TV reports confirm Korea admits to seven kiloton (7,000 metric ton tnt equivalent) nuclear test. President Obama to issue sternly worded letter in 3…. 2…. no, wait.. what?
(CNN) – North Korea appeared to have conducted its third underground nuclear bomb test Tuesday, as the U.S. Geological Survey reported a seismic disturbance centered near the site of the secretive regime’s two previous nuclear tests.
The area around the reported epicenter of the magnitude 4.9 disturbance has little or no history of earthquakes or natural seismic hazards, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps. The disturbance took place at a depth of about 1 kilometer, the USGS said.
There were no initial reports concerning the activity on the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday.
“It’s a nuclear test,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “That magnitude and that location — it’s awfully unlikely it’s anything else.”
In Washington, a senior administration official said the United States was working to confirm a nuclear test. (read more)
Of course, this is just fine with the Obama administration. A perfect distraction of saber rattling and I am sure Obama will reassure AMERIKA that there is little to fear from the paper tiger that is North Korea.
Leading from behind is Obama’s MO and long as AmeriKANS get their freebies, it is all good. Right?
The Norko’s are as dangerous as Iran and best buddies in their hatred of the West, especially the USA. Peace through superior firepower is where REAL lasting peace comes from. This is rapidly fading in the rear view mirror as we are on our way to becoming at best, a second rate global power. That slippery slope just got a bit more treacherous.
Happen’s every time.
“The Norko’s are as dangerous as Iran and best buddies in their hatred of the West, especially the USA.”
Distractions. The USA is being defeated from within.
I’ll bet his highness will mention a decrease in our nuclear arsenal tonight.
I can’t bear to watch it. If we survive Obama it will be a miracle. It is going to get worse from here. Much worse. Meanwhile he wants to disarm the American People. Allow all Mexicans to collect welfare, tax private enterprise out of existence, raise gas to 10 bucks a gallon, gut the military, reward failure, punish success, cut a swath through the constitution, devalue to dollar Zimbabwe style., ration health care, in general fundamentally change the USA to a 3rd rate Banana Republic. Did I miss anything?
We will have confirmation that it was a nuclear test if and when traces of radioactive fission products are detected. Underground tests contain most of the fallout, but there is always some leakage of noble gases. Measuring the isotope ratios will enable the exact date of the fission event to be estimated and thus verify that it coincides with the seismic event. Fortunately; there are many, private researchers who can detect the evidence so Obama can’t hide it.
I have become so pessimistic that I believe that a nuclear 9-11 is the only thing that can save the United States from becoming Obama’s Amerika. The most probable target area would be a densely populated city which would have a preponderance of idiots who voted for Obama twice. Just an FYI, dark skinned people of African ancestry are far more vulnerable to thermal burns than pale skinned people of European ancestry. The sudden incineration of 100,000 to 1,000,000 of Obama’s supporters will nay marginally increase the average IQ of the nation. However; a nuclear 9-11 will force all of the moderates to reconsider their idiotic votes, thus increasing the functional IQ of the nation. The military will cease to be subservient to the poverty pimpnand chief. They might not stage a coup, but they would remain neutral if a civil war erupted. (google: Niki rebellion, Justinian, Bellasaurius).
I got the word at about 2230 last night and waited for ‘daily thread’ post to bring it over but from about midnight last night to 1 AM CST I could not get on to the Treehouse – I kept on getting ‘cannot connect’ or server error-related messages, finally went to bed. I could get onto every other site I tried, just the Treehouse seemed to be blocked.
The NK military owns the country, they call the shots. With a nuke they will be the worst problem we have in Asia, far worse than the Chinese. Once their nukes are field-ready they’ll mount them to their IRBMs and put the screws to South Korea. Friends say that this device is still not ready to be mounted on a missile, they are just ‘perfecting’ the device and especially the detonating system, that it still has to be miniaturized, if you will, and made reliable enough to withstand the generally icky conditions it will live with from manufacture, through ‘storage’, then launch and finally ‘BOOM’. Interesting point to me is that NK gave China the finger as China does not want them to continue to develop and test their nukes. The Koreans in general have no great love for the Chinese and the NK military wants military independent of Chinese influence, they want to be a mover, shaker and spoiler in the area, not a Chinese vassal. The thing left unsaid in the NK “we are going to have a system that will nuke the US” is that same system could be used to nuke China – both situations rather unlikely but politically irritating all the same. The nuke-capable NK (NuKe) can call the shots in the area now, they can poke SK with the nuke stick, threaten to nuke US bases in SK with tactical nukes, tell the Chinese to go to hell when the rest of the world tries to use China as a leash to restrain NK, give Russia the finger as they are still pissed that Russia threw them under the bus when the USSR folded, and (to me) most dangerously they are now a Wally World for nuke technology for rogue states. Due to hi-tech surveillance it would be very hard for them to get fissionable materials out of NK to someone else but they could sell a DIY kit to someone who had the stuff. I’m betting that for the near future they’ll leverage their possession to get consumer goods they need from the outside, they aren’t gonna give up their nukes and they know that it’s way too late for anyone to even think of attacking them to stop development (sounds like Iran, eh?). Let’s watch the POtuS scat dance his way around and through this one.