North Korea’s plans for Hawaii
What the U.S. should do if Pyongyang is planning a Fourth of July missile attack on Hawaii
North Korea has threatened to launch missiles against Hawaii on July 4th, 2009.
(KCNA/EPA/Corbis)
Nothing’s “more American than ‘bombs bursting in air’ on the Fourth of July,” said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air, but North Korea’s “nutcase dictator,” Kim Jong Il, might be taking it a bit too literally. A report in Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper says Pyongyang is planning to fire a long-range ballistic missile at Hawaii on July 4. Any shot aimed at the U.S. would be “an act of war,” but perhaps Kim has taken measure of Obama and “found him wanting.”
This isn’t Kim Jong Il’s first display of “saber rattling,” said the Honolulu Star Bulletin in an editorial, and Obama should refuse to “mollify” him with economic aid to reward this strategically “bizarre behavior.” U.S. intelligence suggests that North Korea could be a threat to the U.S. in three to five years, but it’s good to remember that the last time Pyongyang shot a missile toward Hawaii, in July 2006, it crashed into the ocean 42 seconds after launch.
Even if Hawaii isn’t (yet) in range of Pyongyang’s 4-kilaton nuclear warheads, said Hui Zhang in Foreign Policy, Japan and South Korea are. And North Korea will continue its escalating game of “nuclear chicken” until it gets what it wants—reliable assurances that the U.S. won’t attack it. The only way to win without carnage is for the U.S. to give Pyongyang a big “carrot” to get it to denuclearize, and make sure China has some big “sticks” to enforce the deal.
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11 Comments
Posted by Spell Check, Friday, June 19, 2009, 6:23 pm Exactly what is the yield of a 4kilAton weapon?
Posted by Bob, Friday, June 19, 2009, 7:18 pm About the equivalent of a value meal at Taco Bell.
Posted by John Suh, Friday, June 19, 2009, 7:28 pm You mean he propagaqnda yeild or the flesh crisping yeild? I do not know the answer to either, but I do no when Adolph was toirturing and murdering Germans in Halocaust numbers he got shut down, and even more recently Sudam got shut down for genicide accomplished with or without WMD. It is time to get Kim to back down from the autro.cities commited constantly against his own people. Nuclear threats are nothing more or nless than a smokescreen of propaganda he creates as a distraction and cover for genicide he persistst in wholesale scale.
Posted by Bill Hong, Friday, June 19, 2009, 9:11 pm I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Posted by hamwart, Friday, June 19, 2009, 9:30 pm It's time for John Suh to learn how to use spell check before Honolulu is blown away.
Posted by MC212, Saturday, June 20, 2009, 1:48 pm I apologize for picking on John Suh with hamwart, but he's correct. John Suh: can set your browser usually under tools/advanced to check your spelling as you type and it will underline in red the words that are suspected to be misspelled. You can rightclick them for correction suggestions. This is important if you expect your statements and positions to be taken seriously and respected by other readers.
Posted by fred the fed, Saturday, June 20, 2009, 3:26 pm lol
Posted by AJH, Monday, June 22, 2009, 2:43 am Germaine You can find an extensive archive of the puzzle solutions at the front page: theweek.com/puzzle and click on Puzzle Archive. You will find the results for 6/12 and many other puzzles by following that link. I would post the link here, but I can't as it will get marked as spam.
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