WB: Test Pattern – Moon of Alabama

October 9, 2006

WB: Test Pattern

Billmon:

No doubt Tony Snow will step out tomorrow to tell us it’s really not such a big deal — the North Koreans and Kim Jong-il being ever so much nicer and more rational than those genocidal Iranians and their power-crazed dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Test Pattern

Posted by b on October 9, 2006 at 04:12 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Well, CNN may be in full panic mode about the N. Korean bomb test, but the Hong Kong gold traders are not worried much. Gold is up, but, I’d say, within its usual variations. As I write, it is $577.00 + $4.80
Click on chart at right to enlarge

Posted by: Owl | Oct 9 2006 5:33 utc | 1

Just caught a BBC interview with right-wing whackjob Congressman Dana Rorabracher on the N. Korea nuke test.
Rorhabracher (paraphrased): It’s time to say I told you so to all those people who opposed our plans for a missile defense shield. Our message to North Korea now should be that we will use our missile defense system to shoot down any incoming nuclear missiles with a missile of our own.”
WTF?? Evidently we’ve gone in the past few weeks from “all options are on the table” and “we will not permit a nuclear North Korea” to “if you fire a nuke at us, we will shoot it down with our (non-existent) defensive missile system.”
Rorabracher kept talking as though this fantasy missile shield on which we’ve wasted billions of dollars since the Reagan years is actually a functioning, reliable system. I don’t think there have been any successful tests of this system in a realistic test environment where the deck wasn’t heavily stacked in its favor.
And evidently any sort of diplomatic efforts to address this situation didn’t even cross his mind. Of course, even if they had, it would have been years too late. But still, what an idiot. A dangerous idiot, since he is in Congress.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Oct 9 2006 5:53 utc | 2

hortense hears a boom aka North Korea pops a cap
from this reuters article mentions that S. Korea detected a tremor
“South Korea’s Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources had detected a tremor of a magnitude 3.58 to 3.7 at 0135 GMT.”
Lets play the percentages.
Percentage chance the US Threat Level goes to Red tomorrow (Monday)? I say 50%.
Percentage chance Foley gets knocked off the first, second, and third page? 100%
Percentage chance we get a 10-point swing in the polls for the GOP? 75%.
Has China released any statements?
ps. did our Monolycus feel anything?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 9 2006 7:08 utc | 3

” I don’t think there have been any successful tests of this system in a realistic test environment where the deck wasn’t heavily stacked in its favor.”
You mean, like that notorious war game against Iran where the general playing the bad guy basically sank half the US Navy?

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 9 2006 7:49 utc | 4

Earthquake Map of North Korea
Very interesting…

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Oct 9 2006 8:15 utc | 5

Sad thing is, like a good [numb] little eichmann, I didn’t even bother to turn off my illegal dl of Steely Dan’s, “Can’t buy a Thrill” as it’s slowing down my connection.
Long live ipod!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 9 2006 8:32 utc | 6

So Dr Yeuh is the crafty oriental working hand in hand with the wily Koreans who discovered that the US GS was lying. This damned internet makes it so hard to be duplicitous when your own interactive web site exposes government ‘fact massaging’.
My fishwrap now says:

The US Geological Survey – which at first said it had not detected any activity – later said it had detected a 4.2 magnitude quake in North Korea at the same time.

Homeland security will be insisting on some changes to that site methinks.
It was unsustainable anyway-denying the test had happened – maybe the underlings were just stalling until the bossfellas got outta bed.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 9 2006 9:06 utc | 7

It is not Tony Blair yet, but the Israeli of course are agruing as Billmon predicted:
MK: N. Korean test shows West must act fast on Iran

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2006 11:34 utc | 8

From b’s Ha’aretz link :
Senior Labor lawmaker and former IDF brigadier general Ephraim Sneh said Monday that North Korea’s test of an atomic weapon reflected the weakness of the international community and “its inability to address pariah states,” in a direct reference to the Western world’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat.
It was the Israeli rubbling of Lebanon followed by its seeding of a million cluster bomblets among the ruble villages and villagers fields followed by the present great yawn of the civilized world that signalled “the international community’s inability to address pariah states”.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 9 2006 12:24 utc | 9

J.F. Lee: Not to mention that they alreadyy have hundreds of their own nukes since a long time.
Pariah state, that’s a good one…

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 9 2006 12:31 utc | 10

U.S. intelligence sources said the Bush administration is talking about immediate naval action around North Korea. “This won’t exactly be a blockade, which is an act of war. But we could stop and inspect all ships in and out of North Korea,” one senior U.S. government official said.

link
And then?

