North Korea Issues Threat of Nuke Attack

North Korea threatened to exercise its "right to pre-emptive nuclear attack" Thursday (3/7/2013) as Pyongyang ratcheted up its rhetoric ahead of a United Nations vote on new sanctions.

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,'' the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. The remarks were also reported by media outlets including The Associated Press.

On Tuesday, the North said it planned to scrap the armistice that stopped the Korean War in 1953 and warned it could carry out strikes against the United States and South Korea.
The combination of looming sanctions and joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea has worked the isolated regime in Pyongyang into a frenzy of bombastic threats.

Despite the strong language, analysts have said North Korea is still years away from having the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile and aim it accurately at a target.

This story is still developing. What are your thoughts?

http://www.allproudamericans.com/North-Korea-Issues-Threat-of-Nuke-Attack.html

U.S. says U.N. sanctions 'will bite' after North Korea threatens nuclear attack

(CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed tougher sanctions against North Korea Thursday targeting the secretive nation's nuclear program hours after Pyongyang threatened a possible "preemptive nuclear attack."

"These sanctions will bite, and bite hard," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said after the vote.

China, North Korea's key ally, could have used its veto power to block the sanctions. Instead, after weeks of negotiating, it signed on to the final draft.

"China is a country of principle," China's U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong said. "We are firmly committed to safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."

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Leading up to the vote, Pyongyang ratcheted up its bellicose rhetoric.

A spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry suggested the United States "is set to light a fuse for a nuclear war."

As a result, North Korea "will exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country," the country said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Despite the strong language, analysts say North Korea is years away from having the technology necessary to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile and aim it accurately at a target. And, analysts say, North Korea is unlikely to seek a direct military conflict with the United States, preferring instead to try to gain traction through threats and the buildup of its military deterrent.

But the threat came amid increased concern over Pyongyang's dogged efforts to advance its nuclear and missile technology after a recent long-range rocket launch and underground atomic blast.

On Tuesday, North Korea said it planned to scrap the armistice that stopped the Korean War in 1953 and warned it could carry out strikes against the United States and South Korea.
Analysts: 'Boxed in' North Korea's bluster 'particularly dangerous'

The rhetoric came not only in advance of the U.N. vote, but also as military drills take place on either side of the heavily armed border that divides the two Koreas.

This week, the United States and South Korean began two months of joint exercises, known as Foal Eagle. North Korea has called the annual training exercises "an open declaration of a war," but South Korea says it notified Pyongyang that the drills "are defensive in nature."

North Korea's nuclear threat Thursday "may suggest that Pyongyang feels even more boxed in than usual," said Michael Mazza of the American Enterprise Institute.

And while a nuclear attack itself is not an immediate palpable threat, "This surge in provocative rhetoric is particularly dangerous," added Michael Auslin, also with the institute. "South Korea's new president (Park Geun Hye) can't be seen to back down in the face of the North's threats, while (new North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un may feel that his successful missile and nuclear tests give him the ability to keep pressuring Seoul. The two may wind up talking themselves into conflict."

South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said Thursday the new resolution "reflects the will of the international community," which "will never tolerate North Korea's repeated violations and North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile program."

"Each violation will be met by stronger responses and measures," he added.
Will the new sanctions work?

The goal of the new sanctions is to stymie the activities of North Korean banks and cash couriers who might be funneling money to the secretive regime's nuclear and missile programs.

It will be tougher for the regime to move large sums of cash stuffed into suitcases, Rice said.

The U.N. resolution also outlines measures to step up scrutiny of suspicious sea shipments and air cargo. And it expands restrictions to encompass several institutions and senior officials in the North's weapons industry, as well as a range of materials and technology known to be used in uranium enrichment.

It also blocks the sale of luxury goods -- such as yachts and certain high-end jewelry -- to North Korea.

"As a result, North Korea's ruling elite, who have been living large while impoverishing their people, will pay a price" for the ongoing nuclear activities, Rice said.
Some doubt whether the new measures will make much difference.

Sanctions imposed after previous nuclear tests and rocket launches have failed to deter Pyongyang.

China will go a long way toward determining whether the new sanctions really do have "bite," analysts say.

"As long as China allows North Korea to operate, as long as China provides food, energy assistance, and investment, the sanctions really don't matter," said Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute.

North Korea notoriously allows many of its people to live in malnutrition and starvation. Still, the country needs a functioning economy, partly to finance its military, Bandow explained.

"Kim Jong Un is now paying the price for going ahead with a nuclear test despite Chinese warnings not to create trouble during the political transition that has been under way in Beijing the past year," Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said this week.

Future levels of Chinese grain sales to North Korea are a possible indicator of Beijing's commitment to putting meaningful pressure on Pyongyang, he said.
Ken Gause, an analyst with CNA, said the new sanctions won't deter North Korea from building up its nuclear program.

"North Korea last year inserted language into its constitution that the country is a nuclear power. To walk back from this, especially under pressure from the outside world, would undermine Kim Jong Un's legitimacy and make him vulnerable. He will not do this," said Gause.
North Korea casts U.N. sanctions as part of an aggressive, U.S.-led conspiracy against it.

