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North Korea celebrating july 4th
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| Michael19 |
| quote: | WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea test-launched a Taepodong-2 missile early Wednesday along with two short-range rockets, but the long-range missile apparently failed, U.S. officials said.
North Korea's preparations for a long-range missile test have been closely monitored for weeks. A senior State Department official told CNN the Taepodong-2, which some U.S. analysts fear could hit the western United States, appears to have failed in flight.
Military officials told CNN the long-range missile appeared to have failed less than a minute after launch.
Two smaller North Korean missiles were fired from a different site shortly before the larger missile was tested, U.S. intelligence and State Department officials said.
U.S. military sources said those two missiles landed in the Sea of Japan, one closer to Russia and the other closer to Japan.
A senior State Department official said the launches were timed to coincide with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery from Florida, calling it "a provocative act designed to get attention."
Analysts said the tests appeared to have been intended to draw international attention back to North Korea -- and to the stalled talks aimed at convincing Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea is believed to have the capability to produce several nuclear weapons but has never tested one.
"They are trying to send quite a signal not only to the United States but to the rest of the world that they should be taken quite seriously," said Wendy Sherman, a former State Department official who held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during the Clinton administration.
Washington and North Korea's Asian neighbors -- South Korea, China, Russia and Japan -- have been trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear program since 2002, but those talks have stalled in recent months.
Jim Walsh, a national security analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the intent of the test appeared to be aimed at drawing attention back to North Korean demands in the six-party talks. But Walsh said the tests "do not represent an immediate military threat to the United States."
"It's very difficult technology. They very clearly have not mastered it," he said. "Most estimates are they will not master it for another 10 years."
The United States, Japan and other countries have warned North Korea against a long-range missile test. The North Koreans fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan in 1998, but declared a moratorium on future tests in 1999.
There was no official response to Wednesday's tests from either the White House or from Japan, which had threatened to seek economic sanctions against already-impoverished North Korea if it conducted a missile test.
"One would expect from any administration for there to be sanctions, for there to be a tough response to this," Sherman said.
On Monday, North Korea's state-run media accused the United States of harassing it and vowed to respond to any pre-emptive attack "with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent." (Watch why North Korea is talking about annihilating the U.S. -- 2:04)
The White House has dismissed that threat as "hypothetical." (Full story)
But the U.S. Northern Command increased security measures at its Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a few weeks ago, a military official confirmed Tuesday.
The base is the seat of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and some of its command-and-control operations might be used if the United States attempted to use its ballistic missile interceptors to shoot down a Taepodong-2 test.
But a Pentagon official said the missile appears to have failed on its own, without any American effort to knock it down.
In other planning measures instituted in the past several days, Northern Command, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, has put standby commercial flight restrictions into place over Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Fort Greely, Alaska, where U.S. interceptor missiles are based.
President Bush warned last week that the isolated Stalinist state would face even further isolation if it launched the Taepodong-2, which U.S. analysts fear is capable of reaching the western United States. (Full story)
"The North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past, and we expect them to keep their agreements," Bush said last month at the end of a European Union summit.
"It should make people nervous when nontransparent regimes, that have announced that they've got nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world. This is not the way that peaceful nations conduct their affairs."
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiap...sile/index.html
I see there put on their own firework display. |
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| Q5echo |
i understand the levity in your post. trust me. however, this was fairly serious in nature.
they fired four missle's. without giving intent. regardless of the outcome we observed, this could have easily been seen as an act of war. by any standard.
firing a test of your newly designed "ding-dong VIIXI" whatever without intentions is one thing. launching a salvo leaves little to the imagination.
the only thing i can think of is that one missle was their test "TDII" and the other were decoys (interference so to speak) to defend from shooting down. |
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| Q5echo |
>Reach Out and Fry Someone<
| quote: | | In 2003 the Air Force began testing a weapon with a range measured in hundreds of miles, accuracy measured in inches, a flight time measured in fractions of a second, and uses enough hydrogen peroxide with each shot to give every man and woman serving in the military blonde highlights. No, it's not an over-the-horizon blow dryer, but rather a potentially major component in America's Ballistic Missile defense: the Airborne Laser. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i understand the levity in your post. trust me. however, this was fairly serious in nature.
