Will US declare war on North Korea this Easter?

[Ed P]

According to Gizmodo probably maybe, rather than an outright denial or a statement saying highly unlikely.

Worrying — link

[The VFM Addict]

It all depends on whether Fat Boy Kim fancies his chances and goes for another missile or nuke test.

Frankly as I see it, sooner or later, if not now then in a year or so, the balloon will go up with Nth Korea. Because there is no way the USA will ever let them develop a Nuke ICBM capability that reaches the USA and Fat Boy Kim will not stop until he has that capability.

The fact is that all this can never end well – unless Fat Boy is taken out by someone on the inside or from the outside.   We must all live in hope.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

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[Bob Williams]

China is the key. From all reports, it appears that the Chinese are getting more and more irritated with Kim. If, that is, we can believe what we read and view: the Chinese are not called “inscrutable” for nothing. Sir Winston once said that Russia is “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”  China is much more of a puzzle to the West than Russia will ever be, their long, long history has taught them to dislike and even fear the effect of outside forces until the recent past.

However, the blocking of North Korean coal imports and other measures, may be a start. The sudden apparent chumminess between the presidents of the USA and China is another sign. It may be that Trump has made some concessions concerning the South China Sea islands created by the PRC, in exchange for dropping support for Kim and his dictatorship.

Sabre-rattling continues, but I don’t believe even Trump is daft enough to contemplate the results of a serious attack upon North Korea. Surely he understands the concept of MAD? (Mutually Assured Destruction, what a totally descriptive acronym!)

Oh, for the days of the original Cold War, when we knew who the enemy was!

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[Richard]

Ed, Trump was your man so you should know. I suggest he is erratic and may be borderline mad, he certainly has a grossly over developed ego, but unlike Kim, I do not think he is insane. Kim and his henchmen are clearly several sandwiches short of a picnic, so care needs to be taken over their possible lunacies. Russia may be pleased to see the eastern sphere blow up and distract everyone while Tzar goes on another hunting trip to pick off a few more of his imperial targets. With the perfidious French about to elect a dodgy president, they have a choice of two of the Tzar’s friends. Germany has too big a need of Putin’s gas to say anything. As we have a perfect receipt for dodgy indigestion inducing pudding.

As the only question is anyone for a polonium sandwich?

[Ed P]

Neither of the war-mongering pair of Presidential candidates would have been my ideal choice. I just saw Trump as being less likely to drag us into a European war with Russia. However it looks like he has allowed the CIA to dictate public opinion on Syria by manufacturing a casus belli and who knows where that can lead.

I now fear an irrational Kim rather than Trump, but both are unlikely to back down from their public statements. I’m just glad I do not live in Guam as that must be very high on the list of N.Korean targets.

[Malcolm]

Given the way the USA is acting the first we’ll know about it is when South Korea wakes up to find a sea between it and China.

[doctoryorkie]

According to me. No.

See you on Tuesday. :wacko:

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[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

Neither of the war-mongering pair of Presidential candidates would have been my ideal choice. I just saw Trump as being less likely to drag us into a European war with Russia. However it looks like he has allowed the CIA to dictate public opinion on Syria by manufacturing a casus belli and who knows where that can lead. I now fear an irrational Kim rather than Trump, but both are unlikely to back down from their public statements. I’m just glad I do not live in Guam as that must be very high on the list of N.Korean targets.

Are you suggesting that the CIA dropped Sarin on Syria, surely that is part of Butcher Al Sad and Tzar Putin’s story book? I see one of Butcher’s ex-military bods confirms the butcher still has tons of stored gas reserves.-

We we have Tzar Putin who simply enjoys killing anyone he does not like plus a few others to keep the rest in check, Butcher al-Asad who is a Tzar Putin copy without the appeal to males of a certain type, Kim who  leads, (or is he led by?) a shadow mess of human slime, The Chinese who appear increasingly out of their depth with the mad guests on their door mat. Along with a whole chunk of European main land locations who are in Tzar Putin’s Imperial thrall if not debt, (Germany for energy and Italy for hoped for trade and France for questionable motives). I am not sure that the future is unpredictable at all, though I side with those who say it is not stacking up to go, or should that be end well?

