Editorial: Maybe the threat to North Korea isn't external
Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 06/25/2009 - 16:37. An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
North Korea celebrated the 59th anniversary of the start of the Korean War by threatening another war and much else besides.
In what seems to be an orchestrated effort to keep its people continuously alarmed and their minds off their poverty and malnutrition, the regime of Kim Jong Il regularly forecasts an imminent attack by the United States and South Korea.
If that happened, the North Korean people were told, "a fire shower of nuclear retaliation" would fall on South Korea. And as for us, the U.S. imperialists, we would be wiped off the face of the globe "once and for all."
Actually, under the Colin Powell doctrine of "you break it, you've bought it," North Korea, short of a deliberate act of war, is remarkably safe from attack. No one -- not the United States, South Korea and Russia -- wants to be responsible for 24 million desperate and starving North Koreans in a land ravaged by a war that they would certainly lose. Daunted by the prospect of refugees flooding over its border, China refuses to give Kim's regime the shove that would bring it down.
A crowd of 100,000 turned out -- or, perhaps more accurately, was turned out -- in Pyongyang for the anniversary. The dramatic show of national unity, the bellicose rhetoric and a likely series of short- and medium-range-missile tests may have less to do with any imagined threat from outside and more to do with turmoil within. A not-unreasonable guess might be that the ailing Kim's plan to name his clearly unqualified 26-year-old son as his successor might not be going all that smoothly.
Meanwhile, President Obama quietly extended U.S. economic sanctions on North Korea for another year, and a U.S. Navy ship is tracking a North Korean freighter in accord with a new U.N. resolution that gives the organization the right to approve the interdiction and search of North Korean ships believed to be trafficking in illicit weapons.
Read More From Source Here
The Pentagon shrugged off a threat from North Korea Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map.
"I don't even know how to respond to that. It's silliness," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell."For what and with what?"
But even as the spokesman discounted the threat from the communist nation, which reportedly may fire a Taepodong-2 toward Hawaii in early July, he defended Defense Secretary Robert Gate's decision to move the THAAD system to Hawaii along with the massive SBX radar system.
"I don't think he would have deployed that THAAD if he didn't think there was a reason to do so," he said.
Tensions have been high since North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.
U.S. officials have said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the U.S. west coast.
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Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, is a United States Army project to develop a system to shoot down short- and medium-range ballistic missiles using a hit-to-kill approach. The missile carries no warhead but relies on the kinetic energy of the impact. THAAD was designed to hit Scuds and similar weapons, but also has a limited capability against ICBMs.
The THAAD system is being designed, built, and integrated by Lockheed Martin Space Systems acting as prime contractor. Key subcontractors include Raytheon, Boeing, Aerojet, Rocketdyne, Honeywell, BAE Systems, and MiltonCAT. Development was budgeted at over USD$700 million for 2004, and full deployment is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars[citation needed].
Although originally a U.S. Army program, THAAD has come under the umbrella of the Missile Defense Agency. The Navy has a similar program, the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. THAAD was originally scheduled for deployment in 2012, but deployment has recently been accelerated to 2009.
Read More From This Source Here
Sea-Based X-Band Radar is a floating, self-propelled, mobile radar station designed to operate in high winds and heavy seas. It is part of the U.S. Defense Department Ballistic Missile Defense System.
The Sea-Based X-Band Radar is mounted on a fifth generation Norwegian-designed, Russian-built CS-50 semi-submersible twin-hulled oil-drilling platform.
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After the radar has been mounted on the vessel, the entire structure will measure over 280 feet from the keel to the top of the radar’s dome, displacing 50,000 tons of water. To put this in perspective, SBX will be roughly the size of two football fields. A commercial C-band satellite will establish communications between the platform and shore facilities. It will take between 50 and 55 people on the platform and an addition 30 to 40 on shore to maintain the system.
Once operational, SBX will use its finely focused beam to track an incoming ballistic missile through space during the 20 or so minutes that it is outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Read More From Source Here
Since these items that are made to take out missiles if launched, let's just say, from North Korea, and are being done from Alaska, which has a missile defense battalion, is it a coincidence that Sarah Palin took a "top secret" trip to meet with the missile defense battalion this week?
If anyone has more information on this, please do tell.
Additional resources:
Missile Defense Agency click here for information
Showing posts with label Kim Jong Il. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kim Jong Il. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
North Korea Threatens Nuclear, Missile Tests
North Korea Threatens Nuclear, Missile Tests
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Wednesday it will fire an intercontinental ballistic missile — or even carry out another nuclear test — unless the U.N. apologizes for condemning the regime's April 5 rocket launch.
By flaunting its rogue nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic tit for tat with the outside world. North Korea also said it would start generating nuclear fuel — an indication the regime will begin enriching uranium, another material used to make an atomic bomb.
North Korea is known for its use of brinksmanship and harsh rhetoric to force the West to react, but the threat of a nuclear test is significant.
Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least half a dozen nuclear bombs. There are no indications, however, that scientists in the North have mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile.
Still, North Korea's April 5 rocket launch drew widespread international concern. Pyongyang claims the liftoff was a peaceful bid to send a communications satellite into space, but the U.S., Japan and others saw it as a furtive test of a delivery system capable of sending a long-range missile within striking range of Alaska.
