Chaos in Washington as classified report on North Korea's ability to arm nuclear missiles is read a

Originally posted by flice
Im calling wag the dog here!

This move is clearly to gain internal and international support for a pre-emptive strike.
The double sided statements are merely to throw you off track and seal the lie....

More western war propaganda.

This.

N. Korea is not a threat. Their soldiers are starving, their leader is a basket case, and they recently found a "unicorn cave". We need to ignore N. Korea like a parent ignores a child having a tantrum.

If we are so good at regime change in 3rd world countries, why don't we just have ourselves a good ol' fashioned coup d'état? Why do we need to invest military assets when we can do it quickly and quietly from within?

This is nothing more than another phoney evil so the government can sway public opinion.

SMH.

And, it appears that quite a few people on ATS didn't learn from Iraq and are falling for the same dog and pony show again.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


I don't think we should ignore the potential propaganda of this.

Does anyone really think someone high up in the military accidentally shared a part of a classified document?

Think about this for a moment... the USA needs China on their side. There has to be a clear indication that China would not rush to defend the DPRK, and so far they haven't given any clear indication, while seemingly unimpressed with the rhetoric little Kimmy is putting out there.

This could be propaganda to nudge China into making a clear decision.

But there's more to it than that too. IMO, this confusion allows for a lot of different things...

1. As said, it could help to persuade China to make a firm statement or agreement with the US over any potential attack of the DPRK.
2. Likewise, it could persuade more support from Russia.
3. Someone would have had to have supplied that tech to the DPRK, and this statement allows the US to give the "impression" that they are well aware of that supply and the nation responsible for it.
4. It increases international and domestic support for any future action against the DPRK.
5. If NK does have the capability, it suggests that it is not secret.
6. If NK doesn't have the capability, it suggests that they are treading a very thin line and had better back off before the US and allies decide to take out that threat - one that they actually don't have!

I think this is actually pretty clever, it covers so much, and the only down side is that the US looks a little foolish or embarrassed. I think that's a perfectly acceptable trade-off if it can do so much. The US might look stupid to unaware people for a couple of days, but the potential pay-off of this little stunt is far greater.

Originally posted by Rocker2013
reply to post by CaptainBeno

 

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Does anyone really think someone high up in the military accidentally shared a part of a classified document?

Actually I think they did!

The statement was made by a congressman not by any high level government official. Members of the US congress aren't necessarily rocket scientists by any means and often make stupid mistakes. The fact that a report from March was mislabeled as not secret when it was secret doesn't shock me either because the reports conclusion was pretty much open to public debate anyway. A number of different intellegience agencies produced similar reports and congress was briefed on all these reprots (if the member requested or was part of a pertinent committee). Some intelligence agencies think NK has missiles that can deliver nukes, others agency's feel differently. You can Google reports from numerous think tanks, agencies and NGO's that have done threat assessments on NK some of them warn against Nk nuclear strike capability.

The information "leaked" isn't exactly secret to begin with, it's a mere conclusion made by a group of experts. The experts who publish internal government reports are often the same people who moonlight as academics and work at think tanks.

If the DIA has special actionable intelligence and reached its conclusion based on some secret surveillance that is one thing, but the DIA report appears to have been based on past, generally non classified, assessments of NK. Any specific spy satellite image or human intel source would never have been passed on to a freshmen congressmen and his staff. Remember most House Staff members are 24 year old kids who drink too much and have big mouths. House Legislative Assistants are also the ones who read all the reports and pass them on to the congressmen. The CIA isn't just faxing a super sensitive report to a congressional office. In essence, the entire report, from its inception was never based on confidential information that any agency really cared about and the conclusion the report reached was by no means definitive it was just a "professional opinion" which was by no means groundbreaking.

Don't give the government so much credit. What is scary is not how smart our government is, but rather how little we actually know about the threat NK poses. I don't think we are utilizing propaganda to justify war or this is an elaborate psy ops operation. I think we have no real idea how this new leader of NK will act and are preparing and assessing all possible outcomes. What resulted was a moment of confusion because different people see things differently and the majority of our intel simply isn't that great.

President Obama earlier issued his sternest warning to North Korea yet, saying he will take 'all necessary steps' to protect his people.

his people

reply to post by Rocker2013


I'm pretty sure the information about NK's nuclear capabilities had little impact on China because - they already know.
This would not be an effective "propaganda" to sway their opinion.

China definitely has not take a strong stance against North Korea, because they want NK to stay just the way it is. They don't want their region or the system they have in place disturbed. NK serves a purpose to them. If China wanted it changed, they would change it. But they don't.

I think the propaganda might be coming more from North Korea.

They are trying everything to goad the US to attack. They seem to really want the US or South Korea to make the first move. Maybe this is because then China would be prompted to get into the action, to "defend" North Korea. North Korea knows that if China gets involved they will have a fighting chance. If North Korea makes the first move, they would not have as much leverage, but I don't doubt that China would still get involved to a point to be sure that North Korea survives as it is.

It almost seems like they kept moving those missiles around, and raised them, just to push someone else into shooting first. Then they realized... wait a minute, why is no one shooting at us? Maybe they were not counting on everyone sitting there waiting for them to make the first move. Now they may be regrouping to figure out what to do next.

North Korea has been planning an attack on South Korea for a long time. The US is just getting in the way. maybe NK is waiting for China to make the US go away, just like we are waiting for China to rein in NK. And China is just sitting there telling everyone to cool their jets.