North korea

[betsy]

14 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Well, Japan and South Korea would be hugely at risk, maybe Guam.  But ok.  The article lays out the risks pretty clearly, I thought.

Even without this - they've always been  at risk!  NK has always been at threat.

If it ever comes to military action - North Korea will not survive!

Edited September 4, 2017 by betsy

[hot enough]

14 minutes ago, betsy said:

If the USA didn't bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki - how many more millions would've died in WW2?

If you were aware of actual history or weren't advancing falsehoods you would know that that is another ugly US lie.The USA bombed the Japanese because they were terribly racist, government people didn't want the enormous sums spent without using their bomb. The US knew full well that the Japanese were seeking surrender. 

[Argus]

16 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Read this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-problem-on-earth/528717/

South Korea, our allies, are hugely at risk with pre-emptive military action.

In the closing of this report it says "Even though its missiles could hit the US it cannot destroy the United States." I think most thinking is predicated on this. The most they can get is a few nukes, and they can't really destroy anyone with that. But if an EMP could be set off high above the central US and actually functions as many think it would then he COULD destroy the United States - and us, with one missile. 

This has been known for some time but again, the thinking on EMPs is that terrorists don't have the means to use them, and no government would do it because the US would retaliate. You'd have to be crazy to do it. But North Korea's leader IS crazy.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Argus

[betsy]

16 hours ago, jbg said:

I frankly think it's time to stop the daintiness and excuses and knock NK off line before this parade of horribles even starts.

Knocking NK might happen next week.

Edited September 4, 2017 by betsy

[betsy]

4 minutes ago, Argus said:

But North Korea's leader IS crazy.

 

That's one thing pundits and certain politicians are forgetting, when they keep endorsing diplomatic talks.  One Canadian (I think our ambassador to UN) even compared this situation with Russia during the cold war, saying that it was more scary back then because Russia had the capability.   Yeah - but Russian leaders weren't crazy!

How can you reason with someone irrational, or crazy?

Edited September 4, 2017 by betsy

[Argus]

16 hours ago, jbg said:

I frankly think it's time to stop the daintiness and excuses and knock NK off line before this parade of horribles even starts.

They have thousands and thousands of artillery pieces within 40 miles of Seoul, as well as chemical and biological weapons, and no sense of morality and ethics whatsoever. Would you feel as sanguine about an attack if they were 40 miles from New York? 

[hot enough]

14 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war

I guess you think my name is Michael Googlner ?

Nice propaganda, Michael.

Why on earth are there so many brain dead people in this world? When has the USA ever told the truth about any of the myriad illegal invasions it has instigated?

 

Quote

 

Neither Stalin nor President Harry Truman were particularly eager to see the conflict erupt, although both may have considered it inevitable. In which case it was convenient, for propaganda purposes, to be able to portray the enemy as having fired the first shot.

As to who did in reality fire that shot, Bruce Cumings, head of the history department at the University of Chicago, gave us the definitive answer in his two-volume The Origins of the Korean War, and The Korean War: A History: the Korean war started during the American occupation of the South, and it was Rhee, with help from his American sponsors, who initiated a series of attacks that well preceded the North Korean offensive of 1950. From 1945-1948, American forces aided Rhee in a killing spree that claimed tens of thousands of victims: the counterinsurgency campaign took a high toll in Kwangju, and on the island of Cheju-do – where as many as 60,000 people were murdered by Rhee’s US-backed forces.

Rhee’s army and national police were drawn from the ranks of those who had collaborated with the Japanese occupation during World War II, and this was the biggest factor that made civil war inevitable. That the US backed these quislings guaranteed widespread support for the Communist forces led by Kim IL Sung, and provoked the rebellion in the South that was the prelude to open North-South hostilities. Rhee, for his part, was eager to draw in the United States, and the North Koreans, for their part, were just as eager to invoke the principle of "proletarian internationalism" to draw in the Chinese and the Russians.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/07/28/who-really-started-the-korean-war/

 

 

[hot enough]

23 minutes ago, Argus said:

They have thousands and thousands of artillery pieces within 40 miles of Seoul, as well as chemical and biological weapons, and no sense of morality and ethics whatsoever. Would you feel as sanguine about an attack if they were 40 miles from New York? 

More of the silly propaganda, Argus. Let's put this silly meme that the US is the bastion of morality and ethics to bed forever more. The US was slaughtering people in the south of Korea with their ALWAYS US installed brutal, right wing dictator, Syngman Rhee. 

