WP: North Korea Threatens Attack on South

[Predicto]

:doh:

Come on Predicto... I know you are better than that..

Aw man. It was possible....

[Thiebear]

and are posts like this what happen when you have a weak intellect...?

(see... it is easy to drop broad meaningless carpetbombs, without actually saying anything.)

Actually this is attacking another poster without actually put forth anything and i thought was against the rules.. especially for someone thats been here so long.

-----------

If nothing has been done and Kim jong 53rd "thinks" nothing will be done, doesn't it at least point to a possibility he thinks in his crazy head that 'maybe, just maybe i can own it all...

[Oldskool]

If NK's new actions are even worrying the Ruskies, then maybe we should be even more concerned than we are right now...

+++++

Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear - Ifax

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39913120090527

By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

"The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said.

"We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula," he added. The official did not elaborate further.

North Korea has responded to international condemnation of its nuclear test and a threat of new U.N. sanctions by saying it is no longer bound by an armistice signed with South Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying the "war of nerves" over North Korea should not be allowed to grow into a military conflict, a reference to Pyongyang's decision to drop out of the armistice deal.

"We assume that a dangerous brinkmanship, a war of nerves, is under way, but it will not grow into a hot war," the official told Tass. "Restraint is needed."

The Foreign Ministry often uses statements sourced to unnamed officials, released through official news agencies, to lay down its position on sensitive issues.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned the North Korean tests but his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has warned the international community against hasty decisions.

Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which is preparing to discuss the latest stand-off over the peninsula.

In the past, Moscow has been reluctant to support Western calls for sanctions. But Russian officials in the United Nations have said that this time the authority of the international body is at stake.

Medvedev told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who called him on Wednesday, that Russia was prepared to work with Seoul on a new U.N. Security Council resolution and to revive international talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.

"The heads of state noted that the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Monday is a direct violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution and impedes international law," a Kremlin press release said.

(Additional reporting by Conor Humphries)

[mjah]

Looks like he was responding to ECU

Actually I was following on to many posts. One, just as Predicto correctly indicated, was sacase's silly claim that not solving NK in three months somehow helps paint a portrait of Obama as weak. Particularly when W had 8 full years and did nothing but what Kilmer (this thread's conservative Predicto) pointed out: Strong words, here's some cash.

SHF, had Obama spearheaded the 6 party talks instead of W, I truly doubt that you'd be trotting them out here as a noteworthy achievement. Looking back from today, what did they accomplish regarding NK's nuclear technology or belligerency? I think you'd be more likely to downplay them as more failed "liberal" pantywaist diplomacy -- a stupid decision to talk it out with the insane guy -- if they weren't inconveniently spearheaded by a GOP president.

And surprise surprise, here's NK backing out of the deal, yet again, just like every other time under presidents of both parties. It only looks like progress when the deal is reached or signed. A year later, everyone is back to Square One -- except NK is incrementally that much further along with nuke technology.

Every president does the same thing with NK. NK gets a perpetual pass because they're the nuclear equivalent of a developmentally disabled younger brother who's still strong enough to pack a mean sucker punch. And because as Larry points out, they are basically holding a bayonet to SK's ear.

For the record -- again, as Predicto, um... predicted -- W wouldn't have come up at all in my earlier post, had inaccurate shots at the other party's guy not happened in the second post of this thread. :doh: I've noticed from his posts that Predicto is good at looking past the header/footer of the post he's currently reading, and relating its content to other posts in the thread that aren't necessarily quoted because the astute reader doesn't need them to be. It's a good skill to have.

Per JMS' question: If 30,000 American troops got nuked by NK, I have little doubt that we would respond massively and overwhelmingly, quite possibly involving nuclear attack.

[ThePreciating]

If NK's new actions are even worrying the Ruskies, then maybe we should be even more concerned than we are right now...

That is absolutely awesome. Looks like North Korea has finally pissed off just about everyone.

As for you people blaming Obama and/or Bush, you're nuts. We're not the ones who have a real stake here. Here are your stakeholders.

1. Japan - North Korea hates Japan almost as much as they hate the US, and Japan is in striking distance. If any country should be taking action, this is it.