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2006 13:27 utc | 11

NYT:

North Korea said Sunday night that it had set off its first nuclear test, becoming the eighth country in history, and arguably the most unstable and most dangerous, to proclaim that it has joined the club of nuclear weapons states.

Most unstable??? It is arguably the most stable state one can imagine. Absolutly no chance for regime change there.

Appearing with Mr. Putin, the defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said that the Russian military had confirmed the test and estimated its force at somewhere between 5 and 15 kilotons much larger that estimates from South Korea.

I think the Russians are right a 500ton bomb would be to delicate to build and South Korea has the motivation to play this down.

Last week, the administration’s special envoy for North Korea issued a stern warning to Pyongyang not to go ahead with its threatened test, saying “’We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea.”

Will he commit suicide now?

That was less than an hour after North Korean officials had called their counterparts in China and warned them that a test was just minutes away. The Chinese, who have been North Korea’s main ally for 60 years but have grown increasingly frustrated by the its defiance of Beijing, sent an emergency alert to Washington through the United States Embassy in Beijing. Within minutes, President Bush was notified, shortly after 10 p.m., by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, that a test was imminent.
…
The explosion was the product of nearly four decades of work by North Korea, one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries. The nation of 23 million people appears constantly fearful that its far richer, more powerful neighbors — and particularly the United States — will try to unseat its leadership. The country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, emerged from the Korean War determined to equal the power of the United States, and acutely aware that Gen. Douglas MacArthur had requested nuclear weapons to use against his country.

Like often in such “aggressive acts”, the motivation for NoKo was US behaviour. Astonishing to see this admitted in the NYT.

American spy satellites saw the North building a good-size nuclear reactor in the early 1980’s, and by the early 1990’s the C.I.A. estimated that the country could have one or two nuclear weapons. But a series of diplomatic efforts to “freeze” the nuclear program — including a 1994 accord signed with the Clinton administration — ultimately broke down, amid distrust and recriminations on both sides.

Now that`s a very partisan paragraph. Clinton did it!

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2006 13:47 utc | 12

North Korea unstable? No, I dont think so….unless we unstabilize it.
So it has gone nuclear, big deal!

Posted by: Parallax | Oct 9 2006 14:09 utc | 13

Actually, a 500 ton explosion would signal the test of a thermonuclear ‘pit’ , i.e. the first stage of a fission – fusion bomb. That would be quite a feat for a first test.

Posted by: thetan | Oct 9 2006 14:16 utc | 14

@Unca $cam’s #3
“ps. did our Monolycus feel anything?”
Only thing I’ve been feeling lately is the love, baby. And the paralyzing, hideous agony of the hangovers.
No, there have been no appreciable aftershocks in the ROK except amongst the jittery waegukin (foreigner) population. For the average guy in the street here, it’s pretty much business as usual on a peninsula roughly the size of the state of Michigan.
During a lull in one of my classes today, I asked some of my older students (15 years old or so, I think. They reckon ages differently here and you need a lunar calender and a degree in advanced engineering to work out how long anyone has been on the planet) their take on having a nuclear neighbour. Yes, they all had heard the news but it seems to be a much less interesting topic than the fact that Ghana beat the ROK in a soccer match yesterday. One of them summed up the general attitude fairly succinctly, I thought:
“Russia, China, USA… those are all big countries. It’s okay for them to think that way. But Korea is very, very small. If we die, they die.”
Somehow, basic geography here has proved to be a bigger “deterrent” than nuclear weapons. Now if only those “big countries” could learn a little basic ecology, we’d be set.

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 9 2006 14:29 utc | 15

The ArmsContolWonk thinks the test was a dud. 500t to 1kt he says – wait and see. Whatever it was, they probably learned a lot and politically it doesn´t make much of a difference.

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2006 16:03 utc | 16

Mission accomplished:

Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately that they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would forever end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s grip on power.
Now U.S. officials will push for tough sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, and are considering a raft of largely unilateral measures, including stopping and inspecting every ship that goes in and out of North Korea.

