Defense secretary Gates says North Korean ballistic missiles pose 'direct threat' to U.S.

Peacenik is sick and tired of U.S. sabre rattling. The North Koreans are coming. The North Koreans are coming. This has as much credibility as the infamous balsa wood toy planes that supposedly were able to deliver weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to the U.S.A. Why is the U.S. trying to keep everyone on edge. Should Peacenik be building a bomb shelter, or buying duct tape? The terrorists are coming. Financial collapse is coming. Bird Flu is coming. Food riots are coming? The U.S. and Canada are led by dolts, elected by dolts. Peacenik has a plan for dealing with all the nonsense. Do you?

BEIJING --U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned North Korea Tuesday that its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile programs are "becoming a direct threat to the United States."

Gates, who is in China on the second leg of a four-country Asia tour, predicted that North Korea's reclusive government would succeed in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile within five years.

But, in a first for a U.S. senior official, Gates also gave North Korea some concrete suggestions about what the United States wants it to do in order to restart stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program: declare a moratorium on both missile and nuclear tests.

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OK Mr. Gates. What Now?

by Eric Margolis

PARIS – One of the first things you learn in diplomacy 101 is not to make threats you can’t back up.

But that is just what US Defense Secretary Robert Gates did last week by thundering the US "would not accept," and "would not stand idly by" while North Korea continued to develop nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons threaten the entire globe, warned Gates, whose own Pentagon has some 10,000 nuclear warheads deployed at home and abroad, 28,500 troops permanently based in South Korea, and large contingents in Japan, Okinawa and Guam.

Not to be out-threatened, North Korea warned back that if attacked, it would turn South Korea’s capitol, Seoul, into "a sea of fire" and bombard Japan.

Dire threats and angry hot air always characterize poisonous relations between isolated, Stalinist North Korea and the US, Japan and South Korea. Their recriminations have become a form of ritualized kabuki theater in which snarls and grimaces replace actual violence.

After much angry posturing, the US, Japan and South Korea usually pay off North Korea’s "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-il, to stop making trouble.
But this time, both Washington and Pyongyang have gone over the top. One wonders how Secretary Gates intends to prevent North Korea from having the nuclear devices it already possesses.

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dear punditman says...North Korea’s "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il and his nukes do not yet threaten the globe. They are not yet ready to be delivered by missile, it is believed. That's the good news. Now the bad news. A conventional war sees North Korea causing much grief for South Korea and the US troops stationed there who are currently on high alert. If things spiral out of control, Japan and South Korea may be forced to go nuclear, which apparently both can do quickly. Wonderful.

The US is threatening a maritime blockade that would see them searching North Korean freighters on the high seas for "weapons of mass destruction." This is an act of war and foolish daredevilry. It is not a cogent response. What is Obama's plan? The US can ill afford another military engagement, and an air campaign against North Korea would likely be inconclusive.

So, dear reader, a major war on the Korean Peninsula with "Dear Leader" is a real possibility. If that happens, no one will be talking about transforming General Motors. Imagine the price of gas. Dear me.

The Pentagon Represents Astounding Excess in Spending and Firepower: Can Obama Take it on?

By Frida Berrigan, Tomdispatch.com. Posted November 26, 2008.

Tackling the Pentagon, with its mega-budget and its mega-power, may be the hardest task Obama faces.

Even saddled with a two-front, budget-busting war and a collapsing economy, President Barack Obama may be able to accomplish a lot. With a friendly Congress and a relieved world, he could make short work of some of the most egregious overreaches of the Bush White House -- from Guantanamo to those Presidential signing statements. For all the rolling up of sleeves and "everything is going to change" exuberance, however, taking on the Pentagon, with its mega-budget and its mega-power, may be the hardest task he faces.

The Mega-Pentagon

Under President George W. Bush, military spending increased by about 60%, and that's not including spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years ago, as Bush prepared to enter the Oval Office, military spending totaled just over $300 billion. When Obama sets foot in that same office, military spending will total roughly $541 billion, including the Pentagon's basic budget and nuclear warhead work in the Department of Energy.

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Peacenik thinks there just isn't going to be enough money to maintain a bloated Pentagon. Yesterday when John Brennan withdrew his name from consideration for head of the CIA the blogosphere celebrated. The press is now on to stop Gates from being allowed to continue as Secretary of Defense. Obama can send a message to the Pentagon, but Peacenik doesn't think he will.

Antiwar Groups Fear Hawkish Cabinet

As President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team begins to take shape, there is increasing disquiet among antiwar activists that his appointees and rumored appointees have thus-far, without exception, favored the Iraq invasion and held hawkish foreign policy positions.

The persistent reports that Obama is in talks with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about keeping his position in the new administration had already prompted loud complaints that keeping him on was not in keeping with his campaign’s mantra of change. His apparent preference to make Sen. Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, despite all the times he publicly trashed her position on the Iraq War during the primaries, has only added to those concerns.

But nowhere in Obama’s “Team of Rivals” cabinet is any suggestion of an appointee less-hawkish than himself, meaning his increasingly tenuous claim to being an antiwar politician will serve as the base-line for his administration’s foreign policy, with his cabinet pulling it in ever more bellicose directions.

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punditman says...

Punditman is adding to Peacenik's bad economic news with this bad political news, which can only be construed as a disappointment to those who hoped for some sort of progressive foreign policy out of Obama (Punditman is not one of those naive types). Oh well. Perhaps the economic mess will constrain any further military adventurism?

On the bright side, Punditman scored a nice goal on a slapshot through the five-hole today and is therefore happy with his new hockey shaft purchase, which he got on sale. He recommends that everyone stock up on sporting goods of all kinds -- before world shipping grinds to a halt and store shelves become bare. In the days to come, recreational equipment may well be scarce -- and God knows we'll need it.