What to do about North Korea?

[Sparhafoc]

You know it's amazing how all these loony regressives who think allowing Kim Jong Un to have nukes+ICBMs is fine are usually the same ones calling for strict gun control.

What's actually fascinating is watching someone desperate to share their prejudice - so desperate, in fact, that he keeps adding irrelevant prejudicial assertions to topics where they have no relevance at all.

It's amazing about how they will cry that the environment is getting polluted badly but have no problem with nuclear tests over the Pacific.

How about some gun control for the world's number one douche at least?

Go learn about national laws and how they don't operate internationally.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Yes, I can sleep well knowing that whoever comes to power in the UK will not be crazy enough to fire nukes because they woke up in a bad mood and there's nobody else who can reasonably stop him because he controls everything.

Then you are gullible. Trump's been dragging the USA towards nuclear war with North Korea, and useful idiots have already started playing along with their own trumpets to the propaganda songs singing for war.

You want another example? Russia. I think they're incredibly corrupt, I can't say I'm pleased with them having nukes, but they're not unhinged. They won't fire their nukes at us if we don't fire ours. And they're not exactly a full dictatorship. Putin would be quickly dealt with by others if he became as unhinged as Kim.

I find none of your assessments to have anything to do with reality - they are all emoted, crafted in your mind by forces you are blithely unaware of. How can I tell? How can it be a fair assessment?

Simple: special pleading along old-fashioned tribalistic lines.

If by not playing ball you mean attacking South Korea and fucking us over, no, I don't have to tolerate that. I don't have to tolerate a global market crash that affects everyone negatively because some asswipe decided to fire rockets in Seoul to impose communism.

It's a nonsensical statement. What do you mean 'tolerate'? If N Korea decides to use nukes, do you think they're going to stop and ask themselves whether Tree will be alright with it?

As for the first part of the sentence - examples, please. Show where North Korea has been fucking 'us' over. When did North Korea last attack South Korea?

Do you have to tolerate a global market crash that affects everyone negatively because some asswipe decided to fire rockets in Pyongyang to impose democracy?

You still haven't addressed the issue of why a company with a multi-million dollar contract with Samsung should be fucked over and their employees lose their salaries or be fired because some degenerate decided to invade and impose communism? Self-defense include the right to defend your friends from aggression too.

There are a million things I 'still haven't addressed' - not least because no one's mentioned them in this thread, but also because they're red herrings thrust into a conversation as a means of deflecting from the points actually being made.

North Korea doesn't have to play ball. It just needs to mind its own business and respect their neighbors. Give up ICBM, give up claims on SK, stop threatening SK or the US.

Ha.

How are you going to make them? Nuke them?

Incidentally, what makes you think that you have sufficient grasp of international politics to make such confident declarations?

And the UK was wholly complicit in bombing the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima - you only need to read Churchill to see how few shits he gave about Japanese civilians if it saved American, British and Commonwealth military lives.

Listen loser,....

Kiss my arse Tree. Calling me names only underscores your inability to provide reasoned discourse here.

... even if I agreed with you, every single person in the American administration that was ever involved with nuking those 2 cities is dead.

Another red herring that has no bearing whatsoever on the arguments, but it's another indication of you making up reality as you go along.

No other nuke has been used since then,...

Because it was horrifying and because people realize how immoral it was.

while the same degenerate family who wanted to conquer all of Korea and make it a dictatorship is still there, still in power, still being a prick.

Crimson cod time.

Speaking of Churchill, yeah, this is true, governments care more about the lives of their citizens and citizens of allied nations than citizens of non-aligned or hostile nations.

Exactly, and it's this tribalism which produces the idea in people that murdering 200,000 civilians on their side is justifiable, but if they did it to us it would be a war crime.

Stop emoting and start fucking thinking about it. This is a forum for REASON, so try and fucking employ some.

This was universally true in the 40's for all world leaders so I still fail to see your point, other than singling Churchill out to somehow benefit your pro-NK propaganda rant.

