North Korea - what the hell is happening?

[scottycelt]

No doubt dave and all the other immature idiot leaders are loving this.....

I doubt that, ts, but it has certainly played right into Dave's hands regarding the Trident replacement, that's for sure.

As ahinton says, lets just hope it is all rhetoric and bluster but you only have to look at the TV pictures to see that these militarised human robots are capable of doing some very mad things. Let's just hope that this is as mad as it ever gets.

[teamsaint]

I doubt that, ts, but it has certainly played right into Dave's hands regarding the Trident replacement, that's for sure.

As ahinton says, lets just hope it is all rhetoric and bluster but you only have to look at the TV pictures to see that these militarised human robots are capable of doing some very mad things. Let's just hope that this is as mad as it ever gets.

so why wouldn't he be loving it then, Scotty?
Its just what he needs.plus it distracts from tax giveaways to the rich, benefits being cut, etc etc.

[Richard Barrett]

it has certainly played right into Dave's hands regarding the Trident replacement, that's for sure.

I guess so, if you're going to believe Cameron's fantastic assertion that DPRK is able to drop nuclear weapons on the UK.

Not to make any excuses for KJU's regime, it might not be irrelevant that his current bellicose rhetoric began round about the time when the USA and South Korea began joint military exercises, using military hardware that the US explicitly stated was able to carry out "long-range, precision strikes quickly and at will". There's another load of "militarised human robots (...) capable of doing some very mad things", as we saw in Abu Ghraib, Fallujah and elsewhere.

[Mr Pee]

so why wouldn't he be loving it then, Scotty?
Its just what he needs.plus it distracts from tax giveaways to the rich, benefits being cut, etc etc.

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/co...y-emoticon.gif

[teamsaint]

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/co...y-emoticon.gif

try to explain why, peester.
It makes perfect sense.

[Anna]

Oh Gosh Richard Barrett,
I love your Marxism, and alll that stuff, it's quite thrilling. But, quite honestly, sort of old-school Socialist type of justifying stuff, innit? Which, UK socialists, like T. Blair and his, how many million pounds portfolio he has, ditto G. Brown - deserted the Party for the lecture tour and the millions - How, honestly, can you expect anyone to believe in Socialism? When the aim of last labour government was to line their boots with profits?

[Mr Pee]

try to explain why, peester.
It makes perfect sense.

I think the vast majority of the British electorate are perfectly capable of dividing their attention between the deranged rantings of some Asian crackpot and the state of their bank balance. And it clearly isn't important enough to stop the Daily Mirror printing a front page non-story about Osborne's driver parking in a disabled parking space for five minutes; neither does it stop Ed Balls from trying to make political capital out of the matter.

[teamsaint]

I think the vast majority of the British electorate are perfectly capable of dividing their attention between the deranged rantings of some Asian crackpot and the state of their bank balance. And it clearly isn't important enough to stop the Daily Mirror printing a front page non-story about Osborne's driver parking in a disabled parking space for five minutes; neither does it stop Ed Balls from trying to make political capital out of the matter.

What has Balls got to do with it? and why wouldn't he make political capital?
and the Trident issue? Not at all helpful to dave, then?

[Richard Barrett]

How, honestly, can you expect anyone to believe in Socialism? When the aim of last labour government was to line their boots with profits?

Ummm... I think you might have wandered into the wrong thread here, Anna, this one's about the current situation in and around North Korea, but really, I would have thought it must be obvious to anyone that the last Labour government had nothing to do with socialism.

So what did Cameron actually say? The following, in the Telegraph:
Last year North Korea unveiled a long-range ballistic missile which it claims can reach the whole of the United States. If this became a reality it would also affect the whole of Europe, including the UK. Can you be certain how that regime, or indeed any other nuclear armed regime, will develop? Can we be sure that it won’t share more of its technology or even its weapons with other countries? With these questions in mind, does anyone seriously argue that it would be wise for Britain, faced with this evolving threat today, to surrender our deterrent?
A pretty clear connection made between the Korean standoff and the Trident programme there, no?

He goes on:
"... our current nuclear weapons capability costs on average around 5-6 per cent of the current defence budget. That is less than 1.5 per cent of our annual benefits bill."
Clever of him to bring benefits in there. I'm surprised he doesn't ask us "What do you think would have happened if Mick Philpott used his fraudulently-claimed benefits to buy nuclear weapons from North Korea, eh?" Note also that he's talking about "current" nuclear weapons, not their planned replacement which is costed at £15-20 billion (and of course would in practice be much more, as these things always are) which is a little more than 1.5% of the "benefits bill" especially if old age pensions, which account for two thirds of the total, are excluded.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh Gosh Richard Barrett, I love your Marxism, and all that stuff, it's quite thrilling.

:laugh: That gave me a great guffaw to start the weekend, Anna!! :ok: Thanks! :smooch: In my head, it was Miriam Margolyes's voice speaking your words... (I saw her interview with M Lawson on BBC4.... and "thrilling" is one of her favourite words, I think)

[ahinton]

I guess so, if you're going to believe Cameron's fantastic assertion that DPRK is able to drop nuclear weapons on the UK.

Ah, yes - and they'd take effect within 45 minutes, one may suppose; I seem to have heard the like previously somewhere, unless I'm imagining it. Fantastic assertion indeed; fantastically ridiculous and, as has already been observed here, the basis of an excuse to retain and develop Trident which Austerity Britain can all of a sudden so easily afford - or something.

[Richard Barrett]

:laugh: That gave me a great guffaw to start the weekend, Anna!! :ok: Thanks! :smooch:

Also it's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day. :laugh:

[ahinton]

Ummm... I think you might have wandered into the wrong thread here, Anna, this one's about the current situation in and around North Korea, but really, I would have thought it must be obvious to anyone that the last Labour government had nothing to do with socialism.

So what did Cameron actually say? The following, in the Telegraph:
Last year North Korea unveiled a long-range ballistic missile which it claims can reach the whole of the United States. If this became a reality it would also affect the whole of Europe, including the UK. Can you be certain how that regime, or indeed any other nuclear armed regime, will develop? Can we be sure that it won’t share more of its technology or even its weapons with other countries? With these questions in mind, does anyone seriously argue that it would be wise for Britain, faced with this evolving threat today, to surrender our deterrent?
A pretty clear connection made between the Korean standoff and the Trident programme there, no?

He goes on:
"... our current nuclear weapons capability costs on average around 5-6 per cent of the current defence budget. That is less than 1.5 per cent of our annual benefits bill."
Clever of him to bring benefits in there. I'm surprised he doesn't ask us "What do you think would have happened if Mick Philpott used his fraudulently-claimed benefits to buy nuclear weapons from North Korea, eh?" Note also that he's talking about "current" nuclear weapons, not their planned replacement which is costed at £15-20 billion (and of course would in practice be much more, as these things always are) which is a little more than 1.5% of the "benefits bill" especially if old age pensions, which account for two thirds of the total, are excluded.

Sorry - I'd not read this post of yours when replying to your previous one in this thread, so my remarks about Trident are semi-redundant, really.

It seems as though nothing can be mentioned by this crowd these days without a snide aside about "benefits". Have they any credibility left? None at all that I can detect. As I observed elsewhere in a not so different context, it's srely high time for a General Election...

[Nick Armstrong]

Also it's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day. :laugh:

:ok: :biggrin:

[ahinton]

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

A good deal of what's been spouted by GO and DC in the past couple of days or so is indeed arrant nonsense (albeit for more dangerous and despicable than mere nonsense per se). Whatever happened to the phenomenon of Compassionate Conservatism? Very little, obviously, beyond its wholesale undermining.