Quote

The numbers of civilians killed in South Korea by the government, Cumings said, even dwarfed Spaniards murdered by dictator Francisco Franco, the general who overthrew the Madrid government in the 1936-1939 civil war. Cumings said about 100,000 South Koreans were killed in political violence between 1945 and 1950 and perhaps as many as 200,000 more were killed during the early months of the war. 

...

Cumings said he was able to draw upon a lot of South Korean research that has come out since the nation democratized in the 1990s about the massacres of Korean civilians. This has been the subject of painstaking research by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul and Cumings describes the results as “horrific.” Atrocities by “our side, the South Koreans (ran) six to one ahead of the North Koreans in terms of killing civilians, whereas most Americans would think North Koreans would just as soon kill a civilian to look at him.” The numbers of civilians killed in South Korea by the government, Cumings said, even dwarfed Spaniards murdered by dictator Francisco Franco, the general who overthrew the Madrid government in the 1936-1939 civil war. Cumings said about 100,000 South Koreans were killed in political violence between 1945 and 1950 and perhaps as many as 200,000 more were killed during the early months of the war. This compares to about 200,000 civilians put to death in Spain in Franco’s political massacres. In all, Korea suffered 3 million civilian dead during the 1950-53 war, more killed than the 2.7 million Japan suffered during all of World War II.

One of the worst atrocities was perpetrated by the South Korean police at the small city of Tae Jun. They executed 7,000 political prisoners while Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. military officials looked on, Cumings said. To compound the crime, the Pentagon blamed the atrocity on the Communists, Cumings said. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff classified the photographs of it because they make it clear who’s doing it, and they don’t let the photographs out until 1999 when a Korean finally got them declassified.” To top that off, the historian says, “the Pentagon did a video movie called ‘Crime of Korea’ where you see shots of pits that go on for like a football field, pit after pit of dead people, and (actor) Humphrey Bogart in a voice-over says, ‘someday the Communists will pay for this, someday we’ll get the full totals and believe me we’ll get the exact, accurate totals of the people murdered here and we will make these war criminals pay.’ Now this is a complete reversal of black and white, done as a matter of policy.” Cumings adds that these events represent “a very deep American responsibility for the regime that we promoted, really more than any other in East Asia (and that) was our creation in the late Forties.” Other atrocities, such as the one at No Gun village, Cumings terms “an American massacre of women and children,” which he lays at the feet of the U.S. military.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-korean-war-the-unknown-war-the-coverup-of-us-war-crimes/23742

 

[betsy]

21 hours ago, Argus said:

So North Korea has allegedly exploded a big hydrogen bomb now, one that can allegedly fit onto an ICBC, and is threatening to use it on the US in an EMP attack. For those who aren't aware of it, an EMP is an electromagnetic pulse, which is something nukes give off. The theory, based on what happened when the US exploded a test bomb high up decades ago, is that if you set off a bomb up high, the electromagnetic pulse will basically destroy all sensitive electronics, most especially including power transformers, thus wiping out the electricity grid. This would not cause a day or a week of power loss, but potentially many months since the transformers would have to be rebuilt. And, of course, Canada would be hit by the same pulse. While some military equipment is hardened against EMPs, no civilian infrastructure has been hardened. Some estimate 90% of the population would die within a year or so of an EMP since we can't support our present population without electricity.

 

 

I assume if NK will strike, it will be around winter.   Just imagine winter with no electricity.  How many of us are really prepared for that?

 

Edited September 4, 2017 by betsy

[Altai]

NK is going to start the WW3 ? They shots somewhere and someones shot another one's allies and its allies shots other one's allies. Da daaa WW3. 

So US want to start WW3 and NK is playing its role ? 

[cannuck]

On 8/5/2017 at 4:04 PM, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

That's makes Trudeau even more of a joke.   He can't even get Canadian nationals released.

The U.S. can negotiate trade agreements and work with Asian allies on North Korea...Canada can't.

This is how much more dependent Canadian provinces are on the U.S. export market than are the "38 states":

 

Nice graphic.  What it is showing me is that the average in Canada is 40%ish, and the average in the US is 4% ish - and with 10:1 population ratio, it means the average American is about as dependent on Can/US reciprocal trade as the average Canadian adjusted for population density *(i.e. trade is close to in balance, we just have fewer people)

But, you were very right:  Trudeau is pretty much useless and totally ineffective at doing anything except screwing up Canada.