You really are so close-minded, aren't you Tree? You keep trying to pretend that I am X, Y, or Z just because I disagree with you and just because you say so. It's just like when one criticizes Israel, and all the numpties poke their heads up declaring that person 'anti-Semitic'. It's just well poisoning, and indicates an inablity to engage in reasoned discourse.

You realize that contending I am pro-North Korea in this forum, particularly in this thread where I've explicitly called Kim Jong Un a "numpty" and "a dangerous loon" just makes you look completely up your own arse, unable to engage in anything people say if it doesn't conform exactly to the gas evacuating your orifices.

Stop being a numpty, Tree. No one has written pro-North Korean arguments, and your contention is dismissed as well poisoning - one of the many fallacies you routinely employ.

This is nothing but Soviet style ideological subversion, your posts are textbook example of the kind of propaganda that ex-KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov warned about. You make up lies, exaggerate or single out America or the west and you're not giving any real constructive criticism, you're just spouting propaganda that benefits a rival nation.

:lol:

Are you some kind of conspiracy clown?

Any which way, you've just exposed to everyone that you are far away from being able to engage in reasoned discourse.

In reality, what's actually happened is I've popped your protective little bubble that you sleep-walked your way into. You want to believe that murdering 200,000 civilians is justifiable while at the same time scare-mongering that a funny foreigner might do the same thing to us.

You're in the wrong place dude. Youtube comments section seems more on your level.

 

[Sparhafoc]

As I expect literally everyone else here can see... my position is actually predicated on never, never, never having a nuclear war between elements of our species.

In such a war, every human being loses, present and future.

We cannot allow a small group of egotistical men lead us into such an outcome.

 

[Tree]

Then you are gullible. Trump's been dragging the USA towards nuclear war with North Korea, and useful idiots have already started playing along with their own trumpets to the propaganda songs singing for war.

I was talking about the UK, but since you mentioned it, it's true for the US.

Trump is not going to nuke anything on a whim. The caricature you're trying to create out of him has no merit. You base this on what? His temperament? His goofy not-very-presidential way of talking?

Okay, why didn't he nuke ISIS strongholds then? He seems fine with just going the conventional way to defeat ISIS.

Now if you were a little smarter you could actually make the case that the POTUS has too much power with regard to nuclear missile launches. That's true, the POTUS can launch nukes without anyone else being able to veto it. However, practically, the Secretary of Defense can simply chose not to comply and validate the order and POTUS would need to fire him and get a new one. Kim Jong Un can do whatever he wants.

POTUS can also be deemed mentally unfit to serve if the VP and enough Congressmen agree. Nobody can do that in North Korea to Kim as he is above criticism.

Simple: special pleading along old-fashioned tribalistic lines.

Apparently someone's never heard of Perestroika. Russia is not the communist country it once was and even during the communist years it wasn't quite as unhinged as North Korea. Kimmy is a particularly sick puppy. This is a guy who killed his uncle by firing a rocket into him.

Another example of your binary simplistic thinking.

It's a nonsensical statement. What do you mean 'tolerate'? If N Korea decides to use nukes, do you think they're going to stop and ask themselves whether Tree will be alright with it?

Now you're just being a clown, you know exactly what I mean.

As for the first part of the sentence - examples, please. Show where North Korea has been fucking 'us' over. When did North Korea last attack South Korea?

1. They cost the US in military expenses because without 30000 troops in SK, NK would invade them.
2. Do you consider kidnapping of South Koreans citizens a form of aggression btw? They've done it to Japanese citizens too.
3. Rocket tests with the rockets fired over Japan as a display of force. This is a violation of Japanese air space and puts Japan at risk of life and property damage if those rockets fall wrong.
4. Hacking Sony and threatening cinemas with terrorism
5. International insurance fraud
6. Large scale cyber attacks originating from NK. Since nobody but the government has proper Internet access in NK, you figure it out who the culprit is.

Do you have to tolerate a global market crash that affects everyone negatively because some asswipe decided to fire rockets in Pyongyang to impose democracy?

