North Korea's Nuclear Weapons

SA, you clearly just have no grasp of reality.

The United States doesn't normalize relations with N Korea BECAUSE WE DON"T WANT TO, HE'S STARVING AND KILLING HIS OWN PEOPLE AND WE WANT HIM GONE FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORLD.

I believe you are absolutely so sick in the head you would prefer Kim Jong il stay in power, get the bomb and use it just so you could write some idiotic essay how Bush is bad, America will fail and buy the euro.

You just have a terribly difficult time with grasping simple concepts and drawing an intellegent conclusion

 

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“Avoiding Armageddon”
By Jon B. Wolfsthal
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review


After pursuing atomic weaponry for the better part of a generation, it now appears that North Korea has finally clawed its way into the "Nuclear Club." And that means that the global strategic game has changed forever.

North Korea, which was barely tolerable to the major Asian powers back when it was merely a potential troublemaker, is now a real and present danger. The time for negotiations is over. Now it's about containment and deterrence.

Assuming Monday's underground explosion is deemed to have been a successful nuclear test, North Korea is now the world's ninth nuclear power.

Although its leaders may think that translates automatically into regional strength and increased global respect, it's time to show them what they've really won: unflinching international scrutiny and a spot at the top of Washington's list of nuclear targets.

Kim Jong Il has entered a new era, one in which his pattern of brinksmanship, instead of extracting aid from his neighbors, risks provoking a nuclear holocaust. It is critical that Washington and other powers make crystal clear the responsibilities that come with North Korea's decision:

A nuclear power must not bluff, must not provoke and must not make threats lightly. In contrast to the ambiguous behavior and bellicose rhetoric they've displayed in the past, North Korean leaders must now avoid steps that could lead to miscalculation and unintentional conflict.

As long as Pyongyang's weapons capability was in doubt, the world could avoid answering the tough questions: Can we really live with a nuclear North Korea? How can we deter a country we don't really understand?

The United States must ensure that North Korea's leaders understand the full force of our commitment to defend our Asian allies. President Bush's statement that the United States will hold North Korea accountable for its actions is a good first step. However, it took the United States years of face-to-face talks with the Soviet Union and China to work out a stable relationship based on mutual deterrence. Washington will have to find ways to ensure that Pyongyang does not overreach or miscalculate with its nuclear capability.

However distasteful the Bush administration finds direct talks with North Korea, the president should nonetheless dispatch a personal envoy to Pyongyang with a clear message:

Any attempt to use its nuclear arsenal offensively will bring immediate, disastrous and possibly nuclear consequences.

Further, Kim needs to understand that any future North Korean missile tests that are not announced or that are aimed at or over U.S., South Korean or Japanese territory might warrant a U.S. nuclear response. That's because it would be impossible for any U.S. leader to be sure that such "tests" were not the first signs of a nuclear attack.

This envoy would not be empowered to negotiate. The six-party talks were moribund before and should be declared dead. The envoy's job would be merely to deliver an unambiguous, sober message about Pyongyang's new responsibilities. The Bush administration will undoubtedly try to step up the economic and political pressure on Pyongyang to disarm. But the naval blockade that it is contemplating is unlikely to succeed either in forcing North Korea to reverse course or in preventing it from exporting its nuclear weapons should it choose to do so.

Fortunately, the fear that Pyongyang will try to export its nuclear weapons is not terribly realistic. Although it's true that North Korea has sold missiles to Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Yemen, it's unlikely Kim would be rash enough to sell his nuclear jewels to the highest bidder, knowing that the world could trace any nuclear bomb back to him by its radioactive signature.

Just in case, however, the envoy should make clear that any export of nuclear weapons or materials would force the United States to re-evaluate whether attacking North Korea, however horrific, would be preferable to allowing it to proliferate.

Other financial sanctions against North Korea may be in the offing, but China is now even less likely to risk the collapse of a nuclear North Korea, for fear that the weapons might fall into the hands of North Korean military elements that are even less responsive to Chinese interests than Kim is.

Having watched the U.S. accept China, India and Pakistan as nuclear powers, Kim probably reasons that he will eventually be an accepted and respected member of the nuclear club if only he waits long enough. (Tehran's calculations are probably the same.) But he might be whistling past the graveyard.

