North Korea admits to having nuclear weapons

Check it out here

This is bad news... and I dont know what to make of a possible war on the Korean peninsula. See, because, well:

01. The North Korean government has to go. They are ruthlessly oppressive, they cant feed their own people, and Kim Jong Il is a stunningly incompetent leader. While he spends money on building the tallest hotel in the world (that is not open, that will likely never open) and $600,000 a year on cognac, his people are eating tree bark to survive. The country is seriously one of the 2 or 3 worst places in the world to live.

02. However, if war breaks out, TENS of thousands of South Koreans will likely die, if not more, because of the close proximity of the DMZ and Seoul.

The situation as is, though, is unsustainable. There is no way that status quo can be kept for the next few years, let alone the next few decades - Kim Jong Il's government is as unsustainable as the present situation, it seems, and he seems to want to have no desire (or ability) to enact the necessary reforms to save his country or his government.

For discussion, try to keep this on the present - one, I dont think many people know much about the Korean peninsula just because nobody teaches you anything (I learned it all in a class I took voluntarily), and two, its no use going on about what happened in the past - this is now and it could get ugly real fast.

Well I've been to South Korea so I know a little about the area and it's relationship to the North. I agree that this should have been the people to liberate instead of Iraqis, or at least before the Iraqis. Bush seems to care a whole lot about diplomacy now that he's dealing with a real army and someone who could care less about firing a nuclear weapons at someone. Kim Jong Il is insane, I've said it all along, but I doubt our country can handle another military campaign so soon after we've finished one in Iraq.

SC

Why can't people stop being insane and oppressing shit?

I *highly* doubt that China will allow us to get involved in Korea.

Mr-K, ask Jong Il. I wouldnt exactly call the guy insane, but he is definitely out of touch. I guess thats what would happen when you grow up in the shadow of your father while he carefully steers your entire path in the direction of taking over his leadership. Ha! And people talk about Bush.

But anyway yea some people say that he is acting the way he is now because he knows the DPRK is on the verge of collapse (which it is) and he is just trying to get out of it what he can before the inevitable. It seems unlikely that it will last through to another change of leadership.

However South Korea has said in the past that they dont want to deal with the refugee crisis that would inevitably happen if war breaks out... NK has a population of 25 million, after all, and the North is so far behind the South now that it will take possibly decades to "catch up". Bad situation, really, from top to bottom. Its not a case like where you could just say "remove the DPRK, unify the country, end of story"...

Hmm...Read the articles you linked to. Seems like a bad situation. Don't know much more about it, but it doesn't sound like NK is interested in resolving things in any way the US is. That usually results in conflict.

I agree with Burg...almost. While I know you don't want me to bring up the past, we did lose the first war we fought in Korea. But then again China isn't the same country they used to be. There is no more Soviet Union.

It's funny, after the Korea war, South Korea was the shithole and the North was considered the advanced country. My how things have changed. GO CAPITALISM! :)

SC

I don't dig on the communism.

Eh, maybe we did "lose" the Korean War, ultimately North Korea became a big pile of rubble thanks to two years of perpetual bombing... and South Korea was a big pile of rubble from the first year, so I would very much consider it a stalemate. In the sense that the USA didnt accomplish its intended goals, sure, it was a loss, but hey... look at what has happened as a result of NK/China effectively beating back the USA.

But I digress. Ultimately that whole deal has little bearing on the present situation, aside from giving North Korea two good pieces of propaganda (SK and the US) to lash out against whenever they need to tell the people how evil the world is.

This is one place a land war would be truly disasterous. Whatever the situation WE MUST NOT invade the DPRK. The death toll and collateral damage would be too high. Not to mention the chance (relatively small) that china would intervene in a serious way.