Trump: Working with China on North Korea 'has not worked out'

I don't think it would be a good idea for North Korea to be doing a nuclear test any time soon.
Does Kim Jung Un have a twitter account? I want to know what his response is...

Trump has tried to leverage China, North Korea's only major ally, to apply more economic pressure on Pyongyang to help stop its nuclear and missile programs and other acts of defiance against the U.S. and its allies. Shortly before the president tweeted, press secretary Sean Spicer said the White House has seen "positive movement" from China and will "continue to work with them and others to put the appropriate pressure on North Korea."

"We'd love to solve things diplomatically but it's very difficult," he told Reuters in late April.

In the same interview, Trump said, "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea."

Link

Auhhhh the unending drum beat of war.. If NK was another group of sand people they would have already been bombed back into some brief blurb of a history book... Maybe rightly so...

I just hope South Korea is not destroyed in the process.

what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

originally posted by: odzeandennz
what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

Are you serious?

originally posted by: odzeandennz
what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

Well they threaten to nuke us about once a month. Have you seen the hate they preach to their military and citizens about the US, according to their propaganda we are demons and they need nukes to be able to destroy us.

There is evidence they are now committing cyber attacks regularly, including the Sony Hack, and recently the Bangladesh Bank theft of millions. They are only going to grow more bold once they have nukes, and will likely commit as much theft as they want since they fear no retribution.

Not to mention they treat the majority of their population as slaves or prisoners. The world would be a far better place if the regime did not exist.

If the regime treats their own population like total garbage because they have power over them, how do you think they will act with the rest of the world when they have a formidable nuclear arsenal?

I would agree we do not need to be looking for wars, but in the case of NK they are not the kind of regime you let get hold of nukes - because they have a clear track record of not behaving in a civilized manner. The problem of course is there is no easy way to remove the regime without getting probably thousands killed, but I think in many's opinion better thousands now then millions later.

a reply to: odzeandennz
Did they not just cause the death of an American citizen after torturing him in custody for a year??

What was it that John Travolta said??
"If they execute an American citizen, we will tactically nuke an entire city!"

Hey hey! Ho ho! North Korea's Communist regime has go to go!!

originally posted by: proximo

originally posted by: odzeandennz
what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

Well they threaten to nuke us about once a month. Have you seen the hate they preach to their military and citizens about the US, according to their propaganda we are demons and they need nukes to be able to destroy us.

There is evidence they are now committing cyber attacks regularly, including the Sony Hack, and recently the Bangladesh Bank theft of millions. They are only going to grow more bold once they have nukes, and will likely commit as much theft as they want since they fear no retribution.

Not to mention they treat the majority of their population as slaves or prisoners. The world would be a far better place if the regime did not exist.

If the regime treats their own population like total garbage because they have power over them, how do you think they will act with the rest of the world when they have a formidable nuclear arsenal?

I would agree we do not need to be looking for wars, but in the case of NK they are not the kind of regime you let get hold of nukes - because they have a clear track record of not behaving in a civilized manner. The problem of course is there is no easy way to remove the regime without getting probably thousands killed, but I think in many's opinion better thousands now then millions later.

Didnt NK even create the devil, cancer, aids, democracy bombing, everything evil on earth?
Black holes are north corean too, i heard.

The former US needs a war but even NK isn´t so stupid to do the former US that favour!

originally posted by: 727Sky
Auhhhh the unending drum beat of war.. If NK was another group of sand people they would have already been bombed back into some brief blurb of a history book... Maybe rightly so...

I just hope South Korea is not destroyed in the process.

The only reason they haven't is because they share a border with China and Russia. Has nothing to do with them being "sand people" or not.


NK is no threat to the US, but we need FEAR and the military industrial complex needs money so...

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
Didnt NK even create the devil, cancer, aids, democracy bombing, everything evil on earth?
Black holes are north corean too, i heard.

The former US needs a war but even NK isn´t so stupid to do the former US that favour!

Wow, I am glad you aren't in charge of national security.

You do know after we get nuked, saying my bad, I guess they really were crazy - and really did mean what they were saying will not bring back the millions of dead right?

