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The Forum > Article Comments > Why war with North Korea may be the only alternative > Comments

Why war with North Korea may be the only alternative : Comments

By Simon Louie, published 4/5/2017

It appears that within four years it will have a missile that can hit Australia or the United States.

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Another excellent article from Simon Louie. Depressing certainly, but maybe spot-on. Combined with his earlier article about the coming demographic crisis in China, what he writes is not only possible but extremely worrying. If we put all our money on China having interests in resolving this issue, we may - for an extremely short time - regret it.

But maybe one fragile, vain hope is that China and other economic powers, such as Japan, the US and south Korea, might co-operate on setting up major economic zones in North Korea, close to the Chinese border, with the promise that North Korea, by investing its labour in such projects, will be treated as an equal partner in such an arrangement. But maybe that's just a silly day-dream :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 4 May 2017 9:49:06 AM
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A better alternative would be for China to tighten the screws on N Korea progressively over a few months to send a clear message.

Progressively cut off the supply of oil to N Korea, then progressively block shipping to and from N Korea, and start disrupting the electricity and communications systems in N Korea.
Posted by Peter Lang, Thursday, 4 May 2017 10:10:42 AM
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Ah, but do they want to, Peter ?
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 4 May 2017 10:42:04 AM
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Australia's answer to North Korea's nuclear bomb threat.

Australia could trigger an eruption of a super-volcano in North Korea.

There is a 99% chance that Mount Paektu volcano in North Korea will erupt some time in the next 15 years. It erupted in 946 A.D killing 71,000 to 92,000 people. Today there are 1.6 million people living within 100km of this volcano. Currently the 2744m high volcano is warming up and rising. It has a 20 km wide mass of molten magma under it.
Kim Jong Un needs to know that even without an atomic bomb there is a strong possibility that we could cause the volcano to erupt using our existing weapons.

I expect Australia would be happy to agree not to aggressively trigger an eruption of Mount Paektu if North Korea agreed to stop threatening us with its nuclear bombs, and totally removed the threat.

A random bomb explosion on the side of a large volcano is unlikely to set off an eruption. Triggering an eruption needs to take into account many factors. I think there is little doubt that we, or at least America, could cause some sort of eruption, even if we had to use multiple bombs to produce the right kind of earthquake.

The big problem is determining the size of the eruption. We do not want a super-eruption - that would drastically affect the whole world.

We have to also take China, Japan, Russia and South Korea into account. As Paektu is on the border we also need to be assured no landslides will be in that direction as the volcano has a 5km wide lake at its summit.

The recent brief volcanic activity alarmed the North Korean authorities and forced them to set aside their policy of isolation and secrecy. In 2005 they contacted China and top scientists in Western countries for technical assistance to study the volcano. Once they become aware that we could trigger Paektu volcano and its "Heavenly Lake" they should be alarmed - Wake up Kim Jong Un!

(PS I cannot use your current email for normal contact)
Posted by Lloyd, Thursday, 4 May 2017 10:48:14 AM
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As I watched the goosestepping troops and the massive military might built up by an apparent madman? I saw a troubling history repeating itself, albeit, with weapons that could soon wipe out two thirds of the world?

Moreover, given the posturing and a nothing left to lose attitude, waiting for a madman to make his move, is not an option! Particularly if he is China's stalking horse?

And given their reaction, he and North Korea may well be?

If we're going to do this, the let it be with the least possible collateral damage!

We need inordinately accurate intelligence, we need to know where he and his top generals sleep, where the bedrooms are when they will be home and which way the doors open etc/etc! Then send in a surgical strike; or some "gift" cruise missiles of our own through bedroom windows to take out a monster and his top generals?

Other than that, neutron bombs exploded at altitude will eliminate all life and electronics at a limited and defined predetermined ground zero, and needs to be used before N.K. has the capacity to respond!

Better them than us! And who would want to be commander in chief, with that decision and choices to make?

Even so, had we had those capacities before WW 11 and used one, we may well have averted a war, spared or saved millions of lives and avoided inestimable property damage!

