some islamic nutcases perhaps bo, not all of them. I think N Korea's nuclear program is more advanced than Iran's, but perhaps somebody has some info on this topic?

Who's Next? by Tom Lehrer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw

I read an article once about Chinese eugenics programs in which the author made the claim that nothing would be done in response because Western Civilization is too busy clinging to "anti-hereditarian political correctness." And I think that it's the same with North Korea. It's the idea that we don't want to step on any toes or make anyone unhappy that's keeping us out of the East in general. No matter how bad they get, the American and European populous is far too bent on thinking that they have some level of superiority by merely criticizing the problems they see. Nearly every issue that ever comes up will have thousands of people ranting on about what needs to be done in response, but nothing ever does get done. Western Civilization is far too immature to do anything about North Korea.

+1 dub

Redhouse, if I can give you any information on that, it would be that neither Iran nor North Korea are anywhere close to having viable nuclear weapons. Iran, I would think, is closer. If anyone is a danger in the nuclear weapons race, it would be Russia or China (or the USA if you're in Russia or China). These are the three nations that are most worrisome in the nuclear world with England/France/Germany close behind. I am not worried about North Korea or Iran.

That said, there certainly are reasons that we would intervene, but I would agree in a sense with KA in that nothing will soon get done either way because the western world is too split up over the issue right now.

Two questions I'd ask in response to this:

1. What right do we have telling another country they can't pursue the goal of attaining nuclear weapons when, erm, we've got them already? Pure fucking hypocrisy.

2. Why do we let Israel have nuclear weapons? Why do we let Pakistan have them? Isn't that dangerous?

@bo,

Russia, China and the USA are all very large powers, not garrison states like N Korea. I'm honestly much more comfortable with each of these having 1000 nukes, than with N Korea having one. Russia can export oil and gas if they badly need money, China can stick people in American-run factories and the USA can produce new ideas. N Korea and Iran have much weaker positions internationally and I'd be very concerned about them building a nuclear weapon.

The thing about nuclear weapons is that they're pretty easy to make. Force enough uranium together and it'll pretty much take care of itself. Uranium can be found pretty much anywhere if you're willing to spend enough money gathering it. If a nation doesn't give a damn about sanctions there really isn't much we can do to stop them aside from war, and a very real and nasty conventional war to stop a possible nuclear war doesn't look like that good a deal.

@JamieT.
1.
America's policy, if I'm not mistaken, is to reduce its nuclear arsenal (I mean, I think it's been the policy of the US ever since the detente period under Nixon, right?). It would be the apex of hypocrisy to reduce your own nuclear arsenal and having a much worse-behaving nation increase its number (even if increasing means increasing from zero to one). There's your right.

2.
There's a difference between having them and getting them. I think it's okay for countries that have nuclear weapons to keep them, I don't think it's okay for countries that don't have them to develop them.

@Octavious
Then rich countries should simply buy up the world's uranium :-)

@Jamie ... because both of those nations are operating in our interests. The USA hasn't done something for the world out of pure niceness since the Marshall Plan.

@Red ... that's why the idea is to keep China, Russia, and the USA (among others) from revealing nuclear technology and selling nuclear equipment to other nations. Enriched uranium sales aren't a big deal as long as we know what grade of uranium is involved (only a select few can be used in any weapon). Iran and North Korea firing off a nuclear weapon at someone would be complete suicide; they both know that, as much as they often fail to show it. None of the leaders of those nations are nearly as stupid as we see them.

@Octavious ... making nuclear power is quite easy. Weapons can't be made out of any uranium thrown in a centrifuge.

@ Redhouse: "I think it's okay for countries that have nuclear weapons to keep them."

Why do you think that?

@ Redhouse: "Then rich countries should simply buy up the world's uranium."

This is an idiotic statement. Is blankflag sitting your account? There's lots of uranium and most of it is BURIED UNDER THE GROUND in locations all over the world, not all of them even discovered yet, in all probability. How exactly would the "rich countries" ensure they collected all of it?

You might as well try to restrict the operations of the North Korean navy by gathering up all the water around North Korea's coast and storing it away somewhere the North Koreans couldn't reach it.

@bo excellent point, I'm not so much worried about N Korea using the bomb, I'm worried about them selling the technology and/or the devices themselves to intrinsically suicidal organizations such as islamic terrorist organization.
@JamieT because there's nothing you can do about that..

By starting useless wars over it just like they did oil, Jamiet.

@ bo_sox: Those wars were to spread democracy and combat terrorism, didn't you know that?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ahahaha. stupid bug in the home page rendering. it cuts off by number of letters not pixels, but it renders a variable-width font so sox's comment kind of exploited this stupidity.

Go fix it, blankmind. Developer's forums are open.

i am no programmer. besides i am busy enough trying to make the best website in the universe.

If you didn't program it, don't bash the programming. Suggest changes.

i honestly dont care. as long as people dont use caps lock or repeated characters then the bug wont really be noticeable.

for all i know they want it to behave like it does. or will likely convince themselves that they do. the same way whenever i prove something really bad is happening in the world that goes against what the media is telling them they will convince themselves that it is what they wanted rather than consider that they may have made a mistake.

Shut up.

i see my worthy adversary, the debating mastermind jamie has entered the arena.

Name all the countries with nuclear weapons that the US have attacked.

It's completely reasonable for countries to want to arm themselves so they won't be invaded.

ahahaha i just read some of the stuff above. none of you know what the hell youre talking about. north korea does have nuclear bombs you morons. they have already detonated nuclear bombs. and iran has no nuclear weapons at all and there is no evidence that they are even doing anything to make a nuclear weapon. if you trust american intelligence, because that is what they are saying.

in terms of islamic nutcases, or whatever phrase you used, pakistan is more nuts than any of them and they have nuclear weapons. if you think iran is craziest one then you obviously watch too much television. ask the jews living in iran who rejected israels offer to pay them to relocate there.

BUT north korea cant really do anything with their bombs because there is no way they could ever get one on a missile (due to how primitive the bombs are, like those old cellphones compared to the new ones, the things are huge) and even if they did their missile technology is pathetic. best they could ever hope for is hit some place near them like south korea or maybe japan or something, but even that im not sure if they could pull it off. and of course they are not completely nuts, so they wont themselves. only if there are tons of spies in there who somehow are able to send one off as a false-flag type deal. that is the only conceivable situation.