Bolton compares Iran threat to Sept. 11 attacks

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Zeebadee I'd sure like to see you back up this claim about N. Korean missile systems. I think you're way off base on this one.

Even if they did have ICBMs they can't have many and we DO have missile defense systems. We probably have at least one nuclear sub right off their coast, too. If Kim Mental Illness doesn't actually KNOW it's there I'm sure he can assume it.

[rmnunez]

The DPRK's 'long dongs' have reached as far as some outer Alelutian islands, but they have a tendency to break apart and fall to earth like so much junk within 4 thousand miles. The Iranian version (I think its called "Shahab") also exhibits this shortcoming. Iraq's efforts to improve the range of the DPRK's ballistic exports was documented by the UN inspectors and cited as one of the breaches Blix's boys did document.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Zeebadee I'd sure like to see you back up this claim about N. Korean missile systems. I think you're way off base on this one.

It has been pretty widely reported.

Tenet: North Korea has ballistic missile capable of hitting U.S.

North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States, top U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday. While testifying at a Senate committee hearing in Washington, CIA Director George Tenet was asked whether North Korea had a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast. Before answering, Tenet turned to very quickly consult with aides sitting behind him. "I think the declassified answer, is yes, they can do that," Tenet said.

Taep’o-dong 2

The Taep’o-dong 2 is an intercontinental-range, road mobile, liquid propellant ballistic missile. It is currently North Korea’s only true ICBM. Today, this missile represents the single greatest nuclear threat to the United States. While the missile has very limited accuracy, it is thought to be target at major US population centers in both Alaska and Hawaii, and perhaps even as far as California. The Taep’o-dong 2’s major use is as a weapon of international blackmail. Easily equipped with a nuclear weapon, it is the first direct threat to the United States from North Korea. It will likely be used as a threat of nuclear escalation in response to any American intervention during a second Korean war. Just as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Lt. Gen. Xiong Guang Kai stated that Americans “care more about Los Angeles than they do Tai Pei,” North Korea will likely rely on American unwillingness to lose cities rather than withdraw from Korea. In addition, it will likely be used to blackmail wealthier countries for energy and food, similar to how the North Korean nuclear program has been used. It is also a major income generator as an item for export.

General Bell to Armed Services: North Korea Preparing Three Stage Taepo Dong

North Korea continues to develop a three-stage Taepodong missile that could target the contintental U.S. In written testimony for the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Burwell Bell, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, stated Tuesday that this new missile “could be operational within the next decade.”

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: RickSp It has been pretty widely reported.

And it's been debunked also. This missile systems has never even been tested, let alone deployed.

"Events in North Korea are indeed worrying, but the public debate is not helped by exaggerating the threat.

Most of our information about North Korean missiles comes from observing flight tests; so we know much about the shorter-range missiles that the North Koreans have flown. But Pyongyang has not tested intercontinental-range missiles. Without flight tests, U.S. intelligence analysts can only estimate the sophistication of North Korean technology and the calculated range of any large missile is extremely sensitive to these estimates."
http://www.fas.org/faspir/2003/v56n1/nkorea.htm

[RickSp]

Quote by: Zeebadee And it's been debunked also. This missile systems has never even been tested, let alone deployed.

Debunked? Are you denying the missle systems exist? Agreed, they have not been tested. The North Korean nukes haven't been tested either. Have they been debunked as well? Are you suggesting that they are no threat? So, what do you want, the North Koreans to test their ICBM with a nuke aimed at the US West Coast? You would accept their capability if the took out, say, LA? I guess that would prove it. Until that happens, I guess you consider their capabilities to be "debunked". (How long have you worked for the Department of Homeland Security?)

My point remains that North Korea and Pakistan are far more a threat to the US than Iran. There is no rational justification for starting another war to take out Iranian nukes, if and when they succeed in building them.

[rmnunez]

There is no rational justification for starting another war to take out Iranian nukes, if and when they succeed in building them.

Once Iran succeeds at building nukes, there will be a different rationale in attacking to disarm them. Now, before the Iranians can make a nuke, the rational justification in attacking them is to prevent their acquiring that capability.

[rmnunez]

Old hippies gathering in ever diminishing numbers:

By the time the war protesters began their march Saturday morning in Salt Lake City, only about 50 people had gathered. Their numbers had swelled to about 200 by noon - and that was with a little high-tech help from a marcher who text-messaged friends to join him. The protesters, organized by the People for Peace and Justice of Utah, marched from Pioneer Park to a rally on the steps of the City-County Building, where they listened to songs, speeches and chants condemning the war. It was a scene repeated across the United States and the world Saturday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to mark today's third anniversary of the US-led intervention against Iraq. The protests, like those held to mark each of the two previous anniversaries of the March 2003 invasion, were vigorous and peaceful but far smaller than the large-scale marches that preceded the war, despite polls showing lower public support for the war than in years past and anemic approval ratings for President Bush, himself a focus of many of the protesters. In Times Square, about 1,000 anti-war protesters rallied outside a military recruiting station, demanding that troops be withdrawn from Iraq. Police in London said 15,000 people joined a march from Parliament and Big Ben to a rally in Trafalgar Square. The anniversary last year attracted 45,000 protesters in the city. In Turkey, where opposition to the war cuts across all political stripes, about 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul, police said. ''Murderer USA,'' read a sign in Taksim Square. One of the biggest protests was in San Francisco, for decades a hub of anti-war sentiment. Police there estimated the crowd gathered outside City Hall at about 6,000 people. Many chanted slogans opposing Bush, and most appeared to hail from a distinctly grayer demographic than that of other protest events. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3618103

Retreating from Iraq would be like handing Germany to the Nazis after WW2:

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an essay published in The Washington Post on the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. He said "the terrorists" in Iraq were attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war, but that they must be "watching with fear" the progress in the country over the past three years. "The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case," Rumsfeld said. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...ELD.xml&rpc=22

[Osborn F Enready]

RMNunez said: Old hippies gathering in ever diminishing numbers:

I say:
Why is that Nunez? Couldn't be because the news doesn't cover protests until they are OVER could it?

Couldn't be because all of these protesters belong to different groups, all around every nation, and have no central communications hub, could it?

When these people organize, which they are, you will see what is meant by overwhelming citizens discourse.

[Osborn F Enready]

Donald Rimsmelt said: Retreating from Iraq would be like handing Germany to the Nazis after WW2.

I say:
Don't the Nazis already have it? (Iraq that is.) :rolleyes:

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready I say: Why is that Nunez? Couldn't be because the news doesn't cover protests until they are OVER could it?

You might be operating on an assumption here. Everybody may not have the sellout local news coverage like we do here in Toledo.


Truly, in Osborn's defense, we can always count on our loca televised media to only cover these types of things after the fact. I'm sure it is to limit crowd participation on our part. The consistency of the reporting gives away their true agenda in my opinion.


I'm just not sure it is like that across the nation just yet.