So, a midget with self-respect issues and a Big Brother is Watching fixation (as a one time tourist to N. Korea told me, there are listening devices everywhere. Even in hotel bathrooms.) is getting himself a nuclear arsenal. Discuss.
I think I'll just wait and see rather than give my ten penny opinions on a future nuclear holocaust. Still I wouldn't be surprised if he's spent all his money on that now. Well I say all [i:b46088ec61]his[/i:b46088ec61] money, I mean all his people's money - what little they had.
I find it quite ironic that the first people to set themselves against them having nuclear weapons are the countries that have the weapons themselves. Everyone is talking about how dangerous it is for them to be a nuclear power while other countries (particularly America) sit there with these weapons and are just as likely, if not more so, to actually use them. Not that I am actually supporting N. Korea having them...but America is the only one to have actually gone out and used them on cities. What Mal said is sad but true though....in the end the poeple that will suffer most from it are those that needed the money within the country to be spent on them and not on weapons.
I think it's sad that new weapons are still produced over the world, be it land mines, handguns or nuclear bombs. All this effort in killing eachother could be better spent. It's not only countries having nuclear weapons that protest against North Korea developing their own, but the nuclear countries are the traditionally loudest ones. Sweden has protested, and we don't have any nuclear weapons, even though Boris Jeltsin claimed so once in a confused speech. Other than that, I agree with what Fairyliquid said.
[quote:0b0670fb89="fairyliquid"]I find it quite ironic that the first people to set themselves against them having nuclear weapons are the countries that have the weapons themselves. Everyone is talking about how dangerous it is for them to be a nuclear power while other countries (particularly America) sit there with these weapons and are just as likely, if not more so, to actually use them. Not that I am actually supporting N. Korea having them...but America is the only one to have actually gone out and used them on cities.[/quote:0b0670fb89] I was thinking the exact same thing, fairy... The same goes for France who were testing their own nukes not 10 years ago in the one of the most beautiful groups of tropical islands in the pacific. Now the government of N. Korea is not the best of governments, and like Iran, it's not a good idea to just let them have them... But it doesn't do much for the credibility of those who are so prompt to criticize that they have had the bomb for so many years and show no sign of getting rid of theirs. The only thing I can say is beware of midgets who make it to head of state.
The way I see it, it's not so much America, China, UK and France etc who are saying you can't have nuclear weapons so nyer nyer and being hypocrites for having them themselves. It's more them not wanting psychopathic nutjobs having nuclear weapons, making the world that bit more unstable. With countries like the UK and France and yes, even the USA, they aren't just going to nuke someone on a whim, even with GW at the helm, because it just isn’t that simple when you have a proper government and democracy to appease. But when you're a total head-wrong who makes schoolgirls sing about how happy they are when they're starving to death and even China thinks you’re a bit dodgy, there isn’t much to stop you capriciously blowing up your nearest neighbours with nukes. I think it’s this that governments are worried about.
Well said, Mal. I object to Korea having nuclear weapons, but I also object to any country having them. I am all for total nuclear disarmament.
nixon wanted to nuke vietnam. had that come to pass, THEN i'd allow people to say 'america's the only nation to ever use a nuclear weapon' and retain their dignity. what if we went far enough back and saw the first cannon shot. at that point, everybody in europe/the middle east went rushing to build as many cannons as they could... but then DIDN'T shoot each other with them... they just sat there, using the threat of mutually assured artillery to enter cold war. would that first nation to fire a shot from a cannon be megalomaniacal villans for it? no. they got a new weapon, they used it once, and saw it was too powerful to use casually. let's remember here, the manhattan project was a race against the nazis, not a quest for the ultimate japan flattening bomb. it just so happens that the russians beat the nazis for us, and we'd already pretty much finished this bomb, but japan wasn't willing to surrender. let's remember here, the projections for storming the main japanese islands suggested that the death toll would be almost fantasticly high. it was not worth it, in the cost of american lives, to the american high command. so the super weapon was used. the japs were given full warning of what was coming, too, remember. and they still didn't surrender. so the next one was used. not megalomania. not 'nutjob with super weapon'. a devestating strike to break the country's will and demonstrate that more than their will could be broken. now, that said... i'm against anybody having nukes. i fear nutjobs like nixon and bush as much as i fear nutjobs like kong jim il or miscelaneous terrorist organizations.
