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Why the United States Needs National Missile Defense
Screencap of video depicting a nuclear missile attack on the United StatesIs there any wonder why President Reagan over three decades ago, pushed for national missile defense?
It begins benignly enough, with an image of a sleeping young North Korean man, and a genteel piano version of the US feel-good pop anthem We Are the World providing the musical backdrop.
But the YouTube video recently posted by Uriminzokkiri, North Korea‘s official website, quickly takes a more sinister turn as the man’s dream continues into the realms of Stalinist fantasy.
Within seconds he is aboard a space shuttle, launched into orbit by the same type of rocket the North successfully launched in December. The shuttle orbits Earth, at one point passing over a jubilant and reunified Korean peninsula, before the focus switches to an unidentified city draped in the Stars and Stripes.
What appear to be missiles rain down on the city, setting fire to high-rise buildings in scenes reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York.
“Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing,” the Korean-language caption says. “It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze.”
Here is the video (embedded below):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKWJSKYBDXE&feature=share&list=UUknqqNd3-joIjWzf1Jn4oVQ[/youtube]
Of course, this is just plain B.S. and something for members of Congress to consider when they have to vote on whether to cut the crap out of the defense budget over the next few months
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North Korea Watch: Here We Go Again With Missile Launch
This DigitalGlobe satellite image, obtained on March 30, shows Tongch’ang-ni Launch Facility on North Korea’s northwest coast. A rocket launch, purportedly to put a satellite into orbit, is set for sometime between April 12-16 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung
And, the United States has initiated its national missile defense system.
The Pentagon recently activated its global missile shield in anticipation of North Korea’s launch of a long-range missile, according to defense officials.
The measures include stepped-up electronic monitoring, deployment of missile interceptor ships, and activation of radar networks to areas near the Korean peninsula and western Pacific.
Three interceptor ships near Japan and the Philippines, as well as U.S.-based interceptors, are ready to shoot down the North Korean missile if space-, land-, and sea-based sensors determine its flight path is targeted at the United States or U.S. allies, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Obama administration will regard any launch by North Korea as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions regardless of whether the North Koreans claim the rocket test is for space launch purposes, the officials said. The technology and rocketry used for a space launch is nearly identical to that used with ballistic missiles that carry a warhead, they said.
Also, because the payload or warhead of the test launch cannot be determined prior to launch, the Obama administration decided to activate the missile defense system.
According to U.S. officials, current intelligence assessments indicate the North Korean missile will be launched from a base called Tongchang-ri, located on a west coast peninsula north of Pyongyang between April 12 and April 15.
The Obama Administration has rightly activated the shield and remember when Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats came out against the system and ridiculed President Ronald Reagan.
“This premise, that one day Kim Jong Il or someone will wake up one morning and say ‘Aha, San Francisco!’ is specious,” Senator Joe Biden told AP in May 2001.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Carl Levin (D., Mich.) offered in June to cut off funds for the ground-based interceptor program that Mr. Bush recently activated in Alaska in anticipation of the North Korean launch. Mr. Levin wants to stop new interceptors from being built, but Senate Republicans wouldn’t bring his proposal up for a vote. Mr. Levin has been waging his own private war against missile defenses for a generation, to the point of outflanking Russian objections on the political left.
In May 2001 the Boston Herald‘s Woodlief wrote that John Kerry “wants to croak the hugely costly nuclear missile defense system.” And just one day before the 9/11 attacks Joe Biden (D., Del.) gave a National Press Club speech outlining Democrat opposition to national missile defense.
In May 2001, John Kerry himself outlined some of these arguments on Meet the Press by saying that he wanted “a very limited…highly verifiable and mutually agreed-upon (missile) defense system.” And he complained about the cost. “We’ve already spent $68 billion and have almost nothing to show for it,” noted Kerry.
On May 3, 2001, John Kerry called national missile defense a “mythology” on Don Imus’s radio show.
On June 14, 2001, John Kerry told Hardball‘s Chris Matthews that a “missile shield that could defend the United States against any incoming missile is a fantasy, it is too expensive, it won’t work, and that’s what people believe will drive an arms race.”
If it had been left to them, there would be NO missile shield.
Stay tuned…..
