North Korea threatening US w/ nuclear missile

[BigRupe]

well we should wait because alot of our troops are already in iraq and afghanistan.
We have lost enough people because of that bullshit. We obviously will lose a hell of alot more if N korea fucks with us.
I say leave them alone and let them do their thing as long as no one gets effected or hurt by it. We have NO right to tell other countries how to live! We should worry about the U.S.A and thats it. No one can seem to understand that!

Angel with all due respect. In North Korea between 500 and 800 THOUSAND people die of starvation each year, meanwhile Kim Jong-il has failed to prioritize the needs of his country, spending 890 million US dollars on construction of his father's tomb, money that could have bought enough corn to feed his people for three years.

The man is INSANE and as far as having no right...let me put it to you like this.

Suppose you have a sexual predator who is terrorizing the people that live in his apartment building. He has all kinds of weapons and he's looking across the street at you and telling YOU that you're the next victim on his list.

meanwhile you can hear the screams of those who are udner his control and you see first hand their misery and you no damn well the man is insane and he will get you.

Not only that, but he's enabling sexual predators all over your neighborhood to commit heinous criminal acts with his sales of weapons.

So do you still feel you have "no right" to take this sick SOB out and give him a dirt nap???

I suggest the following links so you can better understand why we MUST deal with this lunatic

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030609/story.html

http://www.rickross.com/groups/nkorea.html

 

[cboogsrun]

Angel with all due respect. In North Korea between 500 and 800 THOUSAND people die of starvation each year, meanwhile Kim Jong-il has failed to prioritize the needs of his country, spending 890 million US dollars on construction of his father's tomb, money that could have bought enough corn to feed his people for three years.

The man is INSANE and as far as having no right...let me put it to you like this.

Suppose you have a sexual predator who is terrorizing the people that live in his apartment building. He has all kinds of weapons and he's looking across the street at you and telling YOU that you're the next victim on his list.

meanwhile you can hear the screams of those who are udner his control and you see first hand their misery and you no damn well the man is insane and he will get you.

Not only that, but he's enabling sexual predators all over your neighborhood to commit heinous criminal acts with his sales of weapons.

So do you still feel you have "no right" to take this sick SOB out and give him a dirt nap???

I suggest the following links so you can better understand why we MUST deal with this lunatic

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030609/story.html

http://www.rickross.com/groups/nkorea.html

Lets keep in mind this is in her neighborhood. Bush did a very simular thing with tax money. He asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to go to war. When was the last time he asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to help kids go to college when their parents can't afford it. Spending our resources to police the world when there are just as many screwed up things here, just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Phenom78]

Lets keep in mind this is in her neighborhood. Bush did a very simular thing with tax money. He asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to go to war. When was the last time he asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to help kids go to college when their parents can't afford it. Spending our resources to police the world when there are just as many screwed up things here, just doesn't make sense to me.

How about over 300 billion a year in social programs. A full 100 billion+ annually more being spent than at any time during the Clinton Administration

Additionally tens of billions more per year for funding of public education.

Not to mention new prescription drug benefits which will cost taxpayers well over a trillion dollars in the next several years.


Glad you gave it so much thought.

 

[Lao Tzu]

well we should wait because alot of our troops are already in iraq and afghanistan.

We have lost enough people because of that bullshit. We obviously will lose a hell of alot more if N korea fucks with us.

I say leave them alone and let them do their thing as long as no one gets effected or hurt by it. We have NO right to tell other countries how to live!

We should worry about the U.S.A and thats it. No one can seem to understand that!

There won't be any war anytime soon. THey have been in a standoff with the US and S. Korea for about 50 years.

We do have a country to tell other countries how to live within reason. We can implement sanctions and refuse to trade with them as well as use economic pressure until their domestic situation improves. As it stands N. Korea is the most human rights and civil rights unfriendly country on earth. There is nothing wrong with using our power to try to nudge them into more liberal policies, unless doing so could lead to military conflict. Human rights are not something that a stalinist state gets to define. The US, the EU and Japan all criticize N Korea with good reason for its treatment of its own citizens.

