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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Jello]You're a dumb little kid. Stfu and stay out of grown up discussion. "just launch already" :facepalm[/QUOTE]
Gtfo of here, ******. Everyone knows that the rockets would hit the ocean after they were launched, and after that, NK won't exist anymore.
:roll:
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=GreatGreg]Gtfo of here, ******. Everyone knows that the rockets would hit the ocean after they were launched, and after that, NK won't exist anymore.
:roll:[/QUOTE]
yea nobody in the states is worried but what if they attack south korea or japan :facepalm
go back to burning bird houses fakkit
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=KingBeasley08]yea nobody in the states is worried but what if they attack south korea or japan :facepalm
go back to burning bird houses fakkit[/QUOTE]
When they prove they have working rockets, then that's when people should be worried.
If they nuke the South, then the radiation will spread to them, too.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[IMG]http://resources.news.com.au/files/2013/03/08/1226593/171951-nnd-infographic-kim-jong-un.jpg[/IMG]
Lil Kim doesn't defecate? No wonder he looks so damn bloated. wtf?
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
I wish our(U.S.) media would stop trying to muster public support for this by sensationalizing the situation beyond what it is.
Speaking of China and N. Korea, imagine if China wanted to fight a war with Mexico, think about how crazy that sounds. What if they already had bases all over the gulf and Central America, and were flying stealth bombers around, trying to flex on Mexico. Then think about how much crazier it would get if China wanted to sink it's fangs into Mexico and "rebuild" it their way after the war. That's the position that China is in.
Everyone just needs to chill out.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=emsteez forreal]hai guise i did some top-secret covert investigationz to uncover NK's war plans. enjoy
[url]http://imgur.com/a/dUZmt[/url][/QUOTE]
I hope the Lakers are on the road when they attack LA :lol
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
No war is going to happen between the U.S. and China both rely on each other wayyy to much economically for them to even consider attacking each other directly. IAMrambo although you're right that both China and Russia provide weapons and indirect support to these two countries, they would never actually attack the US themselves, which is exactly why they put on the phony smiles for the camera. They need to be careful because they don't want beef with the US either
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
The scary part is Kim truly believes he can take out anyone he wants if it came down to it. Little does he realize his country is gone the second that first nuke goes off. Regardless of who sides with who, a war involving nukes is not going to end well for anyone.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
Why can't we all just get along?
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=BlueCrayon]Why can't we all just get along?[/QUOTE]
Human nature
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
I hope the US just pay these high ranking North Korean Officials to assassinate this son of a B1tch.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
And in two days, Kim is going to be like "lolz April Fools bitches!!!!" :hammerhead:
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=D.J.]The scary part is Kim truly believes he can take out anyone he wants if it came down to it. Little does he realize his country is gone the second that first nuke goes off. Regardless of who sides with who, a war involving nukes is not going to end well for anyone.[/QUOTE]
If he truly believes that, he's either being lied to by his generals or he's completely batshit insane. Or he's being lied to by his generals BECAUSE he's batshit insane.
I think the reality is he knows this is what his country does when it needs food and money; denounce joint exercises and start issuing rambling violent statements that translate into war fiction written by deranged fourth graders. The dance has been going on this way for decades and it won't stop because the result will just be millions more Koreans dead from starvation and malnutrition than are already dying...the UN can't just let that happen, but neither can we just roll in and kick these idiots out of power.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/30/russia-us-north-korea-restraint[/url]
[B][U]Russia urges US and North Korea to show restraint[/U][/B]
[url]http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/03/30/13/russia-calls-maximum-restraint-north-korea[/url]
[B][U]Russia calls for 'maximum restraint' in North Korea[/U][/B]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Geriatric][IMG]http://resources.news.com.au/files/2013/03/08/1226593/171951-nnd-infographic-kim-jong-un.jpg[/IMG]
Lil Kim doesn't defecate? No wonder he looks so damn bloated. wtf?[/QUOTE]
So he's the one that ordered the artillery bombardment on an island of South Korea and the sinking of a SK warship instead of his late father? This mother fuccer ain't bluffing if this sh1t is true. This guy might actually do something about it.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Derka]If he truly believes that, he's either being lied to by his generals or he's completely batshit insane. Or he's being lied to by his generals BECAUSE he's batshit insane.
