How do they expect provoking NK to end?

[MGKrebs]

OK, we go to war with them, or not. What about after that?

1. We go to war, we kick their butts, but 50,000 people die. Maybe they don't care about that, but then what? We occupy? Give it to China? Reunite the Koreas? What have we gained?
2. The saber-rattling persuades Kim to suddenly become a good neighbor? Seems unlikely.
3. What else is there? It doesn't seem like any sort of "limited" conflict is likely. I mean, if we lob a couple of cruise missiles over there they have the means to retaliate and how does that play out?

On the other hand, if NK keeps acting like it does then Trump HAS to do something after warning them. I just don't see how this ends well at all.

[randome]

1. "Nobody knew international relations could be so complicated!"

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"Everybody is just on their feet screaming 'Kill Kill Kill'! This is -hockey- Conservative values!"
-Slap Shot (1977)[/center][/font][hr]

[L. Coyote]

3. "Everyone else knew" will be the afterword.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. "Hillary knew"

will be the epitath

[L. Coyote]

2. Don't forget their nuclear submarine off the California coast.

[EX500rider]

17. I assume u r joking since they have no such thing...

[L. Coyote]

20. I assume u r joking since they do have such a thing...

It only takes one and LA is gone. We have been at war with them since the 50s and they have been working on deterrence ever since then. We are why they have nukes!

[EX500rider]

26. N Korea has zero "nuclear subs"...

...and certainly has zero off the US coast.

They have some homemade coastal junk and mini-subs and some really ancient Russian/Chinese Romeo and Whisky class subs (1950's vintage), who in theory have the range, but they are very noisy diesel/electric subs, they would have to cross the Pacific mostly on the surface, we would know they were coming before they got out of N Korean waters.
They also just started work on a sub launched missile, don't have that worked out yet, neither do the have a nuclear warhead for that yet, they have only done 6 atomic tests of crude designs, nothing that would fit in a nose cone and survive launch.

We have not been at war with them since the '50's.
North & South Korea are technically still at war, but the UN mission the US fought under to repel N Korea is over.

[L. Coyote]

36. If you say so, then it must be impossible.

[EX500rider]

40. If you have any links to N Korean "atomic subs off Calif"...

.....that aren't from crackpot web sites, feel free to post them...

[L. Coyote]

43. So, it is possible if it is linked somewhere on the internet?

But I have to find it for you first?

I hope our military has better strategic and defensive thinking.

[EX500rider]

51. No, I don't think their are such links that don't lead to wacko websites.

Maybe a dream you had? lol

[workinclasszero]

19. Yeah lets not think about that at all, just bombs away Fuhrer Trump!

What could possibly go wrong?

Secretly I think PEEOTUS 45 and his party would welcome the destruction of the big blue west coast anyway.

[sarisataka]

24. Did Kim pick up a boomer

Last edited Mon Apr 17, 2017, 04:01 PM - Edit history (1)

On subtrader.com? Because at last look, NK didn't have any nuclear ships let alone a missile sub.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

66. South Korea says NK has tested a sub-based ballistic missile

CNN article:

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) July 9, 2016 North Korea fired a submarine-based ballistic missile off the country's eastern coast Saturday, according to South Korean officials, drawing condemnation from Seoul and Washington.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Strategic Command said it appears the missile was successfully launched but failed in its early flight stage.

---

Sounds like NK has a problem with premature detonation. Happens to the best of us, I hear.

[workinclasszero]

70. Yes they did.

CNN
Daily Mail

[sarisataka]

72. Is that sub

Currently off the coast of California loaded with nukes?

That particular photo is from a test that has been questioned whether the launch was from an actual submarine or a submerged launch platform.

Even if a successful sub launch has been achieved, NK has nothing that can reach the west coast. The single Sinpo (Gorae) class sub has, at best, a 1500km range. Combined with the estimated Pukgeukseong-1 it could maybe reach some of the Hawaiian Islands. Claiming NK has a

nuclear submarine off the California coast.

is pure fantasy.

[workinclasszero]

73. I guess D and E haven't been tested yet but in an all out war with the US I'm sure they would be

Of course they are other unconventional ways of delivering a NBC weapon against an enemy what don't require a missile at all.

[sarisataka]

76. Prototypes with theoretical

Range to reach the us =/= nuclear submarine off the California coast.

