North Korea scares me!

[SixFive]

I'm hoping we are patient with these guys until/unless they start attacking us. I have visions of human wave attacks and being outnumbered 20-1 (assuming the Chinese will support). They have proven in the past they have no regard for human life (even their own people), and unlike the Iraquis, they won't be cowards, they will fight with unabandoned zeal. Any thoughts? Scary stuff to me when the N. Koreans/Chinese get involved!

 

[wondo]

I imagine I will be ripped for this... I can see DTB and you, SixFive, among others No problem, nothing is personal towards anyone as some other people seem to go here. I might lean a little bit left in some regards, but I'm not the dope smoking, long hair growing, earring wearing fruit that you'd imagine! j/k

Anyway, I think that some of these international issues might be better handled by making the public a little more aware of what is going on elsewhere in the world. We see day after day of the damn sniper on the news, and we see much smaller domestic issues blown up into week and month long news followings.

Who really cares about Martha f-ing Stewart and what she does with her money? She could pay back ten times what she saved and it would still be a drop in the bucket.... that sort of thing.

But how about seeing how other countries have dealt with terrorism for decades (and I'm not talking about Middle Eastern nations... how about our close allies in western Europe) Let's try to educate some people as to how their ties to the Middle East differ from ours both culturally and socially.

There's a reason that some of these countries just don't jump on the bandwagon of Pres. Bush and the US. So many people here get so caught up in the media reports that focus on one aspect of an issue.... It's a rather ethnocentric view of the world.

Here's one of those liberal things that people pull off the internet.

I'm not saying we need to pour money into other countries than our own, but depending on the circumstances, we have to realize that we are outright outnumbered, and it is pretty freaking judgemental for our government to tell someone else how to run their country.... I don't always care for our government to tell me how to run my life, so I can only imagine living in another country and having a foreign goverment imposing their rules.

Don't get me wrong. I live off of baseball and only in the US could I have such a good time and make a living at whatever the hell pleases me. Believe me, I'm freaking thrilled to be living in the US and will do what it takes to keep life the way it is here. But at the same time, some of the directions we are going since 9/11 and even more recently have striking resemblances to the way things are dealt with and the propaganda that is spread among the very countries that we are trying to take down. Like anything -- food, drinking, etc. -- let's have a little moderation in our international policies. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean it's the thing to do.



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JUST A THOUGHT:

From the internet, come these insights to ponder.

If there were only 100 people in the world, there would be:


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57 Asians
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21 Europeans
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14 from North and South America
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8 Africans
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52 would be female
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48 would be male
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70 would be nonwhite, 30 white
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59% of the entire world?s wealth would belong to only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens of the United States
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80 would live in substandard housing
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70 would be unable to read
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50 would suffer from malnutrition
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one would be near death, one would be near birth
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One would have a college education
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99 of them will not see this message, because only one would have a computer.

 

[TIME TO MAKE $$$]

In today?s rapidly changing world, one of the most important issues is national security. It is the responsibility of a nation?s government to protect it?s land and it?s citizens from outside threats. Unfortunately, the way the world is today, for the US, national security requires nuclear weapons and technology.

Back in the 1960?s, the nuclear power country club was rather small and very elite. It consisted of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and the US. In 1962, these snobby countries signed a treaty which banned the testing of nuclear weapons and technology in space, the atmosphere and underwater. From the perspective of modern ecology this a agreement was extremely important. It prevented an incredible amount of pollution which is very important in today?s world.

However, as good as this agreement was, there was a huge loophole. Underground testing wasn?t prohibited and all the countries took ample advantage of it. In the last three decades the nuclear countries club has expanded. The original threatening four have now been joined by China (with a Communist dictatorship), India, Pakistan (with a very unstable political/governmental system), Israel and South Africa.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, all the republics sent their nuclear weapons to Russia. However, there is no proof that the new countries that were formed and now have dictatorships, such as Belaruse (which used to have nuclear weapons), Khazakstan and even Ukraine gave up all of their nuclear weapons. At least they could still have the technology that would enable them to produce those weapons.