I think the reality is he knows this is what his country does when it needs food and money; denounce joint exercises and start issuing rambling violent statements that translate into war fiction written by deranged fourth graders. The dance has been going on this way for decades and it won't stop because the result will just be millions more Koreans dead from starvation and malnutrition than are already dying...the UN can't just let that happen, but neither can we just roll in and kick these idiots out of power.[/QUOTE]
Most likely it's him being batshit insane. Then again, Rodman is probably on a similar level of insanity for actually going over and trying to reason with him.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=niko]i don't get the interest in this, it happens every year (literally) since i've been alive (which is closing in on 40 years). And all of you post doom and gloom. This will pass, and it will pass next year, and the next year, and on and on in perpetuity because all parties want and need it to be like that.[/QUOTE]
So every year a nation is threatening to nuke the US? You obviously don't know what you are talking about. Your knowledge of this situation is pathetic. You're too old niko. That is your problem. Old people are set in their ways and can only think in terms of the past and habits; this is why you can't see things beyond what you are being force fed by the media: your hormones are too limp to dig a bit further. Being senile makes you lazy, so it is more "comfortable" for you to accept what is being told than to truly think.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[quote]
JOEL WIT, Johns Hopkins University: I think this is an extremely serious situation.
And I would say that we are one step away from a second Korean War. And I say that because, in this kind of tense situation, the danger of miscalculation or accidental conflict is very high. And so this is a very dangerous situation. And we need to be very careful.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor Lee, do agree? Are we really in more jeopardy than we were just a few weeks ago?
SUNG-YOON LEE, Tufts University: Well, we have seen a crescendo of bluster barrage.
I don't think we are on the brink of war, because we know the North Korean regime harbors no suicidal impulses. I don't necessarily want to paint the North Korean regime as all-knowing, omnipotent, brilliant military strategists. So, there is always the danger of miscalculation, yes.
But we have seen North Korea resort to periodic, deadly, but always limited, controlled attacks against the South and the United States forces in South Korea over the past 60 years. And I think the North Korean regime views this period, 2013, as a particularly appeasement-prone time.
And, hence, it's in North Korea's interest to raise the stakes, paint Washington and Seoul especially into a corner, with a view towards receiving more economic concessions in the future.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor, having said that, when any country, North Korea or any country on the planet makes threats of the kind that were made in the past 24 hours, does the United States have to take them seriously?
SUNG-YOON LEE: This is North Korea's preferred strategy of graduated escalation.
It's psychological warfare. And the U.S. and the ROK, the Republic of Korea, the former name for South Korea, have also been engaging in some psychological warfare of their own. We should take the North Korean threat seriously because there's a high likelihood that North Korea will once again resort to a deadly attack against South Korea.
North Korea has shown a proclivity to launch such attacks and provocative acts on a holiday, major holiday. So perhaps even this Easter Sunday is an opportune time for another provocation in North Korean calculation.
RAY SUAREZ: Joel Wit, the targeting maps are said to show Honolulu, Washington D.C., Los Angeles. Do we have a very good idea of what North Korea is capable of and what it's not?
JOEL WIT: Yes, I think we have an excellent idea.
And we have that because we have observed their missile tests. And we know how far those missiles can go, even if they work. And the fact is, they haven't really worked very well. So they can't really reach the continental United States.
Secondly, I want to return to this point about whether we're close to a war or not. And I would say that the problem here is -- and the professor has even predicted when a provocation might happen. The problem is that, if North Korea launches a provocation, the United States and South Korea, unlike in the past, are likely to respond.
And North Korea is not going to roll over and play dead, contrary to what a number of conservatives think.
RAY SUAREZ: But do you agree with the professor's conclusion that the country that's in real jeopardy is not the United States from these threats, but South Korea?
JOEL WIT: Absolutely.
South Korea is in great jeopardy here. And as a close ally of the United States, that's very important to us. And we also have to remember we have 28,000 troops on the peninsula and are committed to South Korea's defense. So if there is another Korean war, it's going to involve thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of American troops.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor, nations around the world have toolboxes, various mixtures of threats, persuasions, inducement that is part of how diplomacy gets carried on. Are the rules different for dealing with North Korea than almost any other country on Earth?