Who says rockets have to be fired? Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

All up to Kim. If he wants to stay in power it will have to be without ICBMs. If he wants ICBMs, options will be explored to make sure he doesn't.

Or maybe there's actually a way to just fry his entire arsenal before it launches. No idea if that's possible, probably not (I'm guessing that's something only the CIA would know for certain and they're not going to share it publicly), but if you know where all his toys are and you disable them all at once, he's not going to get a single shot off.

There are a million things I 'still haven't addressed' - not least because no one's mentioned them in this thread, but also because they're red herrings thrust into a conversation as a means of deflecting from the points actually being made.

Do tell someone with a mortgage to pay that losing his salary due to North Korea blowing up Samsung is a "red herring".

You wanted reasons to be concerned about rogue states. If you can't accept the answers that's your problem.

Ha.

How are you going to make them? Nuke them?

I don't make the decisions bro, and to give you a definite answer I'd need access to information nobody in the public has. I'll go with the best outcome that involves NK not having ICBMs. That's my only expectation of this administration. In case you haven't figured it out I don't actually have strong opinions about what precisely they need to do. I'd even be fine with the option of just letting Kim live out the rest of his days with immunity from Hague prosecution and all the money he wants as long as he's not in power anymore and steps down. I don't think he'd take that offer, but that's the first offer I'd give him if it means an end to a nuclear NK. (The 2nd offer, nowhere near as generous.)

I would prefer it if they don't start a war, but in the long run, a military action against NK would be preferable to tolerating NK getting ICBMs.

Incidentally, what makes you think that you have sufficient grasp of international politics to make such confident declarations?

I have sufficient grasp of human nature to know that someone who fires a rocket into his uncle is too unhinged to be anywhere near weapons. Least of all nukes.

If you need to be an expert in international politics to come to the conclusion: psycho man with nukes - bad, you have surrendered your thinking abilities.

But since you mentioned it, I do have sufficient grasp of international politics to know full isolationism doesn't work. The idea that you can simply tolerate anything happening outside your borders no matter how depraved is very naive. Sooner or later it will affect you. Full isolationism is just hoping the wildfire somehow bypasses your home AND the homes of every single person you consider a friend or person of interest.

Kiss my arse Tree. Calling me names only underscores your inability to provide reasoned discourse here.

Keep telling yourself that you're engaging in reasonable discourse despite all the lies, exaggerations, strawman and other bad faith arguments.

Another red herring that has no bearing whatsoever on the arguments, but it's another indication of you making up reality as you go along.

What? Pointing out that the US is no longer under any of the management that authorized the Japan nukes isn't relevant to you?

No, it's very relevant. You can't blame the present administrations for an administration that lived a lifetime ago. Literally 0 people from that era are alive and if they miraculously managed to reach the age of 100 and I wasn't told about it, they're all rotting in a nursing home somewhere far far away. You do realize that someone influential during that era would have had to be at least around 30? They're all dead or far too old to influence anything and they'll soon be dead too.

You know what's actually irrelevant? The US nuking Japan 70+ years ago. It doesn't follow that therefore it's okay for Kim to have nukes and the capacity to point them anywhere in the world.

Because it was horrifying and because people realize how immoral it was.

And yet you're okay doing nothing about Kim getting ICBMs which would give him the ability to fire them anywhere on Earth.

Exactly, and it's this tribalism which produces the idea in people that murdering 200,000 civilians on their side is justifiable, but if they did it to us it would be a war crime.

It's not purely tribalism, it's also the fact that people pay you taxes and you're hired to protect their rights and interests first, if you're someone in the position of Churchill or others in government I mean. Therefore, in a war, it is preferable to take decisions that minimize your own military and civilian deaths first.

It doesn't mean you have no concern about your enemy, just that it isn't that important and you don't have to sacrifice your own people for it. Maybe your enemy shouldn't have started the war.

