of any American dying from a North Korean nuclear strike, even if we are super generous and say they have 6 nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting any part of the US ready to go right now, justifies the sheer mass of Americans I've seen demanding 'more knowledgeable' people than themselves (spoiler: these people are not at all knowledgeable) to tell them what a nuclear war with North Korea would be like, or reassure them by telling them how big and capable the US military is, or how incompetent everyone born in North Korea has been since the beginning of time. I especially don't see how it's justifiable when the people most likely to be nuked by the North Koreans, South Koreans, largely just shrugged their shoulders and said well it's North Korea, they do this from time to time.

But hey, if say, Coffee should threaten to fly around the world and punch me in the dick any time in the near future I'll be sure to remember that frantically phoning the police and demanding to know how they will protect me from this fist toting madman, while flinging pictures of my carrion bird of choice, emblazoned with witty phrases indicating how muscular I am, and how willing I am to murder his entire family in order to pre-empt this dick punching is not a massive over reaction.

[Broomstick]

Actually, there are a few tens of thousands of American citizens in South Korea who are under just as much threat as anyone else in South Korea, as well as all the Americans who happen to be in Japan and other nearby countries. It's entirely natural that the friends and families of those people would have some concern here.

But, again, the original question about the North Koreans and here we've circled back to the Americans. Yes, the US can be total dickheads. But that wasn't the original topic of this thread. The original topic was do we take this latest threat by the North Koreans seriously or not?

[Ziggy Stardust]

As for how I think the behaviour demonstrated by the stoic, freedom loving Americans I normally find scattered around the internet could be described as 'panty clutching,' well, I fail to see how the infinitesimally small increase in the chance of any American dying from a North Korean nuclear strike, even if we are super generous and say they have 6 nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting any part of the US ready to go right now, justifies the sheer mass of Americans I've seen demanding 'more knowledgeable' people than themselves (spoiler: these people are not at all knowledgeable) to tell them what a nuclear war with North Korea would be like, or reassure them by telling them how big and capable the US military is, or how incompetent everyone born in North Korea has been since the beginning of time. I especially don't see how it's justifiable when the people most likely to be nuked by the North Koreans, South Koreans, largely just shrugged their shoulders and said well it's North Korea, they do this from time to time.

Translation: You've seen 3 people on the Internet say stupid things in a forum, which means that all Americans are stupid and overreacting. Because we all know that vague anecdotal accounts of anonymous Internet users are exactly the kind of evidence you should base your sweeping generalizations off of.

Thanks to you, I am now going to assume that all women in the world are, in fact, overweight men lying to us because lol Internetz.

[Terralthra]

The problem with America's baseless threats is that they have frequently proved to be based, in fact, on actual promise of violence.

Interesting note: Bush's threats at least afforded Hussein a way out: he could have simply thrown open the borders, said "come see for yourself, I have no weapons of mass destruction." His decision not to do that... it might have been inevitable, but at least he had an option. One that would at least have grossly embarrassed the Americans, if not prevented the attack entirely.

Yeah, I'm just going to stop you here. Hussein did allow weapons inspectors back in as of November 2002 in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1441, and by the time the invasion began, they had found absolutely nothing. His WMD bluff called, Bush at first doubled down on it, with his administration mostly engaging in a PR war to convince the US population (and the UN Security Council) that Saddam had super-secret hidden WMDs - that the inspectors couldn't find - and links to Al Qaeda. Colin Powell's infamous speech to the UN? "We do not want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"?

March 17th, 2003, Bush issues an ultimatum to Iraq - Saddam Hussein must abdicate control of Iraq, surrender the country, and leave with both of his sons within 48 hours, or the US will invade. Not even bothering to wait the full 48 hours, the US started bombing ~18 hours after the deadline was given, a full day before it elapsed.

Bush was going to invade Iraq no matter what.

It is interesting to see that the Bush administration's PR war largely worked, though. You had no recollection that Hussein was complying with the 2002 requirement to allow inspectors back in. You didn't remember the "surrender, abdicate, and leave the country in 2 days" ultimatum that the US couldn't even be bothered to stick to.

[Stark]

Indeed the entire public discussion at the time was around the WMDs and where they were and if they existed, because people took the US statements as actual statements. Few realised at that time just how dishonest they were, and how thin a pretext the lies formed. I remember at that time that many already believed no WMDs existed, and many people would say that Iraq should be invaded regardless. It was a complex time, and Powells disgrace in the UN (and the result of the invasion) is really a tragic signpost to confirmation bias and bullshit. Oh well, only a few thousand Americans (and a few million Iraqis) suffered. No big deal.

And yeah, idiots like Simple Simmo have had that reality erased. And people say there's no new fascism.