China and India are each a billion people strong -- too big to ignore or antagonize. Pakistan, while smaller, is accepted only because it's seen by Bush as indispensable to the global war on terrorism. Had al-Qaida never attacked the U.S., Pakistan might well be high on the list of states deemed ripe by the Bush administration for regime change -- though its nuclear weapons would have forestalled a U.S. invasion.

Pyongyang enjoys no such clout. It's an economic basket case; no American businesses are panting to get in. And even South Koreans will be forced to rethink their engagement policies. The only interest the world can have now with North Korea is in avoiding Armageddon.

Jon B. Wolfsthal is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


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October 15, 2006

SouthAmerica: Here is a more accurate analysis of the US/North Korea nuclear crisis and how we got to the point where we are today.




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“N. Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots”
50 Years of Threats and Broken Pacts Culminate in Apparent Atomic Test
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 15, 2006
The Washington Post


Democrats and Republicans have been quick to use North Korea's apparent nuclear test to benefit their own party in these final weeks of the congressional campaign, but a review of history shows that both sides have contributed to the current situation.

There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang's attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the Korean War.

In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, "That includes every weapon we have."

Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would "remove all restraints in our use of weapons" if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war.

In 1957, the United States placed nuclear-tipped Matador missiles in South Korea, to be followed in later years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, by nuclear artillery, most of which was placed within miles of the demilitarized zone.

It was not until President Jimmy Carter's administration, in the late 1970s, that the first steps were taken to remove some of the hundreds of nuclear weapons that the United States maintained in South Korea, a process that was not completed until 1991, under the first Bush administration.

It is against that background that the North Korean nuclear program developed.

North Korea has its own uranium mines and in 1965 obtained a small research reactor from the Soviet Union, which it located at Yongbyon. By the mid-1970s, North Korean technicians had increased the capability of that reactor and constructed a second one. Pyongyang agreed in 1977 to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the first reactor.

It was in the 1980s that the North Korean weapons program began its clandestine growth with the building of a facility for reprocessing fuel into weapons-grade material and the testing of chemical high explosives. In 1985, around the time U.S. intelligence discovered a third, once-secret reactor, North Korea agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Five years later, U.S. intelligence discovered through satellite photos that a structure had been built that appeared to be capable of separating plutonium from nuclear fuel rods. Under pressure, North Korea signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1992, and inspections of facilities began. But in January 1993, IAEA inspectors were prevented from going to two previously unreported facilities. In the resulting crisis, North Korea attempted to withdraw from the NPT.

The Clinton administration responded in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed plutonium from fuel rods, it would be crossing a "red line" that could trigger military action. The North Koreans "suspended" their withdrawal from the NPT, and bilateral talks with the Clinton administration got underway. When negotiations deadlocked, North Korea removed fuel rods from one of its reactors, a step that brought Carter back into the picture as a negotiator.

The resulting talks led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea would freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program. In return, it would be supplied with conventional fuel and ultimately with two light-water reactors that could not produce potential weapons-grade fuel.

However, a subsequent IAEA inspection determined that North Korea had clandestinely extracted about 24 kilograms of plutonium from its fuel rods, and U.S. intelligence reported that was enough material for two or three 20-kiloton plutonium bombs.

During the next six years of the Clinton administration and into the first years of the current Bush administration, the spent fuel from North Korea's reactors was kept in a storage pond under IAEA supervision. As late as July 5, 2002, in a letter to Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the administration was continuing with the 1994 agreement but holding back some elements until the IAEA certified that the North Koreans had come into full compliance with the NPT's safeguards agreement.

In November 2001, when the Bush administration was absorbed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, intelligence analysts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory completed a highly classified report that concluded North Korea had begun construction of a plant to enrich uranium. A National Intelligence Estimate of the North Korean program confirmed the Livermore report, providing evidence that Pyongyang was violating the agreement.

Nonetheless, the Bush administration waited until October 2002 before confronting the North Koreans, who at one meeting confirmed they were following another path to a nuclear weapon using enriched uranium.