[HAB911]

74. OOPS

[sarisataka]

77. See my above answer nt

[Bradical79]

79. What sub? -nt

[spanone]

4. they don't even pretend to have a policy.

[Demsrule86]

6. Trump doesn't have to do anything except stop acting like an idiot.

[ananda]

7. How does playing nuclear chicken end?

Three guesses, and you might not even get one.

[MGKrebs]

8. Really though, don't they see that?

Do they think thousands dying are going to be worth whatever results? Are they even thinking about how to clean up whatever mess is left over?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. Bush, et. ignored the part about what would happen next in Iraq

which was vastly less complicated than what we could hope to expect in the wake of a shooting war with NK. I wouldn't trust that Trump, et. al would think through what would happen next with NK either.

[Orrex]

14. Why should they care?

Before anyone else dies, it'll be 25 million South Koreans and maybe a few hundred thousand Japanese.

They're hardly even people in Trump's universe, so why should he care if his raw idiocy gets them killed?

[EX500rider]

31. How exactly would N Korea kill 50% of the S Korean population?

[Orrex]

35. I guess it's just a paltry 14 million

I was working from THIS report, specifically bit:

SANGER: It is closer to the border - or the northern border of the Demilitarized Zone than Baltimore is to Washington. So the problem has always been that with mortars that are hidden away in the mountains there, there could be such destruction rained across a city of 14 million people or so and of course one of the economic hubs of Asia, that no one really thought it was worth the risk to take out the theoretical threat of a nuclear North Korea.

Yeah, 14 million is hardly worth worrying about. Also, I was mistaking the population of the Seoul metropolitian area, given HERE as 25,600,000, for the population total identified by Sanger.

[EX500rider]

39. Downtown Seoul is 26 miles from the closest border point...

......no mortars have that range. Most of N Korean artillery doesn't have that range.
A small portion of their artillery could reach, not enough to kill everybody in the city though.

Here'a more realistic assessment:


The North Korean military's most powerful tool is artillery. It cannot level Seoul as some reports have claimed, but it could do significant damage. Pyongyang risks deteriorating its forces by exposing them to return fire, however, which significantly restricts their use. Less conventional methods of retaliation, such as sabotage or cyber warfare, are less risky but also limit the shock that North Korea would desire.
After a strike, North Korea's most immediate and expected method of retaliation would center around conventional artillery. Many of the North's indirect fire systems are already located on or near the border with South Korea. By virtue of proximity and simplicity, these systems have a lower preparatory and response times than air assets, larger ballistic missiles or naval assets. Nevertheless, there are several critical limitations to their effectiveness.

The biggest anticipated cost of a North Korean artillery barrage in response to an attack would be the at least partial destruction of Seoul. But the volume of fire that the North can direct against the South Korean capital is limited by some important factors. Of the vast artillery force deployed by the North along the border, only a small portion — Koksan 170-mm self-propelled guns, as well as 240-mm and 300-mm multiple launch rocket systems — are capable of actually reaching Seoul. Broadly speaking, the bulk of Pyongyang's artillery can reach only into the northern border area of South Korea or the northern outskirts of Seoul. All forms of North Korean artillery have problems with volume and effectiveness of fire, but those issues are often more pronounced for the longer-range systems. Problems include the high malfunction rate of indigenous ammunition, poorly trained artillery crews, and a reluctance to expend critical artillery assets by exposing their positions.
Based on the few artillery skirmishes that have occurred, roughly 25 percent of North Korean shells and rockets fail to detonate on target. Even allowing for improvements and assuming a massive counterstrike artillery volley would be more successful, a failure rate as high as 15 percent would take a significant bite out of the actual explosive power on target. The rate of fire and accuracy of North Korean artillery systems is also expected to be subpar. This belief is founded on the observably poor performance of North Korean artillery crews during past skirmishes and exercises. Though inaccuracy is less noticeable in a tactical sense — especially as part of a "countervalue attack," where civilian areas are targeted — at the higher level an artillery retaliation rapidly becomes a numbers game.