SUNG-YOON LEE: Well, in the case of North Korea, when you consider seeking better relations with other states and the international community at large, better relations for North Korea means what we have right now, creating a near crisis situation with a view towards returning to negotiations.
And over the past 20 years of nuclear diplomacy, that has always meant returning to talks with big blandishments, bigger rewards in tow. So, yes, we have dealt with North Korea in a way that has not been a spectacular success. It's time to put some real stick in that proverbial carrot-and-stick approach. And I would say it has been all blandishments and concessions so far.
RAY SUAREZ: Joel Wit?
JOEL WIT: Well, you know, I have experience actually working with North Koreans. I spent 15 years in the State Department working with them.
And I can say that it's not a record of failure. In fact, the agreement we reached in 1994 stopped North Korea from building as many as 100 nuclear weapons by 2000. So that agreement worked. There have been other agreements that haven't worked so well. It's been a very mixed record.
And I agree with the professor that we need to get tough with the North Koreans. But getting tough, in and of itself, is not a policy. You need to use diplomacy too to find escape routes for both parties.
RAY SUAREZ: But when you use diplomacy, do any of the standard tools of a diplomat, when dealing with another country, work with this country?
JOEL WIT: They do work.
I was part of an agreement, as I said, in 1994 that worked very well for eight years. Most people don't know that in the late 2000s, there was another agreement with North Korea, a moratorium on its long-range missile tests that lasted seven years. It worked very well.
So the record is not an unblemished record of failure. It's a record of mixed success and mixed failures. And so that means we still need to continue to try to work on a diplomatic track of this.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor, quickly, before we go, when statements like the kind that have come out of Pyongyang in the last couple of days are issued, is that paranoia as gesture, or is there a real belief among the leading cadre there that, in fact, the United States does want to take over, steamroll, immolate this country?
SUNG-YOON LEE: It's posturing.
I don't think the North Korean regime believes that the U.S. is on the verge of attacking North Korea. That is not in the best interest of the United States. We tend to take a patronizing view of the North Korean regime because they are so bizarre and unusual in so many ways.
But they are quite rational, careful. And self-preservation is of the utmost priority for the regime. I don't have any experience working in government or dealing with North Korea. But what I do know is that the Clinton administration paid North Korea almost $200 million worth of food aid for the empty privilege of inspecting an empty cave in the aftermath of North Korea firing a long-range missile over Japan on Aug. 31st, 1998.
The Bush administration has similar failed record in dealing with North Korea. It removed North Korea from the state-sponsored terrorism list in October of 2008, resumed food aid, negotiated with North Korea again. North Korea blew up the tired, old, out-of-date cooling tower in Yongbyon at the main facility and continued to enrich uranium.
RAY SUAREZ: Very quickly, I mean, that record is an actual record of things that really happened.
JOEL WIT: You know, I disagree with that characterization.
And I go back to the fact that, when I was in the U.S. government looking at intelligence estimates in the early 1990s, we were looking at a program that was enormous. And by the Bush administration, we had turned that off, and the North Koreans had moved to develop another kind of nuclear weapon.
RAY SUAREZ: Joel Wit, Professor Lee, gentlemen, thank you both.
SUNG-YOON LEE: Thank you.
JOEL WIT: Thank you. [/quote]
[URL="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june13/northkorea_03-29.html"]http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june13/northkorea_03-29.html[/URL]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[IMG]https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/555601_10100489000800576_1558267253_n.jpg[/IMG]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=IamRAMBO24]So every year a nation is threatening to nuke the US? You obviously don't know what you are talking about. Your knowledge of this situation is pathetic. You're too old niko. That is your problem. Old people are set in their ways and can only think in terms of the past and habits; this is why you can't see things beyond what you are being force fed by the media: your hormones are too limp to dig a bit further. Being senile makes you lazy, so it is more "comfortable" for you to accept what is being told than to truly think.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://www.annalsofamericus.com/wp-content/uploads/third-bass-godfrey.jpg[/IMG]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
Haven't heard much on this situation, any new threats?
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Draz]Haven't heard much on this situation, any new threats?[/QUOTE]
south korea threatened the north back. i have a feeling this time, if the north crosses the line again like they did when they shelled that island or sunk that ship, s korea is gonna retaliate.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=rezznor]south korea threatened the north back. i have a feeling this time, if the north crosses the line again like they did when they shelled that island or sunk that ship, s korea is gonna retaliate.[/QUOTE]
South Korea seems to be less aggressive. That, and they seem to have more brains. They need to show a bit of aggression or they'll be taken advantage over. Do they even have much of an army or military?