Soon thereafter, the United States ended its participation in the 1994 agreement. North Korea ordered IAEA inspectors out, announced it would reprocess the stored fuel rods and withdrew from the NPT. Earlier this year, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration then embarked on a new approach, developing a six-nation strategy based on the idea that bilateral U.S.-North Korea negotiations did not work and that only bringing in China and South Korea, which had direct leverage over the Pyongyang government, would gain results.


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“The Lone Superpower That Couldn’t”
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 15, 2006
The New York Times
Week in Review


Washington - AFTER Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in late 2003, President Bush was emphatic about what had led Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to sort out his relationship with Washington: The Libyan had looked down the large-caliber barrel of American power, seen the speed with which another Middle East strongman had been toppled, and thought about his future.

“Before our coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons,” Mr. Bush told troops at Fort Bragg, N.C. “Today, the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs.”

That speech was given in June 2005, more than a year ago. Is the converse true today?

Have Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the men at the center of the twin confrontations that promise to dominate the last years of Mr. Bush’s presidency, looked at an America still pinned down in Iraq — its military stretched thin, its public weary of war — and concluded that this is their moment?

And if they have, is there much that Mr. Bush can do about it?

As America barrels toward this nuclear showdown on opposite sides of Asia, perhaps the best measure of America’s power in these matters is its need for Russia and China to cooperate. Each of these Asian giants says it dislikes the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea, but each is also dead set against even hinting at the use of military force if diplomacy fails. Each is also highly ambivalent about stringent sanctions, which are at the core of the strategy America wants to pursue.

In President Bush’s first term, taking the measure of American power seemed deceptively simple: The post-9/11 mood of the nation fueled Mr. Bush’s impatience with weak-kneed allies who did not see threats the way he saw them, and he thought nothing of driving around them.

What a contrast to last Wednesday, when Mr. Bush stepped into the Rose Garden to talk chiefly about North Korea, and used the word “diplomacy” no fewer than 11 times. The president was repeatedly questioned about why he keeps drawing new lines in the sand — lines the North Koreans and Iranians ignore — and he was asked whether he regretted missing what some people saw as a last opportunity to take out North Korea’s nuclear fuel supplies at the start of 2003, after the country threw out United Nations inspectors and announced it was driving headlong for the bomb. He smiled, and cast his questioners as reach-for-the-gun unilateralists lacking faith in the art of peaceful pursuasion.

But diplomacy works best from a position of strength. And even though the United States still boasts the world’s largest military, most dynamic economy and a culture that the world snaps up, there is rising evidence that many countries — Russia and China among them — sniff a distinct change in the strategic atmosphere.

So, it seems, do the North Korean hermits and Iranian mullahs, and that may well explain why they are being defiant now. Behind their threats lies an understanding of American vulnerabilities.

While North Korea knows it would not last a day in a full-scale war with the United States, it skillfully exploits an American soft point when it stirs fears about its potential to sow havoc among America’s Northeast Asian allies and crucial trading partners — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

Such fears also help to make the Chinese and Russians skittish about provoking the North Koreans too much in the nuclear bargaining.

The Iranians, for their part, hold two different cards: Oil and a capacity to make things even worse in Iraq and beyond. And both countries know that America’s partners, having been burned in the lead-up to the Iraq war, are not eager to give the United States another resolution at the United Nations that can be read as a predicate for military action.

“It’s a double whammy,” said James Steinberg, the dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, who dealt with North Korea as deputy national security adviser under President Clinton. The fact that America was willing to invade Iraq, he said, led North Korea and Iran to conclude that they needed nuclear weapons to deter America from putting them in its gunsights next.

“That would have been the case if Iraq went well, or Iraq went badly,” he said.

“And now, by failing to subdue Iraq and move on, we’ve encouraged them to conclude that there is little risk to them if they just speed forward into nuclear breakout.”

Mr. Bush’s top aides counter that such explanations are simplistic — and tinged with election-year self-interest.

No matter how popular Iraq-messed-it-up arguments are now, they add, reality is more complicated.

The Bush administration says diplomacy had run its course in Iraq, but has not yet in Korea. “The diplomatic strategy we have pursued in dealing with North Korea would have been the same had we not removed Saddam Hussein from power,” Dan Bartlett, the president’s counselor, said last week.