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Bill Clinton Delivers in North Korea – Freedom for Journalists That Is
This frame grab from South Korean television taken in Seoul shows former US President Bill Clinton(R) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il posing for a picture in Pyongyang.Clinton arrived in North Korea on a surprise mission to free two jailed American journalists, the highest-profile visit by an American to Pyongyang for nearly a decade
Well,Bill Clinton got the journalists released.North Korean President Kim Jong Il has pardoned and released two U.S. journalists, state-run news agency KCNA said Wednesday.
The announcement came after former U.S. President Clinton met with top North Korean officials in Pyongyang to appeal for their release.
“Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it,” the news agency reported. “Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.
“The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them.”
But, what did it really cost the United States? And, what did Clinton really negotiate?
We will see in time.
Technorati Tags: Bill Clinton, North Korea, Kim Jong-Il
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John Bolton: Bill Clinton Close To Negotiating With Terrorists
This frame grab from South Korean television taken in Seoul shows former US President Bill Clinton(R) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il posing for a picture in Pyongyang.Clinton arrived in North Korea on a surprise mission to free two jailed American journalists, the highest-profile visit by an American to Pyongyang for nearly a decade
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is NOT impressed with former President Bill Clinton meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il.The Obama administration is rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior by sending ex-president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to win the release of two US journalists, the former US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday.
John Bolton, an outspoken hardliner in the previous administration of George W. Bush, told AFP that Clinton’s mission to Pyongyang undermines a number of public stands held by his own wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton’s trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
The pair were sentenced in June to 12 years in a labor camp for an illegal border crossing and an unspecified “grave crime,” after they were detained by North Korean border guards on March 17 while working on a story.
“I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that’s encouraging their bad behavior,” Bolton said.
In a US television interview here on July 26, Secretary Clinton warned North Korea that even its traditional allies had turned against it and that the communist state’s rogue behavior will no longer “be rewarded.”
Bolton also scoffed the White House’s contention that Bill Clinton’s visit is “solely a private mission” when he said “this is a former president who is married to the secretary of state. There’s nothing private about this.”
Remember this was the same President who sent his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to visit Kim Jong-Il with a Michael Jordan autographed basketball.
North Korea Leader Kim Jong-Il and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Exit question: What is this diplomatic gesture by Bill Clinton going to cost the United States?
Technorati Tags: Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Kim Jong-Il, Barack Obama, North Korea
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North Korea Calls Hillary Clinton Vulgar and Unintelligent
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the ASEAN-US Ministerial Meeting in Phuket July 22, 2009
Did North Korea bug the White House and overhear a conversation between President Obama and Rahm Emanuel?
No, I suppose not.The war of words between North Korea and the United States escalated Thursday, with North Korea’s Foreign Ministry lashing out at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in unusually personal terms for “vulgar remarks” that it said demonstrated “she is by no means intelligent.”
Clinton, who earlier this week likened North Korea to an unruly child, has rallied international isolation of North Korea at a 27-member regional security forum here. She met with her Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese counterparts — the other key partners in suspended six-nation disarmament talks–and won strong statements of support from many delegations.
And, remember when President Bush was criticized for calling out North Korea as a member of the Axis of Evil?
Now, Hillary Clinton will trade insults.
Wow! Big diplomacy going on here.
Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, North Korea
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North Korea Fires Off Seven Missles But NOT the Taepodong -2 ICBM
A South Korean official reports North Korea has fired two missiles off its eastern coast. Here, two short-range missiles are fired from an undisclosed location in North Korea on Jan. 5
North Korea created some fireworks on America’s Independence Day but did not fire off the big one – their Taepodong -2, ICBM.North Korea fired seven ballistic missiles off its eastern coast Saturday, South Korea said, a violation of U.N. resolutions and an apparent message of defiance to the United States on its Independence Day.
The launches, which came two days after North Korea fired what were believed to be four short-range cruise missiles, will likely further escalate tensions in the region as the U.S. tries to muster support for tough enforcement of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said three missiles were fired early Saturday, a fourth around noon and three more in the afternoon. The Defense Ministry said that the missiles were ballistic and are believed to have flown more than 250 miles.
“Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations based on strong South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted military officials as saying the missiles appeared to be a type of Scud missile. North Korea’s Scuds are considered short-range, the South’s military said.
Somehow, I think the big one is coming soon. Perhaps there was a technical problem or a delay due to a lack of smuggled in parts from Iran.
Stay tuned…….
Technorati Tags: North Korea, Taepodong – 2
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Shocking Surprise: With Soviet Parts North Korea Taepodong – 2 Could Reach United States
This is North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missile which has a range of 4,000 miles. Intelligence analysts do not believe it would be capable of hitting Hawaii which is 4,500 miles away – Uh Wrong!