North Korea is bringing this on themselves. They are the ones saying they will destroy the US, they are the ones committing horrific human rights violations. All they have to do is scrap their missile programs and nuclear program, and I guarantee you the US will leave them alone - despite them severely abusing their people.

We don't want to get involved with them - there is no oil or natural resources there, it is a barren s**thole - the only reason we are reacting to them is because they are a legitimate danger to US and world security.

a reply to: odzeandennz

lawl

This is possibly the United States first genuine excuse for a war since they fought Britain. Noko with nukes is a no no

originally posted by: proximo
You do know after we get nuked, saying my bad, I guess they really were crazy - and really did mean what they were saying will not bring back the millions of dead right?

How far do we go with a preemptive attack? Relations with nations change over time, look at the UK and France, or the US and Iran, or UK and the US. Eventually, someone we consider an ally, maybe Canada is going to have bad relations with the US. Should we preemptively attack them now in order to eliminate that threat? Or do we need to act in the moment? If we act in the moment, doesn't it make sense to stall NK's ability to threaten us, until the day we get along?

If we're only making threat assessments, then there's a lot of nations we should attack before NK. If we're looking at a long time table then it doesn't make sense to attack them.

Futhermore, how well has forced regime change worked for us in the rest of the world? Saddam, Bin Laden, Pinochet, the Saudi's. There's ample examples that we might make matters worse. At least they have a stable government right now.

Lets say we attacked on humanitarian grounds. Before we even look at nukes, a war with North Korea is going to kill half of their 25 million population. It's also going to kill at least 5 million out of 50 million South Koreans. So an attack is looking at 20 million dead right off the top. When we bring nukes into it, we can probably escalate those numbers to 20 million North Koreans and 25 million South Koreans dead. That's 45 million. That's 4 times the holocaust, and almost all civilians. I don't think there's a humanitarian reason to attack either.

Finally, lets think about the economy. North Korea has basically zero economy. If we take them out, does it stay a seperate country? In that case it goes to China. They don't want the economic drain that comes with supporting that many people. The other option is that they reunify and South Korea doesn't want that mess either, they could afford the hit even less than China can.

It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on diplomatic grounds
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on military grounds.
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on economic grounds.
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on humanitarian grounds.

Thus, there is no good argument to attack North Korea at this time.

Trump is merely doing what Trump does, which is remain non committed to any course of action. He's trying to mislead North Korea here and get some diplomatic concessions. They may or may not buy it.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: proximo
You do know after we get nuked, saying my bad, I guess they really were crazy - and really did mean what they were saying will not bring back the millions of dead right?

How far do we go with a preemptive attack? Relations with nations change over time, look at the UK and France, or the US and Iran, or UK and the US. Eventually, someone we consider an ally, maybe Canada is going to have bad relations with the US. Should we preemptively attack them now in order to eliminate that threat? Or do we need to act in the moment? If we act in the moment, doesn't it make sense to stall NK's ability to threaten us, until the day we get along?

Well first off it is too late to attack the UK or France - they already have nukes, and nuclear subs, not that I really think they are going to democratically elect a psycho and become a danger.

Iran is a tough call, for the most part they are a civilized country, but they do have the crazy mullah calling the shots. I would say it is too soon to act on them - but perhaps at some point it will be necessary.

I understand your point, eventually everyone will have nukes, and somebody crazy will fire one off. Quite frankly that is why I feel our species is doomed. But we must stall it for as long as possible, and hope we evolve enough to not use them.

If we're only making threat assessments, then there's a lot of nations we should attack before NK. If we're looking at a long time table then it doesn't make sense to attack them.

Really - who? Are you referring to Russia or China? They actually understand mutually assured destruction. I am really not convinced Kim Jong Un does, and even if he does - I think he cares so little about his population, he may think I can crawl into a bunker and survive, and really that is all I care about.

Futhermore, how well has forced regime change worked for us in the rest of the world? Saddam, Bin Laden, Pinochet, the Saudi's. There's ample examples that we might make matters worse. At least they have a stable government right now.

This is not a middle Eastern country, these citizens will not turn into islamic jihadists. Quite frankly if we kill the whole regime and leave and never come back, they would still be better off. I would submit to you North Koreans are far more like the Japanese from world war II than they are Iraq. No I am not saying I want to do regime change - it will suck. But we are dealing with the best of a bunch of bad options.