Ineffective crews also rapidly curtail the potential for severe damage. Rate of fire is crucial to the survivability of artillery systems — the name of the game is to get the most rounds on target in the shortest period of time, lest your position be identified and destroyed before the fire mission is complete. Poor training translates to a greatly reduced volume of fire and a painfully limited duration of effectiveness.

https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/how-north-korea-would-retaliate

[MGKrebs]

41. From your link:

"Whatever the targets, Pyongyang's existing ballistic missile stockpile could easily deliver approximately 1 kiloton (1,000 metric tons) of high explosives, as well as other nonconventional munitions — chemical, biological or even nuclear. "

I have little doubt we could/would decimate their capability if we felt the need to, but they could certainly do some damage in the meantime. It would not surprise me if Team Trump found some reason to "need to". But given his apparently impulsive nature and reported inability to read or even pay attention for very long, I think it may be likely that he isn't even thinking about The Next Step. Is he going to send 100,000 soldiers into NK to help rebuild or feed or just generally not leave a power vacuum? Or just let Chine deal with it (assuming they have stayed on the sidelines). Those people are unlikely to welcome us, they have been being brainwashed for decades.

[EX500rider]

42. Hence S Korea going ahead with the ABM system THAAD against Chinese objections.

[MGKrebs]

44. You seem intent on reassuring us that NK is not a problem.

I hope we don't have to find out.

[EX500rider]

47. Just not a WWIII problem like many seem to think..

....we saw the same thing leading up to both Gulf Wars, "The Iraqi army is 4th largest on the planet!" "It'll be a massacre!"

No 3rd world military can stand up to a 1st world military, esp. the US military which has lots of combat experience, and trains all the time.

The North Korean military hasn't fought a war in 64 years. The Iraqi army had just had a 10 year war with Iran and still couldn't slow down the US military. North Korean soldiers spend more time bringing in harvests and doing civil construction and rarely get to fire their weapons or drive their tanks/planes due to shortages of ammo and fuel.

Invading N Korea would suck, they have perfect terrain for defense. But stopping us from degrading their assets to the point of destruction, no.

[Orrex]

57. I don't recall mentioning WWIII in my posts

I was simply referring to the destruction of Seoul, which you seem to think is effectively impossible.

[EX500rider]

59. Lots of WWIII mentions in this thread, not u specifically.

Damage to Seoul yes, destruction on a WWII scale no, N Korea doesn't have enough long range arty to get that done before a JDAM or counter battery fire finds them.

[MGKrebs]

58. And my point is what comes after.

It should enter into the equation too.

Is there any case since WWII where we have essentially destroyed a nation and managed it back into a stable country?
Not Libya, not Iraq, not Afghanistan, not Lebanon. Viet Nam maybe? Not that we helped them, and they are communist now. Panama and Granada hardly count.

[EX500rider]

64. Apparently their has been some work in that regard:

November 3, 2016: American and South Korean marines, sailors and relief experts are holding their first joint exercise in moving aid to North Korea and dealing with large numbers of North Korea refugees trying to flee south. The U.S. and South Korea have been developing plans for a government collapse in North Korea and now are training military and civilian personnel to actually handle the situation. Ships and aircraft are being used in the exercise that will last until the 6 th .

https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/korea/articles/20161103.aspx

[ananda]

21. No.

All they're thinking about is looking tough and deflecting
from the Russian collusion.

[underpants]

28. Shall we play a game?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. You're right

there is no easy solution to the problem of NK. The best way for it to end (in my completely non-professional opinion) is for somebody within the NK military sympathetic to the US/SK somehow getting rid of Kim and all of his family/heirs and syncophants. That that hasn't happened so far in spite of everything suggests that it is unlikely to happen anytime real soon. A lot of Presidents have come and gone basically keeping with the general policy of containing NK and not playing into their saber rattling. It seemed like Bill Clinton was making some progress on keeping them from getting nuclear weapons through diplomacy during his Presidency, but, if I remember correctly, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shunned the NK deal and, post-9/11- lumped them into the so-called "Axis of Evil". NK responded by becoming more belligerent and moving ahead and acquiring nuclear weapons. Maybe it was a little more complicated than that but that's the gist of what I remember from that time period. Strangely, despite Bush/Cheney's strong stance on "disarming" Iraq of WMD and their subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq and their saber rattling with Iran (which, to this day, Republicans are more focused on), they seemed *strangely* silent on the one rogue country that actually HAD nuclear weapons.

[maxsolomon]

11. They want to be seen puffing up their chests

And distracting everyone from their Kleptocracy. So does NK.

That's the end goal of this. It's a performance. Nothing will happen, like usual.