Oops, somebody miscalculated here.With concerns rising about a possible North Korean long-range missile test this weekend, two independent scientists say the regime may be using an old Soviet ballistic missile to boost a rocket capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States.
North Korea is not known to have nuclear warheads and faces years of research and testing before building such a reliable weapon.
But the scientists say that if North Korea does have such a Russian-made ballistic missile in its arsenal, it could modify the rocket into a two-stage missile that could reach Seattle, Wash., carrying a 900-kilogram warhead, or San Francisco carrying a 700-kilogram charge.
The design of a long-range missile tested by North Korea last April “represents a very significant advance in rocket technology,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Ted Postol and Union of Concerned Scientists’ David Wright in a June 29 assessment published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Using data and imagery from North Korea’s April 4 launch, Postol and Wright calculated that the second stage of the North Korean rocket had the external dimensions, engine power and key features of an SS-N 6, a Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile first deployed in 1968.
Their theory is at odds with U.S. officials’ skepticism of the recent North Korean long-range missile launch, dismissed as a failure.
Missile expert and former U.N. arms inspector Mike Elleman cautioned against assuming that the similarities between the external dimensions of the North Korean second stage and the SS-N 6 mean that the two are the same technology.
But Elleman added that the coincidence is hard to explain.
Geoffrey Forden, another missile expert with MIT, sees merit in the Russian missile theory and believes North Korea may have its own production line for SS-N 6 missile components.
Guess President Obama might reverse his cuts in the National Missile Defense Program now, eh?
Stay tuned…….
Technorati Tags: Taepodong – 2, North Korea, Barack Obama
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Will President Obama Shoot Down North Korea’s ICBM?
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United States Prepared to Shoot Down North Korean ICBM Taepodong – 2 Missile
Ground-Based Interceptor Emplacement, Sea-Based X-Band Radar, In-Flight Interceptor communications sytem Data Terminal. L-R-Down
The ONLY question I have since it is apparent that President Obama has given the order to OK a kill of the missile if it appears headed towards the United States, is which missile defense system will get the kill?U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times.
“The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I’m very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I’ve got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory,” said Air Force Gen. Victor E. “Gene” Renuart, Northcom commander.
The general said the United States won’t activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country’s last test missile did.
My bet is on the Aegis System based on a United States ship. Second, a Ground-based interceptor from Alaska.
Stay tuned…….
Technorati Tags: North Korea, Missile Defense
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More North Korea Fireworks – Test Fire Four Short-Range Missiles
South Koreans watch a television broadcasting undated image a North Korea launch missile at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 2, 2009. North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles Thursday, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said, a move that aggravates already high tensions following Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test and U.N. sanctions imposed as punishment. The Korean read ‘North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles
Yeah, North Korea actually test fired four short-range missiles with the big ICBM, Taepodong – 2 due to be launched on America’s Independence Day – like two years ago.North Korea test-fired four short-range missiles on Thursday, further stoking tension in the region that was already high due to Pyongyang’s nuclear test and threats to boost its nuclear arsenal in response to UN sanctions.
The North, which often fires short-range missiles as part of military drills and usually times the launches for periods of diplomatic friction, was hit with UN sanctions following its May 25 nuclear test.
The salvo began with two surface-to-ship missiles fired off North Korea’s east coast between 5:20 p.m and 6 p.m. (0820-0900 GMT) that flew about 100 km (60 miles) and splashed into the sea, a South Korean defence official said.
A third short-range missile was fired around two hours later, the defence ministry said, and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing officials in Seoul, later said a fourth had been fired.
North Korea last month warned shipping to keep away from a maritime zone extending 110 km off its east coast between June 25 and July 10, saying it was conducting a military drill.
“This activity is not unexpected,” said U.S. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
“North Korea continues to develop and pursue missile technologies and the United States continues to remain concerned about not only their missile activities but their proliferation activities and their nuclear programme.”
A South Korean daily said that the secretive North may also test fire mid-range missiles, viewed by the South, the United States and others as a more serious act, in a matter of days.
In the meantime, the Obama Administration is plodding along with United Nation’s sanctions, if enforced, will be treated as an act of war by the North Koreans.
Stay tuned for more fireworks from Kim Jong-Il.
Technorati Tags: North Korea, Kim Jong-Il