[Argus]

34 minutes ago, cannuck said:

Nice graphic.

Did you have to respond to this troll post, complete with half page long graphic? The subject is North Korea. If you must talk about how magnificently wonderful America is please do it in one of the US topics.

 

[Argus]

A thought occurred to me as I watched news coverage of this the other night. There's much talk about North Korea's continuing and surprisingly quick improvements in both its nuclear and missile capability. But little speculation as to why. So let me suggest the plot for a fictional story.

A megalomaniac who hates the Americans and is constantly being frustrated by him. Let's call him Vladimir Putin, decides to feed technology to North Korea, along with information about how he could destroy his great enemy, America by launching a powerful hydrogen bomb and exploding it a couple of hundred miles above the central US. The resulting EMP basically wipes out America, leaving Putin with pretty much a free hand in the world. Not only that but with a whole continent free for the taking...

So let me expand on this. China and Russia have both been protecting North Korea. Suppose they reach an agreement. Let North Korea launch a missile that causes a massive EMP over the middle of North America. China will then be allowed to 'help' the US by sending over massive numbers of doctors and foodstuffs - and troops to distribute it all. Meanwhile, Russia will move into western Europe through a combination of outright force and political bribery - and spineless, weak-kneed western European politicians.

Paranoia or the plotline of a Tom Clancy novel? One thing for sure, if I can wonder, you can be sure there are people in the US government wondering.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Argus

[cannuck]

On 9/3/2017 at 2:55 PM, Argus said:

So North Korea has allegedly exploded a big hydrogen bomb now, one that can allegedly fit onto an ICBC, and is threatening to use it on the US in an EMP attack. For those who aren't aware of it, an EMP is an electromagnetic pulse, which is something nukes give off. The theory, based on what happened when the US exploded a test bomb high up decades ago, is that if you set off a bomb up high, the electromagnetic pulse will basically destroy all sensitive electronics, most especially including power transformers, thus wiping out the electricity grid. This would not cause a day or a week of power loss, but potentially many months since the transformers would have to be rebuilt. And, of course, Canada would be hit by the same pulse. While some military equipment is hardened against EMPs, no civilian infrastructure has been hardened. Some estimate 90% of the population would die within a year or so of an EMP since we can't support our present population without electricity.

Nothing much is being done about this. I doubt Canadian authorities even know what an EMP is. Some American authorities have been calling on the government to harden their public power grid for years, but the cost is estimated at $20 billion so no one has shown a lot of interest. On the other hand, the US has spent an estimated $400 billion in Afghanistan so...

http://futurescience.com/emp.html

IMP strike is a genuine threat, but not to the extent you might think.

Let me start by saying I do not know the threshold level of device that it would take to completely cover the whole continent, but I believe it is far greater than a 120KT device.

Yes, we have had some troubles on the grid with EMP strikes from solar events, but what is very true is that power transformers are very well protected from high overvoltage line conditions.  Ever see a thunderstorm?  Well, that lightning strikes power lines with great regularity, and the resultant voltage in the line is many times what the transformer is designed to tolerate.   The little poletop transformer in your back lane that may be fed from a 15kV local distribution circuit will have a BIL (Basic Insulation Level) over 100kV, so it is able to take SOME of the surge, but a very close by lightning strike will probably take it out.  It is important to realize that the electric grid is HUGE and has a lot of capacitance and resistance, so can store a tremendous amount of energy from lighting strikes, mitigating the voltage at the millions of places it is dissipated through loads.   Hold these thoughts.

Where an EMP strike is different, it is inducing its voltage and current into the entire grid, or at least a very large area at one time.  BUT: large transformers are the issue.  Old ones have (or had) archaic protection devices that can see the rise of line voltage above BIL of the device being protected, but can not respond fast enough to protect from causing an insulation breakdown (end of life for the transformer).  Bank in those "good old days", EEs knew that, so pretty much ALL large transformers have surge arrestors - essentially a big leak-to-ground device that will bleed off any and all charge at a level safely below the BIL of the device.  Next: newer equipment is no longer protected by electro-mechanical devices that take many cycles to open, but electronically measured and triggered circuit breakers that are open in a few cycles.  Most will be off line before damage can occur.  I think the EMP pulse would be grounded adequately by bonding on the steel case before it could induce enough into the windings (that I will query our EEs about today).