Nobody could want war! But if left with no other choice? Hit first and as hard as is necessary to eliminate the threat!

If China or Russia is covertly involved? Then let it be a salutatory lesson to them also! I mean where do you think all that massive military hardware came from?

And shipped? Even as a patent genocidal madman was threatening all and sundry and for years, with the latest victim, a brother eliminated as easily as one might swat a fly?

If that's is how a brother is treated, what compunction stills his, use it or lose it, hand against us?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 4 May 2017 11:43:30 AM
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How about the US close the 400 odd military installations which now surround North Korea and China.

The threat level evaporates and everyone gets left alone.

Oh, but no, we can't do that, the US has a military industrial complex and global hegemony to maintain.

Too bad, the solution is staring us in the face but you would not know it due to the warmongering US rhetoric going on.

The feckless Trump and his insane neocon supported generals can't have peace any where, they would have nothing to spout on about. Don't forget they are the 'exceptional people' and the rest of us globally are not.

More fool us

Geoff
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 4 May 2017 12:21:42 PM
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Perhaps we should dismiss our military as well Geoff? And with that gone? We like six million Jews in pre war Germany, would present no threat to anyone?

Shades of pre WW 11 and peace in our time? Such sensible well thought through comment mate and if applied prior to WW 11 and a war mongering America? May have averted WW 11 and millions of lost lives and billions in property damage/war debt?

Boiled right down to real choices, we can die on our knees like six million Jews or fight for our very survival on our feet and punching above our weight! Like sixty thousand sacrificing Diggers now moldering in foreign soil!

And given the cost of war every which way, it can only ever be a last option?

And that gets closer by the minute! Everything else seems to have been tried, including appeasement, which as history demonstrates only emboldens dictators who invariably demand more and more!

I'm quite happy for you to sacrifice all you own and everyone close to you, if you want to remain a pacifist/conscientious objector?

But never ever want to sacrifice a single life or single dollar fighting for your freedom or property rights etc!

As always, its those with the most to lose and the occasional moribund activist? Who expect others to do their fighting and dying for them! Not that you can, except the use you put that prehensile thumb to, as par for the course, anti-american propaganda!

And shame on you, who like every Australian owe an non-repayable and quite massive blood debt to our American war time allies, who paid for our current freedoms, with their very blood and considerable treasure!

Trump may be an incorrigible warmonger, but he's our incorrigible warmonger. And it's the American military umbrella that has guaranteed our freedoms to date! And strangely, you seem to want that gone?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 4 May 2017 2:54:47 PM
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I am with Alan on this:

Every minute that we delay finishing off this monster is a minute wasted with more suffering of the most miserable people on earth, the North Korean People.

If I were a North Korean, then I would prefer a chance of 1 in a 1000 to remain alive following a nuclear attack over remaining trampled underfoot of this horrendous regime.

I have a question: I found this American site, http://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org of the people who attempt to rescue North Koreans and bring them to safety. I would like to help and donations are tax-deductible in America, but not in Australia. Does anyone know a similar Australian organisation where donations are tax-deductible here?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 5 May 2017 12:12:32 AM
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If you would like some real facts on North Korea, try this:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46960.htm

and this:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46919.htm

I realise some of you believe NK is the problem, however think a little, read the links above, particularly the second one. You may then understand why the situation is as it is.

In circa 90% of cases, if you remove US meddling and covert and overt military, social and political influence around the globe this planet would be a much safer place.

The US did not save us in WW2, we can thank the Russians for defeating Hitler and the Nazis. US propoganda has made too many believe they saved us all, simply not true, although their efforts went a long way in helping.

Official history is written by the victors, unfortunately the truth gets sidelined in most of these documents, it takes time and effort to research the truth.