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
this is solely for north korea's internal benefit, he just wants to bolster himself internally to the military, so he isn't ousted, he is 29 and that has come into question in a culture where age matters
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=kenuffff]this is solely for north korea's internal benefit, he just wants to bolster himself internally to the military, so he isn't ousted, he is 29 and that has come into question in a culture where age matters[/QUOTE]
or he has to convince his high ranking generals and the people that he continues with his fathers work
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Draz]South Korea seems to be less aggressive. That, and they seem to have more brains. They need to show a bit of aggression or they'll be taken advantage over. Do they even have much of an army or military?[/QUOTE]
south korea is definitely less aggressive then the north, but they've been taking alot of shit these last few years without responding. this time, if more citizens die i doubt they are going to turn the other cheek again.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=rezznor]south korea is definitely less aggressive then the north, but they've been taking alot of shit these last few years without responding. this time, if more citizens die i doubt they are going to turn the other cheek again.[/QUOTE]
This. There's that saying "You poke a dog with a stick long enough, it'll snap". South Korea is that dog who's been poked with the stick. They haven't snapped yet, but one day, they will.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
keeps escalating.. where the f is North Korea going with this :facepalm
am I the only one who wishes to hit Kim Jong-un's head with a frying pan
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
U.S. reducing rhetoric that feeds North Korean belligerence
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
updated 10:21 AM EDT, Thu April 4, 2013
U.S. ready to calm North Korea tensions
Washington (CNN) -- Recent announcements of U.S. military deployments in response to belligerent statements by North Korea may have contributed to the escalating tensions between the countries, Pentagon officials told CNN on Thursday in explaining an effort to reduce U.S. rhetoric about North Korea.
"We accused the North Koreans of amping things up, now we are worried we did the same thing," one Defense Department official said.
The officials spoke on the same day a U.S. official told CNN that communications intercepts indicated North Korea may be planning to launch a mobile ballistic missile in coming days or weeks.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a parliamentary committee in Seoul that the North has moved a medium-range missile to its east coast for an imminent test firing or military drill, according to the semi-official South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said he thinks the missile in question is a Musudan, which the North hasn't tested before.
The missile is based on a Soviet system with a range of about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles), far enough to reach Japan but not U.S. forces based on Guam. He called the missile movement "of concern, certainly to the U.S. military and to Japan."
As a vital ally to South Korea since the Korean war in the 1950s, the United States has pledged military backing to Seoul in the event of an attack by North Korea. In addition, North Korea has been developing nuclear weapon technology, raising concerns of rapid proliferation in the region and even a possible nuclear strike by Pyongyang.
The fraught situation on the Korean Peninsula stems from the North's latest long-range rocket launch in December and underground nuclear test in February.
In response, the United States helped bring tougher U.N. sanctions on North Korea and took part in joint military exercises with South Korea, prompting Kim Jong Un's government to ratchet up its threats in recent weeks.
That caused the United States to display its military strength in the annual drills taking place now, flying B-2 stealth bombers capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons, as well as Cold War-era B-52s and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters over South Korea.
On Thursday, a North Korean army official warned that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast."
"No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," said the spokesman for the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army (KPA).
"The responsibility for this grave situation entirely rests with the U.S. administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK's sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic," the KPA spokesman added in a statement published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that "the provocative actions and bellicose rhetoric that we see from North Korea is obviously of concern, and we are taking the necessary precautionary measures, many of which have been reported on."
"It is also the case that the behavior of the regime in Pyongyang that we are seeing now represents a familiar pattern," he added in reference to past episodes of heightened North Korean threats and rhetoric generally considered efforts to increase leverage on international issues.
A Defense Department official told CNN on Thursday that from a communications point of view, "we are trying to turn the volume down" on U.S. rhetoric about North Korea. The official, speaking on condition of not being identified, said the change referred to public statements by the Obama administration instead of how U.S. military hardware were being deployed in the region.
According to the official, some Pentagon officials were surprised at how U.S. news releases and statements on North Korea were generating world headlines and therefore provoking a Pyongyang response.
