North Korea's Secret Biochemical Arsenal 321
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics has an in-depth report on North Korea's biological and chemical weapons stock, which has been developed in secret and has gone largely unnoticed amidst the country's nuke threat. From the article: 'North Korea's Chemical and Bioweapons (CBW) program appears to be modeled on that of the former Soviet Union, which covertly constructed a massive biological weapons infrastructure within the shell of a civilian research organization called Biopreparat. Inside Biopreparat, the Soviets developed deadly agents that included weaponized forms of anthrax and pneumonic plague. Intelligence reports from the United States and South Korea list anthrax, smallpox, pneumonic plague, cholera and botulism toxins as leading components of North Korea's bioweapons projects.' "
To quote from B5 (Score:5, Insightful)
- Londo Mollari [wikipedia.org]
Great, one more country has one more way of killing several large number of people in one go.
One would think that sooner or later we'd stop this crap.
Sorry, just a little frustrated with the fact that every time I have looked at news the past week, there is killing and murder and unrest everywhere. Bah.
Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, Iraq had nothing to do with Bush's daddy.
What about my flying car? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way Popular Mechnaics, where is my flying car or personal submarine?
Popular Mechanics and Iraq (Score:2, Insightful)
Different uses. (Score:3, Insightful)
Chemical - Used to restrict the enemy's access to terrain which forces him to attack along routes you've selected or require him to attack wearing protective suits. Chemicals can also be used to "soften" a target before your own troops attack.
Nuclear - Big boom. Lots of damage.
So, I can see them working on chemical weapons and nukes. But biological weapons make no sense for them. Particularly when the "enemy" is only 10 miles across the border from them.
i actually like the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although, China has been making moves to distance themselves from N.K. recently. but until they do, they'll be off limits. Both of my grandfathers fought in the last Korean war, and as one of them put it "Frequently, we'd run out of machine gun bullets before they ran out of troops to throw at us"
Re:Different uses. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd have a point, except it is China, Japan and S. Korea making the claims. Are they all lying too?
Re:Just like Usians (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if Bush hadn't received so much shit for the last war, he might be a bit more willing to go at it again. I'm sure the last thing the administration wants to give you guys another reason to protest for impeachment.
Wait, wait, wait.... You're blaming the left wing (and centrists, too, for that matter) for trying to hold Bush accountable for all of the lying and whatnot? Perhaps if his administration hadn't done it with Iraq, he wouldn't be blamed for it, and he'd be more willing to go after North Korea. Don't try to pass the blame - Bush and his administration are the ones who cried wolf, it's not the townspeoples' fault that they're not rushing in to save him this time.
War propaganda, not science (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:4, Insightful)
Although unfortunately with the situation in N. Korea there is the added problem that S. Korea is basically a hostage (well within missle range), and Seoul with its ten million or so citizens will likely face annihilation should hostilities begin in the region.
Also of note, the National Defense Authorization Act [thinkprogress.org] passed in October 2006 required Bush to appoint a Policy Coordinator to deal directly with N.K. issues within 60 days, that date has come and gone and the post remains unfilled.
Compared to, say, the US ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact is that all countries see these kinds of weapons as not only useful deterrents, but necessary deterrents. Consider, for example, how things would have played out differently if Iraq had possessed the nuclear ( or newkilla weapons as Dubya and half of the US pronounce it ), chemical and biological weapons that the US was claiming they had. The would have been no invasion, or if there had, there would have been very, very serious consequences, not only for US and coalition-of-the-killing troups, but for US citizens as well.
This is what proliferation is all about. This is why the US is so hypocritical when it demands that all others renounce WOMD, terrorism and such. They are the biggest perpetrators, and force everyone else's hand. Whether you agree with the politics of the other states involved or not ( and I'm certainly no fan of North Korea ), you have to look at it from their point of view. Having a US armed to the teeth with WOMD, and being the biggest terrorist around, it makes good sense to get some serious arsenal of your own. What's good for the goose
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:5, Insightful)
I must have missed the memo. When did Saddam Hussein announce the successful test of a nuclear bomb, and when did seismographs worldwide confirm this?
Re:Compared to, say, the US ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's stored and contained by a relatively responsible and sane government with no intention of using it. Iraq's stockpile of WMDs was not alleged - it was filmed and documented by United Nations weapons inspectors and it was actively used against Iran and the Kurds. North Korea's stockpile isn't alleged either - they've admitted on numerous occassions that they have weaponized Uranium and have working nuclear weapons. Furthermore, they've threatened to actually use those weapons against those they perceive as conspiring against them (ie "sea of fire...").
In your rush to condemn the United States and its government, you seem to have lost track of the fact that Iraq murdered hundreds of thousands of its own citizens and attacked its neighbors, and North Korea is threatening nearby democracies with nuclear destruction while its citizens starve en masse in an Orwellian police state. The world is not black and white as we would like, and it's time for people who delude themselves into believing it is to grow up.
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seoul is within *artillery* range of NK and NK has the capacity to bombard it with hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery *per hour* until that capacity is destroyed. On the first day of fighting, there would probably be more than a million SK casualties. And these would be *first-world citizen* casualties, not third-world casualties taht nobody cares about. This is why there has not been and will not be an invasion of NK. The costs would be too high, even if NK didn't have nukes or bio-chems.
