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Look normally you wong see me get involved with political issues and I just try and keep my own life simple that is enough to deal with.
North Korea iz looking awful bad right now and I have friends in military that say it's worse than we can imagine. Either way I don't see a good end result.
Starting to scare me a bit but not for me but my kid
Wondering all what you thought..
Peace All
"Another Day In This Carnival Of Souls"
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08-09-2017, 09:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-09-2017, 09:42 PM by horsies.)
It is very scary.. with trumps finger on the button and the way things have been going in the WH lately.. very very scary. I agree. Get gas masks for your children and enough canned food I would say. No telling what will happen or when
I also have some friends in the military that have been stocking up on tons and tons of water... bottles especially (NG), and the odd thing is they are all going into storage. Anyway they said "it is not a matter of if there is a chemical attack, it is when." Of course the MOS was Hazmat..
"It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has." -William Olser
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What worries me is the potential to escalate. This could draw in China and even Russia. At the moment they've urged calm and regard NK's nuclear tests as reckless. But they aren't desperately impressed with what they see as Western provocation.
The reason Cuban Missile Crisis remained a crisis rather than the start of WWIII was very careful communication between JFK and Khrushchev. In both cases what you have is a colossal, and very dangerous, game of chicken. To de-escalate that you have to negotiate a series of steps backwards. With the CMC they had to ensure none of the steps were too humiliating for either side. That whole process of de-escalation came down very much to the personalities of both leaders. Kim and Trump are very different to JFK and Khrushchev. Furthermore they don't have a line of communication (I'm not counting Trump's twitter account!). The risk is that something gets misinterpreted and there is no way to correct it.
NK says it will go for Guam. Three things to note about the plan: a) Guam isn't mainland USA; b) they plan to hit the sea rather than land; c) the plan is non-nuclear. If they hit mainland USA with a nuke (and that is a big IF) that would be suicidal and within an hour Pyongyang would cease to exist. Short of massive escalation, by which time China would be involved too, I really don't see that happening plus there are a load of technical reasons why NK isn't quite there yet (I'll return to this). Also it is odd to give a very precise indication of what you plan to do militarily in a week or so. The risk for NK is if this demonstration fails. The risk to the USA is if they try to shoot the missiles out the sky and fail.
Assuming they managed to detonate missiles around the edges of Guam, then how does the USA respond? My guess would be hitting military and nuclear sites in NK. Is that interpreted as a limited response or the start of something bigger? Does that then provoke NK into using it's conventional weapons on Seoul? It is a very tightly packed city, quite close to the border, and NK has a lot of firepower pointed at it. At what point does the USA flatten Pyongyang? And how much will China tolerate before getting involved. We seriously do NOT want a war with China. They seriously do not want millions of refugees arriving from NK.
NK on its own can't do that much to the USA. I know nuclear missiles are scary, but there is a question mark about whether they have the technology to deliver. They've lied before about their firepower e.g. claiming they had tested a hydrogen bomb. It yielded 6-9 kilotons which is a bit less than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. A proper hydrogen bomb uses an atomic bomb (fission) to ignite the fusion process, and so gives you a megaton yield. Those are the "city killers" we all feared through the cold war. That said 6-9 kilotons is hardly trivial, but it would need to be right on target to be really devastating. If it drifts off a few miles then the city may need to deal with radioactive fallout, but the heat and blast would be over a less populated area. None of that is good, but nothing like what Japan had at the end of WWII. Besides which, it is so obviously suicidal. NK developed nukes to avoid "regime change" like with Iraq. That suggests they want to continue, not end in a fireball.
I don't want this to be partisan because it is an international crisis, but I worry about Trump in times like these. Nuanced and delicate diplomacy isn't his strong point.
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I don't think there's much point to diplomacy with either of them but something just has to be done about NK whilst I wouldn't trust ztrump with a barge pole the other guy is a complete nut job who is even prepared to kill his own family members. I don't see this ending well at all.
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Yes, it's pretty scary. I agree. I read a quote today from trump about how they better back down, or else...., and it's just welcoming a world war. So scary. I don't know the answer....as a wise man once said...."Can't we all just get along?"
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I think the little dictator, Kim Jong-in just wants more money
from the USA. Didn't they pay him off the last few times
or maybe that was his father?
Anyway if that doesn't work then usually China puts the
kibosh on things but it is a serious situation and Trump doesn't seem to know how to deal
with it. His posting on Twitter ain't gonna cut it.
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08-11-2017, 12:42 AM
Personally, I just Pray this doesn't come to fruition, on either 'side'...
Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path...
And leave a trail... of Love, Laughter and Understanding.
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Had not heard about the US giving NK money before,is that actually true?
Its a bit like being held to ransom if it is,have you any links to this SteveN ?
What is scarey is as barq pointed out is the lack of communication behind the scenes as there was during the Cuban missile crisis,there usually is talking between countries during times of tension or not,no doubt diplomats were talking before the invasion of Iraq,before and during the Vietnam war,even during WW2 there was talks going on between the Germans and the allies,but with this there seems to be no talking between either side,complete breakdown of diplomacy between both sides,there must have been some kind of talking before all this,when I don't know.
It is worrying,just the words being thrown around almost casually,I hope this passes and the 2 sides do actually sit down and talk to each other,I can't believe either leader wants a nuclear war,they need to get along,easier said than done,what a damn mess,lets hope it passes and peace of some kind prevails.
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Fom todays Guardian news website
Despite gung-ho language from the US president, there was no change in US deployments in the region or a change in the alert status of US forces. And it was reported on Friday that the Trump administration had reopened a channel of communication between US and North Korean diplomats at the UN.
According to the Associated Press, the “New York channel” had been broken off by North Korea in protest against sanctions in 2016, but it was revived this year between Joseph Yun, the US envoy for North Korea policy, and Pak Song-il, a senior North Korean diplomat at the country’s UN mission.
The US state department said it had no comment on the report. It had previously been reported that there had been diplomatic contacts about US detainees in North Korea, but the new AP account said the talks addressed wider issues, although such contacts had so far failed to moderate the exchange of threats between the leaders of the two countries.
Asked about the report on Friday, Trump said: “Well, we don’t want to talk about progress, we don’t want to talk about backchannels.
“We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many many years – decades, actually – through numerous administrations, and they didn’t want to take on the issue and I had no choice but to take it on, and I’m taking it on. And we’ll either be very, very successful quickly or we’re going to be very, very successful in a different way, quickly.”
Last sentence not very nice to read.
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Yes, what SteveN said, Tommy I had read that we have appeased them going on 25 years.
Given money and other aid to convince them to take a different path, it did not work as all can see.
Remember how appeasing a crazed Hitller can get nowhere.
Chamberlin said we have peace in our time waving the paper, rubbish....it was then and also now days .
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