The propaganda mill in North Korea keeps spitting out vile rhetoric about its military capabilities and nuclear strength.

After years of famine, prison labor, human rights violation, and international stoogery, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) insists on interacting with the rest of the world in a bellicose manner.

Huge mistakes are being made by their aristocracy (I wouldn't dare call this a communist/socialist state, those terms are reserved for economic policies, plus the Kim elite have made themselves the only legitimate heirs to power). They consistently try the patience of the international community and their closest ally: China. China has kept the DPRK from imploding for several decades. Without Chinese support, the DPRK would fizzle out. They are trying to drag one of the worlds most rapidly developing countries into a war with the US. But is China willing to follow its ally into war?

No.

China's economy, however fast it may be growing, depends on the US and other western countries to buy its exports. Without a buyer like the US, their economy would go back to an agrarian society. Their GDP would buckle. Surprisingly, they know this. They have since this time drawn up their own resolution for North Korean sanctions at the United Nations. But does it matter to Kim Jong-Un and his military advisors?

No.

They have kept the heated rhetoric at a boiling point. After nearly sixty years of armistice, the DPRK's leaders think that reaffirming their might is a reassurance to their population. Which it isn't. This is a sign of desperation. Like a suicidal teen acting out in school for attention. The people are probably losing interest in their regime or giving up hope. As the DPRK fails to reign in support, they pump up the propaganda. But it's arrogant to say that the people aren't already brainwashed into supporting their glorious leader. Years of propaganda have reaffirmed the Kim's mystical, supernatural bloodline. The myth of the birth and death of Kim Jong-Il gives some credence to the national religion and its impact on the population. The DPRK in its hopeless endeavor will eventually launch a nuclear weapon on South Korea, Japan, or American bases. Will those warheads reach there?

No.

The US military has several options on the table if this happens, but there is one option that is clearly the best: They could shoot down the rocket and pretend it never happened, making the regime look like buffoons before their people.

The key thing to remember about North Korea is that it wants a war to reaffirm its fading power.

Why give them that?

Call me suspicious and /or skeptical but I get the feeling that most of this rhetoric is not originating with North Korean hierarchy. I think they are being punked and real information in and out of the country is somehow being suppressed to set the stage for something.

It makes no sense at all for them to threaten the US or run their mouths in this manner. Maybe they could nuke South Korea but that would be about it and even that would mean their complete destruction.

Watched a show last night called Olympus Has Fallen, complete bullshit to stir up sentiment against North Korea.

Of course the final words of the show are "god bless us all, and "god bless America.""

Like I said, complete bullshit.

Korea's fucked, and they KNOW IT ...
I believe almost NOTHING that "comes from Korea" at this point ...

I don't know why the US thought it was a good idea to fly two bombers over South Korea to intimidate North Korea. The testing of military might is the equivalent of bragging about how big one's cock is. It's irrelevant, plus it makes the braggart look like an idiot.

I think the best thing to do about North Korea is ignore them. We can shoot down anything they put in the sky, until that time, they aren't worth the worry.

Korea's fucked, and they KNOW IT ...
I believe almost NOTHING that "comes from Korea" at this point ...

Korea is the same as Vietnam. South Korea is a totally fictitious state given legitimacy only by the might of US forces. The North only wants to reunify the nation.

Back when the idea of socialist nations being a threat to the US it seemed like a good idea to set a wedge in any country that didn't bow down to the capitalist agenda. But seriously there never was an original threat. And any current threat is warranted and deserved. Straight up.

Korea's fucked, and they KNOW IT ...
I believe almost NOTHING that "comes from Korea" at this point ...

you are kind of a squirmy fellow with your one word posts and quotes  arent ya.

Korea is the same as Vietnam.

I don't know if we could compare the two countries' socialist systems, but I see how US involvement in both countries did not help.

Back when the idea of socialist nations being a threat to the US it seemed like a good idea to set a wedge in any country that didn't bow down to the capitalist agenda. But seriously there never was an original threat. And any current threat is warranted and deserved. Straight up.

What the world has seen from North Korea is a consistent belligerence and isolation that has hurt the people within their borders for the past sixty years.

I don't think that any nation on earth should be threatening nuclear annihilation, ever. The fallout from an atomic weapon isn't just isolated to the bombing radius. If we remember what happened after the Fukushima power plant explosion, the radiation spread across the globe. Imagine radio isotopes ten times greater than that spreading across the globe. For example, imagine if Guam or Hawaii were hit; the radiation would still spread to the US mainland, causing more cancer-related illness.

Korea is the same as Vietnam. South Korea is a totally fictitious state given legitimacy only by the might of US forces. The North only wants to reunify the nation.

That's a fairly odd reading of the history of Korea, unless you mean "the north only wants to annex the south."  Also a fairly odd view because no one is going to willing accept the autocratic rule of the Kim family - unification would require the dissolution of the Kim family control of the government.   

Neither side really has a claim on "true unified Korea" as that concept ceased to exist when they were over run in wars between the Japanese & Chinese and Japanese & Russians before finally being annexed by Japan in 1910.

Post WW2, Kim Il Sung was the Soviet groomed puppet leader complete with a bullshit back story placed in power in the north just as the US had its puppet government in the south.  Nobody was interested in letting Korea determine its own course.  Then you had the Soviet instigated proxy war in Korea, when Stalin signed off on Kim's invasion plans after Mao Ze Dong had established his government in China.