For sure, ugly eruptions with North Korea date back a long way. The Korean War started in 1950, when the North Koreans mistakenly thought Washington would not fight back. And remember the Pueblo, the American spy ship captured in 1968 during another frustrating war? It is now a floating monument to “U.S. imperial aggression forces,” bobbing on a river in Pyongyang.

Similarly, American efforts to influence Iran — overtly and covertly — have run off the rails since the days of the shah.

And, of course, there is an American temptation to read every act of defiance only as a slap at or threat to America, rather than also as a play by Mr. Kim or Mr. Ahmadinejad to their home audiences.

Still, it is hard to remember a moment when the world’s sole superpower seemed less positioned to manage a fractured world. It’s not only that American hard power is tied up in Baghdad and Kabul; Mr. Bush has acknowledged that soft power — the ability to lead because you are admired — is suffering, too. Abu Ghraib “kind of eased us off the moral high ground,” he volunteered at the news conference the other day.

Mr. Bush’s approach in the nuclear conundrum has been to act a bit like a major investor: gather partners with the most at stake in solving specific problems, and have them do the management — with plenty of American oversight. But like manufacturers across America, Mr. Bush has discovered that outsourcing has its frustrations: It’s hard to maintain quality control.

China is the current case study. It has led the “six-party talks,” the agonizing process of bringing the United States, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China into one room. The last substantive meeting was more than a year ago, when all the parties signed on to some principles — denuclearization, eventual aid to the North — that blew apart as soon as everyone left.

At every step, Mr. Bush has relied on China to put pressure on North Korea — first to come back to the table (they refused); then to halt a missile test (the North launched anyway); then to stop the nuclear test North Korea conducted last week.

By all accounts, the Chinese are now plenty mad with the nation they once said was “as close as lips and teeth” to China. But does that mean they will impose tough sanctions — cutting off trade, or, if they really wanted Mr. Kim’s attention, oil? No, because the one thing Beijing fears more than a nuclear North Korea is an imploded North Korea. They fear hungry refugees rushing over the border. They don’t want a power grab for North Korea’s territory that could put them in conflict with other big powers.

The challenge facing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week on her trip to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo is to change that mindset. “How do we do it?” an aide said, repeating a question he had just been asked. “We’re asking the same question.”

They could ask it as well about Russia, which is seen as the only country that can deal with the Iranians. Moscow has billions of dollars at stake in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure; it went along with the Security Council resolution warning Iran of serious consequences if it keeps enriching uranium, but it is balking at really imposing them.

Robert Gallucci, the former chief American negotiator with North Korea, sees Iran as the tougher nut to crack.

“I think the North Koreans in their hearts still see the United States as nine feet tall,” he said Friday. “To them we run the world, dictate the policies of allies and the Security Council, and project force. They want to provoke us into negotiation. But in Iran, while there is division of opinion, there are many who see the bomb as a way to hegemony — and they know that if we don’t bring the Russians along, we don’t have many options.”

In short, being a sole superpower isn’t what it was cracked up to be 17 years ago. Back then, you could measure a nation’s power in throw-weights. Now, it’s the amount of weight you can throw around. For the next two years, Mr. Bush may have to borrow some.


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On these boards, I have read some of the most outrageous, simple minded, ill-informed and willfully misleading statements ever committed to print.

This one, though has to take the cake as the stupidest thing ever written here. I cannot believe that anyone on the right or the left would actually believe this. In fact I do not believe that the writer believes this, since there is absolutely no reason to do so.

A review of south america's posts will reveal a string of outrageous claims, including but not limited to the claim that he is personal friends with several South American Heads of State.

This individual posts things like this simply to get a reaction, just like a couple of other well-known trolls.

It is a waste of time to engage anyone who posts with garbage like this.

 

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October 15, 2006

SouthAmerica: Today I did watch the live broadcast from the UN of the UN Security Council and the reaction of the parties involved regarding US Resolution 1718 “which puts North Korea in the corner and gives North Korea no way out”

Here are a few scenarios that is not even being contemplated by the Bush administration, but again we all know how good the Bush administration is regarding its planning and follow up and what comes next after the shit hit the fan – such as in Iraq.

The North Koreans already got the point that China has abandoned North Korea to the wolfs, and that reminds me one more time of Charles De Gaulle’s worlds: “countries don’t have friends, countries have only self-interests.”