What is really at risk is that the EMP will trip out several devices at one time (not necessarily destroying them) taking down the entire grid - at least to the critical grid tie points.  This happened several years back with around Lake Erie and took down much of the region on both sides of the border for weeks.  Reliability committees have worked overtime ever since to figure out how to handle these kinds of events (still a way to go to find ultimate solutions and implement broadly).  The upside is there is a good chance to be able to bring regional segments back fairly quickly (but hardly the little blip we see with reclosures taking place).

Sorry for the long post, but it is something I deal with (high voltage devices) but now will investigate the system reliability implications since this post brought it up.

[cannuck]

18 minutes ago, Argus said:

A thought occurred to me as I watched news coverage of this the other night. There's much talk about North Korea's continuing and surprisingly quick improvements in both its nuclear and missile capability. But little speculation as to why. So let me suggest the plot for a fictional story.

A megalomaniac who hates the Americans and is constantly being frustrated by him. Let's call him Vladimir Putin, decides to feed technology to North Korea, along with information about how he could destroy his great enemy, America by launching a powerful hydrogen bomb and exploding it a couple of hundred miles above the central US. The resulting EMP basically wipes out America, leaving Putin with pretty much a free hand in the world. Not only that but with a whole continent free for the taking...

So let me expand on this. China and Russia have both been protecting North Korea. Suppose they reach an agreement. Let North Korea launch a missile that causes a massive EMP over the middle of North America. China will then be allowed to 'help' the US by sending over massive numbers of doctors and foodstuffs - and troops to distribute it all. Meanwhile, Russia will move into western Europe through a combination of outright force and political bribery - and spineless, weak-kneed western European politicians.

Paranoia or the plotline of a Tom Clancy novel? One thing for sure, if I can wonder, you can be sure there are people in the US government wondering.

That megalomaniac is truly a Joe Stalin wannabe, but the reward he seeks is not to further the cause of Marx and Engels, but to make more money for Uncle Vlad himself.  The US is simply a business competitor to him, and he uses politics to inflict economic damage.  Most of the stuff in Syria, for instance, is about blocking Qatari gas from going into a pipeline and straight to Europe, where he has a monopoly on compressed methane (LNG much more costly to move).  The US gas market being in the toilet is another major threat to him, as US priced gas can make LNG very profitable for the US to export - and that include potentially to Europe.

Same with what is going on in Venezuela:  Russia is bailing out Maduro as it allows him to grab de facto control of PDVSA in the future.  He is hardly allied with Maduro and Asad because he agrees with their politics.   

Russians respect on thing: strong man, and Putin knows that very, very well.  A benefit of calling out and facing down Uncle Sam is simply preserving the control of the resource business that has made him probably THE most wealthy person on Earth.

Putin will spar with the US, but he will not destroy it - since that brings down the economy of the world, hardly does him any good.

It's all about the Golden Rule:  He who has the gold, rules.   Follow the money.

Edited September 5, 2017 by cannuck

[Argus]

3 hours ago, cannuck said:

IMP strike is a genuine threat, but not to the extent you might think.

What is really at risk is that the EMP will trip out several devices at one time (not necessarily destroying them) taking down the entire grid - at least to the critical grid tie points.  This happened several years back with around Lake Erie and took down much of the region on both sides of the border for weeks.  Reliability committees have worked overtime ever since to figure out how to handle these kinds of events (still a way to go to find ultimate solutions and implement broadly).  The upside is there is a good chance to be able to bring regional segments back fairly quickly (but hardly the little blip we see with reclosures taking place).

Sorry for the long post, but it is something I deal with (high voltage devices) but now will investigate the system reliability implications since this post brought it up.

Long posts that contain information are not a problem, for me at least. I did sort of discuss this issue peripherally with my brother in law last night (master electrician) and he didn't dismiss that an EMP could blow transformers to the extent it would take many months to replace them. We got sidetracked into his current interest though which is solar panels, and how much more survivable they were against an EMP.

I had also looked around the web, trying to ignore the more lurid, panicky sites for information, and didn't find much which was reassuring.

Note this one.

EMP attack would inflict massive widespread damage to the electric grid, causing millions of failure points. With few exceptions, the US national electric grid is unhardened and untested against nuclear EMP attack. In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable. This common sense assessment is also supported by the nation’s best computer modeling.[14]

Thus, even if North Korea only has primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons, and if other states or terrorists acquire one or a few such weapons as well as the capability to detonate them at an altitude of 30 kilometers or higher over the United States. As, the EMP Commission warned over a decade ago in its 2004 Report, “the damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.”