We shouldn't worry just about the USA for a variety of reasons. For one most people who vote & pay taxes disagree with that idea and most people support humanitarian aid and encouraging liberal domestic policies in foreign countries. Another is that our national security is not based on domestic issues, but global issues. If we have a shitty reputation and the world is going to hell, that makes our domestic nation less safe. The entire concept of communism was born out of massive discontentment and anger. So was nazism. So is islamic terrorism. Reasonably content people with good jobs, human rights and a functioning state generally don't blow themselves up or fight to create dictatorial countries that the US then has to go to war against. The countries that are the biggest threats to the US are also the most backwards basket cases (N. Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya). There is something called the democratic peace theory that finds liberal, representative governments almost never declare war on each other. I made a post not long ago pointing out how less than a few billion dollars in humanitarian aid managed to turn about 200 million people in Indonesia & Pakistan against Bin Ladin and towards the US.

As for why they are doing this, I have read alot on N. Korea and they approach international diplomacy with the mentality of a criminal stuck in a motel with a bunch of hostages. They know they have no real cards or authority other than their ability to cause millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damage the same way a hostage taker knows he has nothing other than his ability to kill civilians and the desire of others not to have that happen. So their military is mostly designed to destroy civilian lives and infrastructure, not win a war. They have alot of military weapons pointed at civilian building in S Korea, missiles that can reach cities in Japan and now ICBMs that can reach western US. Their goal with this test is to just let the US know that if war breaks out they can kill a few million of our civilians and cause several trillion in damage. The best comparison is to think of it as a hostage taker shooting someone in the leg to let the cops know they mean business and can and will hurt people. The N. Koreans have no money, no economy, no real allies and a military of starving soldiers armed with AK47s. All they have is their ability to kill civilians and they know it.

The problem is that the N. Korean government knows this too and knows they are untouchable because of it. No treaty can really hold that depends on the N. Korean government to hold up its end as they know there isn't much the outside world can or will do about it because of this leverage they have.

 

[BigRupe]

Lets keep in mind this is in her neighborhood. Bush did a very simular thing with tax money. He asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to go to war. When was the last time he asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to help kids go to college when their parents can't afford it. Spending our resources to police the world when there are just as many screwed up things here, just doesn't make sense to me.

REALITY CHECK time; with ICBM's capable of hitting the US mainland it NOW becomes our backyard.

As to your straw man arguement about kids and college....

No kid in America is denied college because of his financial status. If there's a will there's a way. My family was lower middle class we had no money, I received student loans, a Pell grant for ONE freaking year, and I BUSTED my ass and worked a shitty job on the campus for 2 and a half years in the plumbing department unclogging toilets, replacing urinals, some nasty smelly jobs so don't be giving me some shit about not being able to go to college.

All 3 of us went to college and we did it on sweat equity and studying hard.

 

[Lao Tzu]

Lets keep in mind this is in her neighborhood. Bush did a very simular thing with tax money. He asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to go to war. When was the last time he asked for an extra 87 billion dollars to help kids go to college when their parents can't afford it. Spending our resources to police the world when there are just as many screwed up things here, just doesn't make sense to me.

In America we spend about 850 billion in taxes on education, about 300-350 billion of that going to college. It should be more for the less fortunate, but it is still a high amount.

And humanitarian aid is pretty cheap. Bush has a plan to spend $3 billion a year on HIV drugs in Africa. That is less than 1% of what we spend publically on college.

http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/programs/old files/factsheet.htm

This will do alot for our reputation, which will also do alot to cut down on terrorism and improve support for the US. Not only that but the worse shape a country is in, the more likely it is to fall to hell and then later on the US gets involved anyway. When was the last time the US went to war with a well functioning democracy that had well fed people, a functioning economy and a good amount of rights for the people who lived there?

A few billion for Pakistan & Indonesia turned the tide against terrorism. During these crisises these people knew the US military and government was helping people, but Bin Ladin was sitting in his cave trying to figure out how to kill civilians to institute a backwards dictatorship. That fact wasn't lost on people in Pakistan & Indonesia, and our reputation improved because of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202206.html

A survey of 1,200 Indonesians one month after the tsunami, sponsored by Terror Free Tomorrow and conducted by a leading Indonesian pollster, found that, for the first time, more Indonesians (40 percent) supported the U.S. terrorism fight than opposed it (36 percent). Sixty-five percent of those surveyed had a more favorable impression of the United States, with support strongest among those younger than 30, while support for Osama bin Laden dropped from 58 percent before the tsunami to 23 percent. Terror Free Tomorrow is a nonpartisan group that studies popular support for global terrorism.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=18df85cd94bd890150211c3fcfe3aebc

Released today (December 19, 2005), the poll commissioned by the nonprofit organization Terror Free Tomorrow and conducted by Pakistan's foremost pollsters ACNielsen Pakistan shows that the number of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the US doubled to more than 46% at the end of November from 23% in May 2005. Those with very unfavorable views declined to 28% from 48% over the same period.