2. China - Did anyone watch the Sopranos? North Korea is Tony B, and China is Tony Soprano. Without support from China, North Korea will either have to back down or go on a complete suicide mission, knowing that in the end, North Korea won't exist anymore. China knows North Korea has gone too far this time.

3. South Korea - This is a no-win situation for South Korea unless the whole North Korean regime is stricken with a disease and dies. There are no positive outcomes for South Korea as long as North Korea keeps up its current act.

4. United States - North Korea does not want us to actually do something - this is why they waited until they felt our military was sufficiently spread thin. North Korea is hoping that we give them some more money and more appeasement. Unfortunately, they have tried this now with the Democrats and the Republicans, and no one buys it anymore. If the UN would sign off on it, I fully believe the US would support reducing North Korea to rubble. We can't send troops, but if the world will let us, we can send a LOT of bombs.

If we're gonna stop North Korea, it's gonna have to come from Japan and/or China. We're too far to have major impact, and we certainly are in no position to act unilaterally. The North Korean rhetoric is scary, but it should be much scarier for Japan than for us.

[sacase]

That is absolutely awesome. Looks like North Korea has finally pissed off just about everyone.

As for you people blaming Obama and/or Bush, you're nuts. We're not the ones who have a real stake here. Here are your stakeholders.

1. Japan - North Korea hates Japan almost as much as they hate the US, and Japan is in striking distance. If any country should be taking action, this is it.

2. China - Did anyone watch the Sopranos? North Korea is Tony B, and China is Tony Soprano. Without support from China, North Korea will either have to back down or go on a complete suicide mission, knowing that in the end, North Korea won't exist anymore. China knows North Korea has gone too far this time.

3. South Korea - This is a no-win situation for South Korea unless the whole North Korean regime is stricken with a disease and dies. There are no positive outcomes for South Korea as long as North Korea keeps up its current act.

4. United States - North Korea does not want us to actually do something - this is why they waited until they felt our military was sufficiently spread thin. North Korea is hoping that we give them some more money and more appeasement. Unfortunately, they have tried this now with the Democrats and the Republicans, and no one buys it anymore. If the UN would sign off on it, I fully believe the US would support reducing North Korea to rubble. We can't send troops, but if the world will let us, we can send a LOT of bombs.

If we're gonna stop North Korea, it's gonna have to come from Japan and/or China. We're too far to have major impact, and we certainly are in no position to act unilaterally. The North Korean rhetoric is scary, but it should be much scarier for Japan than for us.

Japan can't do squat, they are bound by the WWII surrender agreement. They cannot deploy the military outside of Japan. We pretty much defanged Japan after WWII. China...what does china care, they will just block the border and call it a day.

[JMS]

Not at all.

Well see.

Selective liberal memory I see USNS Impeccable was stopped by chinese warships in international waters. Obama's response...we need national health care now!

The Impeccable March 20, wasn't "stopped" or "boarded", it was harrassed wasn't it. Who has the selective memory? Should we compare that to the spy plane which a chinese fighter actually impacted and was forced to land. To which Bush's response was..... wait for it....... crickets chirp... wait.... increasing the trade imbalance by two orders of magnatude.

Actually Bush sent the Navy into the port which the russians captured. Balsy move. But told the russians we weren't playing.

He sent the Navy in with humanitarian aid you mean several weeks after the Russians invaded. Oh yeah, and then he did nothing. Russia still occupies Georgian territory today...

Obama offered up the missile defense shield if we helped with Iran, which he shoudlnt' have, and Russia said thank but no thanks.

Yeah because that's what we need today. a 1.5 trillion dollar missile defense shield capable of knocking out up to seven ICBM's, noting everybody with ICBM's has significantly more than seven. It also gives Iran, N. Korea, and China incentives for increasing their missile capabilities.

What has talking done? Absolutely nothing except give them legitimacy, which Bush didn't do. Iran has essentially challegened everything that Obama has said with Obama left looking like a fumbling fool

I don't know about that. Iran was actually helping us in Afghanistan until Bush's last year in office. I would also remind you talking is cheap compared to military approach which seemed to be the only tool in our satchel for eight long years.