[MGKrebs]

25. I hope you are right.

Poking a lunatic with a stick seems like a dangerous game to play.

I mean, "the time for strategic patience is over"? How do they expect NK to react to that? They think they are just going to shut up and hide?

[Egnever]

12. They expect it to end with the fall of NK

What they don't care about is the death and destruction caused in getting to that goal

[MGKrebs]

45. Yeah but what does "fall of NK" mean to them?

[Javaman]

13. all problems to the orange menace look like the nuclear football. nt

[Bayard]

15. Billions of dollars

Billions of our money would then go into rebuilding NK, and making it "democratic".

[workinclasszero]

16. "50,000 people die"

That's a super conservative "best case" number for deaths in an all out war with nuclear/chemical armed North Korea.

If we attack them the evil dictator will know if he loses, he will be tried for crimes against humanity and executed so he safe in his bunker no doubt will unleash all the hell at his disposal because he has nothing to lose.

Conventional, chemical, bio and nuclear.

The death toll will be many many many more than 50000 causalities and hundreds of thousands maimed and ruined physically and mentally for life.

Good thing we have a draft dodging pussy grabber calling the shots over these life and death decisions for millions huh? x1000000000

[underpants]

29. I agree. Un clearly has no regard for his own people

He'd keep sending them in waves until there was no one left AND if they happen to be where the bombs are dropping/Chems are unleashed so be it. It's all about protecting him.

[panader0]

34. Nearly 24 million people live in the Seoul area.

All well within the range of NK weapons. No ICBM needed.
Of course, I don't think Trump really cares about Korean lives.

[annabanana]

18. Pence expects Jesus to show up to save him. . . no lie..

He is batshit crazy on this,

... he really can't wait.

[ananda]

22. Geez

He really is that crazy ...

Is Pence our only alternative to 45?

[NurseJackie]

23. No, we will not "kick their butts". Our nation will be brought to its knees if he starts WWIII.

Our country is no longer the "leader of the free world"... but the ones in charge won't believe it until they've been forced into submission... until they've been humiliated... until our nation has been mortally wounded and until the blood of millions of innocent people has been shed.

This won't be a one-and-done situation. Trump will lead us to a global catastrophe.

Stock up now.

http://www.wisefoodstorage.com/

[MGKrebs]

27. I know. This would be unlikely to be a few cruise missiles and then... what?

If we are going to be threatening them we need to be very specific about what they can't get away with. Being "on notice" isn't good enough.
Is China going to stand by and watch us bomb them?

[EX500rider]

32. N Korea has zero chance of "bringing our nation to it's knees"

They have a decrepit military with 1950's tech and not much fuel or ammo for training.
They would do about as well as the Iraqi Armed forces did.

[NurseJackie]

46. You're correct. That's why they call them "world" "wars"...

... and our nation would suffer greatly.

[EX500rider]

48. China and Russia aren't about to commit military suicide over N Korea.

So, no WWIII.
A World War requires many countries fighting all over the planet, that's why they are called World Wars....if you notice, the last Korean War wasn't a World War either. And they had lots of Chinese and Russian help that time.

[NurseJackie]

49. It will be WWIII. We will pay a heavy price.

[EX500rider]

50. From what?

Russia & China have zero desire to have their militaries destroyed to help the wacko in North Korea.
They would bitch and moan in the UN but wouldn't do squat.

[NurseJackie]

52. Well all-righty then. It's a go! Green light! Let's nuke North Korea!

[EX500rider]

54. Who's talking about nuking N Korea?

But waiting till they can nuke the US may be a bad idea.

[NurseJackie]

56. So why wait? Let's start a war! The sooner the better! Woo-hoo! Fun!

Yeah! Let's nuke the shit out of them! Why do we have 'em if we can't use 'em, right? That'll teach them a lesson and make anyone else think twice before they mess with Donald Trump.

[workinclasszero]

71. Fuck yeah! USA USA USA!!!

We will kick their ass! Make North Korea a glass parking lot! Millions of dead slopes on both sides of the DMV! What's the downside?

(sorry Seoul)

We will kick NK's ass like Vietnam!! Our draft dodging war leader Fuhrer Trumpf will lead us to victory!!


Oh wait.....

