Well, people have been talking more about Saddam than North Korea for more than 36 hours, which means the news-whore that runs that country has to Do Something to get his face back on the cover of Newsweek: North Korea intercepts a U.S. reconnaissance plane.

A U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted over the Sea of Japan (over international waters) on Sunday by four armed North Korean MiG fighter jets, one of which locked its weapons-targeting radar onto the U.S. plane.

I think that if faced with the possiblity of a war with North Korea and Iraq rearming, the US needs to go wack-Saddam, then move to North Korea, because a land war in Korea will be bad.

Bad - complete mobilization of all National Guard, Marine Reserves, Navy Reserves, Air Force Reserves and Air Guard west of the Mississippi. 7 Mech Infantry Divisions, 2 Armored, 3 Marine and all but 4 of the Aerospace Expiditionary Units in the Air Force.

Think the economy is bad now, wait till every west coast 757,767,777,747 and MD-11 is taking 400,000 soldiers to Korea. Just think what will happen to the tech stocks with the majority of the world's RAM and LCD production is in range of North Korean 152mm artillery pieces.

5K-10K dead and wounded Americans in the first 36 hours, 25-50K RoK military casualties.

It's better to keep the heat off the DPRK and if nothing can be accomplished in negotiations (which the DPRK actually does) it'll be better to JDAM and Cruise Missile the facilities, and maybe use a couple tactical nukes.

Yeah, sure, throw a couple o' nukes in there; that'll stir things up good.

Uh, excuse me, but some of us live in the region and wouldn't appreciate that very much. Thanks.

In the Koreas the tradeoffs are pretty steep and nothing is a winning situation.

DPRK with ICBMs and nukes, then Japan goes nuclear, then PRC starts moving IRBMs to counter Japan, then faced with millions starving in the DPRK, they hold Korea, Japan and Taiwan hostage with nuclear weapons. If they don't give in to whatever the DPRK wants, ICBMs fly, with 1 or 2 at the west coast of the US for good measure.

Or the DPRK goes conventional across the DMZ, tens of thousands die and they threaten I Corps and Seoul with a tactical nuclear strike.

In those cases, a couple low yeild B-61-11 earth penetrating bombs on DPRK nuclear facilities might be the lowest casualty and lowest polution option. When and if the US ABM system can knock down an ICBM or two, the possibilities change.

It is, without a doubt, an ugly political situation, compounded by the fact that North Korea's leader is (IMO) the worst combination of Glory Hound and Screaming Nut Job.

He likes movies though, and blond American model-types.

The younger Kim graduated from Kim Il-sung University in 1964, and after a period of grooming for leadership, he was officially designated successor to his father in 1980.

What kind of grades does one need to graduate from a University named for one's Leninist father?

"Whatever grades he wants."

Those crazy kids from KISU, will do anything to overshadow the puppy killers from Tikrit Iraq.

Meglomaniac Education

Saddam has
Law degree from Baghdad U (transfer from College of Law in Cairo)
M.A . Honors Degree in Military Sciences
Honorary Doctorate in Law by the University of Baghdad

He is also a published author in the intellectual , political, economic , military, social and educational fields.