The UN Security Council proceedings it looked to me more like a farce than anything else – It looks to me that the UN Security Council has learned nothing regarding their role in helping the US prepare the stage for the invasion of Iraq.

This time around the UN is helping the US to corner North Korea into a position that will push them to a possible nuclear war.

The North Koreans are aware that the Bush administration has changed its policies regarding potential wars around the world – the Bush administration has made public, and is on the record that the current policy of the US government includes the right to pre-emptive strikes.

The only problem is that pre-emptive strikes it does not work only one way - If you know what I mean……….Pre-emptive strikes work both ways.

The United States is cornering a country that has been preparing itself and has been waiting for over 50 years for this moment. And they know that this time around it means the ultimate war – a nuclear showdown.

The North Koreans also know that they can’t win such war because the US has a superior nuclear arsenal and technology. But that does not prevent the North Koreans from losing the battle, but winning the final war.

The North Koreans have only one “Hail Mary” play and that is it. That play is point all its missiles including all the nuclear warheads available in the direction of Tokyo and let go.

There is a small chance that the US would not retaliate with nukes to such an attack because North Korea is too close to China and the US can’t afford to have a major war against the country that is keeping its economy afloat and the selves of its stores full of merchandise.

If the North Koreans can land one or two nukes in the center of Tokyo – you can bet we have an immediate international financial meltdown including the major stock exchanges, the US dollar, and so on……

The global derivatives market would not be able to absorb such a pounding – we are talking about trillions of US dollars here. The global derivatives market would suffer a major meltdown. – and all this with the compliments of the George W. Bush and his completely incompetent administration

After watching the UN Security Council pass “US Resolution 1718” if I was the North Korean leader at this point my next move would be to test ASAP a 20 Killotons nuclear warhead – but this time I would do it outside for the entire world to see the mushroom cloud, and also to help the United States to detect it immediately instead of taking an entire week for the US government to figure it out – like the last time.

Is it possible for the events between North Korea and the United States to spin out of control and to develop into a global nightmare just like that?

You bet it can!!!!!!!!!!

And the US mainstream media is not bringing to the attention of the American people the fact that there is that real possibility - If that come to past and then what will come next?



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N. Korea says U.S. pressure "declaration of war"
Reuters - Sat Oct 14, 2006
By Michelle Nichols


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea's U.N. ambassador said any further U.S. pressure on Pyongyang will be a "declaration of war" and that his country "totally rejects" U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Saturday.

"If the United States increases pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea, the DPRK will continue to take physical countermeasures, considering it as a declaration of war," Pak Gil Yon told the Security Council.

He accused the council -- which imposed harsh financial and arms sanctions on North Korea to punish Pyongyang for its underground nuclear test on Monday -- of "double standards."

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea expresses its disappointment that the security council finds itself incapable of saying even a word of concern to the United States," Pak said.

He said the United States "threatens the DPRK with nuclear pre-emptive attack and aggravates tensions by reinforcing armed forces and conducting larger scale joint military exercises nearby the Korean Peninsula."

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korean totally rejects the unjustifiable resolution 1718, 2006, adopted by the Security Council just now," he said.

The U.S.-drafted resolution allows nations to stop cargo going to and from North Korea to check for weapons of mass destruction or related supplies. In a concession to China, the resolution specifically excludes the use of force, but allows economic sanctions and naval and air transport restrictions.

Kenzo Oshima, Japan's U.N. ambassador, told reporters he was surprised by North Korea's reaction, but that it was not "totally unexpected."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said North Korea's repeated rejections and its walk-out from a closed-door council session last month was the 21st-century equivalent of former Soviet Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table in the U.N. General Assembly in 1960.


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traderNik: A review of south america's posts will reveal a string of outrageous claims, including but not limited to the claim that he is personal friends with several South American Heads of State.


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October 15, 2006

SouthAmerica: Reply to traderNik

The fact that I met various presidents of Brazil – it does really bother you.

I met President Jose Sarney on various occasions over the years since 1986, and the last time I saw president Sarney in person was in October 2005.

I met president Fernando Cardoso in New York City, when he still president of Brazil in 2001, and I met him at the house of the Brazilian Ambassador.