Successful nuclear detonation, followed by missile tests, followed by pulling out of the Armistice. North Korea hasn't done all of that in succession before.

Obama's response....nothing.

everything other than the sucessful nuclear test, is right out of their standard playbook. N. Korea trys to control you actions by bluster. Its been going on for 50 years, the only difference now is they have the bomb. Developed almost entirely under Bush and because of Bush's policies.

Guess you want to be like Pelosi and blame the CIA on that then. If you want to be technical it is Clintons fault. We significantly drew down on our HUMINT collection capabilities during his presidency which resulted in us getting caught with our pants down. It was an intelligence failure, get over it and quit trying to blame Bush. Funny thing is...we have been at war for over six years and this is just now happening....hmmm.....

To take the first last. I'm not blaming Bush, I'm not documenting history. As for Clinton and HUMINT, we've been loosing human spy capabilities for decades before Clinton, mostly because our electronic capability were cheaper, and for a time more dependable than human assets. That changed under Ronald Reagan due to Johnathan Pollard (sentanced 1987). I'll agree Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II all have failed to fill the gap and respond effectively to our significant intelligence failures ever since.

As for blaming the CIA.... Fact's are the CIA and it's multi billion dollar intelligence budget, along with the Army Intelligence have been next to useless since the late 1970's.

• We failed to detect the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan,
  
• We failed to predict the revolution in Iran,
  
• We failed to predict the callapse of the Soviet Union
  
• The first Invasion of Kuwait.
  
• The fact that Iraq was within a year of a nuclear device after Dessert Storm
  
• The primary threat of Al Quada to our forces in the ME.
  

The fact we failed to understand Iraq stopped their weapons program in the 90's was just one of the CIA's latest in a long line of significant screw ups.

[Oldskool]

1. Japan - North Korea hates Japan almost as much as they hate the US, and Japan is in striking distance. If any country should be taking action, this is it.

I think you are forgetting a small fact about Japan, and it's called they were on the losing side of WWII. As of 1947 when their new constitution was written, they do not have a military, however in 1954 the Japanese Self Defense Force was created. Even with that the JSDF isn't nearly large enough to take on NK alone. As of 4 years ago, their numbers were only 239,430 men and women with another 58K reservists.

[Thiebear]

Well see.

The fact we failed to understand Iraq stopped their weapons program in the 90's was just one of the CIA's latest in a long line of significant screw ups.

isnt this like saying the Judge had 70% of her cases overturned in the SCOTUS. Thats the nature of the situation.

you only hear about the failures, not the 1000's of ops that go swimmingly.

[JMS]

Agreed.

Based on my expert opinion from up here in the nosebleed section, the biggest reason why NK hasn't been reduced to a brown stain is because, while they don't have the ability to do a thing to us, they do have the ability to do serious damage to South Korea.

They have a hostage.

That and the fact that we have a precident for two military engagements in south east asia to temper our response.

I frankly like what Obama is doing here. Rather than make this about N. Korea and the US, which it really isn't. Obama is working through China. South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan are important Chinese trade partners too. China is one of the few countries which has clout in N. Korea. Working through them and letting them take the lead is a new tact which we haven't tried before....

China has got every incentive we have an more to put their thumb on top of N. Korea.

[JMS]

isnt this like saying the Judge had 70% of her cases overturned in the SCOTUS. Thats the nature of the situation.

you only hear about the failures, not the 1000's of ops that go swimmingly.

Fact is the reason why Cheney manufactured his own evidence against Iraq, and refused to listen to the CIA analysts; was due to a total lack of confidence in the agency. Cheney was Secretary of defense when Bush One implemented Desert Sheild and Desert Storm in 1990-91. Cheney didn't trust the CIA in 2003, because of the CIA was blind to Iraq's weapons program in 1990. When it turned out Iraq in 1990 was within a year of getting the bomb and the CIA had totally missed it; Cheney never listened to them again. We only found that out after Dessert Storm.

The CIA is a shadow of it's former self. Fact is they aren't even the main agency the US relies on anymore for foreign intelligence. The NSA and the Military Intelligence Agencies both have much larger bugets than the CIA.