Another issue is that several very dangerous countries are now on the verge of obtaining their own nuclear weapons. North Korea, Iraq, Iran and a few other countries with unpeacful tendencies are moving forward into the nuclear age very fast. North Korea has already been testing its weapons over Japan. Because of this situation the US must continue to develop and update its nuclear weapons and the technology of their production. This is the first reason why the US needs to continue testing its nuclear capabilities.

A second reason is a little more complicated. Mankind (including the US) still has no modern technology which can verify, for sure, that other countries aren?t conducting underground tests. Being a democratic and international law abiding country, if the US were to sign an agreement such as the CTBT, it would follow it. However, not all the countries with the nuclear capabilities are democratic and international law abiding. The undemocratic countries will not follow the terms of the treaty and the way things stand now, there would be now opportunity to check up on them.

From the international perspective there is also a third flaw in the proposed treaty. The nuclear capable countries with unfriendly political feelings towards the US will simply not sign it and as a result will become threats.

Of course some people talk of computer testing, but that is just vertual reality and to be sure that we have nuclear preparation against any developing nuclear technologies actual testing must be conducted.

Those that criticize the decision made by Congress say that the US is giving a bad example to the rest of the world. However, for the US, the issue of national security is and should be the most important one. Another fact is that no civilized country question the fact that the US will never use nuclear weapons first. What is important now for the US is to make its position clear to all nations. To explain to them that as the leading power in the world, it must be the last to sign a treaty of this kind. This is not only for the good of the US, but also for all democracies and developing democracies in the world.

 

[wondo]

FYI -- that wasn't really towards the North Korean issue, I don't know much about that.... but just in general.

 

[wondo]

Nice points, TTM$.

Don't you think that the US's readily available nuclear weapons would be enough to deter a nation from using them against us? Hypothetically, why would a smaller country not benefit from having nuclear weapons. Obviously there would be some risk that a wacko- governement might detonate them in an improper manner (as if there is a good way) but at the same time it might deter a more hostile nation from attacking that country. In the long run, might it lead towards countries being more self sufficient in protecting themselves and less reliant on US troops being deployed overseas?

I'm not well read by any means on this, so it is just a comment/question.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

I think your posty was outstanding wondo.I love the way % were displayed,quite unique and really puts things inperspective.

A little on 6-5's dip into koreans not being cowards.AMEN if they are anything like their counterparts the South Koreans. They were some of the baddest boys I ever witnessed in combat.Would stack them up against anyone. Should have had those "No Fear" decals on their forheads. We brought several in,we called them them ROKS, into the mountains filled with tunnels and they would fight each other to see who got to go in 1st.Would have took a gun to my head to get me down one.
They had this little ritual of stringing severed ears around their neck.
Bad lads,no doubt.

 

[djv]

I have come to believe North Korea will not be any big trouble for now. Couple reasons. There not 300 miles from Israel. They have no oil that we need. In fact I was just made a ware of the fact we send North Korea 1 million barrels of oil a year. That's nice. We have folks runing around about how we need to drill ever place we can think off because we need more oil. But we give away 1 million barrels a year to NK. Some BS about a treaty oil for NK not to go forward with there nuc program. Sounds like that worked well. Once there was a US that did not try to tell the rest of the world what to do. We new then we did not own the whole darn planet.

 

[RAYMOND]

live everyday like its your last! because one day it will be your last

don't worry about things that you can not contol, just live today
and be the best person that you can be, and someday you will
be in the promise land

 

[AR182]

It's always scary when certain countries, such as N. Korea, get weapons of mass destruction. But IMO NK at this time poses no threat.The reason why I say this is because if they were up to no good, they wouldn't come forward & inform everyone about their nuclear weapons.NK is a very poor country & I think they are trying to use these nukes as a bargainning chip to trade for whatever they need.
I am more scared of Iraq right now because he has shown they would not hesitate in using weapons against their enemies.Saddam is capable of putting these weapons in suitcases & giving them to people to take to the US. That is why Saddam must be taken out.
Pakistan is another country that I would be worried about.They have a nice supply of weapons & Mussaref(spelling?) can be overthrown by people associated with alQaeda.Kashmir has a large number of terrorists hiding out & could be waiting for the right time to strike.