It will probably be the usual fudge, Putin will keep his Syrian conquest of a Mediterranean port, a few more bits of Eastern Europe will be sacrificed and the mad fat one will be kept propped up for a bit longer. Oh and Trump  will go bellowing off somewhere else. As for the European deluded hopefuls, they will get only crumbs with a perhaps a hope for future hand-me-downs.

[The Duke]

I don’t think USA dropped gas on the Syrians It wouldn’t surprise me is there was no gas dropped at all, and the videos was fabrication.

Some of videos on the news showed the responders hanlding the dead and dying with no gloves, or masks.

It looks as suspecte as them is is videos where all the solders taking part have bag fresh brand new combats and brand new boots. But the biggest give away is always the beret. Any ex solder knows the shape of your beret is of the highest order. Somthing Hollywood is yet to grasp. Any soldier on any film wheres there beret like a day one noob.

Alot of the isis videos suffer form alot of these nuances, a solder can see a mile away, I’d expect, and seen medical responders flag up, about the medical responders on the gas videos.

Make more sense, the attack was staged, as assad was about to crush the US rebellion (cough isis), and end the war, meaning no Saudi pipelines into Turkey and onto EU.

After all in 2011/12 I think chainey (can’t remember off top of head) in an official meeting brought up that the Saudis would cover the costs of an Syrian invasion, (its on record), so within 6 months, the Assads went from Hollywood Couple, being guests of all the rich, famous and powerful, being praised for there secular state, with free education and 5 star health care, to The devil incarnate.

 

[Ed P]

Just a couple of observations:

a) There is no proof that Sarin was used, just an observation from Turkey (a hardly dispassionate observer) that it appeared that Sarin had been used. I’m not denying poison gas was used and civilians died but chlorine is just as likely and ISIS have been known to use this, and could very likely have had this stockpiled in a facility that was bombed/shelled. (some dispute whether bombing or shelling took place). The  TV pictures of affected children exhibited the classic pink faces of chlorine poisoning. The health impacts of sarin are immediate but the interviewed parents said that their children seemed OK then died later.

b) Tactically gas/nerve agents are effective when there is a simultaneous ground assault. This did not happen.

c) Much more importantly, strategically WHO GAINS by using or releasing poisonous gases? Syria/Russia have nothing to win by their use. They were well on their way to resolving this conflict. On the other hand ISIS/Sunni extremists gain air support from the US. The US gains from curtailing Russia and supporting those it foolishly thinks it can trust, hence the CIA could well have assisted in ‘evidence’ planting. (Small quantities of Sarin can be made in a backstreet laboratory as evidenced by the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack on the Tokyo. subway.)

d) The CIA have a long history of manipulating the actions of their own Government (sometimes in illegal ways).

[Spedley]

Afaik the rebels had Sarin gas and the Syrian airforce attempted to destroy their arsnel but a small quanitity was released into the atmosphere.

Is that not what happened?

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[The Duke]

Maybe that big bomb the US dropped in Afghan was actually a bit of “housekeeping”, clearing up any evidence of a US link.

Just a thought.

[Richard]

Sarin is quite unstable at the best of times. Unless strenuous efforts are made to clean it up in production it only last a few days to a few weeks in storage. For this reason is is usual to store it as the two components and only combine them when delivery is planned.

Once released into an open space rather (than a container) it becomes gaseous rapidly, in moderately high (for Sarin) concentrations it kills quickly. However it does still kill at lower levels only it takes longer and the suffering of those affected is both more obvious and painful. On clothing it i can kill a contact for up to about 30 minutes. However, in the presence of air and more especially water it degrades quite rapidly.

