North Korea considering firing missile at Hawaii...

Kristoph · 18 Jun 2009 at 23:56

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8108313.stm

The US is "in a good position" to protect its territory from a potential North Korean missile strike, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.

His comments came in response to a report that North Korea was considering launching a missile towards Hawaii.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090618/korea_hawaii_090618/20090618?hub=World

The missile now being readied in the North is believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometres), and would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast sometime around July 4, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

Interesting :eek:

Wonder if this will just fizzle out or whether they will actually launch the missile?

Le_Petit_Lapin · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:01

Mental.

Strife212 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:02

in the direction of

They would never actually hit Hawaii because they would instantly be crushed under a hellfire of nuclear ICBMs

Duff-Man · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:03

Who knows. Logic would suggest it's a bad idea. North Korea's sabre rattling has served them well in the past, getting numerous concessions with regards aid / technology etc, but firing a missile within range of the US would probably have bad consequences.

That said, who knows what's in Kim Jong Il's head. I can't imagine he has too many people around him telling him when his ideas are stupid. We will have to see.

goujon945 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:05

Duff-Man said:
firing a missile within range of the US would probably have bad consequences.

Just a tad!

Le_Petit_Lapin · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:06

I'm just waiting for the pacifists to come along and claim its "ok for them to threaten to kill another countries civilians, as this is a right that every country should be entitled to" or similar.

Will Lucky · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:06

Strife212 said:
They would never actually hit Hawaii because they would instantly be crushed under a hellfire of nuclear ICBMs

That, or the missile will be so badly aimed there going to completely and utterly miss it

.

Iraklis F.C. · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:07

lol i doubt , maybe they named a small island of theirs "hawaii" and we dont know it ?

Cr0fty · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:10

Will Lucky said:
That, or the missile will be so badly aimed there going to completely and utterly miss it.

It will be like a game of intercontinental missile lucky dip!

Lightnix · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:10

Duff-Man said:
Who knows. Logic would suggest it's a bad idea. North Korea's sabre rattling has served them well in the past, getting numerous concessions with regards aid / technology etc, but firing a missile within range of the US would probably have bad consequences.

That said, who knows what's in Kim Jong Il's head. I can't imagine he has too many people around him telling him when his ideas are stupid. We will have to see.

I imagine these 'bad consequences' may lead to some head scratching as to how South Korea suddenly became an island.

Deleted User 234324 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:10

The same will happen with this as it did for their satalite.

They will say they launched it and lots of footage of it happening so they can go tell the citizens of NK they are awesome and all powerful.

Hawaii on the other hand will be sat there thinking uhh... wtf!?

Hellsmk2 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:12

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
I'm just waiting for the pacifists to come along and claim its "ok for them to threaten to kill another countries civilians, as this is a right that every country should be entitled to" or similar.

I'd really be suprised if you could find a single 'pacifist' who believed this. Your definition of pacifist is 100% screwed.

Duff-Man · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:16

China is naturally very protective of North Korea, being one of the few remaining Communist countries. The response of the US has been extremely tempered towards them in recent years, for dear of angering China (not militarily, but China could certainly hurt the US in economic terms, if they really wanted to). That said, if NK did fire a missile close to US soil I don't think China could jusify going out on a limb to protect their neighbour. I suspect they would find themselves on their own, at the mercy of a US carrier group.

... Of course there's always the chance they would respond by nuking Seoul, but that's another ball game.

JAzz · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:20

Duff-Man said:
but firing a missile within range of the US would probably have bad consequences.

Probably? Unless I'm mistaken the last time a country from that region officially attacked the US they dropped two nukes on them! The Russians and China usually are sympathetic towards North Korea but even they are gonna find it hard to support them if they decided to launch a missile.

clv101 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:21

Strife212 said:
They would never actually hit Hawaii because they would instantly be crushed under a hellfire of nuclear ICBMs

Even if, against all odds, North Korea managed to land a payload on Hawaii, destroying a building or two and killing a few Americans... I see no possibility whatsoever of a nuclear response from Obama.

ganesh · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:21

This will never happen, just more empty threats and sabre rattling. Though if they did, then finally the world would be forced to do something about North Korea.

RossG · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:21

Say if NK did launch a nuke at Hawaii and it got shot down by an anti-missile system, do you think that the US would actually respond with a nuclear weapon or just conventional bombs and an invasion or somesuch? It would seem a bit silly for the US to go trigger happy with the nukes, assuming NK has an extremely limited arsenal that could probably be delt with by anti-ICBM countermeasures.
Not that I think that this wil lactually ever happen, mind you. I'm sure the US would bomb the bits out of their silos and launch sites if there really was an imminent threat of a strike

Iraklis F.C. · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:23

they would probably respond with a rain of cruise missiles

Duff-Man · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:25

JAzz said:
Probably? Unless I'm mistaken the last time a country from that region officially attacked the US they dropped two nukes on them! The Russians and China usually are sympathetic towards North Korea but even they are gonna find it hard to support them if they decided to launch a missile.

I'm assuming that the missile doesn't actually *hit* Hawaii here. To be honest I don't think North Korea could do that even if they wanted

But firing a missing within range would be enough to stir up a serious ****-storm.

clv101 · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:26

RossG said:
Say if NK did launch a nuke

There's no suggestion NK have nuclear missiles! Their nukes are most likely similar to 1940's atomic bombs, weigh many tones and are impossible to launch in a missile.

If NK wanted to nuke America it would be delivered to San Francisco docks in a regular shipping container. Far simpler, practical and far more reliable. All this talk about missiles is just pointless noise.