Reported Test ‘Fundamentally Changes the Landscape’ for U.S. Officials

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2006 17:10 utc | 17

monolycus
thanks for that – the hyserics in the west weeping their tears tell another tale entirely
the empire not only lack intelligence or any substantive analysis – it lacks any diplomatic skill nor any understanding of instinct
the bomb is a fuck you direct to both armitage & bolton – the north koreans just returning the favour of being a bully
the bomb – no doubt will delight the gop as it will take foley & hassert & iraq off the front page

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2006 17:52 utc | 18

the only talkin’ point the Republicans could come up with now is “We did too little to stop North Korea, let’s not make the same mistake with Iran.”
I’m not one to set percentages, but if I do encounter the above-mentioned TP, there is a 99.94% probability that I will hurl on my shoes…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 9 2006 18:33 utc | 19

when I heard that NoKo had tested the bomb this morning I recalled an image that we rebels without a clue used to grin about so many years ago.
in different circumstances all americans would be cheering this underdog on.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 9 2006 19:55 utc | 20

Eisenhower Carrier Group Sails for Iran Theater

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Eisenhower and its accompanying strike force of cruiser, destroyer and attack submarine slipped their moorings and headed off for the Persian Gulf region on Oct. 2, as I had predicted in a piece in The Nation magazine a few weeks back.
The Eisenhower strike force, according to my sources, is scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Iran around October 21, at the same time as a second flotilla of minesweepers and other ships.

Posted by: annie | Oct 9 2006 20:39 utc | 21

Israel Worried North Korea Will Pass Nuclear Technology to Iran

Posted by: Bea | Oct 10 2006 11:51 utc | 22

It has to be admitted the Nuclear non proliferation treaty is dead.
Israel, India, Pakistan. (US ally, client, lackey, respectively)
What does Kim Jong-il have to lose?
In 1994, Billy C proposed a deal: (from memory): The US would build two nukulear power stations, would lift sanctions, resume normal relations, in return N Korea would stop going for the bomb. I believe Congress nixed it.

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 10 2006 16:07 utc | 23

Randeep Ramesh: The two faces of Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea – a country he now regards as part of the “axis of evil” and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.
Mr Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m ( 125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 17:53 utc | 24

Spread this far and wide:
U.S. Approves $95 million aid for “axis of evil” country
Following President Bush’s description of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” it may seem strange that he recently signed a memorandum authorizing US$95 million for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which is building two nuclear reactors in Kumho, North Korea.
Memorandum to the Secretary of State
Presidential Determination No. 2002-12
April 1, 2002
I hereby determine that it is Vital to the national security interests of the United States to furnish Up to $95 million in funds made available under the heading “Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs” of that Act, for assistance to KEDO
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r…0020402- 13.html

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 11 2006 5:26 utc | 25

South Korea sees no abnormal radioactivity in rain after North Korea nuke test
N. Korea Air Sample Has No Radioactivity
Wait–there was radioactivity… it’s not weird. Actually, releasing bad news at the start of the weekend is how the US government does business as most MOA’s know.
U.S.: Test points to N. Korea nuke blast

WASHINGTON — One of many tests conducted since North Korea’s claimed nuclear test found a radioactive gas consistent with an atomic explosion, but the U.S. government has made no definitive conclusions about the blast, a senior Bush administration official said Friday.

CNN: U.S. has evidence of radioactivity from N. Korea
Keeping the masses confused since 1776…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 14 2006 2:09 utc | 26

Manufacturing propaganda is a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars, it is a crime, the numerous contradicting, disjoint, biased, confused, and deficient interpretations that exist are tools of the media controlled by the Government in a PSYOPS on you.
Psychological Operations (PSYOP[US] or PSYOPS[UK, GE, NATO]) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to specific foreign and (in certain countries) domestic audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. Sometimes combined with black operations or false flag tactics, the purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator’s objectives. As such, there must always be sufficient truth to be credible.
This concept has been used by military institutions throughout history, but it is only since the twentieth century that it has been accorded the organizational and professional status it enjoys now.
I have even noticed it in my local fishwrap, where one story will be on the front page and the complete opposite story will be on page 7A…
I can not stress enough, that in the eyes of the current Government and DOD you, you the “American people” are the enemy.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 14 2006 2:57 utc | 27

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