they fired four missle's. without giving intent. regardless of the outcome we observed, this could have easily been seen as an act of war. by any standard.
firing a test of your newly designed "ding-dong VIIXI" whatever without intentions is one thing. launching a salvo leaves little to the imagination.
the only thing i can think of is that one missle was their test "TDII" and the other were decoys (interference so to speak) to defend from shooting down. |
An act of war by any standard? How so? It could only be considered an act of war if the missile that landed in the Sea of Japan landed in Japanese territory in consideration of the US-Japanese bilateral defense treaty. And one would presume that the treaty would only go into effect if Japan were to declare war against N. Korea in self defense. The missile that landed close to russia is russia's problem. A failed missile launch means nothing. |
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| Q5echo |
does South Korea ring any bells? from what i understand to be true is that no intentions, other than intent to launch, were conveyed by NK.
given first minutes of flight time, no trajectory was known, or duration. in addition, 5 other medium range missles were fired in salvo fashion. i think it is safe to assume that in the initial minutes of what appeared to be a first offensive strike all bets were off. then again i'm not privy to their intel. we may have known abvout the SCUD salvo in advance.
what i'm saying is this was a monumentally stupid an arrogant pissing show they attempted. we have no idea what they are capable of and without full knowledge of what was known prior to launch an act like that gives little other intentions in it's purpose. |
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| Q5echo |
GAWD DAMN YOU AREC BAWDWIN!!!!! |
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| NeoPhono |
I don't see the launches as an act of war, but more of as an act of defiance. There seems to be a reoccuring theme among dictators to push the limits and boundries the international community sets upon them. Current examples would be N. Korea and ICBM testing, Iran and nuclear capabilities or Saddam era Iraq and UN inspections. It's just a way for the tyrants to show their people the "power" they have by disregarding the wishes of the rest of the world.
I think the most interesting events will be what happens next. How will China, Russia, the UN, the United States, the EU and the rest of the world react? I'm guessing some meetings, some discussions, maybe a summit or two and then (but probably not) a formal declaration condeming the launches. All in all, probably a lot of talking and not much in the way of action.
To me I see it like this:
A crazy guy moves in down the street. Everyone knows that he has a gun, and everyone stops by his house and asks him not to shoot it. You all know that he has the gun, and there's really nothing you're willing to do to change that, you just want him to keep it in the holster.
One day he walks out onto his porch and starts firing his revolver into the air. He then walks into his house and then comes back out carrying a high powered sniper rifle. He pulls the trigger and it misfires.
In the end no one got hurt. He fired some bullets into the air, but they didn't hit anything or land in anyone else's property. Heck, his "big gun" misfired. However, you still have a crazy neighbor that's shooting off his gun in disregard to the rest of the community. Oh, and if one of those "bullets" were to land in someone else's yard, it would turn it into a radioactive wasteland.
He didn't hurt anyone, but he is shooting off his gun and you know asking him not to isn't going to stop him from doing it again. What do you do? Call the police? Try to talk him out of shooting again? Nothing? |
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| donnybrasco |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
He didn't hurt anyone, but he is shooting off his gun and you know asking him not to isn't going to stop him from doing it again. What do you do? Call the police? Try to talk him out of shooting again? Nothing? |
^^^You threaten to send Dick Cheney hunting with him?? :tongue2 |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
:To me I see it like this: |
i see it similarly, but like:
you find out one day from your neighbor that he's really pissed off yall came over the other day to tell him what to do with his rifle and now he said he wants to "blow your f**kin head off". since then you've been finding strange notes in your mailbox with magazine cut-outs of a young Oprah Winfrey and Frank Sinatra pasted to construction paper in sexual positions covered in fake blood. this wouldn't be so bad but it reminds you of the last crazy you tried to deal with a few doors down from him only this time the guy really has some major firepower and is even more bat crazy!