[unblock]

30. there's zero thought or planning in this. they operate on instinct. nk misbehaves, we get tough.

just like they had zero policy thought involved in opposing obamacare. they never had an alternative but that didn't stop them from opposing it. how you can so passionately oppose something when you seriously can't come up with anything better is beyond me, but that's what they did.

because they operate on instinct. obama had a signature plan, therefore, republicans must oppose it. doesn't matter that it was the most conservative plan anyone ever discussed (compared to hillarycare or single-payer, e.g.)


similarly, north korea is bad, a danger to our ally, south korea, and our "way of life" (i.e., international business).
republicans only know to get tough in such situations.

no thought, no planning, just get tough. the results hardly matter. the only way to fail in their minds is to be a wimp and not act as tough as john wayne.

[MGKrebs]

62. +1

This is my fear.

[n2doc]

33. The Acronym MIHOP comes to mind n/t

[mackdaddy]

37. North Korea is capable of launching an EMP attack over the USA.

NK has already launched several satellites into polar orbit. Going over the south pole that go over the Central USA on their first orbit in less than hour after launch.
One of the major concerns is that if they launched an EMP specific nuke on one of these "satellites" that it would be at a height that the single explosion would affect nearly then entire continent. The explosion would not directly blow up anything on the ground but the ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) would be of such an intensity that it would melt down most high voltage power line transformers and just about every electronic device. No power, no internet, and most vehicles and airplanes with computer controls would be toast. I have seen estimates it would take years to repair, and result in tens of millions of deaths from the resulting lack of food and water. More than an actual ground nuke attack.
I know this sounds over the top, but there have been engineers after congress to "harden" the power grid for years but no one in congress wants to spend the $.
It would take someone truly insane and desperate to attack us this way, but Kim Jong Crazy fits the bill pretty well. Especially if Trump wants to poke that hornets nest with a stick.

EMP commission website: http://www.empcommission.org/

Story on NK Satellite Launch last year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-launches-satellite-sparks-fears-about-long-range-missile-program/2016/02/06/0b6084e5-afd1-42ec-8170-280883f23240_story.html?utm_term=.8b2d89884c9b

[EX500rider]

53. They might have that capability in the next 10 years or so....if we let them..

....but now? No, they've had about zero % success in their long range ICBM launches.
And no way they've gone from 6 crude nuclear tests, some of which fizzled, to a working warhead design that would survive launch and outer space.

[mackdaddy]

61. I hope you are right, but they have the working components now.

First they have successfully tested 6 Atomic bombs. From the link below, old style simple fission A-bombs would be the most efficient at generating an EMP pulse.

Second is that they have successfully launched several satellites into a South to North Polar orbit. The Satellite they launched in Feb 2016 came over the South pole and across the Central USA, and was at an height of about 450km. The satellite is estimated to weight nearly 500 pounds. It was over the USA midlands less than an hour after launch.

Since and EMP weapon would be detonated at this height, they do not have to worry about re-entry or targeting. Just blow it up at the orbital height of the satellites. All they would need to do is get it to survive the launch. Precision targeting would not be an issue. Anywhere over the central US would do. This does not require a fully working ICBM to execute. Just getting the EMP bomb into the proper space orbit as they have already done several times now with their other satellites.

This website seems to have reasonable information of the EMP subject. http://www.futurescience.com/emp.html

[Calista241]

38. They want China to freak out over the possibility of a nuclear war on their doorstep

And solve the problem for us.

They call Kim to Beijing for "consultations", and turns out he fell down in his hotel room, and a bullet just happened to be there on the floor. Poof. Problem solved.

[roamer65]

55. Here's how it ends.

[oberliner]

60. What do you think US policy should be with respect to NK?

At what point, if any, do we need to take some sort of action against them and what should that action be?

[MGKrebs]

67. I think the goal is to keep people from getting killed.

Ego should not be part of the equation.
"Strategic patience" sound like a good plan to me.

[Warren DeMontague]

63. If we go to full-out war with North Korea, more than 50,000 people will die. That's the problem.

Seoul is like 30 miles from the DMZ. NK doesn't even need to fire missiles, they can hit it with their artillery.

There are no good options, unfortunately.

[KingCharlemagne]

65. What makes yoy think "we" are going to "kick their butts"? Our military has not won a single

major military conflict since World War II (and then most credit actually belongs to the USSR).

[MGKrebs]

68. Exactly! What does "winning" actually mean?

[EX500rider]

69. What conflict did US forces lose?

and by lose I mean surrendered to enemy forces, not got tired of fighting some insurgency and moved on.