As an ex serving member of the Australian military, with medals ta boot, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what is really going on and you sure won't get the truth from the main stream media or our feckless politicians!
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Friday, 5 May 2017 1:45:14 AM
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Yuyutsu,

The whole of Korea, North and South together, covers less than 85,000 sq. miles, less than Victoria. And you're suggesting dropping the big one on the northern bit ? And that will help the North Korean people, how ? So what happens to the people of South Korea as well, given the vast artillery barrage aimed by the North Korean armed forces, the second or third biggest in the world, aimed particularly at Seoul, 35 miles south of the border ?

Yes, perhaps it doesn't matter much to you since some of them will be reincarnated, while the rest can become cockroaches.

Surely this is one of the least likely places to ever have another war which anyone can win ? Maybe Trump is actually a genius and is playing a long game, carefully calibrating the options and putting subtle pressure on china to act, since it will cop the fall-out ? Or maybe he's an idiot, acting on whatever is in the last Marvel Superhero comic he's just read, or at least looked at the pictures ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 5 May 2017 10:10:12 AM
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Hi Geoff,

"The US did not save us in WW2, we can thank the Russians for defeating Hitler and the Nazis."

Of course they did, and I was born at about that time and named after Stalin by communist parents. Of course, Australia was saved by the Yanks at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and Guadalcanal. Defeating fascism was a joint effort, Geoff, admit it :)

Yes, the Russian victories at Stalingrad and Kursk in late 1942 and into 1943 crippled the Nazi army. But the British after el Alamein were the ones who forced the Nazis back in North Africa, thanks of course to our men at Tobruk holding the Nazis up. Yes, at roughly the same time, the Chinese were winning a huge battle (I always forget its location) against the Japanese, where the Japs always had three-quarters of their armed forces. And then there was Milne Bay. And, of course, Kokoda.

The victory in the Second World War was very much a joint effort, let's not begrudge our allies at the time, Geoff.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 5 May 2017 10:19:12 AM
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"All the way with LBJ." as they once said. Today its "Gettin' Humped by Donald Trump."

From: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/24/remarks-vice-president-and-australian-prime-minister-turnbull-press

"We have stood side-by-side in freedom’s cause through all those years, and today the brave men and women -- the Australian Defense Forces -- and their American allies and our partners are fighting together with the common goal of utterly destroying ISIS in the field in the Middle East. That is our commitment. In that theater of war and around the world, we are in absolute lockstep, totally united with a common purpose, and a resolute intent to destroy the threat of terrorism, and to destroy it in the field, and to combat it around the world -- whether at home or abroad. Our freedom depends on it. And we're committed to it."

I'd put it more as: "...around the world we are in absolute Goose-step with the US Administration..."

Sieg heil Herr Fuhrer Turnbull and thanks for putting us closer towards harms way...w@nker !

WW2 was a joint effort, but according to the Hollywood version, the Yanks alone saved the "Free" world and granted, the politico-military might of industrialists did contribute greatly to those victories in the European & Asian theatres of war. As in all wars, the populace are the ones to suffer.

I somehow feel that if & when an armed conflict arises re: Nth Korea, it will be the US who gets the bloody nose. As always, our ADF will be there to clean up the mess and wipe the snot from US bully boys.
Posted by Albie Manton in Darwin, Saturday, 6 May 2017 1:43:08 PM
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". As always, our ADF will be there to clean up the mess and wipe the snot from US bully boys."
Did you really write that?
Trump and Kim are both cookies , maybe not smart but . The pressure keeps imploding on Kim from both borders with a volcano thrown in for comic relief. Probably his relatives are sharpening kitchen knives in vengeance. And maybe the odd general wants to stay alive . If Kim turns to drink or substances he may out-clown Trump.
Posted by nicknamenick, Sunday, 7 May 2017 7:04:25 PM
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There are three Confucianist countries in the world, China, Korea and Vietnam. Vietnam fought China over eighty times in the past two thousand years. Korean culture is more Confucianist than Chinese culture is itself. Edwin O. Reischauer calls Yi Dynasty Korea A Model Confucian Society. "The Koreans in the early Yi dynasty adopted Confucianism with such enthusiasm that their value system and social practices were restructured along Chinese lines more fully than than ever before...it (Korea) may have become more uniformly permeated by Confusian ideas than China was itself. In fact, Korea became in many ways an almost model Confucian society...(Reischauer, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation, co-authored by J. K. Fairbank and A. M. Craig)." To be continued.
Posted by Michi, Tuesday, 9 May 2017 11:33:20 AM
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Hi Michi,

And now a huge proportion of the population is Christian. The point seems to be that Koreans are quick to learn from outside ideas and innovations. I hope that today's election will see an innovative and imaginative new President.