"We are absolutely trying to ratchet back the rhetoric," the official said. "We become part of the cycle. We allowed that to happen."
Previously, the Obama administration established a "playbook" of prescripted actions and responses to the last several weeks of North Korean rhetoric and provocations, an administration official said Thursday.
The scripted actions included an increased show of U.S. military force -- such as the flying of B-2 bombers -- during the annual U.S.-South Korea military exercise, the Foal Eagle.
"Eyebrows started to go up when it was clear Foal Eagle was going to be protected from the budget cuts of sequestration," the official said, referring to the forced federal spending cuts that went into effect in March.
Richardson: N. Korea attack 'is suicide' North Korea makes new hostile threats Should world engage with North Korea? China changing tone on North Korea?
The playbook planning began under former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta but was picked up and supported strongly by now-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the official said.
Details of the playbook were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The administration official declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Some moves not scripted
However, some of the U.S. military's reactions to Pyongyang's saber-rattling were not part of the playbook planning.
Instead, they arose from concerns about what North Korea has planned as the U.S.-South Korean exercise conclude, the administration official said.
For example, the deployment of ballistic missile defenses closer to North Korea and a land-based missile-intercept system to Guam were ordered in recent days when U.S. intelligence began to gather information that North Korea might be planning additional missile launches.
A 'complicated, combustible situation'
U.S. officials have publicly stressed that the American military moves were meant as much to assure the South Koreans that they have Washington's full support.
"What I can tell you is that our response and the mix of assets we have applied to our responses is prudent, logical and measured," Pentagon spokesman George Little said earlier this week.
"We are in the midst right now of -- of very important annual exercises that we regularly conduct with the South Koreans, and these exercises are about alliance assurance. They're first and foremost about showing the South Koreans and showing our other allies in the region, including the Japanese, that we are ready to defend them in the wake of threats."
When asked by CNN earlier this week about the "message" the United States was trying to send to North Korea, Little said it was the North Koreans who are being provocative.
"The North Koreans -- even before those exercises started -- had undertaken provocative steps, and they've conducted underground nuclear tests, they've conducted missile tests outside their international obligations. So they have a track record now over the past few months of provocative behavior," he said.
"We are in the business of ensuring our South Korean allies that we will help defend them in the face of threats," Little said in response. "So I don't think it's a contradiction. I think that North Koreans have engaged in certain actions and have said things that are provocative. We are looking for the temperature to be taken down on the Korean Peninsula."
Hagel hinted at risks in reacting to North Korea, calling the tensions a "complicated, combustible situation" that could "explode into a worse situation."
"It only takes being wrong once. And I don't want to be the secretary of defense who was wrong once. So we will continue to take these threats seriously. I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," Hagel said Wednesday.
"But they've got to be a responsible member of the world community. And you don't achieve that responsibility and peace and prosperity by making nuclear threats and taking very provocative actions."
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/politics/koreas-u-s-/index.html#cnn-disqus-area[/url]
So both sides decided to show off their shit and the US backs off? ROFL. The North Koreans won this one.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
why in the world would china support NK? aren't we more valuable to them?
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=Draz]why in the world would china support NK? aren't we more valuable to them?[/QUOTE]
buffer state. old cold war mentality.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
north korea hacked by anonymous :roll: :roll: :roll:
[url]http://www.aindf.com/[/url]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
this about sums it up
[IMG]https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/485264_315361898591062_2067998769_n.jpg[/IMG]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[IMG]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/58887_10151594796999328_119286056_n.jpg[/IMG]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[IMG]https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/558554_553775934666953_742084961_n.jpg[/IMG]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
So the missile launches are imminent... According to the press, the NK's are expected to launch the 2 Musudan missiles simultaneously. You can't take a chance that one of em might hit an ally of the U.S so I'm gonna say that the US is gonna shoot a missile down.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=magic chiongson][IMG]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/58887_10151594796999328_119286056_n.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
brilliant! :applause:
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=LoPro4u2c]So the missile launches are imminent... According to the press, the NK's are expected to launch the 2 Musudan missiles simultaneously. [/QUOTE]
Be careful, you are going to be called a troll, dumb, completely wrong, heartless, etc. for saying such a thing
How DARE you suggest NK might have the balls to attack.