If you want a good synopsis of the History of the CIA, sucesses and collosal failures; read "Legacy of Ashes" by Tim Weiner.

[MrMarcus1914]

Testing Obama.

So far he hasa failing grade. The chinese tested him....No response. The Russians have tested him....no response. Iran has tested him.....no response. North Korea launched missiles and detonated a nuke....no response.

So far the message Obama is sending is he is not willing to do anything. North Korea may feel that they can over run the south right now and win it because even if Obama responds it will be to late.

This is what happens when you have a weak president.

A weak president???? A weak president calls people out and does nothiing about it. What were the test he wentthrough with Iran, China, and Russia, maybe you should add Cuba too?

[PeterMP]

Yeah, certainly.

The process doesn't have to be overwhelming though. There's physical barriers (like a terrain that hasn't been touched in 50 years along with thousands of mines) that would prevent people from flooding over immediately. Since they'll have to come by other means, I'm guessing it can be more controlled....

I also think that the food and aid that would flood into NK would be overwhelming, to try to prevent a refugee problem.

Now, how do we get from here to that point....

Quit giving them food and oil and money.

[PeterMP]

Problem is North Korea has a humongous army, and they really have the ability to take South Korea with them if they go nuts. I read somewhere that North Korea has tens of thousands of artillary tubs within shelling range of Soul, South Korea's capital.. and now they have a Nuclear weapon...

It's hard for South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan to really feel very secure with N. Korea .........bluster. It's expediant for them to placate N. Korea with aid, even if it's seems to be against their long term interest.

So you make it so it isn't expediant for them any more.

[sacase]

Fact is the reason why Cheney manufactured his own evidence against Iraq, and refused to listen to the CIA analysts; was due to a total lack of confidence in the agency. Cheney was Secretary of defense when Bush One implemented Desert Sheild and Desert Storm in 1990-91. Cheney didn't trust the CIA in 2003, because of the CIA was blind to Iraq's weapons program in 1990. When it turned out Iraq in 1990 was within a year of getting the bomb and the CIA had totally missed it; Cheney never listened to them again. We only found that out after Dessert Storm.

The CIA is a shadow of it's former self. Fact is they aren't even the main agency the US relies on anymore for foreign intelligence. The NSA and the Military Intelligence Agencies both have much larger bugets than the CIA.

If you want a good synopsis of the History of the CIA, sucesses and collosal failures; read "Legacy of Ashes" by Tim Weiner.

Eveidence was not manufactured. There was plenty of evidence to show what Iraq was doing. Saddam had a excellent deception campaign going against us. Sometimes I think people forget that there is another guy we are going against who is pretty smart to. Since we had our intelligence networks dismantled in the middle east we had to rush and get sources. There wasn't time to develop and vet excellent sources so we had to take what we could get. Like someone said earlier you only hear about the failures, not the successes.

The CIA is the MAIN agency when it comes to FI. Infact they have the charter for it. If you are overseas and you want to do something then you have to go through DCID 5/1 and ICD 304 coordination with the CIA. Basically asking their permission to do it.

THe budgets of the intel organizations are classified, but it makes sense that the NSA has a bigger budget, the technical collection platforms are far more expensive by buying beer and hookers for an asset.

[JMS]

So you make it so it isn't expediant for them any more.

What makes it expedient is the N. Korean's entire game plan. N. Korea works themselves into a red in the faced tirade threatening the South, Japan, and the United States with war over some small slight. Retaliatoin beyond all reason.

Then the expediant move is to back away slowly, and throw them a few cans of tuna fish. ( oil, food, and hard currency ). Until the next time they need some aid and provoke a confrontation to get it.

Hell we were supposed to be building them nuclear reactors by now.... That's what Clinton promised them which Bush balked at, which lead to N. Korea developing the bomb.

Fact is it will always be expediant to pay them off, cause N. Korea as backwards as they are is not a military light weight. They could definitely cause havic if a war broke out, even without nukes. With nukes there is no telling what those crazy guys will do.... It's easier and predictable to give them the aid....

I agree with you though. It's a bad situation which is only getting worse.

[PeterMP]

What makes it expedient is the N. Korean's entire game plan. N. Korea works themselves into a red in the faced tirade threatening the South, Japan, and the United States with war over some small slight. Retaliatoin beyond all reason.

