North Korea

[Humodour]

Why exactly does North Korea still exist (and not in the physical sense)? Even their closest communist allies find them a pain in the arse and impediment to good relations with the West. I mean war for 60 years while your neighbour and 'enemy' becomes the an economic superpower and you become the laughing stock of the world as your people starve. Really?

 

North Korea has sent up a rocket it says is carrying a satellite, despite international appeals not to go ahead with the launch.

 

Its neighbours and Western powers have responded with strongly worded statements.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7984016.stm

 

nothing but lol.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

They've got the nuke.

[Humodour]

They've probably got 1 nuke tops and it'd probably take out a small mall. Australia's got conventional fuel-air bombs more powerful.

 

But seriously, here's a good article on how ****ed up the country is from Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pac...2144110777.html

[Cycloneman]

North Korea is basically a country from 1984, lol. Wait, that's not funny.

[Walsingham]

I must lack some essential humour gene. I quail when faced with nuclear annihilation. You do realise it won't be like Fallout?

[SteveThaiBinh]

The North Koreans have conventional artillery capable of pulverising Seoul, 30 miles from the border and home to about 13 million people.

[Gorgon]

I'd wager the whole thing is kept together with fear, secret police and crude but universally present propaganda. Sort of a Robespierre/Stazi approach to keeping the populace in line.

 

Did you hear that weird story about how they kidnapped Japanese, Chinese and Thai nationals back in the 80s to train their own agents in blending in and appearing normal. Apparently their knowledge about how the rest of the world thinks is extremely limited.

Edited April 5, 2009 by Gorgon

[Hurlshort]

I heard the rocket ended up in the sea, but the N. Koreans are claiming it is in space broadcasting.

 

It's pretty hard not to laugh about this stuff.

[Gfted1]

^Yep.

 

U.S. Says N. Korean Rocket Launch Failed

Washington, S. Korea Dispute Pyongyang's Claim That Satellite Was Placed In Orbit

 

SEOUL, South Korea, April 5, 2009

 

(CBS/AP) North Korea fired a rocket over Japan on Sunday, defying Washington, Tokyo and others who suspect the launch was cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.

 

President Barack Obama said the move threatens the security of nations "near and far."

 

Liftoff took place at 11:30 a.m. local time from the coastal Musudan-ri launch pad in northeastern North Korea, the South Korean and U.S. governments said. The multistage rocket hurtled toward the Pacific, reaching Japanese airspace within seven minutes, but no debris appeared to hit its territory, officials in Tokyo said.

 

Four hours after the launch, North Korea declared it a success. An experimental communications satellite reached outer space in just over nine minutes and is orbiting Earth, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said from Pyongyang.

 

"The satellite is transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans 'Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung' and 'Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il' as well as measurement data back to Earth," it said, referring to the country's late founder and his son, its current leader.

 

But the U.S. military said "no object entered orbit."

 

North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials said in a statement that the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.

 

In the statement distributed by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, NORAD and USNORTHCOM assessed the launch vehicle as "not a threat to North America or Hawaii," and took no action in response.

 

~snip~

Edited April 5, 2009 by Gfted1

[Gorgon]

These guys are so inept the Japanese had to deploy patriot missiles out of fear debris would hit a city.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I wonder if a US invasion would be worse than them invading Iraq.

[Tigranes]

1) If North Korea manages to get whatever it has off before it's crushed, S. Korea and Japan will be the worst to suffer; two of the world's top economies with global corporations and investments, and very important markets for the U.S. and other countries. You don't want bombs coming to Seoul and Tokyo.

 

2) Because the U.S. is what it is, a forced reunification of Korea would probably involve foreign forces; the U.S. would probably demand general command over the invasion force and the political processes afterwards, creating an explosive quantity of ill-will in both Koreas and suspicion in Japan and China, with the obvious diplomatic impact.

 

3) Whatever else, a reunification would pose massive, massive problems / issues for the South Korean government regarding infrastructure, law and order, social issues, massive migrations, welfare, jobs and opportunistic enterpreneurs. It would take decades for things to get sorted out, which means an extremely volatile political situation for that period.

 

I suspect that the U.S. and S. Korea are happy with the way things are, as long as NK doesn't get too crazy and really blow up crap for fun.

[Walsingham]

I wonder if a US invasion would be worse than them invading Iraq.

 

I just realised that conventional wisdom can be summarised as "The invasion would have gone better if the French had been involved."

 

Just consider that for a moment.

[Humodour]

lol. epic fail:

 

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09...2&art_pos=6

[ouiouiwewe]

I must lack some essential humour gene. I quail when faced with nuclear annihilation. You do realise it won't be like Fallout?

Yeah, it's actually not that funny despite the failure. This is like saying "ha-ha" to the Taliban for failing a suicide bomb attempt.

 

Part of the world's problem are caused by angry people that will use any opportunity to use their resources on achieving whatever crazy goals they have (like striking out at their wealthier neighbours out of jealousy or sheer joy of destroying things). Even with inferior technologies, extremists from the middle east have shown us that it actually isn't that difficult to cause a high degree of casulties and collateral damage in developed countries.