Lets say we attacked on humanitarian grounds. Before we even look at nukes, a war with North Korea is going to kill half of their 25 million population. It's also going to kill at least 5 million out of 50 million South Koreans. So an attack is looking at 20 million dead right off the top. When we bring nukes into it, we can probably escalate those numbers to 20 million North Koreans and 25 million South Koreans dead. That's 45 million. That's 4 times the holocaust, and almost all civilians. I don't think there's a humanitarian reason to attack either.

While I agree there is a chance of a few million dying if things go badly - I do not for a second think your numbers are remotely correct in the worst possible scenario.

If we attack, we will attack many targets simultaneously to limit their ability to respond as much as possible. I suppose if they got a nuke off that hit Seoul, we would respond by nuking them. I do not think this is a likely scenario - but even if that were the case that would be no more than a few million deaths.

Finally, lets think about the economy. North Korea has basically zero economy. If we take them out, does it stay a seperate country? In that case it goes to China. They don't want the economic drain that comes with supporting that many people. The other option is that they reunify and South Korea doesn't want that mess either, they could afford the hit even less than China can.

Well I think they could stay independent, but most likely they would merge with South Korea eventually. As you say they have no economy now. It would not be hard to do much better. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, again it is a cost benefit analysis.

It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on diplomatic grounds
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on military grounds.
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on economic grounds.
It doesn't make sense to attack North Korea on humanitarian grounds.

Thus, there is no good argument to attack North Korea at this time.

Well I am not sure exactly what you mean by diplomatic grounds - but they do not follow any UN regulations so I think that is grounds - but certainly not enough to start a war over.

Military grounds is the primary reason - They will soon have the power to kill millions anywhere on the planet, and they are crazy enough to do it, and have threatened us not once but many many times. That is the only reason we really need.

Economically the reasons are their new found use of hacking to steal money, and create chaos. Yes the downside is we break it we own it.

Humanitarian - Um, I don't think you can come up with a worse humanitarian situation in the world. It absolutely is a big factor on why the regime must go.

Trump is merely doing what Trump does, which is remain non committed to any course of action. He's trying to mislead North Korea here and get some diplomatic concessions. They may or may not buy it.

Well obviously, he does not want a war, because as we are both aware it will kill many thousands if not millions of people.
However, if he believes the military has a plan with a high degree of probability of success, and NK continues on their same course of action, I do believe he will act.

originally posted by: DerBeobachter

originally posted by: proximo

originally posted by: odzeandennz
what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

Well they threaten to nuke us about once a month. Have you seen the hate they preach to their military and citizens about the US, according to their propaganda we are demons and they need nukes to be able to destroy us.

There is evidence they are now committing cyber attacks regularly, including the Sony Hack, and recently the Bangladesh Bank theft of millions. They are only going to grow more bold once they have nukes, and will likely commit as much theft as they want since they fear no retribution.

Not to mention they treat the majority of their population as slaves or prisoners. The world would be a far better place if the regime did not exist.

If the regime treats their own population like total garbage because they have power over them, how do you think they will act with the rest of the world when they have a formidable nuclear arsenal?

I would agree we do not need to be looking for wars, but in the case of NK they are not the kind of regime you let get hold of nukes - because they have a clear track record of not behaving in a civilized manner. The problem of course is there is no easy way to remove the regime without getting probably thousands killed, but I think in many's opinion better thousands now then millions later.

Didnt NK even create the devil, cancer, aids, democracy bombing, everything evil on earth?
Black holes are north corean too, i heard.

The former US needs a war but even NK isn´t so stupid to do the former US that favour!

Let's use your logic in reverse,

The brutal death of the US boy by NK calls for a massive preemptive nuclear strike, disabling their ability to hit SK and Japan. Their million man army will have their shadows etched in the earth, and their leaders assassinated then peace will prevail.

originally posted by: proximo
Well first off it is too late to attack the UK or France - they already have nukes, and nuclear subs, not that I really think they are going to democratically elect a psycho and become a danger.

Iran is a tough call, for the most part they are a civilized country, but they do have the crazy mullah calling the shots. I would say it is too soon to act on them - but perhaps at some point it will be necessary.