luckily you live 5 houses down and across the street so you don't have to deal with his too often but your poker buddies live right next door they're looking at you like "WTF!! help us do something with this f**knut! he's about to go off like a Blackcat in a bowl of rice!"
then one day...yesterday. he calls you and says (in a really bad asian/Joe Pesci impression) "i just bought a WWII era 70mm mortar off of Ebay today. it took some tinkering but i'm willing to bet i can drop ordinance on you or anyone in this neighborhood i want and you can't do a damn thing about it Nancy!"
and your like "what-ev freak", "no balls!"
then he says "WATCH!" and hangs up.
you go outside and your nuts shrivel as you watch this waste of space set his up in his front yard while his butt-ugly wife and 13 kids are all huddled around the front porch. you don't know who's more scared them or your poker buddies looking nervously through their kitchen windows. all you know is that thing is huge and you can't tell which way it's pointed, but your certain that he's not f**kin around this time. |
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| NYCTrancefan |
There may not be many things that I agree with when it comes to the policies of this administration as time has gone on, but I do wholeheartedly agree that the U.S. should never engage in one on one talks with North Korea at any point. This is an issue that involves all of the nations in that region, it is a U.N. issue as Condoleeza Rice has stated and I must fully concur with that viewpoint. Any solution must be one that is within a framework of the regional neighbors of North Korea having a stake in the outcome. This is indeed a North Korean-Asian issue and I must agree with the administration on that. The U.S. has negotiated before with North Korea one on one under Bill Clinton and we saw the outcome, the gangster Kim Jong Il came back for more loot to prop up his sorry ass. Its all a game to him.
The world begged for Multilateralism now they must step up and deal with this issue that requires such a path be taken and cease any wishful thoughts that the U.S. engage in any one on one talks, never I say and for that I commend the administration for not falling into the exact situation North Korea desires. The U.N. must take account instead of sitting around waiting for the U.S. to screw up so everyone can shout and protest. I look forward to seeing how they deal with a man who shoots off rockets at his fancy to get attention. Disgusting. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
does South Korea ring any bells? from what i understand to be true is that no intentions, other than intent to launch, were conveyed by NK.
given first minutes of flight time, no trajectory was known, or duration. in addition, 5 other medium range missles were fired in salvo fashion. i think it is safe to assume that in the initial minutes of what appeared to be a first offensive strike all bets were off. then again i'm not privy to their intel. we may have known abvout the SCUD salvo in advance.
what i'm saying is this was a monumentally stupid an arrogant pissing show they attempted. we have no idea what they are capable of and without full knowledge of what was known prior to launch an act like that gives little other intentions in it's purpose. |
A stupid pissing show with the intent to garner attention I agree. An action that can be considered justifiable provocation for war I disagree. Yes they launched missiles, but that's no different than US or Soviet missile testing during the entire duration of the cold war. There's no need to exacerbate the issue. Sanctions yes ... prelude to war hardly. If they were truly considering a first strike, N KOrea would probably unleash a hellish artillery barrage that is well capable of effectively striking much of S. Korea within seconds as opposed to launching a bunch of ineffective missile strikes. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
A stupid pissing show with the intent to garner attention I agree. An action that can be considered justifiable provocation for war I disagree. Yes they launched missiles, but that's no different than US or Soviet missile testing during the entire duration of the cold war. There's no need to exacerbate the issue. Sanctions yes ... prelude to war hardly. If they were truly considering a first strike, N KOrea would probably unleash a hellish artillery barrage that is well capable of effectively striking much of S. Korea within seconds as opposed to launching a bunch of ineffective missile strikes. |
your missing my point and it's mostly my fault.
i said, "this could have easily been seen as an act of war".
that is to say, in the initial minutes of what looked like something else other than what was expected, there was a moment there when all bets were off.
even during the Cuban missle crisis the Soviets were not that stupid to launch a 7 missle salvo over the Urals for mere provocation.
even during the warmer times of the Cold War the Soviets announced intentions of missle tests.
i would go as far to say that we would let Pyongyang launch TDII's every second tuesday of the month if they were to just talk to a mutherf**ker, you know? |
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