 

[Lao Tzu]

REALITY CHECK time; with ICBM's capable of hitting the US mainland it NOW becomes our backyard.

As to your straw man arguement about kids and college....

No kid in America is denied college because of his financial status. If there's a will there's a way. My family was lower middle class we had no money, I received student loans, a Pell grant for ONE freaking year, and I BUSTED my ass and worked a shitty job on the campus for 2 and a half years in the plumbing department unclogging toilets, replacing urinals, some nasty smelly jobs so don't be giving me some shit about not being able to go to college.

All 3 of us went to college and we did it on sweat equity and studying hard.

Out of curiosity was your job a work study grant where you had to work for the university or a charity?

 

[Phenom78]

Interesting post Lao.

I think it also reflects a similar reality manifesting itself in the Mid East itself. It wasn't for shits and giggles that Al Qaeda leadership made a public attempt at chastising Zarquawi just before his death for targeting muslims.

All those whining about how were losing know little about the situation on the ground. Among other things Al Qaeda, having no success with attacking US forces, was compelled to try to manufacture a civil war by attacking Iraqi civilians. That has caused an opinion shift among large numbers of muslims.

They loved Al Qaeda so long as they were blowing up Americans and other westerners. But once they started attacking muslims even Saudi citizens started to take a step back and reevaluate their support. Even the Saudi leadership is changing its stance on exporting Wahabiism and blocking liberal reform within SA. Nothing changes your mind quicker than seeing the shit youve been shoveling everywhere else show up in your house. The same is happening in countries like Egypt as well.

So while it does make the headlines, the targeting of Iraqi civilians in particular hasn't helped their support in the region.

 

[Lao Tzu]

Interesting post Lao.

I think it also reflects a similar reality manifesting itself in the Mid East itself. It wasn't for shits and giggles that Al Qaeda leadership made a public attempt at chastising Zarquawi just before his death for targeting muslims.

All those whining about how were losing know little about the situation on the ground. Among other things Al Qaeda, having no success with attacking US forces, was compelled to try to manufacture a civil war by attacking Iraqi civilians. That has caused an opinion shift among large numbers of muslims.

They loved Al Qaeda so long as they were blowing up Americans and other westerners. But once they started attacking muslims even Saudi citizens started to take a step back and reevaluate their support. Even the Saudi leadership is changing its stance on exporting Wahabiism and blocking liberal reform within SA. Nothing changes your mind quicker than seeing the shit youve been shoveling everywhere else show up in your house. The same is happening in countries like Egypt as well.

So while it does make the headlines, the targeting of Iraqi civilians in particular hasn't helped their support in the region.

Yup. I knew a guy from Egypt who said that what also helped lower support for terrorism was when they were elected democratically. In governments like Kuwait & Jordan the radical terrorist fringe would be elected, prove themselves inept, and be voted out. This also cut support for terrorism.

This is a psychological war, not a military war like WW2 or any of the other wars. A few billion in strategic humanitarian aid or a few policies that show muslims what terrorists truly stand for can do alot to change support for terrorism.

 

[cboogsrun]

How about over 300 billion a year in social programs. A full 100 billion+ annually more being spent than at any time during the Clinton Administration

Additionally tens of billions more per year for funding of public education.

Not to mention new prescription drug benefits which will cost taxpayers well over a trillion dollars in the next several years.


Glad you gave it so much thought.

Allright here's the thought bright eyes. I specifically was talking about college education. Every kid has the opportunity to go to k-12. But a lot of kids can't afford to go to college. What about the tens of billions more he has spent on the war. The war has taken up far more money than any other program. For 1 battallion to go to NTC in CA, it cost a million a day. And that is not adding in costs of loosing tanks or m2a2's. So you give it a thought slap balls.