I also met president Lula in New York City in one of his recent trips.

You know what will drive you nuts even more about your problem with this – is the fact that there are pictures on the internet of me attending some functions in New York City with president Sarney and also with president Lula.

You have to find the pictures by yourself on the web since I am not going to give you any more clues.


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I have all the clues I need in these threads. By the way, I see you've changed your story. I have 'met' the Prime Minister of Canada. This does not mean I am personal friends with him.

The question is, why did you bring up these claims? Do you think that by claiming to have met these people, it gives you more credibility? Why were you talking earlier this year about how widely read you are and how 95% of your predictions have come true over the past few years?

In the end, you can either claim that you have all these world political figures as friends or you can claim that North Korea and the US would be ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity had Al Gore been elected to the White House. You cannot claim both.

The question remains... if you're such a well respected and widely read political commentator, as you claimed earlier this year, what in the hell are you doing spending hours and hours writing and responding to anonymous flames on an obscure (by global visibility standards) message board???

See, man? Your stuff just doesn't add up. I know it's hard for you to admit, but these are the facts. Anyhow, carry on. I never read your rantings anymore, as you know; I just happened to click on this link and the first thing I saw was this ridiculous fantasy about what would have happened had Gore been elected.

I mean seriously, where do you come up with this material? Do you make this stuff up or do you get it from some comedy website?

 

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traderNik: I have all the clues I need in these threads. By the way, I see you've changed your story. I have 'met' the Prime Minister of Canada. This does not mean I am personal friends with him.

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October 16, 2006

SouthAmerica: every time you bring up this problem that you have about who I met and how friendly I am with them I started wondering what is wrong with this guy?

I never gave a second thought about any of that and when I mentioned about former president Sarney of Brazil it was because of a project that I was working with him.

My family is among the most prestigious families in Brazilian history and until I came to the United States we belonged to the best clubs in Sao Paulo, and we knew all the families with old money – the old elite.

You can read about my family on the following article: January 2003 - “The Brazilian Ruling Class”

http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/2149/27/


I came from a different family background than you must come from - and that is why you have a problem with this kind of thing.

My grandfather was for many years the General manager in charge of Banco do Brasil in Sao Paulo, first he was in Rio de Janeiro for a few years, then he moved to Sao Paulo – but for all practical purposes he was the second in command at the Bank – the largest bank in Brazil on his day.

Yes, he was a personal friend of the Brazilian president at the time. My stepfathers’ father was a very close friend of Janio Quadros who was elected first governor of the Sao Paulo state and later became president of Brazil.

Janio Quadros had two best friends that they used to hang out together for many years and my stepfathers’ father was one of them. When Janio Quadros was elected president he asked my step father’s father to be Secretary of Health and Education in Brazil, since he was a MD, but he told Janio that he was not interested in leaving his medical practice to became a member on his cabinet and a politician.

My stepfather had his own company in Brasilia, during the years that they were building that city and he used to join Juscelino Kubitschek – who was the Brazilian president during the construction of Brasilia – for drinks on a regular basis at a major hotel in Brasilia. He knew former president Kubitschek very well.

I never met any of the Generals who became president of Brazil – usually these guys came from the poor classes of people in society and they got into power because of their position in the army.

From just one branch of my family – my grandmother on my father’s side – on that side of the family we had over 30 people who were Prime Minister, Secretary of Navy, Finance Minister, Governors of Sao Paulo, and other important states in Brazil, many Senators, many congressmen, Attorney General of Brazil, and so on…….

If you go back a little further on my family thee then I am a descendant of various kings of Portugal, Spain, and also from England.

There is a lot of information about our family in Brazil – there are over 100 books about Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva and so on.

I belong to one of the most prestigious and influential families in Brazilian history, and I have the bloodline that is something that you obviously don’t understand anything about that subject. I don’t get as impressed as you do about meeting some president or prime minister of most countries – and I have been meeting important people all my life including politicians, billionaires, famous Wall Street people, movie stars, famous athletes, famous religious people, and well know businessmen – and I never had a reason to be impressed because I met all these people.

You want to know who impressed me?