Simmering tensions
North Korea said the underground nuclear blast it conducted February 12 was more powerful than its two previous detonations and used a smaller, lighter device, suggesting advances in its weapons program.

It was the first nuclear test the isolated state has carried out since Kim inherited power in December 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, who made building up North Korea's military strength the focus of his 17-year rule.

The test followed the North's long-range rocket launch in December that succeeded in putting an object in orbit. Pyongyang insisted the launch had peaceful aims, but it was widely viewed as a test of its ballistic missile technology.
Long history

North and South Korea have technically been at war for decades. The 1950-53 civil war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.

China supported the North with materiel and troops in the Korean War. The United States backed the South in the conflict, with soldiers from the two countries fighting side by side. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are currently stationed in South Korea.

CNN's Elise Labott, Richard Roth, and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/07/world/asia/un-north-korea-sanctions/index.html?sr=fbmain

How much longer Obama are you going to pull up your diaper and talk tough.why don't you just stand up as a man and do your job for once.

North Korea scares me.

White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON and JOSH LEDERMAN | Associated Press – 9 hrs ago


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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is fully capable of defending itself against a North Korean ballistic missile attack, the White House said Thursday, after Pyongyang threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.
The threat from the North Koreans came ahead of a unanimous vote in the U.N. Security Council approving its toughest sanctions yet on the North in response to an atomic test last month.
North Korea has escalated its bellicose statements this week as the tightening of U.N. sanctions loomed. It has also threatened to scrap the cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
"I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests. In the past year, it has made strides toward its goal of having a nuclear weapon that could threaten the U.S. although experts doubt it yet has the capability to hit the U.S. with a ballistic missile or miniaturize a nuclear device to mount on such a missile.
However, the North possesses hundreds of shorter-range missiles that could hit U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea, said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
It is difficult to know how capable U.S. missile defense is, should it be required.
Carney alluded to the development of U.S. system designed to defend against long-range missiles. He said the U.S. is on a "good trajectory" after success in its return to testing of the Ground-Based Interceptor.
David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists said that system, deployed in the U.S., was initiated by the George W. Bush administration because of concern about the North Korean threat. Some of its previous tests of the system failed, and Wright said it is still in development.
In East Asia, the U.S. has deployed the land-based Patriot system and the sea-based Aegis systems, which are designed to intercept shorter-range missiles.
The top U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, cautioned Pyongyang not to miscalculate, saying the U.S. will take necessary steps to defend itself and its allies, including South Korea, where it bases nearly 30,000 U.S. forces.
"We take all North Korean threats seriously enough to ensure that we have the correct defense posture to deal with any contingencies that might arise," Davies told reporters after testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Thursday's statement out of Pyongyang appeared to be the most specific open threat of a nuclear strike by any country against another, but the Senate panel's chairman, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said the threat was "absurd" and one that if carried out would be suicide for North Korea.
Davies reiterated that the U.S. will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state — although after conducting three nuclear tests it is already assumed to be capable of making at least a crude atomic bomb.
Davies, however, faced Republican skepticism about the effectiveness of Obama administration policy toward North Korea. In December, the North conducted its first successful launch of a three-stage, long-range rocket. Its Feb. 12 nuclear test could help it miniaturize a warhead.
The Foreign Relations Committee's top Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, drew a comparison to U.S. policy on Iran, where the U.S. has warned it could resort to military action to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
North Korea is "equally nutty" and with a worse human rights record, and "way past any red line we would accept in Iran," he said.
Corker concluded that Davies' hope that the dual-track U.S. policy of pressure and engagement would eventually work in getting Pyongyang to change its ways was a "highly aspirational statement that does not seem to be based on reality."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also drew a comparison with Iran and said he did not believe North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, could be persuaded to disarm. The best the U.S. could hope for was to delay the development of the North's weapons and its ability to strike the West, he said.
"They're convinced the only way they are ever going to accomplish what they want is by having a nuclear program and being able to hold the world hostage with it," Rubio told the hearing.
He also foresaw a danger of nuclear proliferation in Asia — to date alleviated through the "nuclear umbrella" security guarantee the U.S. provides to both South Korea and Japan, which do not have atomic weapons.
The new U.N. sanctions, which were drafted by the U.S. and the North's chief ally and benefactor, China, should make it more difficult for Pyongyang to finance and obtain material for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and for the reclusive nation's ruling elite to acquire luxury goods.
Davies said the growing international condemnation of North Korea's actions and the new U.N. sanctions showed "the world is beginning to wake up" to the problem the North poses. But he said for diplomacy to work, China has to "step up and play its full role in bringing home to Pyongyang the choices it faces."
U.S. lawmakers remain skeptical of Beijing's commitment to implementing the sanctions, which will be critical for their effectiveness since most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based in China.
Three individuals who were added Thursday to the U.N. sanctions list — including top officials at a company that is North Korea's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment — were also quickly added to a U.S. Treasury blacklist. Two other new entities on the U.N. list are already sanctioned by Washington.
http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-us-defend-against-nkorea-attack-193056200.html

csd you can have fear but don't be afraid,that why their are bullies,sometimes you just have to say enough is enough.