North Korea...suicidal, or attention whore?

[Darkstar]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/...ttack?lite

North Korea threatened to exercise its "right to pre-emptive nuclear attack" Thursday as Pyongyang ratcheted up its rhetoric ahead of a United Nations vote on new sanctions.

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,'' the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

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Earlier in the week, Pyongyang threatened to end the 60-year truce that ended the Korean war.

Are they really this desperate for attention? What if they actually got it. It would be an interesting way to commit suicide...

War-game scenarios have suggested that a war on the peninsula would be over quickly, with the North under U.S. and South Korean control within 24 hours, Walker said.

No surprise here.

However, the Korea Economic Institute earlier this week warned that Pyongyang could "certainly inflict serious damage along the Southern side of the [demilitarized zone] in the event of a surprise attack" using artillery.

I doubt they're actually crazy enough to go through with this, but who knows. The North Koreans are pretty out there...

[frankiej]

I don't know why these stories always cheer me up...

I guess I just like the thought of the world burning.

[Baalzebutt]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/...ttack?lite

North Korea threatened to exercise its "right to pre-emptive nuclear attack" Thursday as Pyongyang ratcheted up its rhetoric ahead of a United Nations vote on new sanctions.

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,'' the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

---

Earlier in the week, Pyongyang threatened to end the 60-year truce that ended the Korean war.

Are they really this desperate for attention? What if they actually got it. It would be an interesting way to commit suicide...

War-game scenarios have suggested that a war on the peninsula would be over quickly, with the North under U.S. and South Korean control within 24 hours, Walker said.

No surprise here.

However, the Korea Economic Institute earlier this week warned that Pyongyang could "certainly inflict serious damage along the Southern side of the [demilitarized zone] in the event of a surprise attack" using artillery.

I doubt they're actually crazy enough to go through with this, but who knows.

I think they might just be crazy enough. The Kim Yong's have already demonstrated that they have absolutely no regard for the welfare of the citizens of North Korea so, other than saving their own asses, what would stop them from launching an attack? They go into bunkers and avoid any real danger and let their citizens take one for the team. Well, in this case, the team takes one for the team.

In any case, Yong Un is a serious nutcase and is going to have to get his pee-pee spanked with a missile or two before he backs down. I just hope he doesn't take too many innocents with him along the way.

[Faith No More]

I'm going to go with "suicidal attention whore."

[Psykhronic]

[Darkstar]

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[Anomalocaris]

What North Korea want is for the rest of the world to open itself to North Korea on North Korean Terms, in much the same way that the world opened itself to China on more or less Chinese terms in 1979. For Kim, the world must open to North Korea, and it must absolutely be on North Korean terms. Missing either element, and the Kim regime will eventually perish.

However, even on Chinese terms China still had much to offer the world, so for the rest of the world it was a worthwhile trade off. Not so with North Korea.

What much of the rest of the world wants is for North Korea to open itself up to the world on the same terms as other countries of the world, failing that, leave North Korea cut off.

[Darkstar]

Update: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/201...isome?lite

The problem is that North Korea, which has long taken a backseat in U.S. councils to the Middle East, does have military capabilities that could at the very least threaten U.S. interests in North Asia.

According to a recent analysis, North Korea has a weapon stockpile that could threaten both Japan and South Korea and, in longer term, the United States. Some of the weapons have already been deployed, say U.S. officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity. Moreover, the North has begun research into more advanced and dangerous weapons, possibly even thermonuclear weapons, they say.

At the high end of the stockpile range, U.S. officials and other researchers said North Korea may already have up to "a few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted atop its vast fleet of ballistic missiles. Those missiles are limited to an intermediate range, capable of hitting targets in Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in the northern Pacific, including U.S. military bases as far south as Guam, the officials believe.

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U.S. officials publicly express confidence that the national missile defense system based in Alaska would be able to shoot down any incoming North Korean ICBM.

“I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday in response to a question about the North Korean threat.

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Once the North has confidence in the long-range missile based on the space rocket, U.S. officials believe they will deploy it as well, making North Korea the third nation to have nuclear weapons targeted at the United States, after Russia and China.

Many in the Obama administration see that as a more frightening prospect than Iran gaining nuclear weapons, believing that Tehran is a rational actor that will serve its own national interest and preserve the regime, compared to successive generations of North Korean leaders who have shown that they are unpredictable and erratic.

[Minimalist]

Are they really this desperate for attention?

The Kims are merely the personification of this observation....

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H. L. Mencken

I think they learned it from Bush and the republicunts. Without the perception, real or imagined, of some massive external threat would the North Korean populace put up with their living conditions?

[Something completely different]

They would never dare to take a preemtive nuclear strike.


They would as a result end up being nothing but a pile of ash.