Then the expediant move is to back away slowly, and throw them a few cans of tuna fish. ( oil, food, and hard currency ). Until the next time they need some aid and provoke a confrontation to get it.

Hell we were supposed to be building them nuclear reactors by now.... That's what Clinton promised them which Bush balked at, which lead to N. Korea developing the bomb.

Fact is it will always be expediant to pay them off, cause N. Korea as backwards as they are is not a military light weight. They could definitely cause havic if a war broke out, even without nukes. With nukes there is no telling what those crazy guys will do.... It's easier and predictable to give them the aid....

I agree with you though. It's a bad situation which is only getting worse.

"Next year we will end the mistake of appeasment that has created the current situation. We will not give any aid to North Korea. All the money from the normal aid we would give will go into a fund for future use when the current North Korean regime fails, or they open the country up to UN monitored elections.

The following year we will not give non-military aid to any country that is giving aid of any kind to North Korea. Any funds "saved" from this action will go into the same fund.

The next year, we will not give any aid to any country that is giving any aid to North Korea. This would include cancelling any joint military operations with said countries.

In subsequent years, we will put trade restrictions on countries, such as tariffs or outright embargoes on certain goods, on any countries still giving aid to the North Korean regime."

It will quickly become unexpediant for S. Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to continue to aid N. Korea, speeding its fall. More slowly China would be affected.

If they want to continue the current stupid (if not insane) policy, on their own, then good for them.

At some point in time, N. Korea is going to fail. Better to deal with them now (or 15 years ago), then sometime in the future.

At some point in time, you need to take your ball and go home.

[JMS]

Eveidence was not manufactured.

Evidence was certainly manufactured. From the yellow cake uranium coming out of Africa to Iraq... totally bogus. From the "defectors" who told Bush exactly what he wanted to hear and were handsomely rewarded for their effort.. ( turned out to be Chalibi's cousins..) To the Sadam Hussien Al Quada ties before the war...

Worse than manufactured.. these stories were also spoon feed to the population of this country. Bush put editorialists on the administrations pay role to spew this stuff. Bush also played games to get our newspapers to publish these false hoods...

Here is how one senario worked.... An administration source calls up the NY Times and says they have a defector who is detailing Iraq's nuclear programs to the Pentagon. The NY Times phones up the Pentagon to confirm if the meetings are taking place and gets a confirmation. Then the NY Times reports the story, the Pentagon has a defector from Iraq's Nuclear weapons program. Headlines the next day.

That's all documented history.

There was plenty of evidence to show what Iraq was doing. Saddam had a excellent deception campaign going against us. Sometimes I think people forget that there is another guy we are going against who is pretty smart to. Since we had our intelligence networks dismantled in the middle east we had to rush and get sources. There wasn't time to develop and vet excellent sources so we had to take what we could get. Like someone said earlier you only hear about the failures, not the successes.

Facti is Sadam had given up his weapons program after the 1990 war. Fact is the CIA's own weapons experts who had dismantled it, didn't even realize they had done so. Fact is the CIA haven't had sucesses in a long time. And their screw ups are glaring, public and embarressing.

The CIA is the MAIN agency when it comes to FI. Infact they have the charter for it. If you are overseas and you want to do something then you have to go through DCID 5/1 and ICD 304 coordination with the CIA. Basically asking their permission to do it.

Fact is they aren't. not anymore. The CIA's isn't given the assets and isn't nearly as important anymore. Most covert operations have been run out of the National Security Directors office for quite some time.

THe budgets of the intel organizations are classified, but it makes sense that the NSA has a bigger budget, the technical collection platforms are far more expensive by buying beer and hookers for an asset.

When the CIA was placed underneath the new Director of National Intelligence it sparked a huge infight among the Bush administration. At that time it came out that the vast majority of the intelligence budget was given to the military (DIA). And the new DNI would not be given those assets. Rummy and Cheney saw to that. That's not classified it's in the public record.