When I was 12 years old I spend a two-month vacation in Campos de Jordao (a winter resort spot in the mountains a few hours from Sao Paulo – one of my mother’s brothers was living in that resort town at the time) and my vacation happened at the same time that the Brazilian national team was preparing for the 1962 World Cup in Chile.

The Brazilian national soccer team stayed in one of the local Hotels in Campos do Jordao – and at that time they did not have the circus that we have today. In those days they used to let the people from Campos do Jordao to go to the local stadium and they did let the people watch the Brazilian national team prepare itself for the world cup, and they did not charge anything.

There were only 2 or 3 hundred people including many kids like me and my friends they were mostly the local people and a few journalists who were writing the stories for the major newspapers in Brazil.

I was 12 years old and I used to go almost every day to the local stadium and I was hanging out and watching the best players Brazil ever had prepare themselves for the world cup. And the players were very accessible to all the kids.

It was like a dream to come true – for a kid to meet Pele, Garrincha, Didi, Zagallo, Zito, Gilmar, and everybody else, and most of these guys had been world champion in 1958 in Sweden. In 1962 Pele was only 20 years old, and players such as Garrincha were at the prime of their careers.

That impressed me and I still have fond memories to this day of that vacation in 1962. I met Pele a few more times over the years in various functions, but again I can’t claim that Pele is my personal friend – I just met him a number of times over the years after the Santos games in Brazil and after the Cosmos games at the Meadowlands in NJ, and also at his office in Manhattan.

I have “Zero” desire of meeting someone such as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney – nothing, nada, ziltch – Bush is a Moron, and Cheney is a scoundrel on my book – but I would like to meet Bill Clinton some day, but because I admire him and his intellectual capabilities, and I find him to be a very interesting person.


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TraderNik: In the end, you can either claim that you have all these world political figures as friends or you can claim that North Korea and the US would be ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity had Al Gore been elected to the White House. You cannot claim both.


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SouthAmerica: I can’t answer you on this one. Because I have no idea what you are trying to say.


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TraderNik: The North Koreans have only one “Hail Mary” play and that is it. That play is point all its missiles including all the nuclear warheads available in the direction of Tokyo and let go.


I mean seriously, where do you come up with this material? Do you make this stuff up or do you get it from some comedy website?


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SouthAmerica: Sorry to disappoint you, but that is not an original idea of mine – I just modified a little the same basic concept.

About 8 years ago I did read an article on The New York Times by a famous American economist explaining how vulnerable the US dollar had become because foreigners were holding so much US dollars outside the United States.

It was a long article and very well written and I never forgot one of the main points of that article – the article said that there was a real risk that the people in the United States would go to bed one night and would wake in the morning with a collapsing US dollar in world markets – a real US dollar meltdown.

What would cause such a meltdown?

A major earthquake in the center of Tokyo causing a major destruction to that town. The major earthquake would surprise everybody and would cause a massive loss for the Japanese and that could trigger a collapse and meltdown of the US dollar in world markets.

The article gave all the reasons of why we would have an US dollar meltdown.

I just adapted that article a little, instead of a massive earthquake in the center of Tokyo, I changed to one or two atomic bombs and that would generate the same results, and today the meltdown would be even bigger because of the size of the global derivatives market.

Believe me if the North Koreans manage to drop an atomic bomb in the center of Tokyo, that could cause a meltdown in the global derivatives market. We would have a global financial panic everywhere.

It is that simple.

By the way, the danger is real and I hope that the massive earthquake that that well known economist mentioned 8 or 9 years ago on his article on The New York Times will never materialize and come to past otherwise we are all in big trouble.


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October 18, 2006

SouthAmerica: I just came across this article published on Google News.

I find it interesting that some people still think that the United States is going to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons if North Korea launches a nuclear attack against Tokyo, Japan.

You can bet that the United States is not going to do anything if North Korea launches such an attack – first history shows us that the country that is supposed to protect the non-nuclear country abandons it and it does not show up to rescue it. The Serbs still waiting for the Russians to show up with their army and weapons (including nuclear weapons) to help them defend Serbia against an US military attack that has pulverized that country. (The Serbs were supposed to be under the Russian protection umbrella).