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/north-korean-nuclear-emp-attack-the-threat-america-downplays-21010

 

Edited September 5, 2017 by Argus

[betsy]

9 minutes ago, Argus said:

Long posts that contain information are not a problem, for me at least. I did sort of discuss this issue peripherally with my brother in law last night (master electrician) and he didn't dismiss that an EMP could blow transformers to the extent it would take many months to replace them. We got sidetracked into his current interest though which is solar panels, and how much more survivable they were against an EMP.

I had also looked around the web, trying to ignore the more lurid, panicky sites for information, and didn't find much which was reassuring.

Note this one.

EMP attack would inflict massive widespread damage to the electric grid, causing millions of failure points. With few exceptions, the US national electric grid is unhardened and untested against nuclear EMP attack. In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable. This common sense assessment is also supported by the nation’s best computer modeling.[14]

Thus, even if North Korea only has primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons, and if other states or terrorists acquire one or a few such weapons as well as the capability to detonate them at an altitude of 30 kilometers or higher over the United States. As, the EMP Commission warned over a decade ago in its 2004 Report, “the damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.”

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/north-korean-nuclear-emp-attack-the-threat-america-downplays-21010

 

Rioting and looting alone due to blackout will cause a huge internal problem for USA.  We've seen it happen with temporary blackouts - what more with widespread protracted ones?

Edited September 5, 2017 by betsy

[Argus]

1 hour ago, betsy said:

Rioting and looting alone due to blackout will cause a huge internal problem for USA.  We've seen it happen with temporary blackouts - what more with widespread protracted ones?

This would be much worse than a blackout. Radios would not work, so having batteries wouldn't matter. Cell phones wouldn't work either. Not sure about landlines, but I doubt it. I think Bell uses generators to keep things running in power blackouts, and most of those would probably not function either. A lot of the newer cars, the ones with the most electronics, would not work. Computers, whether they have batteries or not, would not work. Police radios would not work, nor their computers. Same goes for the fire department and ambulances.

[Argus]

Fat boy makes another threat to use an EMP on the United States (and us).

North Korea may very well have the ability to kill millions of Americans, without directly firing on U.S. soil. For the first time, the pariah country’s state news agency warned it could hit the U.S. with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) onslaught, a threat that experts contend is both very real and comes with catastrophic consequences.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/millions-of-american-lives-could-be-at-stake-as-north-korea-threatens-to-attack-power-grid/ar-AArnYPY?li=AAadgLE&ocid=spartanntp

[capricorn]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

Fat boy makes another threat to use an EMP on the United States (and us).

North Korea may very well have the ability to kill millions of Americans, without directly firing on U.S. soil. For the first time, the pariah country’s state news agency warned it could hit the U.S. with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) onslaught, a threat that experts contend is both very real and comes with catastrophic consequences.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/millions-of-american-lives-could-be-at-stake-as-north-korea-threatens-to-attack-power-grid/ar-AArnYPY?li=AAadgLE&ocid=spartanntp

Wouldn't it be nice if we had the capability of "return to sender" when an EMP is detected above the North American continent?

[DogOnPorch]

31 minutes ago, capricorn said:

Wouldn't it be nice if we had the capability of "return to sender" when an EMP is detected above the North American continent?

 

Like a really big aircraft carrier put into harms way, the USA has more to lose from an EMP attack.

This sort of imbalance is very dangerous.

[Argus]

19 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Like a really big aircraft carrier put into harms way, the USA has more to lose from an EMP attack.

This sort of imbalance is very dangerous.

If either the US or Canada had an intelligent, responsible government the danger could be hugely lowered. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

[DogOnPorch]

Just now, Argus said:

If either the US or Canada had an intelligent, responsible government the danger could be hugely lowered. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

 

I'm suspicious of NK's possession of an actual H-Bomb, mind-you. Boosted fission device, perhaps.

Their real dangerous capability is the apparent move to mobile launchers for their ballistic missiles.

[hot enough]

46 minutes ago, Argus said:

If either the US or Canada had an intelligent, responsible government the danger could be hugely lowered. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

That hasn't been the case for many years. They all have been active participants in the US terrorist actions against Korea.

[bush_cheney2004]

46 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

I'm suspicious of NK's possession of an actual H-Bomb, mind-you. Boosted fission device, perhaps.

Their real dangerous capability is the apparent move to mobile launchers for their ballistic missiles.

 

Agreed....very suspect claim.   But Japan and allies need not press the technical issue, leaving the worst case threat to be pondered.