[quote:f38c61c5d7="fairyliquid"]I find it quite ironic that the first people to set themselves against them having nuclear weapons are the countries that have the weapons themselves. Everyone is talking about how dangerous it is for them to be a nuclear power while other countries (particularly America) sit there with these weapons and are just as likely, if not more so, to actually use them. Not that I am actually supporting N. Korea having them...but America is the only one to have actually gone out and used them on cities. What Mal said is sad but true though....in the end the poeple that will suffer most from it are those that needed the money within the country to be spent on them and not on weapons.[/quote:f38c61c5d7] Unfortunately, the only way to stop countries from having nuclear weaponry, is to make said weaponry irrelevant. It's all very nice saying the USA and the other old members of the nuclear club should disarm, but at the end of the day, all it would be is a nice gesture. Why? Because it won't stop all the other buggers who want nuclear weapons to get them. So, how do we stop countries from getting nuclear weapons? We all saw that Kim Jong Il doesn't care one bit about sanctions. The people starve, and he and his don't. That's all he and his care about. Unfortunately, making nuclear weaponry irrelevant is, um, rather difficult. You can make the more primitive delivery systems irrelevant, eventually, but that just leads to an arms race of delivery system and counter system. That might be better, some would say, but imagine the day that we can't beat the delivery system. Then we would just dig up those emergency nukes we *should* have destroyed, and we're back to square one. So what do we do? Do the old members disarm completely and then declare war on any country that shows even the slightest inclination to make nuclear weapons? Do we give them lucrative trade offers as long as they play by the rules? Or do we just keep quiet and hope that the poor sods living in aforementioned country manage to overthrow their goverment before its too late? The trade offers would simply be placating the warlord. Eventually said warlord gets tired and gets back to his old games. Waiting for, or trying to stage a coup is risky, and is not likely to work in time. War? I'm afraid that that step, along with total disarmament of the current nuclear powers, would require a form of world goverment. Can anyone see that one happening any time soon? Because I don't. And truth to be told, I think we missed that I too support total disarmament. I just don't think it's too likely to happen any time soon. I put my trust in science fiction, me. Good old science fiction. I'm hoping someone'll build that anti-nuclear force-field real soon, indeed I do...
[quote:668bb0d24c="Garner"]let's remember here, the projections for storming the main japanese islands suggested that the death toll would be almost fantasticly high. it was not worth it, in the cost of american lives, to the american high command. so the super weapon was used. the japs were given full warning of what was coming, too, remember.[/quote:668bb0d24c] To add to that a bit, the Imperial Japanese propoganda machine painted the advancing American forces in such a ghastly and monstrous light that civilians commited mass suicide when they saw the American troops advancing.
[quote:d88191c350="Roman_K"]civilians commited mass suicide when they saw the American troops advancing.[/quote:d88191c350] Well, some of those Yanks are pretty damned scary to look at...
I think it would of been possible for the USA to show the overwhemling might of the Nukes, without destroying a whole city. But I guess thats not really the point of being at war with someone. I think that in some point in the future thier will be a nuclear-type war. Man was never made a weapon that it's never used. Roll on freaky three arms and nuclear powered lazer eyes, I say!
[quote:7c55a0cc96="Garner"]let's remember here, the projections for storming the main japanese islands suggested that the death toll would be almost fantasticly high. it was not worth it, in the cost of american lives, to the american high command. so the super weapon was used. the japs were given full warning of what was coming, too, remember.[/quote:7c55a0cc96] The estimates of dead Japanese was extremely high as well. If the island hopping and then the full attack on the mainland had occured before a peace was agreed too, then the death toll for both sides would have been much, much worse. It was estimated that the bombs saved more lives, on both sides, than they expunged.
The home islands were already being firebombed, quite fiercely, by the time the nukes were used. The writing was on the wall even if the Allies only gave themselves one year after V-E day to accomplish the defeat of Japan, before the homefront started questioning the war. I do not doubt that many people were spared, but it is nothing but a damned shame that we have not come to the worldwide realization that war against each other is anything but crazy. I find the Bush adminstration's choice of attacking Iraq and all but ignoring North Korea to be telling. Kim Jong IL is way scarier then Saddam Hussein ever was. It isn't an easy prospect, dealing with someone so unpredictable and so apparently wrong headed. I heard that North Korea becoming a nuclear power would likely push Japan into the nuclear arena, what that would do to their economy is anybodies guess. Looking at what it has done to the former Soviet Union I'm guessing it wouldn't be good.
[quote:a3f9bc84ed="Buzzfloyd"][quote:a3f9bc84ed="Roman_K"]civilians commited mass suicide when they saw the American troops advancing.[/quote:a3f9bc84ed] Well, some of those Yanks are pretty damned scary to look at...[/quote:a3f9bc84ed] **huddled shaking in a corner, rocking to and fro** The beard, the beeeeaaaard...
Besides countries with nuclear weapons condemning N. Korea for wanting them, the thing I find most depressing is that N.Korea is literally killing millions of its own citizens with famine and disease. Because instead of using whatever money and resources they may have to feed people, they are using them to build big bloody weapons, on the off chance that anyone would want to invade an impoverished, malnourished and uneducated nation... I mean of all the countries people would want to invade why the hell would you choose North Korea. Besides it doesn't even have oil. Although now it has a nuke they've given others a reason to invade...Ah military strategy gone mad, because now they need more weapons and stuff to defend the weapon.
I'm going to reserve comment on this until there is corroborated proof that the explosion was in fact nuclear. So far the readings don't match up according to the scientists and geologists who measure these things. The only way they can be correct is if the device was much smaller than N.Korea is claiming in the official statement. It will take a few more weeks to get the particulate evidence from the region sampled and measured. Spiky I concur with you on the famine and disease but the depressing thing is that governments in Africa, S. America etc. are getting away with the same thing and it goes unreported. The biggest killer today is not war, but ignorance and it is costing hundreds of lives a day.
