Cheney claims that he and his torture tactics made this country safer. Of course, he pretty much ignored what was going on in North Korea and concentrated on Iraq instead. Now North Korea has nuclear weapons. Wonder how Dick will spin this one.

north korea: one more mess bush left for obama

I guess North Korea doesn't have any oil, otherwise Cheney would have already invaded. I guess everyone is afraid North Korea might launch a nuclear attack against Japan. I wonder what other country has dropped bombs on Japan?

Grave concern? Hardly. All the diplomats and beltway politicians are not impressed. The UN will not even give the higher form of a "resolution" against it. Some say the south (Koreans) cares, but only cares so much. Japan is not part of the Security Council, but they care the most. Having been bombed by nuclear weapons, as well as their citizens kidnapped they are not happy. The hard facts is the N. Korean brat is allowed their bad behavior. I think psychological operations showing their demiGod Kim Jung-Il being hung like Saddam Hussein on YOUTUBE would be a nice tactic. Maybe a "Dear leader" Pinata being beat by school kids would be nice also

China should be very concerned that on its border, lies a very small and insane megalomaniac with nukes. It is time for them to put a stop to it.

John Bolton says North Korea should be expelled form the UN.

But, doesn't Bolton think everyone should be expelled from the UN?

and on this issue, i am actually a hawk. Bush totally screwed up, but reimagine history if, after this massive build up around Iraq (who all the inspectors said had no WMD), under darkness the night everyone thought the bombing of Baghdad was to begin we instead turn the F-117s, B-52s and ship and sub launched cruise missles toward the muclear testing compound and palance in NK, dropping hundreds of deep bunker busters in a complete surprise attack on NKs capabilities, successfully destroying the nuke compound and wiping out the seat of government.

What happened in reality was we invaded a country who claimed to have WMD but did not, and left alone a country that actually had WMD. The lesson Iran learned from watching this is that we are scared to attack where if there really are WMD, but are anxious to make an example of those who don't. So Iran massively accellerated their WMD program (duh.)

Had we done the bait and switch, (a) we would not be bogged down in Iraq, (b) there would not be a total lunatic with nukes in NK, and (c) Iran would have learned a very different lesson: that we will not allow rogue states to go nuclear, period - and you can bet the Iran situation would be much, much safer today (for one thing, the Iraqi military would still be there as a counterweight).

yes, thousands - maybe tens of thousands - of North Koreans would have be killed (but in the real event, that number of Iraquis has been killed). There would be a risk of nuke material getting airborne and creating some fallout (which, had Iraq really had WMDs, would have been true there as well - and may turn out to be true of NK's tests anyway). But it would have been a much much better and more defensible use of force, and the results would have been much more valuable (as opposed to the results in Iraq, which more or less have had negative value).

"the U.N. Security Council would likely hold an emergency meeting today."

This is hysterical. It's the 5 permanent nations on the security council who have over 90% of the nukes (and other WMDs) in the world, who are responsible for the overwhelming majority of arms sales in the world, who are responsible for most attacks on other countries, who have begun most of the wars in the world, and who represent the gravest danger to global security. And yet it's the tiny, broke country of North Korea that represents the threat???

What do people think would be the results if people around the world were polled and asked what frightened them most, NK's nukes or the USA's?

North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test...

Attention whores

Tantrum? Yet another example of Steve Benen adopting the wingnut frame.

In actuality, this is all perfectly rational behavior on part of the NKns.

China should be very concerned that on its border, lies a very small and insane megalomaniac with nukes. It is time for them to put a stop to it.

China is far more concerned with a destabilized or collapsed North Korea than it is with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

"What do people think would be the results if people around the world were polled and asked what frightened them most, NK's nukes or the USA's?"
Posted by: mike on May 25, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Whatever the results would be today, they'd probably be at least somewhat different from the results of the same question polled 12 months ago -- or even just 6 months ago.
Thank G-d.
Happy Mem Day, all.

SMART POWER is a disaster.

An embarrassing mess of snobby insecurity, obsessed with vilifying domestic opposition, while making matters far worse.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said she could deal with North Korea, just before she declared human rights were not a priority for the Democrats in the Obama Administration.

She later embarrassed herself with wimpy 'restarting' gimmicks with the Russians, designed to stick it to domestic opposition. And became even more of a joke, during Mrs. Clinton's pathetic display of ignorance in front of the famous "Our Lady of Guadalupe".

This is the same tired Liar, who was co-President of an Administration that made it their policy to lie about genocide in Rwanda. It is no surprise, Mrs. Clinton's involvement is going to prove regretful yet again, on the World stage.

Her condescending, partisan nature has been ugly in the State Department, which only sets up the Obama Administration to look far more sophomoric when they flop.

Meanwhile, Iran, North Korea, etc., all sense the weakness in the Obama Administration, which is going to continue to enable the most monstrous threats.

Long ago, when we found out North Korea was predictably cheating on the vapid Clinton Administration attempt to appease this brutal NK Regime. Bizarrely, Hillary Clinton rushed out to demand further appeasement, which had been a complete failure, and had only enabled the nutty KIM prior.

This is the same deceitful Politician who not only lied about 'dodging sniper fire', but told various whoppers about her vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

We are seeing failure at the highest level, and more demeaning rhetoric towards the prior Administration is not helpful, for they actually seem far more competent in comparison to this pathetic return of the Clinton - Carter Eras.

But don't worry, maybe Hillary Rodham has acquired some more funds for Bill's questionable Foundation from the Chinese.

And the delusional supporters of these unethical players, will remain in deep denial.

Thank you.

North Korea's defiance must be addressed. Words without actions are hollow, so a condemnation will not cut it. The world has to get together with a display of force that shows we mean business.

Sometime's I'm a litle bit stucked,'cause i don't know if i can trust those information's.is iran getting written today with northe Korea?The Iran President say the nuklear issue is over,in wich way,is the bitch over the finnish line.

While they're gathered at the U.N. I hope somebody asks Hugo Chavez how much he's going to pay for the foreign assets he's recently stolen.

Nationalizing (stealing) foreign wealth in your country isn't going to be acceptable any more. You say it's safe for them to be there and then you steal? It seems to me that this is an act of war against those countries and the U.N. should demand Chavez pay through the nose.

Interesting and informative article.

The UN must pass a resolution letting the N. Korea know that it absolutely and firmly condenms such actions, after all the N. Korean could use more toilet paper.

Excellent research of earthquake and implementation.