The Allies could not have possibly won WW2 if killing a single civilian gave them pause. If you fight, you'll be doing that whether you like it or not. Tokyo has 120k people killed with conventional weapons which is more than Hiroshima alone or Nagasaki alone. There's almost no clean way to fight a war and instead of whining you should be blaming the aggressor who started it and forced everyone's hand.

Stop emoting and start fucking thinking about it. This is a forum for REASON, so try and fucking employ some.

Now you're mixing reason with morality. Not quite the same things. They can overlap, but they're not the same.

In the context of war, tribalism saves your nation and leads to as few people of your own getting killed, while the opposite of it secures your defeat. You know why? Because the enemy is also tribal. How do you intend to defeat a group with in-group preferences, without having the same in-group preferences yourself? Doesn't work, you either stand together or fall alone.

You really are so close-minded, aren't you Tree? You keep trying to pretend that I am X, Y, or Z just because I disagree with you and just because you say so.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

You haven't exactly acted in good enough faith for me to give you the benefit of the doubt anymore.

You realize that contending I am pro-North Korea in this forum, particularly in this thread where I've explicitly called Kim Jong Un a "numpty" and "a dangerous loon" just makes you look completely up your own arse, unable to engage in anything people say if it doesn't conform exactly to the gas evacuating your orifices.

So you think I'm going to trust you if you superficially criticize North Korea while doing your best to paint it in a favorable light and not a really big deal cause US just as bad... somehow...

This is ridiculous. It's possible to take an isolationist stance towards North Korea without becoming an apologist for the regime by pretending that what the regime does is nowhere worse than what other countries do. IT IS WORSE.

Are you some kind of conspiracy clown?

Any which way, you've just exposed to everyone that you are far away from being able to engage in reasoned discourse.

I'm going to translate that for you: "Please trust what I say."

No, I won't. I don't take people at face value and you're not engaging honestly.

If you think ignoring North Korea won't lead to any bad outcome and nothing will happen if they have ICBMs, that's one thing. I still disagree with it, but that alone isn't NK apologism.

But when you start to claim the US is just as bad based on faulty arguments or that North Korea is just another country, that's when you turn ridiculous.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Keep telling yourself that you're engaging in reasonable discourse despite all the lies, exaggerations, strawman and other bad faith arguments.

Cite or reinsert in your rectum.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Quick note for context: in another thread this is what Tree has reasoned forth this about my nefarious motivations for disagreeing with him on the internet:

http://leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=183623#p183623

Make no mistake, this is not in any sense constructive criticism of American policy, this is just regressive leftist shit slinging. I've seen your kind before, I know how you operate. All your efforts serve no other purposes than to: 1. convince young Americans to hate their own country and distort their perception of reality to such an extent they will support foreign policies that go against national interests 2. aid enemies of the US

Because reasoned discourse is always about excoriating your interlocutor and claiming they are aiding and abetting the enemy.

This well isn't even big enough for the amount of poison you're trying to pour into it, Tree.

You can think what you like about me - there are plenty of people here who know me well enough to know my motivations and how utterly delusional your internet pop-psychology is.

Simultaneously, they can also look through your posting history here to see whether my contentions about your lack of reason, your continual barrage of emotive prejudice, and your textbook errors in thinking stands up to scrutiny.

 

[Sparhafoc]

The Trump Era is looking ever more like the McCarthy one.

 

[Sparhafoc]

As a fun game of whack-a-mole, can anyone else here besides Tree see where I...

... superficially criticize North Korea while doing your best to paint it in a favorable light and not a really big deal...

I mean, outside of Tree's prejudiced patter of well-poisoning, can anyone else see where I've ever even remotely suggested that North Korea should be seen in a favourable light?

There's apparently a fine line between fertile imagination and febrile imagination.

 

[Tree]

Don't make me go into how unreasonable your positions are.

So starting with the following premises in mind:

1. the USA (under an administration that is now dead) nuking of Japan was a war crime
2. Japan would have surrendered without the bombs

Please explain to me how it follows that we should therefore, starting 2017 and for the future, tolerate Kim Jong Un's ambitions to arm himself with ICBMs capable of targeting US mainland as well as Europe and pretty much anywhere on Earth.