Wouldn't it be possible to massively expand the existing Economic Zones, to broaden heir investment base to include China and Japan, and provide North Korea with employment, the development of expertise, and revenue ? And thereby reduce the pointless tension between North and South Korea, which allows a genius like Trump to move his boats around the pond and think he's won something ?

After all, to keep this stupid situation going must be costing China, Japan, South Korea and the US a huge amount in dead-duck military expenditure: why not move some of that over into peaceful production ? Win-win-win !

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 9 May 2017 11:47:41 AM
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In that sense, Korean culture is more fundamentalist or fanatical. Confucius lived in the sixth century B.C. His writings were an expression of nostalgia for the golden time that in his theory existed but which never existed. Perhaps the first revolutionay event in Chinese history was the advent of the Chin Empire (221~206 B.C.). It set the pattern, for later ages, of the Chinese political system of despotic centralisation of political power. Confucianism underwent a slow but drastic change in the next dynasty, Han, and became the orthodoxy or Chinese catholism of the ruling elites. "Despite the condemnation of later ages, Legalism left a lasting mark on Chines civilization. Through the triumph of Chi'n the imperial system that Chi'n originated, it became an important part of the Chinese political tradition, partially accounting for the highly centralized government of later times and its harsh and arbitrary rule (Reischauer, ibid)."
"...the reality of (Chinese) empire was that of a hard core of wei, or force, surrounded by a soft pulp of de, or virture (June Teufel Dreyer, China's Tianxia: Do All Under Heaven Need One Arbiter?, YaleGlobal Online).
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/chinas-tianxia-do-all-under-heaven-need-one-arbiter.

Koreans say, "Japanese abducted two hundred thousand Korean women and girls to force them in prostitution. They were killed by Japanese when the Japanese surrendered." For this, I would like people to read my comment, American Humanism, on The Chinese Comfort Women, amazon usa.
Some details by a Japanese professor are available in English and Japanese at the following:
http://www.seisaku-center.net/sites/default/files/uploaded/TheComfortWomenIssueinSharperFocus.pdf.

In postwar Hiroshima City, like some other cities, there were orphans. Koreans took care of the girls, not boys, not as philanthropy but as investment for their traditional, national industry.
Posted by Michi, Tuesday, 9 May 2017 12:36:29 PM
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Loudmouth,
Korean Chritians do not give off scent of ecumenical enlightenedness, at least to me as I smell for it. They smell far more of Korean culture.

Mr. Moon Jae-in was elected new President. He had said during the campaign he would go first of all to the North to meet its leader. He was one of the chief advisers to President Roh Moo-hyun. In 2007, the United Nations was trying to pass a resolution to condemn the North's serious violation of human rights. As was revealed by the then-Foreign Minister Song Min-soon's memoirs last year, he suggested that Seoul should ask the North's opinion about it. Pyongyang's reply was that it did not like the resolution at all, so Seoul opposed it in the UN.
The Japanese ambassador Muto met with him in Pusan (Busan) a little before the South Korean presidential election of 2012. Muto wanted to enlarge his view of the South Korean-Japanese potential of an ecnomic win-win. But as Muto said on TV in Japan, he showed little interest. According to Muto, he asked instead about Japan's willingness to improve its relations with the North. Muto surmised that if Japan improved its ties with Pyongyang Seoul would get its relations with Tokyo better.

I want denuclearized North first before anything else.
Posted by Michi, Wednesday, 10 May 2017 11:58:28 AM
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