Re:Sure... (Score:2, Insightful)
Chicken Shit (Score:2, Insightful)
The uber responsible goverment of USA sell that chemical weapons to Saddam to take down Islamic Iran Regime in 1980's. That chemical weapons used against Iran and Kurds sell by Rumsfield himself...
There was no chemical weapon production plant in Iraq, no one found it. If they found it where is the evidence ?
USA goverment broke down the IRAQ goverment, if you haven't got instant replacement, you cannot change goverment like this. Entire country will collapsed...
Current status of IRAQ was CIVIL WAR and this was generated by Responsible George W. Bush regime.
Pleas, do not F.U.D us. No one takes...
But those are the ones protecting you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you seriously believe that a president should make a decision of that gravity on the basis of a single report and a one-liner from a career politician who obviously knows on which side his bread is buttered?
Re:Hans Blix to the rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also please cite where sadam hussein killed 1.5 million innocent people. I havent read any sources that claim anywhere above a few hundred thousand (and even those numbers I would consider high, from what Ive read about him).
How does this shit get modded up? OF COURSE YOU CAN! There was no evidence for the war. None. If your an american, you were decieved and are covering up for the liars now (he didnt mean to hit me, he really does care about me!). Its ok, thats one way people cope with being wrong. Everyone whoes not an american however was not brainwashed into thinking anything of the sort. I remember laughing quite hard at the "Double Wide" moble weapons labs, fake anthrax at the un, the aluminium tubes and even his claimed (by usa) ability to put a nuke in a major american city (I believe they indicated he would some how launch a missle that would hit the USA). Yes they tried to scare you, yes you are a sheep and it worked. Get over it and impeach the bastard.
What do we get from NK ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
North Korea's military capabilities (and in particular its nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities) are irrelevant, because they will never be used against NK's immensely richer and more powerful neighbours and rivals.
All that matters is what these capabilities are perceived to be, and how these perceptions are utilised in propaganda.
It is clear from history (particularly recent Iraqi history) that there are three possible scenarios:
From this, we can see that if NK wants peace, they need to appear to be in scenario 1 or 2, that is to say, to appear to have very few weapons or very many. Of these two options, the cheapest is number 1.
However, Iraq shows us that having no WMDs and not being a threat is no guarantee of not being perceived as a threat. Intelligence will simply be fabricated. There, option 1 is taken away from the NK régime.
This leaves scenario 3 (Cold War) as a way of securing peace. Therefore, the NK régime should logically build up as large an arsenal of dangerous weapons as it possibly can. Since war is bad for the world in general, it follows that all responsible world citizens should want the terrible NK régime to accumulate such a stockpile, as it is the only thing that will stop Washington hawks initiating a bloodbath.
Furthermore, the NK régime should build this stockpile as fast as possible, in order to shorten as much as possible the intermediate stage in which they have enough weapons to be presented as a threat, but don't actually have enough to defend the country.
The US military is tied up in Iraq maintaining the puppet state that it has established there, and public support for another aggressive war would be very low right now. If the NK régime waits another five or ten years, the US régime may have been able to recover from Iraq in financial, military and propaganda terms, and be ready to liberate NK by means of mass annihilation. For these reasons, rapid armament for NK is particularly urgent and important for world peace.
Yes, this is a major reason to have hope. It may be that NK already has enough conventional military capacity to be perceived to be too dangerous to attack. However, is it enough to stop the maniacs who smashed Iraq? I would advise NK to accumulate a bit more conventional weaponry, and perhaps make a nuke or two, plus several fake nukes. Bio-chemical weapons are probably not worth making, but they would benefit from publicly announcing that their agents have planted anthrax, plague, sarin gas, etc in remote-controlled devices in every South Korean city, and that these would detonate even if the US wiped out all NK artillery (and population) in a surprise attack.
Re:Hmmmm... Where's Bush on All This? (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly try to stay above the flames. Unfortunately BushGood=Flamebait and BushSux=Insightful here on slash. I think I've done a fair job siting everything I've said to others who simply reply with "So you're drinking the kool-aid and blaming the "intelligence failures" on the intelligence services?" (Uh yeah! Should I blame the Highway Dept or HUD? That Kool-Aid comment got modded up, btw)
As to the rest of your post, yeah, hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately, most intelligence information isn't released real time so hindsight is only way that those of us without clearance will ever get to see it. I try my best to look back and put myself in the shoes of those in charge. I get my information for sources on both sides. I'm a member of DailyKos as well as LittleGreenFootballs. I watch Fox News and PBS and judge accordingly.
As to Cheney's ties with Halliburton, yeah, it looks suspicious, damn suspicious. But having grown up in Houston and having know Halliburton employees, I can tell you that they are an energy company like Disney is a theme-park company. They are more of a management company. It's not Halliburton employees rebuilding the water plants in Iraq, it's some other company hired by Halliburton. Halliburton is the only company in the world that can do what they do (like rebuild an entire country). That's why there were no other bids. Cheney worked there, he knows what the company can do and how to get the shit done. While it still looks bad, rest assured that all of Cheney's (and Bush's) money is in a blind trust. It may be in Halliburton, it may not. Most likely, it is in some sort of conservative mutual fund because no trust manager wants to tell the VP that he lost all of his money!