Waiting...

 

[Sparhafoc]

This is a forum dedicated to reason, and reason necessarily requires the employment of rational, logical thought.

As such, Tree clearly needs some help along the way.

Let's start with an easy one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, ...

A poisoned-well "argument" has the following form:

1. Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented by another. (e.g. "Before you listen to my opponent, may I remind you that he has been in jail")
2. Therefore, the claims made by person A will be false

So you think I'm going to trust you if you superficially criticize North Korea while doing your best to paint it in a favorable light and not a really big deal cause US just as bad... somehow...

Sparhafoc never intimated anything favourable about North Korea - Tree keeps trying to imply to everyone that Sparhafoc is a North Korean stooge.
Sparhafoc never criticized the US in any way shape or form - but Tree keeps trying to pull the anti-Semite dismissal of Israel policy criticism card.

You don't need a forum Tree - you've clearly decided you can do both sides of the dialogue. What you need is a soap box where you can rain spittle down on passersby.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Don't make me go into how unreasonable your positions are.

If you want to make accusations, best be prepared to support those accusations.

I appreciate that you run entirely on bias and prejudice, and reality is only allowed in where it's convenient, but you can hardly expect me to buy your febrile delusions about my motivations.

So starting with the following premises in mind:

1. the USA (under an administration that is now dead) nuking of Japan was a war crime
2. Japan would have surrendered without the bombs

Please explain to me how it follows that we should therefore, starting 2017 and for the future, tolerate Kim Jong Un's ambitions to arm himself with ICBMs capable of targeting US mainland as well as Europe and pretty much anywhere on Earth.

Waiting...

Can I add these to the list of things you've pulled out of your arse for me to answer even when I've not shown any support for any such positions?

There's at least a dozen such instances now among less than 2 dozen of your posts.

How about you start by showing where I have ever said that North Korea SHOULD have nuclear weapons?

I think the only instance you'll find is of me informing you that North Korea FACTUALLY already has nuclear weapons.

See, there's a not at all subtle difference between a prescription and a description.

When one prescribes something, one talks about what one would like to see, what one thinks is correct.

When one describes something, one talks about what factually is, and no intimation is made whatsoever about what one desires to see.

You are continuously mistaking the latter for the former.

Next up, what does 'tolerate' mean? I've tried to get you to respond to this, but it's hard to pin you down other than your op where we send the North Korean dictators off for a sunny holiday get-away, and then.... who knows? Probably something akin to what happened when we went and pulled down regimes elsewhere. Only this time, those regimes will have nukes.

So let's say we don't tolerate North Korea's nuclear ambitions and... shock and surprise... they don't agree to go on an all expenses paid busman's holiday.

What then? Rail ineffectually at people on the internet calling them stooges? Is that your insight?

The entire point of the modern nuclear arms race is 'look what happens to regimes that don't possess nukes'. Well, North Korea has nukes, so we're not going to be invading there any time soon.

What's left?

Well, how about my suggestion of incentivizing instead of banging on the war drum? Nah, why would you pay attention to such an idea - it doesn't involve kicking butts and chewing bubblegum.

 

[Tree]

Tolerate means, let it be. i.e. let him have the ICBMs, don't get involved. Do you need a dictionary?

I'm going to quote my actual position on NK by the way:

Who says rockets have to be fired? Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

All up to Kim. If he wants to stay in power it will have to be without ICBMs. If he wants ICBMs, options will be explored to make sure he doesn't.

Or maybe there's actually a way to just fry his entire arsenal before it launches. No idea if that's possible, probably not (I'm guessing that's something only the CIA would know for certain and they're not going to share it publicly), but if you know where all his toys are and you disable them all at once, he's not going to get a single shot off.

