Don’t Panic!: Why is North Korea testing nukes?
June 3, 2009 at 1:12 pm by Andisheh Nouraee in Don't Panic
What does North Korea hope to gain by testing nuclear weapons?
On May 25, North Korea flipped a radioactive bird at President Barack Obama when it exploded a nuclear device in an underground facility in the northeast part of the country.
The test site was not far from the spot where, in 2006, North Korea exploded a similarly frightening gizmo, described at the time by the Bush administration as a “nookyullar” device. North Korea is thought to be the only country on Earth to possess both a nuclear and a nookyullar device.
You may have noticed I’m using the word device rather than weapon to describe these North Korean explosive thingies. That’s because I was just listening to Selig Harrison, former Washington Post Northeast Asia bureau chief and current head of the Center for International Policy’s Asia Program, speaking on my favorite news radio show, KCRW-FM’s “To The Point.” (Yes, that was a shameless attempt to earn a KCRW tote bag.)
Harrison says there’s no evidence to suggest North Korea has the technical know-how to fire a nuclear device at anyone. Exploding a weapon underground in what essentially is a laboratory is very different from miniaturizing a weapon and mounting it atop a missile.
I’m not saying don’t be scared of North Korea. I’m just saying you should know precisely what it is you might be scared of.
(Photo illustration by Andisheh Nouraee)
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
If you sell a “device” to a terrorist who smuggles it across an unsecured border and then detonates that “device” in a city, instead of a laboratory, is it still a “device”?
What is the point of building and testing a “device” if you do not intend to progress to “weapon”?
Besides a North Korean chick would be more impressed by a steak and potato.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Don’t worry! Pastor Paul told us that the missle they fired over Japan was only for the purposes of a satellite. If Ron Paul takes Kim Jon Il’s word for it, then I will too.
So one month later Pastor Paul tells us that we have nothing to fear from North Korea because their launch of a missle over a sovereign nation–that happens to be an ally of ours–is not really a big deal. After all, it was only a satellite. (Does anyone in North Korea have a telvision? How about a GPS? Sirius Satelite radio? Uh…no.)
Actually, he forgot to mention that it was launched OVER JAPAN. He just mentioned that they launched it, not where. That’s not a small detail. I live in Japan, by the way.
Then the next month North Korea explodes a nuclear weapon. It’s their second. And here you are saying–well sure they have nuclear weapons, but it’s not like they could strap them on missles on something. I mean–they only detonated it under ground.
I wonder–does Kim Jon Il detonate weapons under ground for fun, or do you think he has visions of actually using it some day?
Do you want to be taken seriosuly? Maybe you should make sense every once in a while, you twit.