The U.N. Council denounced the launch as a violation of 2006 resolutions barring the North from missile-related activity, and later imposed new sanctions on three North Korean firms.
Within hours of the sanctions, the North claimed it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to harvest weapons-grade plutonium — a clear setback to years of negotiations on disarming the communist country.
The Security Council must apologize for infringing on the North's sovereignty and "withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative resolutions and decisions" against the North, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Otherwise, the regime "will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures," including "nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the ministry said.
"Let me just say very clearly that these threats only further isolate the North," said U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "We again call on the North Koreans to come back to the (negotiating) table ... We've heard these types of threats before."
South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concerns" about the warnings, and criticized Pyongyang for challenging the international community.
"We make it clear that the international responsibility for worsening the situation will be entirely on North Korea," the ministry said in a statement.
Prof. Kim Yong-hyun at Seoul's Dongguk University called the North's threat rhetoric designed to trigger a response from the Obama administration, which has yet to fully reveal its North Korea policy.
"The North is trying to maximize the stakes as the United States keeps ignoring it," he said. But the expert also said the regime could gradually put the threat into action if Washington fails to respond as it wishes.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North appears to have begun preparations for nuclear and missile tests, noting its "unrealistic, unprecedented" demand: a U.N. apology.
He said North Korea's statement Wednesday that it will begin building a light-water reactor — another way of producing fuel — undoubtedly means Pyongyang will begin enriching uranium, a material used to make atomic bombs.
Yang said Pyongyang is angling for direct talks with Washington, with which it currently has no diplomatic relations. He said that offer would convince the North to withdraw its nuclear and missile threats.
The current nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after Washington raised allegations that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear program based on enriched uranium in addition to a separate one based on plutonium. The North has strongly denied the allegations.
Since 2003, five nations — China, Japan, South Korea Russia and the U.S. — have been negotiating with North Korea on a disarmament-for-aid deal.
Months after its 2006 nuclear test, North Korea agreed in February 2007 to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began in November of that year.
By June 2008, North Korea had completed eight of 11 steps toward disablement, and blew up the Yongbyon cooling tower in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.
But the process came to halt weeks later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.
North Korea formally walked away from the talks after the Security Council condemnation of its rocket launch.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Wednesday it will fire an intercontinental ballistic missile — or even carry out another nuclear test — unless the U.N. apologizes for condemning the regime's April 5 rocket launch.
By flaunting its rogue nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic tit for tat with the outside world. North Korea also said it would start generating nuclear fuel — an indication the regime will begin enriching uranium, another material used to make an atomic bomb.
North Korea is known for its use of brinksmanship and harsh rhetoric to force the West to react, but the threat of a nuclear test is significant.
Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least half a dozen nuclear bombs. There are no indications, however, that scientists in the North have mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile.
Still, North Korea's April 5 rocket launch drew widespread international concern. Pyongyang claims the liftoff was a peaceful bid to send a communications satellite into space, but the U.S., Japan and others saw it as a furtive test of a delivery system capable of sending a long-range missile within striking range of Alaska.
The U.N. Council denounced the launch as a violation of 2006 resolutions barring the North from missile-related activity, and later imposed new sanctions on three North Korean firms.
Within hours of the sanctions, the North claimed it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to harvest weapons-grade plutonium — a clear setback to years of negotiations on disarming the communist country.
The Security Council must apologize for infringing on the North's sovereignty and "withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative resolutions and decisions" against the North, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Otherwise, the regime "will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures," including "nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the ministry said.
"Let me just say very clearly that these threats only further isolate the North," said U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "We again call on the North Koreans to come back to the (negotiating) table ... We've heard these types of threats before."
South Korea's Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concerns" about the warnings, and criticized Pyongyang for challenging the international community.
"We make it clear that the international responsibility for worsening the situation will be entirely on North Korea," the ministry said in a statement.
Prof. Kim Yong-hyun at Seoul's Dongguk University called the North's threat rhetoric designed to trigger a response from the Obama administration, which has yet to fully reveal its North Korea policy.
"The North is trying to maximize the stakes as the United States keeps ignoring it," he said. But the expert also said the regime could gradually put the threat into action if Washington fails to respond as it wishes.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North appears to have begun preparations for nuclear and missile tests, noting its "unrealistic, unprecedented" demand: a U.N. apology.
He said North Korea's statement Wednesday that it will begin building a light-water reactor — another way of producing fuel — undoubtedly means Pyongyang will begin enriching uranium, a material used to make atomic bombs.
Yang said Pyongyang is angling for direct talks with Washington, with which it currently has no diplomatic relations. He said that offer would convince the North to withdraw its nuclear and missile threats.
The current nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after Washington raised allegations that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear program based on enriched uranium in addition to a separate one based on plutonium. The North has strongly denied the allegations.
Since 2003, five nations — China, Japan, South Korea Russia and the U.S. — have been negotiating with North Korea on a disarmament-for-aid deal.
Months after its 2006 nuclear test, North Korea agreed in February 2007 to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began in November of that year.
By June 2008, North Korea had completed eight of 11 steps toward disablement, and blew up the Yongbyon cooling tower in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.
But the process came to halt weeks later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.
North Korea formally walked away from the talks after the Security Council condemnation of its rocket launch.
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