But this line of thinking only leads to further nuclear developments. Eventually it will be used by Iran to justify going nuclear, and it was just a couple years ago that we saw what happened to Ukraine precisely because they gave up their nukes. Nuclear non proliferation only works if we can assure the sovereignity of non nuclear nations. Even when we disagree with those nations.

This is not a middle Eastern country, these citizens will not turn into islamic jihadists. Quite frankly if we kill the whole regime and leave and never come back, they would still be better off. I would submit to you North Koreans are far more like the Japanese from world war II than they are Iraq. No I am not saying I want to do regime change - it will suck. But we are dealing with the best of a bunch of bad options.

North Koreans are much worse than that. The population has very few job skills, no modernization, and has been completely brainwashed in fields like math, science, and history. They're basically a bunch of toddlers who think the world works on magic. Without the regime in place, they would have no ability to support themselves. Left to form a government, the majority of the population would almost certainly starve to death. Installing our own puppet government is not really a solution here. Worst case scenario, they pretend to assimilate, and carry out lone wolf attacks due to their anti American programming 20 years from now when they're able to travel.

While I agree there is a chance of a few million dying if things go badly - I do not for a second think your numbers are remotely correct in the worst possible scenario.

In the event of war, almost every single person in Seoul is guaranteed to die due to artillery alone (and nukes guarantee it). That's 26 million South Koreans right there. Another quarter of their population lives near Seoul and would likely die. That brings the total to 38 million out of 50 million.

North Korea would mobilize all of their citizens and fight in guereilla tactics to the death, just as they've been programmed to do. The US (or anyone else) would have to kill basically any North Korean they see.

If anything, I am under estimating the numbers.

Well I think they could stay independent, but most likely they would merge with South Korea eventually. As you say they have no economy now. It would not be hard to do much better. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, again it is a cost benefit analysis.

Stay independent under what government? The one we just threw out of power? The puppet government we install? Either China or South Korea would be left trying to support a 25 million person welfare state. Neither wants to do that. South Korea does want to reunify but they don't want to under current conditions. They won't seriously look at that until the North Korean population is better off. They need to be educated, moderated, and have some economic output.

Military grounds is the primary reason - They will soon have the power to kill millions anywhere on the planet, and they are crazy enough to do it, and have threatened us not once but many many times. That is the only reason we really need.

Attacking someone based on what they might do, has very rarely worked. This situation would be more bloody than usual.

a reply to: Aazadan

In the event of war, almost every single person in Seoul is guaranteed to die due to artillery alone (and nukes guarantee it). That's 26 million South Koreans right there. Another quarter of their population lives near Seoul and would likely die. That brings the total to 38 million out of 50 million.

The artillery shelling, while it would be devastating until the guns were silenced would not kill 'every single peson in Seoul'. The South has lived under this threat for generations, they have plans in place.

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: Aazadan

In the event of war, almost every single person in Seoul is guaranteed to die due to artillery alone (and nukes guarantee it). That's 26 million South Koreans right there. Another quarter of their population lives near Seoul and would likely die. That brings the total to 38 million out of 50 million.

The artillery shelling, while it would be devastating until the guns were silenced would not kill 'every single peson in Seoul'. The South has lived under this threat for generations, they have plans in place.

Until they throw nukes into Seoul. Something we currently cannot stop.

so they haven't done anything to the US.

what have they done exactly to the united States of America?

let's look at the track record of NK vs everyone else in terms of who pose a threat to whom:

last time NK was at war vs the US-
last time nk took militaristic action against any nation vs the US-

lat time NK bombed any country ever-changing
last time nk spied on any country ever
last time NK disrupted a foreign country or regime
last time nk sold arms to rebels (aka terrorists)
last time nk nuked any country
last time nk had a nuclear weapon
last time nk was part of any treaty stating they can't develop defensive weapons or nukes?


what exactly has nk done to the US exactly?

originally posted by: Arnie123

originally posted by: odzeandennz
what exactly has NK done to the US?
I missed that headline...

Are you serious?

how about an answer

a reply to: Aazadan

Until they throw nukes into Seoul. Something we currently cannot stop.

THAAD missile defence is presumed to stop that is it not?