The second thing that the author of this article has not taken in consideration is the fact that North Korea has a long border with China, and China would not just stand and watch a bunch of nuclear weapons blowing up right next door with potential severe side effects from radiation to China’s own population. (It would be almost as if the US had attacked the Chinese people with nukes.)

If North Korea is able to nuke Tokyo, in Japan the Chinese might just stand by and watch – since they still remember how nasty Japanese occupation was some time ago.

Can North Korea get away with a nuclear attack against Japan?

It is possible.

Are Americans ready for nuclear war against North Korea after the fiasco in Iraq and the Middle East?

Maybe not – it is easy to talk tough than to act and George W. Bush has been doing a lot of talking in the last few years regarding North Korea, but that’s it.

My guess is that if North Korea nukes Tokyo, in Japan – the United States government would not retaliate in kind. Not because they don’t want to, but because after all things being considered including China – the reality is they can’t.



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The Cavalier Daily
University of Virginia
October 18, 2006
“The nuclear trump card”
By: Robby Colby, Cavalier Daily


ON MONDAY, the United States confirmed that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea detonated a nuclear device in last week's underground test.

While almost certainly not a complete success, North Korea's near completion of this part of a nuclear weapons program, combined with the summer's (failed) test of a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead makes the international community nervous, and justifiably so. North Korea's neighbors, the Republic of Korea and Japan, have taken a hard line against North Korea, a stance understandable given its proclivity for launching missiles over and near Japan and its past tensions with South Korea. After the test, President Bush "reaffirmed to our allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan, that the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments."

The full range of our deterrent capabilities necessarily includes nuclear weapons, a singularly distasteful but effective option. Should North Korea flex its nuclear muscles and launch a nuclear attack on America or its allies, the United States must at least strongly consider firing back in kind, otherwise our own deterrent becomes useless.

Let us theoretically say that North Korea launches a missile at San Francisco, Seoul or Tokyo. The knee-jerk reaction is to fire a flurry of nuclear missiles right back with all the moral fervor America can muster. And in doing so it would by justified. However, sticky ethical questions arise over whether the United States can fire missiles at a people suppressed by a dictator. North Korea is a dictatorship and has been so for many years. It has an extremely poor economy and has had 11 straight years of food shortages. Its people suffer from malnutrition and it depends on grain shipments from other countries to feed itself (over 350,000 tons per year). One finds it difficult to imagine that the people of a country in such dire straits over such a vital substance can genuinely support their leadership. So, can the United States use a nuclear weapon on North Korea and kill thousands of people who are barely hanging on?

Although unpleasant, in reality the United States can and must do so.

Clearly we cannot strike first with nuclear weapons, especially as long as those possessed by North Korea malfunction regularly.To do so would provoke an international outcry that would far exceed that which followed the invasion of Iraq. To fail in reacting to a nuclear attack in kind, however, would send a clear message to the renegade regimes of the world that they can continue to hide amongst innocents and expect the United States to cushion its return blow out of consideration for the very citizens they treat so poorly.

Certainly the United States holds itself to a higher standard, avoiding civilian casualties and stigmatizing those who inflict them. But at the nuclear level, the whole world must play by the same rules.A unrestrained attack on our people or our allies must be met with the full power of our arsenal or else it becomes worthless.

Despite the moral stigma surrounding the use of nuclear weapons, they have been an ace in the United States' hand for the last 50 years and are not one that should be tossed away lightly.

Again, assuming theoretically that North Korea chose to use a nuclear weapon, if the United States failed to use one in response it would completely undermine the deterrence factor of its nuclear stockpile. That would mean telling dictators that have a permanent get-out-of-jail free card in their people. If America failed to use nuclear weapons on one dictatorial regime, who's to say it will use it on another? That would mean that nuclear weapons are only legitimately used against democracy. And when is the United States ever going to fight a legitimate democracy? Probably never.

Thus, a failure to use nuclear weapons when attacked by them would mean telling the world that a renegade country that chooses to use nuclear weapons will only be prosecuted via a conventional war, which is always a crapshoot, especially in invading (witness, Iraq). Therefore, no matter how unseemly it is, America needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons, should the North Korea situation escalate into a shooting war or risk losing the most powerful deterrent force we possess and exposing ourselves to future threats.

Robby Colby's column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.


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