[sacase]

Evidence was certainly manufactured. From the yellow cake uranium coming out of Africa to Iraq... totally bogus. From the "defectors" who told Bush exactly what he wanted to hear and were handsomely rewarded for their effort.. ( turned out to be Chalibi's cousins..) To the Sadam Hussien Al Quada ties before the war...

Worse than manufactured.. these stories were also spoon feed to the population of this country. Bush put editorialists on the administrations pay role to spew this stuff. Bush also played games to get our newspapers to publish these false hoods...

Here is how one senario worked.... An administration source calls up the NY Times and says they have a defector who is detailing Iraq's nuclear programs to the Pentagon. The NY Times phones up the Pentagon to confirm if the meetings are taking place and gets a confirmation. Then the NY Times reports the story, the Pentagon has a defector from Iraq's Nuclear weapons program. Headlines the next day.

That's all documented history.

So basically your saying the bush inserted thousands of intelligence reports into the system to fool ALL of the analysts in the IC?

Fact is they aren't. not anymore. The CIA's isn't given the assets and isn't nearly as important anymore. Most covert operations have been run out of the National Security Directors office for quite some time.

LOL this is funny. DNI doesn't even have the case officiers or the charter to do this. DNI is a staff function. Obviously you have no clue what DCID 5/1 or ICD 304 are. Anything you have to say about the CIA and FI are worth absolutly nothing. Once again, you are not going to hear about the CIA's successes. Nancy Pelosi is this you?

When the CIA was placed underneath the new Director of National Intelligence it sparked a huge infight among the administration. At that time it came out that the vast majority of the intelligence budget was given to the military. And the new DNI would not be given those assets. Rummy and Cheney saw to that. 90% of the the naiton's intelligence budget is commited to the military, not the civilian CIA. That's not classified it's in the public record.

You have no idea what money went where. Its all classified. Newsflash...the IC falls under the DNI. The military is the largest employer of intelligence people. so of course they are going to get a huge piece of the budget.

[JMS]

So basically your saying the bush inserted thousands of intelligence reports into the system to fool ALL of the analysts in the IC?

No I'm saying they ignored the analysts. Those who reported information which they didn't like were made examples of. Those who did play ball with them were advanced. Bush's administration manufactured the case for war, and manipulated the intelligence institutions to support them. They did it in part, according to "Legacy of Ashes", because Cheney had no faith in the US intelligence community after their failures both with regards to the soviet union, and also with regards to Iraq's weapons program in the first gulf war.

Ultimately the intelligence communtiy became a propaganda arm of the administration. They were used in order to sell the war to the country. On the Eve of the invasion 70% of all Americans believed Iraq was involved with 911. That's down from 90%. Why did we all believe this untruth? Cause the administration told us it was so..

LOL this is funny. DNI doesn't even have the case officiers or the charter to do this. DNI is a staff function. Obviously you have no clue what DCID 5/1 or ICD 304 are. Anything you have to say about the CIA and FI are worth absolutly nothing. Once again, you are not going to hear about the CIA's successes. Nancy Pelosi is this you?

DNI, Director of National Intelligence is the new office which the CIA was placed under. The director of the CIA used to report to the president. He now reports to the Director of National Intelligence.

The DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency has in fact been given the authority to conduct clandestined operations overseas and throughout the world. Their budget is significantly larger than the CIA and they don't have nearly the oversite the CIA does.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency since 2002 has run a beefed-up intelligence-gathering and support unit that has authority to operate clandestinely anywhere in the world where it is ordered to go in support of anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism missions, a senior defense official said Sunday.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/23/pentagon.intel/index.html

You have no idea what money went where. Its all classified. Newsflash...the IC falls under the DNI. The military is the largest employer of intelligence people. so of course they are going to get a huge piece of the budget.

Newsflash.. The Defense Intelligence Agency does not fall under the Director of National Intelligence. The drama between Rumsfeld, Cheney Bush and the 911 commision played out on the front pages of the Newspaper.

[Hubbs]

Japan can't do squat, they are bound by the WWII surrender agreement. They cannot deploy the military outside of Japan. We pretty much defanged Japan after WWII. China...what does china care, they will just block the border and call it a day.

Look up who South Korea's biggest trading partner is.

(Hint: It's a big-ass country that's not us.)

