Fair point, too much time and bandwith have been wasted already. I won’t post on this little sideshow any more.

It’s nice of you to speak for Japan.
I didn’t know you got a new job in their Foreign Ministry.
I look forward to more of your pronouncements saying it’s okay for North Korea to fly more missiles, perhaps with weapon payloads, over Japan.
I’m sure you’ll help lead Japan to a new era of peace and prosperity by expressing solidarity with the goals with the “Dear Leader”. 😀

Can you find me the clause which says its unlawful for NK (or anyone for that matter) to fly missiles over another nation if the missile is in space? Cos as far as I know, space has no owners and anyone can fly what they want in it. And pointing that fact out does not mean that one is in support of NK firing missiles or in its employment.

SOC

Russia and the U.S. have tested their missiles many times. Was it common practice for either of them to route their tests over the others territory even when the altitude was higher?

Sauron

Have a look at a map and tell us all how exactly NK can fire a missile into the pacific without it going over Japan. The US or USSR would have had to go out of their way to fire their missiles over each other, and it would have been a really stupid thing to try as such a test would almost certainly be interpreted as a nuclear first strike by the other side, ala WWIII and the end of the reign of man.

Lets try and use more appropriate examples shall we?

You have to wonder about the wisdom of thinking that it’s perfectly fine to have a lunatic possessing nuclear weapons but some here are supportive of it.

Indeed, but can you think of the fuss Bush would make if anyone tried to take away his ‘fireworks’.

What is even harder to understand, is the attitude of South Korea, China and Russia. What do they have to gain by having this threat in their neigbourhood other than the fact that it irritates the U.S. and Japan?

Is it ‘hard’ to understand? Seems to me you already have the ‘answer’ so why ask the question at all? :rolleyes:

It was easier to understand this condition back in the good old days when China, Russia and one-half of Korea were all communist dictatorships. At least they had that in common. It’s harder to understand now that they are just a mixed bag of run of the mill fascits.

Yes yes, anyone who jumps when washington says ‘sit’ are all fascists. Seems you get the ‘fascist’ lable even if you don’t ‘play ball’ just once, like the poor South Koreans, who are also evil fascist because they dare to not demand blood. :rolleyes:

Russia is more concerned about the price of oil and how much it can screw it’s european customers as well as making threats about sending the Russian ‘special forces’ into Iraq on a revenge mission now that the U.S/U.K. has done all the heavy lifting.

China is a tradition ally of North Korea but it must be nervous about where this continuing support will lead given that the ‘Dear Leader’ is a fruit cake. Perhaps China is using the two Koreas as a bagining tool with the U.S. over China’s goal to invade Taiwan.

South Korea is harder to understand given that if it was not for the U.S. they would be hungry and six inches shorter from a poor diet, living in a slave state. One can only wonder if, given the way it has pandered to the North of late, if the North was to say surrender or we will attack you and use nuclear weapons, they would simply roll over and submit without a fight.

Sauron

I’ll not even bother to ask you to actually back up all those baseless claims cos it’ll just be a waste of effort.

It seems that some people just don’t see things that they don’t like. :rolleyes:

Well there we go, but at the end of the day you still have to face the fact that the Russian military was run out of Afghanistan and almost run out of Chechnya

Addressed in post 37.

and botched a number of rescue attempts. You don’t have to take my word for it.

Addressed in post 18.

Those specific facts speak for themselves.

Yes they do when you actually examine them in detail, but they don’t ‘say’ anything like what you seem to want them to.

Actually, now that the issue of sweeping claims and hard evidence has been raised, I feel free to note that the history of the last 60 or so years would suggest that the Russians have demonstrated a tallent for bad judgement in political, social, economic and military matters as evident by their current situation, which if it were not for a fortuitous rise in oil prices, would be much worse for the average Russian than it is now. Standard of living and all that stuff.

How exactly did me asking you to back up your past unsupported sweaping remarks become ‘yes, lets have yet more unsupported sweeping claims please’ to you? :rolleyes:

Well at least we have established that the Russian SF are part of the Russian military.

As if that was ever in dispute. :rolleyes:

Beyond that it would appear that any attempt to make reasonable comments about the situation the Russian SF would face in Iraq, is obviously pointless.

Sauron

Thats true, and its a shame, but thats what happens when people make sweeping claims and then refuse to back up those remarks with evidence or logical reasoning.

Just because something hasn’t been found doesn’t mean it’s not still there somewhere. We find new weapons caches and crap every single day in Iraq.

That seems…a little hopeful there mate. 😉

Finding WMD in Iraq must have been a top priority after the war (purhaps even during), and after the head of the US team tasked with finding Iraqi WMD said there was little hope in ever finding WMD after years of searching, I think its safe to assume that to be a dead ally.

But, alas I’m going off topic. Sorry for bring Iraq up. 😮

Looks like they fired six missiles in total, with one being a TD-2 ICBM. Anyway, the last two long-range missiles they tested, the TD-1 back in ’97 (I think) and the TD-2 today…both blew up in-flight. What’s there to worry about? If they want to pour their resources into developing an ICBM that we could blow up with the AL-1 or down with NMD, let them go for it. Eventually they’ll either nearly starve and revolt, or they’ll irritate China to the point that they’re dealt with politically (finally). They don’t want anything to do with us, so ignore them. If they want ot be belligerant and threaten the US, why should we continue to care about their continued existance or survival? If we gave up and ignored them entirely we’d be better off. Any military action would be a joke anyway.

Is there definitive proof that it was a TD-2? I was hoping for some spysat images to be released to prove the type, but so far nothing. Just ‘according to experts’.

As for China ‘dealing’ with NK, well, I think the leavers at Beijing’s disposal are a little too powerful to be used lightly, and so might be too blunt an instrament to be used in such situations.

The last thing Beijing wants is for NK to implode as that would cause China major problems in the North East, however, to get Kim to do anything he doesn’t want to would seem to require China to threaten just that to get him to respond (the suspention of oil supplies being a recent example). Carrots just doesn’t work on this guy, and China’s ‘stick’ is a little too large to be used too often.

The Chinese have less practial power in controling NK then many in the west seem to think/hope.