 

But in North Korea's case, it does have a very large standing army and sufficient capability in bombing the **** out of its neighbours.

 

And yes, if M.A.D really happens, it wouldn't be like FO3. There wouldn't be permanently-preserved sugar pies packed in bombed-out Walmarts waiting for people to pick out and there aren't rad-aways to instantly cure people of all radiation exposure. On the upside, there shouldn't be any ghouls, rad-scorpions, and super-mutants roaming around 200 years after the holocaust.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Actually the test didn't fail, they tested a ballistic missile and it went further than it had ever gone before.

[Hurlshort]

I don't know, if a terrorist group came on TV and said they blew up New York, when they actually failed and did no such thing, it would be a bit humorous.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The satellite launching story was just cover and for domestic propaganda. Having said that, everything NK does is humorous, but what's more humorous is us constantly kissing their ass because of it.

[Walsingham]

If you don't intend to actually get in a punch up over it, why pretend you're going to? We might as well say the truth, which is that we've done our share of dictator smiting for the time being and someone else can do it. Maybe people could get the UN to do something?

 

BWAHAHAHAHAH! I crack me up.

[Gorgon]

The UN is only as good as the members unfortunately. When has the whole world (practically) ever agreed on anything.

[Humodour]

I must lack some essential humour gene. I quail when faced with nuclear annihilation. You do realise it won't be like Fallout?

Yeah, it's actually not that funny despite the failure. This is like saying "ha-ha" to the Taliban for failing a suicide bomb attempt.

 

Part of the world's problem are caused by angry people that will use any opportunity to use their resources on achieving whatever crazy goals they have (like striking out at their wealthier neighbours out of jealousy or sheer joy of destroying things). Even with inferior technologies, extremists from the middle east have shown us that it actually isn't that difficult to cause a high degree of casulties and collateral damage in developed countries.

 

But in North Korea's case, it does have a very large standing army and sufficient capability in bombing the **** out of its neighbours.

 

And yes, if M.A.D really happens, it wouldn't be like FO3. There wouldn't be permanently-preserved sugar pies packed in bombed-out Walmarts waiting for people to pick out and there aren't rad-aways to instantly cure people of all radiation exposure. On the upside, there shouldn't be any ghouls, rad-scorpions, and super-mutants roaming around 200 years after the holocaust.

 

You should look up the definition of MAD.

 

MAD is only relevant when you have two states which can wipe eachother out, not when you have one physically massive state that can wipe out another physically minute state that is woefully inept and has only a handfully of barely kiloton quality nukes at most.

[ouiouiwewe]

I must lack some essential humour gene. I quail when faced with nuclear annihilation. You do realise it won't be like Fallout?

Yeah, it's actually not that funny despite the failure. This is like saying "ha-ha" to the Taliban for failing a suicide bomb attempt.

 

Part of the world's problem are caused by angry people that will use any opportunity to use their resources on achieving whatever crazy goals they have (like striking out at their wealthier neighbours out of jealousy or sheer joy of destroying things). Even with inferior technologies, extremists from the middle east have shown us that it actually isn't that difficult to cause a high degree of casulties and collateral damage in developed countries.

 

But in North Korea's case, it does have a very large standing army and sufficient capability in bombing the **** out of its neighbours.

 

And yes, if M.A.D really happens, it wouldn't be like FO3. There wouldn't be permanently-preserved sugar pies packed in bombed-out Walmarts waiting for people to pick out and there aren't rad-aways to instantly cure people of all radiation exposure. On the upside, there shouldn't be any ghouls, rad-scorpions, and super-mutants roaming around 200 years after the holocaust.

 

You should look up the definition of MAD.

 

MAD is only relevant when you have two states which can wipe eachother out, not when you have one physically massive state that can wipe out another physically minute state that is woefully inept and has only a handfully of barely kiloton quality nukes at most.

 

I know what MAD stands for, but Walsingham was talking about a nuclear holocaust so I went slightly off-topic to agree with him on how things wouldn't have been even remotely similar to FO3 should such misfortune befall us or our descendants.

[Humodour]

You should look up the definition of MAD.

 

MAD is only relevant when you have two states which can wipe eachother out, not when you have one physically massive state that can wipe out another physically minute state that is woefully inept and has only a handfully of barely kiloton quality nukes at most.

 

I know what MAD stands for, but Walsingham was talking about a nuclear holocaust so I went slightly off-topic to agree with him on how things wouldn't have been even remotely similar to FO3 should such misfortune befall us or our descendants.

 

Oh, my bad. And sorry - that post was needlessly facetious of me.

[Walsingham]

Actually, MAD still applies IMO when your opponent can destroy four major cities.

[Azure79]

My mom who lives in Seoul, called me up the other day and had this to say. "Aren't the North Koreans so cute? I mean they try so hard."