I don't make the decisions bro, and to give you a definite answer I'd need access to information nobody in the public has. I'll go with the best outcome that involves NK not having ICBMs. That's my only expectation of this administration. In case you haven't figured it out I don't actually have strong opinions about what precisely they need to do. I'd even be fine with the option of just letting Kim live out the rest of his days with immunity from Hague prosecution and all the money he wants as long as he's not in power anymore and steps down. I don't think he'd take that offer, but that's the first offer I'd give him if it means an end to a nuclear NK. (The 2nd offer, nowhere near as generous.)

I would prefer it if they don't start a war, but in the long run, a military action against NK would be preferable to tolerating NK getting ICBMs.

Am I banging the drums for war? No, but it's definitely on the table, there's no sugar coating that.

I'd also add that I prefer it if the strike was done in such a way to completely neutralize their own arsenal so they don't even get a shot at South Korea. I have no idea if intel is good enough for that. That's something only the CIA would know. The public won't know.

You would have to know where every single one of their launch sites are to be successful.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Tolerate means, let it be. i.e. let him have the ICBMs, don't get involved. Do you need a dictionary?

Yes, I absolutely do need a dictionary to understand how this notion of letting him have ICBM's can keep being raised when he already has them.

It's like you're unaware of the actual facts on the ground.

I'm going to quote my actual position on NK by the way:

Who says rockets have to be fired? Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

Who can tell? You were talking about it before and I copied and pasted your sentence and changed only the locations but you didn't seem to notice:

If by not playing ball you mean attacking South Korea and fucking us over, no, I don't have to tolerate that. I don't have to tolerate a global market crash that affects everyone negatively because some asswipe decided to fire rockets in Seoul to impose communism.

Again, you are leaving open the door to starting a nuclear conflict with North Korea - and if that's so, then that makes you, in my book, a dangerously unhinged person who clearly doesn't have a fucking clue about the terrifying consequences that would produce.

All up to Kim. If he wants to stay in power it will have to be without ICBMs. If he wants ICBMs, options will be explored to make sure he doesn't.

HE ALREADY FUCKING HAS THEM!

Omg this is La La fucking Land.

How many times have you been told this, and yet you keep talking about him wanting to get ICBM's and making sure he doesn't get them.... it's like you're writing from a decade ago, ffs, and yet you keep complaining that other people are criticizing your ideas unfairly. :?

Or maybe there's actually a way to just fry his entire arsenal before it launches.

:lol:

Pre-emptive non-aggression is back!

So you are, once again, saying that we have cause to go to war because North Korea might do something in the future.

To me, that's just plain old aggression.

No idea if that's possible, probably not (I'm guessing that's something only the CIA would know for certain and they're not going to share it publicly), but if you know where all his toys are and you disable them all at once, he's not going to get a single shot off.

Need a facepalm emoticon.

Knowing where they are and simultaneously striking all of them at once are two very different things. We don't have Star Wars planetary lasers yet. We'd need to station bombers, fly them over North Korea, and drop bunker busters.

North Korea, meanwhile, would need to be asleep at the wheel.

Considering the ramifications of this failing, I can only imagine it's not high on the list of options.

Am I banging the drums for war? No, but it's definitely on the table, there's no sugar coating that.

Yes, you are. You are touting the same kind of bullshit we saw before the invasion of Iraq. Who really benefits from this action? I don't think the North Koreans do because they're going to be bombed and have their infrastructure destroyed, they'll be occupied by a hated foreign power for years, and there will still be a power vacuum that could produce another tyrant no different than the previous ones, but with even less reason to trust hostile nations.

Again, there is another way - it's jaw, jaw, jaw.

Don't let yourself be fooled into believing otherwise or you are complicit in any future atrocity.

I'd also add that I prefer it if the strike was done in such a way to completely neutralize their own arsenal so they don't even get a shot at South Korea. I have no idea if intel is good enough for that. That's something only the CIA would know. The public won't know.

You would have to know where every single one of their launch sites are to be successful.

[/quote]

It's not just about intel, it's more about operational capacity and the fact that North Korea, for all its technological backwardness in many ways, is still perfectly capable of detecting multiple bombers heading to multiple sites.

