Obama’s North Korea/Iran test
This morning, North Korea decided that, since the world hasn’t made an active response to their missile launches and nuclear tests, they’d abrogate the 1953 armistice that ended the hot war on the intra-Korean frontier (CNN link).
“Our revolutionary armed forces … will regard” South Korea’s participation “in the [the 6-year-old Proliferation Security Initiative] as a declaration of war …” the North’s official news agency said.
Pyongyang also announced it was no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
“The Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view, and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions,” North Korea said through its news agency.
Sweet. It’s the 1950s all over again. But that’s not the extent of the dangers we now face because the Obama Administration wouldn’t take the lead in shutting down North Korea’s nuclear program. Israel has discovered that Bolivia and Venezuela are supplying Iran with uranium (CBS News link);
“There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions. It added, “Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran.”
The report concludes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the United States by supporting Iran.
So hugging Hugo Chavez did Obama a lot of good, didn’t it? Of course, if you read this blog in December 2007, you’d have got a whiff of the uranium connections, when a suitcase full of cash was discovered on an airstrip in Bolivia’s uranium-mining region.
Since there was supposedly collusion between the North Koreans and Syrians on Syria’s own nuclear program, we can probably assume that the North Koreans lent aid to the Iranians – so it’s come full circle.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, Liberals suck, Terror War, Usual Suspects
We shall see how far the “Hope, change” thing will hand this.
He’s working on a strongly worded telepromter message, even as we sit here…
Check out the Peoples Cube website – Al Quaeda has kidnapped the Teleprompter of the United States (TOTUS). POTUS is now speechless.
Until now, Obama was able to skate through all of his “tests” by continuing on the same track as the Bush Administration (voting present, as it were). This is going to be the first time that our President needs to take decisive action otherwise, North Korea will continue down this path of beligerance.
Does anyone actually think that this person is going to do ANYTHING? He has shown no proclivity for any type of leadership action for which he would be held accountable or responsible. He has befriended every enemy of the US and depleted our treasury to the point of no return. Now some are expecting him to do something? Impossible. Voting Present..good point.
Dutch,
I would agree, although you would think by now they have ” situation caused (left or ignored) by the previous administration” saved to lessen the keystrokes.
It takes the current administration three days to take a public position on anything. The fact that the NoKs are changing the situation everyday just pushes back the public position…
Todays declaration by NoK will be followed in 72 hours by Pres. O’s strongly worded telepromter statement to the UN…
So what course of action does anyone here actually recomend?
HM2(FMF/SW)Ret: Well, running around the globe on the world fellacio tour didn’t help matters; did it? In fact, while he was humming a tune on every third world dictators skin flute, the rest of our enemies were watching. Why do you think that Iran is acting up? Chavez and Ortega? Why do you think the Russians are content to let us deal with Iran, without helping? Because “the one” has taken missile defense off the table, has told the world we needed to get rid of our nukes (funny how as he was saying THAT, NK fired a big missile).
He has said he wanted “dialogue”, which is code for “I’m too much of a pussy to do anything” and the rest of the world knows it. Do you think Reagan would have sat through a 50 minute screed by Ortega, without going over and stepping on his neck? “The one”, just sat there and then said “don’t blame me”. Yeah, he makes Carter look downright manly.
Well, restarting the Korean War IS CHANGE…
I wonder why they didn’t try this shit last year?
Oh, yeah, the guy in charge wasn’t spineless, wasn’t ruled by polling and wasn’t beholden to the peacenik dumbshits…
It takes the current administration three days to take a public position on anything—
Shit Dutch, you can’t get polling data instantly…
Now that Joe Biden broke the telepromter, it will be three more days before we hear anything.
Old Trooper:
I understand the frustration with the president. But what do you think we should do?
From what I’ve seen it appears that North Korea has Seoul sighted in with artillary and have prepared for the assault. So any military action is likely to kill thousands of civilians. Further, analysts at Foreign Policy Magazine report that the resulting humanitarian crisis would create instability that would make it easier for nuclear weapons to be taken out of the country. Further, a conventional airstrkie would have to be followed with troops that we don’t have and nuclear strikes would cause fallout in China and Russia damaging those relationships.
I don’t really know what all of our options are, but none of them seem to be very good.
If anyone is intersted here are the sources I found. I know there is much more out there and I am by no means and expert on Korea.
Excellent Map:
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/north-korea-uncovered-google-earth/
Six differnt Viewpoints:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/category/one_time_tags/north_korea_nuclear_test
Conflicting views on diplomacy:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6138
If anyone else out there has any information about this, I’d like to see it.
Maybe a good first step would be to restore the funds for missile defense? Seems like a no-brainer to me, but then, I’m not as “nuanced” as the 0. He could also walk back from his declaration that he’ll “never resort” to the use of a nuclear weapon.
The Norks have had Seoul sighted in since they got more than two artillery pieces on the ground, and their troops have always been poised to march south yet again.
I don’t remember my source so if someone can clear this up for me that would be great. But, my understanding was that the missle defense system was not accurate and the cost far outweighed its usefulness. Does it really work?
If it shoots down the NK missile headed for Anchorage (or LA), it works. Seriously, the last I read, the tests have been successful. Qualifying that, the ground-based tests have been successful.
http://www.mil-embedded.com/news/Industry+News/16999 . Try the link, or copy and paste it. This was cooperative effort by Boeing and Israeli Aerospace Industries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSWBT00766220070928 Try that one, it’s a story on the US system.
HM2: Granted, there is no easy solution to this, unless we can convince NK’s 2 buddies on the Security Council (China/Russia) that siding with NK is a bad move at this stage, but alas, because of the reasons I pointed out earlier, Russia isn’t inclined to side with us on anything, because they know we have a feminine Jimmy Carter in office and missile defense isn’t an option.
Whether MD works at 100% is irrelevent, SDI under Reagan was in the pre-development stage and that scared the Soviets enough that they went broke trying to counter it. They were demanding that SDI be taken off the table, but Reagan refused and in the end got his way in negotiations. That’s leadership and conviction of principles, something we are lacking by a country mile, right now.
In a nutshell; we apologized and ass kissed ourselves into a weak position, thanks to the fraud-in-chief, and we have nothing left to use as a bargaining chip with anyone, so China/Russia/NK/Iran/etc. aren’t really interested in what we say. South Korea has a tough standing army that trains for invasion constantly, so if the Norks do come South, they won’t get too far before being repulsed.