The North has been stuck in an awful political situation for two decades now, where the Kim family wants to maintain their autocratic rule, but their primary benefactor is long gone (the USSR).  China treats North Korea more like an unruly dog they can leave out in the yard - they'll feed it and yell for it to shut up if it barks enough to annoy them, but they're not terribly involved otherwise. 

It's good enough to keep the kids out of their yard and that's all they want.  It's tough to figure out the US's provocations, unless they really are trying to get the dog to jump the fence so they can shoot it. 

I should brush up on my East Asian history.

Nobody was interested in letting Korea determine its own course.

Thus the story of every developing nation in the world during the 1950s and 1960s.

At a time when the US was involved in Cold War tactics and nation building, we undermined the sovereignty of some countries and allowed others, like Israel, to get away with grievous land grabs in the Middle East.

The Israelis played the US and the Soviets off of each other at the beginning.  The Soviets, through their client European states, supplied the arms that allowed Israel to win the first Arab-Israeli war.  Then the Soviets flipped and the Israelis extorted support out of the US.

To this day, the US seems incapable of letting go of Israel in spite of it being an apartheid, terrorist state.  I'd say they're the US's North Korea - a proxy that didn't go away with the end of the cold war.  Only difference is that the US didn't collapse and can't seem to dump them even though their strategic value is played out.

>>The fallout from an atomic weapon isn't just isolated to the bombing radius. <<

This was interesting.

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 - by Isao Hashimoto

Hmmm, maybe we're wrong ...
Although, in TODAY'S SEARCH, no one is taking it very seriously, you know, looking at the headlines that are coming up ...

*yawn*

Same thing every year. We kick off Team Spirit ad they whine like a little bitch.

Well there never was a cease fire so actually the war has been on all along.

>>That's a fairly odd reading of the history of Korea,<<

Ya think? I'm not so sure because I have no preconceived notions based on written history. History is written by people in power. For many decades that has been the US. I have come to suspect everything we have witnessed and are told. 

The Tonkin Gulf was a complete fabrication, that has been proven.

It cost the US several trillions and set the MIC up with all the financing they could hope for. Presidents come and go but they always bow down to the finances that enable them.

What a great scam taking the wealth of a country by claiming national security

Steal from us because we will support your efforts! Trillions have been looted.

Steal from us and make us slaves is the agenda.

I get being suspicious of the US's motives.

What I don't get is not being equally skeptical of the North Korean narrative - in particular because the fall of the USSR let some of the secrets out of the bag as to what the Soviets were up to in the region.

>> the North Korean narrative<<


The question there is which occurred first.

How do you know what the North Korean narrative is? We are told something, is it real?

Even if they really want to nuck us  how can that be seen as a bad thing based on our real history?

The thing you all miss is the fact that the cold war was a hoax. The KGB and CIA worked closely together to loot their respective nations with threats of destruction.

The leaders of both nations for decades  had no clue except what the intelligence agencies provided. We and they were easy to manipulate.

Pllus there is something else going on with all these explosions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3mrqeWSuxPM.

None of that has anything to do with your original assertion (the North only wants to reunite the nation) unless you're telling me that everything that the US and the USSR ever wrote about Kim Il Sung was a conspiracy to paint a true leader and freedom fighter for a unified Korea as a Soviet stooge and that his son and grandson have continued on in his tradition. 

If that's the case, you're so far down a conspiratorial rabbit hole that you might as well just start writing your own alternate histories. 

No I don't like that a single family is the ruler of north Korea but that's how most all nations originated. And how Korea was originally.
The story of KOREA  is a long one and I don't have all the information.

But would the US and the Soviets conspire to use that nation?

Fucking hell yeah. 

As to my original assertion, that idea came from a speech given in the 60's by the leaders of North Korea. One I actually paid attention to because 0f Vietnam.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/01/us-korea-north-usa-idUSBRE9300ER20130401

" . . . this pattern of bellicose rhetoric is not new. It is familiar. And we take it very seriously, we take prudent measures in response to it, but it is consistent with past behavior."

Scheduled stealth bomber flights do nothing to reassure any allies because our allies already know what the US is capable of. And so does North Korea. What they do do, is allow any enemies to track them and refine how their radar works.

Yeah Stealth bombers are not invisible, they just have a small footprint.
sophisticated radar tuned to that footprint can see them easily. 

Considering Israel and Iran ...

"The single most important factor though in influencing any decision to attack Iran will be Israeli intelligence reports." --BBC

And that my friends is exactly at the heart of the matter.

The intelligence community, through actual data or more often through fabricated data or through gross manipulation or so called rebels and terrorists groups controls all other government decisions. Not only in Israel but the US and all other allied or neutral nations as well.

So who do the intelligence community's actually work for? The international banks and specifically the families who own them.

And while on the subject of North Korea, I think it bears repeating that  bush Sr went along with Rev Moon all across south America raising funds, it has been proven that those funds mostly went to North Korea. Was it to finance their nuclear capability? I don't know but it seems likely.

''Dick Cheney Warns GOP On North Korea: 'We're In Deep Doo Doo' ""

That chicken shit piece of garbage should be in prison. Or better yet executed along with the entire bush family.