If North Korea is truly about to collapse, it'll probably try to go out in a blaze of Commie glory. If that happens, the South Korean economy instantly grinds to a halt as the entire peninsula goes into desperate survival mode. And if that happens, China suddenly loses a lot of economic activity.

China cares about more than refugees.

[JMS]

"Next year we will end the mistake of appeasment that has created the current situation. We will not give any aid to North Korea. All the money from the normal aid we would give will go into a fund for future use when the current North Korean regime fails, or they open the country up to UN monitored elections.

Even during the cold war we sold/gave Russia grain. We didn't use food as a weapon or embargo it, even as we embargoed almost everytihing else; because it ties the other parties hands.

N. Korea really has nothing to loose. Giving them aid is a lot cheaper than facing them in battle. That's what makes it politically expediant.

Also you are assuming the lack of aid is destabilizing for North Korea. Fact is they already lived through more than a decade of famon over their before they learned how ot extort aid from the west.

[sacase]

No I'm saying they ignored the analysts. Those who reported information which they didn't like were made examples of. Those who did play ball with them were advanced. Bush's administration manufactured the case for war, and manipulated the intelligence institutions to support them. They did it in part, according to "Legacy of Ashes", because Cheney had no faith in the US intelligence community after their failures both with regards to the soviet union, and also with regards to Iraq's weapons program in the first gulf war.

Ultimately the intelligence communtiy became a propaganda arm of the administration. They were used in order to sell the war to the country. On the Eve of the invasion 70% of all Americans believed Iraq was involved with 911. That's down from 90%. Why did we all believe this untruth? Cause the administration told us it was so..

DNI, Director of National Intelligence is the new office which the CIA was placed under. The director of the CIA used to report to the president. He now reports to the Director of National Intelligence.

The DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency has in fact been given the authority to conduct clandestined operations overseas and throughout the world. Their budget is significantly larger than the CIA and they don't have nearly the oversite the CIA does.

Newsflash.. The Defense Intelligence Agency does not fall under the Director of National Intelligence. The drama between Rumsfeld, Cheney Bush and the 911 commision played out on the front pages of the Newspaper.

I know far more about what you are talking about that you do. You are very wrong. But hey, think what you will

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/cia.html

Reporting to both the DNI and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone, the DIA produces and manages foreign military intelligence for policymakers, defense planners, and the military.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/7820/intelligence.html?breadcrumb=%2Fissue%2Fpublication_list%3Fgroupby%3D3%26id%3D58%26filter%3D2005

Which agencies fall under the DNI's authority?

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) , which gathers intelligence related to national security.

The NSA, which encrypts sensitive U.S. information and works to decode foreign intelligence.

The NGA, which collects and analyzes satellite images.

The NRO, which develops and launches satellite systems for gathering intelligence.

The DIA, which gathers military intelligence.

I know all about what DIA can do, they still have to do 5/1 coordination...period. if the COS doesn't want you working something in his country he doesn't have to. Nothing short of a COCOM commander is going to change that. period.

[PeterMP]

Even during the cold war we sold/gave Russia grain. We didn't use food as a weapon or embargo it, even as we embargoed almost everytihing else; because it ties the other parties hands.

N. Korea really has nothing to loose. Giving them aid is a lot cheaper than facing them in battle. That's what makes it politically expediant.

Also you are assuming the lack of aid is destabilizing for North Korea. Fact is they already lived through more than a decade of famon over their before they learned how ot extort aid from the west.

During the cold war, Russia could have taken out most US cities with a nuke.

They've always had substantial aid from multiple countries.

How much progress did they make in terms of weapons advancement during that famine?

Eight years ago, it was a conventional war threat. Four years ago, it was nuclear, but limited to the South. Today, there is a real threat they could hit Japan. Hey, let's give them 4 more years, maybe it'll be the western US.

If you can't see the current appeasement approach isn't work, whether it us and them or six party talks, you are blind.

[NoCalMike]

It would seem that countries like Iran & North Korea are learning how U.S. foreign policy works.

Countries without a bomb get bombed, invaded, occupied.

Countries with a bomb, get a U.N. Sanction

This is the result of GWB's pre-eminent attack policies.