Miss one, have a couple of bombers shot down, and then North Korea has to retaliate.

Again, this is not a game where people win. Nukes are expressly useful for regimes to protect themselves from foreign invasion - just look at what happened to nations without nukes when they were targeted for regime change. You don't want to put boots on ground which is going to be turned into a radioactive wasteland by a tyrant who gives far more of a fuck about his own power than he does the well-being of his citizens. I also doubt that any nation, let alone the USA, has the taste for seeing hundreds or thousands of body-bags flown home draped in national flags.

War is assuredly not the answer. It cannot be when nukes are on the table.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Quick note for context: in another thread this is what Tree has reasoned forth this about my nefarious motivations for disagreeing with him on the internet:

http://leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=183623#p183623

Make no mistake, this is not in any sense constructive criticism of American policy, this is just regressive leftist shit slinging. I've seen your kind before, I know how you operate. All your efforts serve no other purposes than to: 1. convince young Americans to hate their own country and distort their perception of reality to such an extent they will support foreign policies that go against national interests 2. aid enemies of the US

Because reasoned discourse is always about excoriating your interlocutor and claiming they are aiding and abetting the enemy.

This well isn't even big enough for the amount of poison you're trying to pour into it, Tree.

You can think what you like about me - there are plenty of people here who know me well enough to know my motivations and how utterly delusional your internet pop-psychology is.

Simultaneously, they can also look through your posting history here to see whether my contentions about your lack of reason, your continual barrage of emotive prejudice, and your textbook errors in thinking stands up to scrutiny.

I wonder if Tree and dandan/leroy took mind reading classes from the same place.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I wonder if Tree and dandan/leroy took mind reading classes from the same place.

I would like to respond in greater detail, but there's just so much paperwork when it comes to sedition and subversion.

But you know how we radical regressive racist communist fascist Muslim lefties are... all work, no play!

Back to the Death to the Free World grindstone!

 

[Tree]

He doesn't have the kind of ICBMs that you can put a nuke on and send to US mainland. Don't be ridiculous. That will take years to perfect. Do you think it's as simple as just tying it with a rope or what??

“It is clear North Korea has the capability to build a missile that can range the distance to the United States, but North Korea has yet to demonstrate it has the requisite technology and capability to actually target and strike the United States with a nuclear weapon,” Selva said in his statement.

First, North Korea would have to deploy a guidance and stability control system that could direct a long-range missile thousands of kilometers accurately without breaking apart, Selva said. Second, it needs a reentry vehicle housing the warhead that can survive the heat and stresses of an intercontinental ballistic launch. Third, it needs a nuclear weapon “that is small enough and stable enough to survive the trip,” he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/north-korean-icbm-technology-still-falls-short-top-general-says

Again, you are leaving open the door to starting a nuclear conflict with North Korea - and if that's so, then that makes you, in my book, a dangerously unhinged person who clearly doesn't have a fucking clue about the terrifying consequences that would produce.

If you don't put the military option on the table there's no real reason for the NK regime to fear the US. Sanctions alone will never stop them because they can just pass the costs on to the people and continue their life of luxury.

By the way, the promise of Heaven/Hell seems to work for a great deal of people, which is exactly why I'd offer Kim asylum in luxury if he plays along vs. the end of him if he is stubborn.

Still, you keep forgetting I'm not the one making the decisions. How am I dangerous? I don't even have the means to influence the POTUS, only his advisors can do that and they have classified info none of us have.

Pre-emptive non-aggression is back!

So you are, once again, saying that we have cause to go to war because North Korea might do something in the future.

To me, that's just plain old aggression.

If the risk is unacceptable then yes.

Putting people in danger against their will can also be argued to be an act of aggression, even if nothing bad happens.

But I guess you would be perfectly fine with your next-door neighbor running experiments on volatile explosives - so long as he doesn't blow the neighborhood up right? No, we both know you wouldn't stand for that.