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
this is what some of us have been saying, good news
[QUOTE]China grows weary of North Korea's 'chaos and conflict'
Even as North Korea continues to threaten nuclear action, Pyongyang is decorating the streets, preparing to celebrate Kim Jong Un's first year in power. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
By Ian Williams, correspondent, NBC News
News Analysis
BEIJING -- There was confusion at the China-North Korea border Thursday after Chinese tour operators halted trips into the North.
Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images
Two men wait Thursday for dispatch at a customs port in the Chinese border city of Dandong. The largest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
It wasn't clear whether the instruction to do so came from the Chinese authorities, the North Koreans, or was made by the nervous operators themselves.
But it mirrored a wider confusion over Chinese policy toward Pyongyang, which depends on Beijing for food and fuel, as well as diplomatic support.
As North Korea readies what is thought to be a missile test, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has spent most of the week deflecting questions with the official line that "all sides" should show restraint and begin dialogue, and that peace and stability are a "shared responsibility."
But in an interview with NBC News he was more forthright about China's growing concern. "We do not want to see chaos and conflict on China's doorstep," he said.
In fact, there are signs that China is rethinking its policy toward the North. President Xi Jinping last weekend told a forum of political and business leaders that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain." He didn't mention the North by name, but it was pretty clear who he was referring to.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel described North Korea's actions and "bellicose rhetoric" as "skating very close to a dangerous line."  NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Earlier, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would not allow "troublemaking on China's doorstep," a line repeated in an editorial in Thursday's China Daily.
China also supported the latest UN sanctions that followed North Korea's third nuclear test.
In fact, relations between the two have been souring for some time as Pyongyang has consistently ignored calls by Beijing for restraint.
"To many in Beijing, North Korea is looking less like a strategic asset and more like a strategic burden," said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor at Renmin University's School of International Studies.
In the past, even when clearly unhappy, Beijing has treated the North with kid gloves because of fear of the North collapsing, and also as a hedge against U.S. power in Asia.
'Little Fatty'
According to leaked 2010 diplomat cables obtained by Wikileaks and posted by newspapers the Guardian and the New York Times, Chinese officials described the regime in the North as behaving like a "spoiled child."
Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un
The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.
Launch slideshow
Chinese social media, which is as close a barometer of public opinion as you can get here, has in recent days been buzzing with criticism -- not of the U.S., but of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for leading his country to disaster and the world close to war.
Kim is derided as "Little Fatty" or "Fatty the Third."
One former top U.S. diplomat agrees there are clear signs that China is losing patience with North Korea. Kurt Campbell, the state department's top official for east asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be "as close as lips and teeth" is wearing thin.
He said this was notable in public statements and private conversations with U.S. officials. Speaking last week at a forum at Johns Hopkins University, he said this had the potential for a large impact on northeast Asia.
What's harder to say is how this growing frustration will be translated into concrete actions to pressure the North.
Cheng of Renmin University noted that in 2003 Beijing turned off the oil supply in order to force Pyongyang to join six-party talks and could use that weapon again.
Secret filming captures N. Korean smugglers sneaking into China to get supplies for their impoverished country, as a refugee tells of the horror of life under Kim Jong Un. ITN's Angus Walker reports.
"If China has political will, China can do something," he said. "China can make a difference."
Secretary of State John Kerry will be taking this up with China's leaders when he is there this weekend.
"China and the U.S. share common interests in peace, stability and denuclearisation," said the Foreign Ministry's Hong Lei. "We hope to work with the U.S. side towards that end."
Significantly, there has so far been no Chinese criticism of the display of U.S. high-tech firepower in the region, which is seen as another tacit condemnation of Pyongyang's antics.
That said, Kerry will no doubt point out, as other officials have done privately, that if China fails to act the result will be an even bigger U.S. military presence in the region and a possible regional arms race -- precisely what China has said it wants to avoid.[/QUOTE]
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Re: We're flying Stealth Bombers over South Korea
[QUOTE=IamRAMBO24]Be careful, you are going to be called a troll, dumb, completely wrong, heartless, etc. for saying such a thing
How DARE you suggest NK might have the balls to attack.[/QUOTE]
you are completely uneducated and narrow minded on this issue and on north korea as a whole :oldlol: