Japan threatens Korea with pre-emptive strike

[Urban Ranger]

Political suicide for Shigeru Ishiba. Nobody in the region has forgotten the Japanese invasion and occupation. Speaking of an attack before Japan formally apologise for its atrocities is first degree idiocy.


Drake Tungsten,

"I suppose this makes Japan a bunch of "warmongers". God knows that pre-emptive action against dangerous tyrants is inexcusable..."

Interesing enough, the only dangerous tyrant is the US.


Felch X,

How was the invasion of Afghanistan legitimised?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Joseph
The problem here is hunger, pure and simple. Since N. Korea spends most of his money on arms, he cannot feed his people and they are starving big time. He want us to feed them while he buys more weapons. It is backmail, feed me or else.

Is Uncle Sam feeding you?

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Sava
it was a troll berserker, don't get sand in your vagina now...

Sava,

Did you say libertarians are robots last night? And if so, is it true that they have vaginas?

[Sava]

What? Is there some sort of other Sava in the Bizarro world?

[GePap]

If Japan had intelligence of an impending NK missile attack, then it has all the legtimacy of international law on its side if it decided to launch a pre-emptive series of air attacks. What Japan would have then (and the US lacks utterly now vis a vi Iraq) is something called 'imminent threat', not 'imagined threat', 'possible threat', 'perhaps sometime unknown threat'.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
If Japan had intelligence of an impending NK missile attack, then it has all the legtimacy of international law on its side if it decided to launch a pre-emptive series of air attacks.

What if the intelligence is wrong?

[cinch]

Ned:

As Vel said, the conjunction of events is becoming too much - too much to be a coincidence IMO.

What do you mean by this, exactly?

[GePap]

Tough luck for the NK. International law does not demand 100% accuracy, anymore then one demands 100% accuracy from a policeman who seriously thinks a suspect had a gun and was threatening them but turns out to be wrong. Again, it is an issue of imminency (is that a word?). If you have solid evidence that a missile launch is 3 days away, no state (besides the one bombed and its closest buddies, if ti ahs any) will complain, once you show everyone what you had.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
Tough luck for the NK. International law does not demand 100% accuracy, anymore then one demands 100% accuracy from a policeman who seriously thinks a suspect had a gun and was threatening them but turns out to be wrong.

So, the PRC can launch nuclear missiles at India, citing having intelligence that India will launch a nuclear attack?

Now let me see how much fun we can have with that.

[orange]

Urban Ranger

GePap - No one announces ahead of time that there will be a nuclear strike against another nation in 3 days. What kind of bull**** is that?

[Caesar the Great]

I'm sure China is going beserk over this internally. The balance of power in the whole area would dramatically shift if NK possessed nuclear weapons. Who knows what Kim will do with them?! Sure now he may only want food, money and oil, but how long can we appease him? If he has a nuclear weapon he'll demand terrority and what do we do then? I believe he is capable of ordering a preemptive nuclear strike on South Korea, Japan or even the US West Coast. Negotiations with war-mongers aren't exactly the high point of the 20th century.

Saddam is really the least of our worries right now, he won't do anything stupid with the whole international community watching him. Give the inspectors more time, war is probably unavoidable in that region but the US might as well wait until the Euros are on board.

[Ned]

Originally posted by cinch
Ned:

What do you mean by this, exactly?

I think NK is going to do whatever it can to push the crisis to it limits while the US in involved in Iraq. They are going to test their missiles and build as many nukes as they can. They will continue to threaten to invade the South and may actually do so if either the US or Japan reacts by making an attack on NK's nuke facilities. They may have calculated that they can win a short war if the US does not have time to reinforce its troops on the ground. This means they have a short window of opportunity to actually win while the US is tied up in Iraq.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


So, the PRC can launch nuclear missiles at India, citing having intelligence that India will launch a nuclear attack?

Now let me see how much fun we can have with that.

UR and orange:

The issue is not one of "just citing evidence". Sometimes you guys can go overboard. If the chinese had spy pictures showing Indian missiles being moved into position, got their hands on some Indian document saying: "we will nuke China in 4 days" then China has the right to pre-empt. The burden of proof is very high, but it is not absolute. The notion of pre-emption does exist and it is valid, but only againt an imminent threat that you can prove with immense amounts of evidence of some type.

Stop being nuns and holier than God here. If a state can show serious and credible evidence of an imminent threat, pre-emption is allowed under international law. I certainly agree with you two tht no evidence whatsoever exists of sucha threat from NK or Iraq today to anyone.

[Gatekeeper]

GePap:

Now, now. You know that the only way a nation can *properly* counterattack an enemy is only *after* it's had a Pearl Harbor done to it. Never mind that any Pearl Harbors conducted nowadays might not necessarily be done with conventional weaponry ...

Gatekeeper

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
The issue is not one of "just citing evidence". Sometimes you guys can go overboard. If the chinese had spy pictures showing Indian missiles being moved into position, got their hands on some Indian document saying: "we will nuke China in 4 days" then China has the right to pre-empt. The burden of proof is very high, but it is not absolute. The notion of pre-emption does exist and it is valid, but only againt an imminent threat that you can prove with immense amounts of evidence of some type.

But what counts as "immense amounts of evidence?"

Indian missiles being moved into position? I believe they are already in position. Like they have missiles pointing at Pakistan, that Russia has ICBMs pointing at the US and the US has ICBMs pointing at almost everybody.

Originally posted by GePap
If a state can show serious and credible evidence of an imminent threat, pre-emption is allowed under international law.

Cite?