----- Original Message ----- From: "Amanda SubbaRao" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 3:47 PM Subject: Re: N Korea threatens to 'destroy world'
> I'm mostly commenting on the timing of their announcements, > which seem to follow the "USA getting serious (again) about war in Iraq" > headlines. > So, despite the fact NK meets all the criteria Bush has set for fighting Iraq > (and more, in > that they openly acknowledge their planned development of WMD), our > administration > talks the "we'll use diplomacy" talk first, which was not the case with > Iraq until wiser minds somewhere managed to prevail... There is a great deal of difference between the situation with N. Korea and Iraq. At the present time, the government of Iraq has minimal ability to inflict casualties on the citizens of other countries, while North Korea has a tremendous ability. Just with conventional weapons alone, they can kill tens of thousands in a few hours. They have thousands of pieces of artillery trained on Seoul, ready to kill if attacked. Further, they probably have 1-2 nuclear weapons, and IIRC, their missles can now reach Tokyo. > I was talking about being hypocritcal about Iraq. After all, Bush > did include NK in his "axis of evil", but until/unless they drive him > to it by forcing their WMD down his throat, he has no obvious intention > of starting a war in NK. In a real sense, it's been too late for North Korea for years. We'd have to accept tens of thousands of civilian casualties in South Korea at a minimum. IIRC, Doug quoted some estimates of up to a million casualties in a war. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