[MGKrebs]

78. Straw man.

They said "have not won" and you changed it to "lose", and invented your own definition to boot.

You seem to think it is a good idea to take them out. Is that true? if so, why? It appears you believe there would be little risk. They don't have good weapons or training, neither Chine nor Russia would get involved. So what does attacking them achieve? What happens after we destroy their military?

[EX500rider]

81. Well the opposite of won is generally lost..

I think allowing the Hermit Kingdom to achieve full nuclear power status with ICBM's that can reach the US is a really bad idea that could result in the destruction of a US city and it's populace.
I think the risk now is much lower then it will be after that.
After we destroy their military they can rebuild their country with UN help and food.


And to decide if the US "lost" a war you have to agree upon what the aims of the war were in the 1st place.

Korean War: the aim was to prevent the fall of S Korea to N Korea: achieved.

Vietnam: the aim was to prevent the fall of S Vietnam to N Vietnam, the 10 years we helped them that was achieved. Several years after we stopped helping them they fell to a N Vietnam regular forces invasion. The US had already pulled out. Hard to say we lost a war we weren't even involved in at that point.

Gulf War 1: kick Iraq out of Kuwait: achieved.

Gulf War 2: topple the govt of Saddam Hussein: achieved.

Afghanistan: topple the govt of the Taliban: achieved.

[MGKrebs]

83. Ah, good. This is exactly the discussion I was looking for.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, Libya, Lebanon- in none of those places has the country been rebuilt "with UN help and food". In fact, all except Viet Nam are still unstable sources of danger and destruction after we left. Even the Soviet Union, who we "defeated" in some sense of the word,has not been a peaceful and productive transition to being friendly.

My point is- it's not good enough to go in there (NK), bomb them into submission, and then say "OK now it's someone else's problem to fix it up". What happens is a vacuum that is often filled by unsociable types. At the very least we would be ceding that territory to China.

We would have to be prepared to follow through with a long term "Marshall Plan" type thing, and I don't know what that would look like. If people anticipated that level of involvement would they still want to bomb them?

[EX500rider]

84. Oh I expect China would install a puppet government..

Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2017, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)

....and slowly rebuild the country.

[MGKrebs]

86. Well to me every day you are not dropping bombs and

killing people is a good day.

[Bradical79]

80. When you fail in your stated objective you lose -nt

[EX500rider]

82. see post #81

[EX500rider]

88. And when did that happen?

[HAB911]

75. The more common term for the potential fate of the South Korean capital,

casually dropped on recent radio and television news reports, as well as in two separate AOL news op-eds from earlier this year, is that it would be "flattened." Analysis from Time magazine in 2003 went so far as to gauge how long this would take: "Its conventional artillery capability would allow North Korea to flatten Seoul in the first half-hour of any confrontation."

Forget that North Korea would be committing strategic and political suicide with a full-scale bombardment of Seoul. If a storm of artillery rounds fell on Seoul, would the city really disintegrate?

"Artillery is not that lethal," says Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and is a national security analyst for ABC News. "It takes a long time for it to produce the densities of fire to go beyond terrorism and harassment." Even in a worst-case scenario, where both U.S. and South Korean forces are somehow paralyzed or otherwise engaged, and North Korea fires its 170mm artillery batteries and 240mm rocket launchers with total impunity, the grim reality wouldn't live up to the hype. Buildings would be perforated, fires would inevitably rage and an unknown number of people would die. Seoul would be under siege—but it wouldn't be flattened, destroyed or leveled.

If this sounds like squabbling over semantics, it is. But semantics and language matter. The casual, and largely unsupported references to Seoul's potential flattening punctuates the notion that Kim Jong Il is holding a city hostage. It recasts a complex strategic vulnerability as a cartoon: an entire city facing a perpetual firing squad. It also ignores physical laws, and the realities of modern warfare.

[Orsino]

85. [Insert Joker meme about looking like a guy with a plan.]

Bluster is all Trump knows how to do.

He's going to use NK li,e he uses America and every other goddamned country: as a target for his faux-macho rge and insecurity. He can't be made to care about where it leads; he's obsessed with trying to look strong, and we know exactly why.

[spanone]

87. war. republicans LOVE it. it allows them to destroy government while the people remain patriotic