Again, your comment was well said!
Vaccinate the army, and only the army. (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, if you're a country looking to get rid of some "surplus" population, not to mention keep your military's grip firm on the populace, a carefully engineered outbreak wouldn't be a bad way of doing it. You vaccinate the folks you want to keep around, and let God sort out the rest.
Of course, North Korea's government seems to do just fine using famine as it is, so I doubt they really need smallpox. Why bother, when you can just starve the peasants into submission?
Re:Popular Mechanics? (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, yeah... except that we aren't living in cruel Stalinist dictatorship that's starving its people, running forced labor camps to control population, and threateningly launching missles at and over neighboring countries. The "Dear Leader" is an absolute loon in charge of a vast, starving, standing army. That army is regularly told that it's going to be attacked at any moment (since the Koren War isn't over, really). Much like Iran's regular references to wiping other countries off the map, NK is actively, regularly doing and saying really unsettling. Crazy crap. They counterfeit currency from all of the world and use nationally flagged vessels to carry heroin and other smuggled goods around the world so that the D.L. can buy contraband western niceties from the same western countries that he curses and with whom he makes bogus diplomatic agreements.
It's really not the same as a country, like ours, that regularly changes out its cilivian and military leadership and has tight military relations with more than one other country. NK's got a luke-warm relationship with the very parasitic NK.
Re:Compared to, say, the US ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what's the plan? Do we hold off on diplomatically confronting them until North Korea has a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on their missile platforms or until a "nuclear fizzle" happens on Seoul?
So, we aren't supposed to believe North Korea's statements when it comes to their illegal nuclear weapons program and explicit threats against South Korea, but we are supposed to believe their ridiculous claims that U.S. aggression is the cause of... their nuclear weapons program, that we aren't supposed to believe exists. Right...
But back to the facts: there was NO chance that the United States was going to do any aggressive military action in the immediate future against the DPRK when it decided to do its nuclear test. NONE. So why did they do it knowing the international condemnation that would surely follow?
This line that the United States is the bully that's left the poor DPRK no choice but to respond needs to stop. It's utter bullshit. If North Korea were truly trying to prevent conflict, why would they make provocative statements and aggressive actions at times when they are being, by and large, diplomatically ignored--not threated--by the US?
If you're going to try to play the DPRK's champion, you should at least abandon your willful ignorance of their country first.
North Korea has the fifth largest military in the world in an area slightly smaller than Mississippi. It spends about 25% of its GNP on its military, by proportion, the most in the world. It has a standing army of just over one million men, most of whom are, incidentally, black-belts in TaeKwonDo.
Quoth a military assessment of the North Korean situation: "Seoul, the South Korean capitol, lies within range of North Korean long-range artillery. Five hundred 170mm Koksan guns and 200 multiple-launch rocket systems could hit Seoul with artillery shells and chemical weapons, causing panic and massive civilian casualties. North Korea has between 500 and 600 Scud missiles that could strike targets throughout South Korea with conventional warheads or chemical weapons. North Korea could hit Japan with its 100 No-dong missiles. Seventy percent of North Korean army ground units are located within 100 miles of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, positioned to undertake offensive ground operations. These units could fire up to 500,000 artillery rounds per hour against South Korean defenses for several hours." In short: they not to be fucked with. [Source [miis.edu], Source [cia.gov], Source [wikipedia.org]]
Those facts say nothing, of course, about their well-documented kidnapping campaign against South Koreans and the innumerable paramil
Re:What a lovely country. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they have an enormous army and loads of missiles aimed at one of the world's densest population areas?
Just about every regime in existence thinks NK is a scar on the face of the world but no one is able to do anything about it.
Re:Hans Brix to the rescue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Compared to, say, the US ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They are seeking weapons as deterrence. As for the 'Orwellian police state', have a look at the US. Sure, North Korea is not innocent in this respect, but the scale of development of the US police state dwarfs North Korea incredibly. You need to get some context into your analysis.
And you need to get some into yours. The scale of development of the "US police state" is large, sure - because the US has a large population and a huge economy and ready access to high technology. The scope of the "US police state", however, in terms of the degree to which it actually affects the life of the average American citizen, simply pales in comparison to that of North Korea. This comparison is so ridiculous as to almost not bear scrutiny. For all the discussion and concern raised in the Slashosphere and elsewhere, the "US police state" is at most a minor issue or annoyance to the vast majority of the American people, whereas the North Korean government not only is far more intrusive and oppressive, but it's willing to fund that totalitarian regime even at the expense letting its own people freeze and starve to death, all for the glory of the Exalted Leader. Look, I'm about a libertarian a guy as you're likely to find on Slashdot, and as such I have plenty of criticisms of the US government, but to seriously compare it to North Korea is simply preposterous. [Waits patiently for the minus points...]