Yes, you are. You are touting the same kind of bullshit we saw before the invasion of Iraq. Who really benefits from this action? I don't think the North Koreans do because they're going to be bombed and have their infrastructure destroyed, they'll be occupied by a hated foreign power for years, and there will still be a power vacuum that could produce another tyrant no different than the previous ones, but with even less reason to trust hostile nations.

Again, there is another way - it's jaw, jaw, jaw.

Don't let yourself be fooled into believing otherwise or you are complicit in any future atrocity.

I already explained to you that Iraq is not Korea.

And there won't be a power vacuum because South Korea can reclaim the whole Korea. It already takes all NK refugees who make it across and the Korean people are homogenous. Iraq had at least 3 main factions and is a made up country drawn by world powers after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. There is no real Iraqi identity that can hold it together, which is why only an iron fist like Saddam was able to. Iraq might have worked better as 3 different countries, one for Sunni Arabs, one for Shi'ite Arabs and one for Kurds and with secular constitutions to keep the militarism of Islam in check for a while.

It's not just about intel, it's more about operational capacity and the fact that North Korea, for all its technological backwardness in many ways, is still perfectly capable of detecting multiple bombers heading to multiple sites.

Miss one, have a couple of bombers shot down, and then North Korea has to retaliate.

Again, this is not a game where people win. Nukes are expressly useful for regimes to protect themselves from foreign invasion - just look at what happened to nations without nukes when they were targeted for regime change. You don't want to put boots on ground which is going to be turned into a radioactive wasteland by a tyrant who gives far more of a fuck about his own power than he does the well-being of his citizens. I also doubt that any nation, let alone the USA, has the taste for seeing hundreds or thousands of body-bags flown home draped in national flags.

War is assuredly not the answer. It cannot be when nukes are on the table.

Assuredly it is not. There are arguments for it, but the answer is not as clear as you make it out to be.

You keep forgetting that they can't hit US mainland yet. But the US can hit them hard even with conventional weapons. Right now it's a local problem and it can be argued that, hypothetically speaking, even a local war involving SK and Japan with US support would be preferable to NK having the capability of literally ending civilization as we know it any time they chose to do so with nothing being able to stop them. Plus he capability of selling those weapons or losing them during a power struggle. (Or using them as blackmail against the US to force US to quell any future rebellion in NK.)

And if your reply is "well Russia and US have nukes toooo!" that's just missing the point again that NK is particularly unhinged nation.

And missing the point that the risk of a global nuclear war rises as more countries obtain or perfect nuclear tech for military purposes.

Total nuclear disarmament is a fantasy. The best you can hope for is for a few countries to have monopoly on nukes. Deal with it.

 

[Collecemall]

So nuclear war is ok as long as it's not you getting blown up. Maybe you need to say that out loud.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

One point I will make, Tree, is that your use of the term "isolationist" is wrong - the term for which you're looking is "non-interventionist".

I'm reminded of Ron Paul's comment about a similar error made by McCain in the 2008 Republican Presidential debate in Florida.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

He doesn't have the kind of ICBMs that you can put a nuke on and send to US mainland. Don't be ridiculous. That will take years to perfect. Do you think it's as simple as just tying it with a rope or what??.

Fuck the rest of the world, I'm all right Jack.

Caught with your hands down your pants Tree, and not even the wherewithal to look embarrassed.

Stop pretending you know what you're talking about when you clearly fucking don't.

1) You claimed numerous times that we need to stop him getting ICBM's - he already has them.

2) Now you're claiming that his ICBM's can't reach the US mainland with is a) a goalpost shift b) selfish asshattery and c) wrong, wrong, wrong.

It is very likely North Korea can hit the US mainland already - just not with any precision.


Again, you are showing that you will not engage in reasoned discourse. All ego, no clue.

 

[Sparhafoc]

One thing's for sure when it comes to nukes.... with friends like you, we assuredly do not need enemies.

Go learn about the effects of nuclear bombs being dropped, Tree, then come back to us.