It is quite good for clearing a town or village as after a short while the town in still intact but the people are not. It is also quite good for the poison Tzar to test the metal of Trump and just as believable as anything else.

Question why did it take Putin and Butcher boy so long to come up with their story, were their script writers on an early Easter break?

Chlorine does have rather different effects to Sarin and yes it has been used by both sides as a terror weapon in Syria. Experience from the first world war showed that some survived, albeit often with horrendous injuries.

I do realise that if the USA said baked beans are a food, some would stop buying them and suggest they were a poison. – Just as the anti vaccine squad are now refusing to vaccinate their children preferring to let them die from the range of childhood illnesses that crippled many of my generation and those of generations before.

It is a funny old world.

[The Duke]

Probably took then so long to “come up with their story” as they had to figure out what actually happened.

If I planned to gas people on a large scale, I know I’d have my cover story in place, before I done the deed.

Seems to be reports floating around the news agencies  now that it was isis launched a chlorine attack. Which sounds far more feasible.

I wonder if trump will apologise if it proved true. Not that it matters as I think the US/EU/SA alliance has nill chance of laying any pipes ever in Syria now.

 

In regards to South Korea, Ive not been following it, so don’t really have a view on it. I suppose I should give it some attention. All I know is what the MSM have said over the years, and i don’t trust them.

[Ed P]

Unfortunately mistrust and distrust have been constant companions in US/N.Korea relationships. It may need china to act as an honest broker between the two sides. A good start would be for China to join the naval task force at US behest. That would defuse that situation a little, and confuse the hell out of N.Korea!

Based on my time in South Korea (20 years ago) I’d say that the situation in the north has been fairly accurately portrayed, except that until very recently there were quite a number of South Korean and International companies operating in the north a fact which received little Western publicity — link

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>The US has form when it comes to wepons of mass destruction and I cant see Trump letting North Korea develop an ICBM that could hit the USA. If testing continues then I fear that some form of action is likely.</p>

[Ed P]

Graham, the US has a mixed record on WMD – it depends who has them, and whether they REALLY have them. There are a lot of nuclear nations e.g. Israel, India, Pakistan etc that are quietly left alone. North Korea (DPRK) is in a different league because it does not obey the normal rules e.g. it is actually threatening the US!

If the DPRK had been on an isolated island hundreds of miles from anyone then I agree, the US would probably have done a unilateral Grenada years ago. However the South Korean capital of Seoul is just 35 miles from the DPRK and well in range of their nuclear capable artillery/short range rockets. Adding to the situation is a battalion of US soldiers with their families who are garrisoned in Seoul and more of a sacrificial lamb than a real deterrent. All that without even getting into the strategic importance to the US of Japan, Guam. Hawaii etc which are well in range of the DPRK’s already tested sub-orbital weapons and SLBMs.

The US now find themselves with an intractable situation, easily ‘resolved’ by attacking the DPRK but risking massive damage to US interests in the region, even threatening war wins them few friends. Diplomacy is the only real way forward – but it is now difficult to see how that even gets started never mind resolved.

[Ed P]

I just remembered a cynical expression that was doing the rounds during my (short) period in South Korea (ROK).

“The problem for Yanks in Asia is that they always find themselves stuck between a ROK and a hard place.”

 

It looks like that is an expression that unfortunately proved to be both apt and timeless.

[wasbit]

Similar to the Cuba crisis in 1963, what happens, happens & there’s nothing we ordinary mortals can do to influence the outcome. So carry on & enjoy life to the full.

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wasbit

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[Bob Williams]

Situation outcome depends upon whatever action China takes. If the Trumper thinks that action will be in concert with the USA, or even taking the USA into account, he is kidding himself again. The Chinese will take whatever action that suits their purposes: if that means cooperating with the USA temporarily, that is what they will do. But China has always taken the long view, and always will.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

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