What Danger Does North Korea Pose? Experts doubt U.S. claims

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-norkor9dec09,1,2129745.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The Bush administration has asserted in recent months that North Korea possesses one or two nuclear bombs and is rapidly developing the means to make more. The statements have raised anxiety about a nuclear arms race in Asia and the possibility that terrorists could obtain atomic weapons from the North Korean regime.

But the administration's assessment rests on meager fresh evidence and limited, sometimes dated, intelligence, according to current and former U.S. and foreign officials.

Outside the administration, and in some quiet corners within it, there is nothing close to a consensus that North Korean scientists have succeeded in fabricating atomic bombs from plutonium, as the CIA concluded in a document made public last month.

Independent experts and some U.S. officials also are skeptical of administration claims that North Korea is within months of manufacturing material for more weapons at a secret uranium-enrichment plant.

I am outraged!

It's sad it took thousands of people being killed, thousands more being wounded, thousands of children being orphaned, and hundreds of billion dollars being spent before there was something resembling SKEPTICISM toward these liars.

Fucking pathetic.

Why are these mo-fo's still in office? Why haven't we just stormed the place and kicked them out?

Don't pre-suppose that N. Korea is not dangerous just because they may or may not have nukes. Conventionally, just with artillery, they could shower Seoul S Korea and as Kim Jong likes to put it "burn Seoul." Im amazed at the brilliance of the American forgers of the Korean cease fire and the 38th parallel to have the S Korean capital so damn close to N. Korea. Future note: if you ever create a state put the capital at least, oh i don't know, 20 miles from your dearest enemy. Just a suggestion

Anyone who knew anything about Saddam knew he wasn't suicidal.

Yet it was only logical that if he attacked the United States he would be committing suicide.

Yet they sold him as an "imminent threat" nonetheless.

What world leader is suicidal? What evidence do we have that Kim whatever-his-name is is suicidal?

I'd like to see it.

Also: Who has he attacked lately?

I can't believe how many people have swallowed the bait about North Korea. It's pure PNAC propaganda. They wanted multiple wars on multiple fronts. North Korea is one of those they picked and don't forget the biggest reason of all:

It's THE #1 "reason" for the missile defense shield, the mother of all corporate welfare money pits.

You think Iraq is a black hole of money-waste? Missile defense shield is bigger. And will never end.

PNAC + defense corp welfare = neo-con agenda spewing war propoganda

- it was a part of the whole russo-japanese split up at the end of the Yi Dynasty until the japanese finally decided to just take the whole ball of wax and manchuria, too, thank you very much. It wasn't just pulled out of some fool american general's imagination. And it was in place before the korean war....as a result of the post-wwii divvy up of the peninsula (also not a smart thing to do).

North Korea and Cuba must be toppled. Yes North Korea is undemocratic but they set a "bad example" to other nations that you can oppose global capitalism. Even UN records show astonishment on how quickly the North rebuilt itself and had better vaccinations ect than America did for its children up until the late 80's when the Socialist Bloc fell. They became completely self sufficent even though their country was completely leveled. Now I am no supporter of Kim Jong I think he is a dictator. I am simply saying the economic structures of Cuba and North Korea need to be stamped out because they give energy to other working poor uprisings in places such as Venezuela. Even rogue capitalist countries like Iraq need to be crushed so that the people can be exploited by the imperialist powers mainly the US but the EU as well. Don't fool yourselves into thinking the EU is any better.

I do not see we are much better than North Korea or Cuba.
The government is sold to big businesses at the expense of ordinary people.

Any comment?

The USA hates North Korea and Cuba because they fear them. They use every kind of attack possible to literally and economically destroy their countries so that people cannot see if their economic plans would work. They isolate them and spread lies about them to keep other insurgancies from occuring. What the USA does to these nations is outrageous.

People said the same stuff about the USSR's healthcare, vaccinations etc. It is a load of tripe. I have family in Russia and they said Soviet Healthcare was universal, but it's quality was so poor that was almost not worth bothering. (I suspect similar rot goes on in Cuba too)
UN records on North Korea are likely to be very rare and skimpy because they have rarely been in North Korea. Even when they are allowed in, foreigners are extremely restricted. The areas that have the worst blight, disease and malnutrition are not usually on visitor itinerary.
Likewise the Soviets also created false statistics about medical effectiveness. A lot of Communists believed all of these statements about progress, and universal healthcare, universal employment and could never guess at how rotten the system really was. I see no reason why North Korea, the world's most isolated and one of the most repressive as well as one with among the highest death rates would have a better healthcare system than the west.

North Korea has never been self sufficient. They need massive aid to survive, and their policies have made their situation worse.

...we couldn't dislodge the Chinese army from their positions. We didn't win that war. Something to keep in mind during the current crisis.

Why would *anyone* in their right mind believe the American govt's assessment of threat at this point?

and has admitted to these programs.

no one believed the boy.

. .BUT

. . after the USA's pre-empt in Iraq,

I cannot blame NK if they go nuts trying to develop more nuclear "protection"

The BFEE has proved that allowing inspectors and disarming will not prevent them from "doing their thing"

If the USA attacks NK, I would expect ALOT more trouble than the USA has now in Iraq.

Heck Iraq never even had one plane in the air !

Or missiles that went over a 100 kliks.

na nah, NK will not "fall" like Iraq.

USA credibility re "signed" assurances is gone - zero - zip.

While NK is not a very "progressive" country as we see it

It will NOT bow to the BFEE's insanity

Just My Humble Canuk's Opinion

a unilateral U.S. attack on people who are literally their cousins.

A North Korean attack on the South is unlikely unless Kim Jong-Il feels threatened and decides to go out in a David Koresh-style blaze of martyrdom. He has to know that attacking anyone with nukes or even conventional weapons would bring down the full wrath of the South Korean, U.S., and maybe even Japanese armed forces.

Relations between the two halves of the Korean peninsula are slowly but surely thawing. Some limited family reunions have been permitted, the survivors among the Japanese who were kidnapped during the 1970s have been allowed to return to Japan (although they are still trying to get their North Korean families out), and South Korean tourists are allowed to visit one of the resorts near the border. In addition, Kim Jong-Il has visited Seoul, and Japanese television shows travelogue footage of events in North Korea. All of this is new--within the past five years at least, and mostly within the past two years.

Left to their own devices, North and South Korea will work things out, even if it may be decades before they are reunited.

I just hope that our ham-fisted PNACkers can keep from stirring up situations that they don't understand. It's obvious that they understand East Asia almost as well as they understand Iraq.

. . American Foreign Policy has them messing around with dozens of others poeple's countries/business

this has been going on for decades

and Junior's pre-emptive attacks have put the USA on the "World's Most Hated Coutry" list.

oh yah - as #1.

All their Bombs and Missiles will not change that.

No-one likes a bully

And the USA has poised itself for the next Empire to "fall"

Empires don't last - I read that somewhere, and I believe it.

oh - nice sign-off picture



almost forgot it will be Christmas soon

(sigh)

all, but I confess to some worry that maybe they do, and that they have an agenda of keeping the north stirred up in order to retain more control in the south.

It's hell on earth, and not 'progressive' to anyone but raving lunatics.

it's all about the untapped oil reserves offshore.

Go figure.

implying that North Korea is a good place. Simply that they are hated because they won't open their markets to the world system.