Japan debates pre-emptive strikes on North Korea

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Phoenix

Phoenix

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TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on the North's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo's proposal for sanctions against the regime.

While Japan talked of sanctions, China -- North Korea's top ally and benefactor -- pressed ahead with its diplomatic efforts to draw North Korea back to stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program, dispatching a high-profile delegation to Pyongyang on Monday.

U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill huddled with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and other officials in Tokyo on a tour of the region to coordinate a common strategy on the North's missile tests last week and urge Pyongyang to drop its months-long boycott of the nuclear talks.

North Korea's missile tests last week caused no injuries or damage, but they sparked international condemnation. Officials in Japan -- badly shaken by the tests -- said Monday they were mulling whether their pacifist constitution allowed pre-emptive strikes on North Korean missile targets.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe.

Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution, untouched since it was enacted after World War II, foreswears the use of war to settle international disputes, but the government has interpreted that to allow defensive forces. The question is whether such a pre-emptive strike could be defined as self-defense.

The discussions Monday came ahead of a possible vote Monday in the U.N. Security Council on Japan's U.S.-backed resolution to prohibit nations from procuring missiles or missile-related "items, materials goods and technology" from North Korea.

While the U.S., Britain and France were behind the measure, the other two veto-wielding members of the council, China and Russia, favor a softer approach. Speculation was high that Russia would abstain if it came to a vote, but a Chinese veto was still considered a possibility.

U.S. officials were calling for China to take a bolder stand with the North and to use its influence with Pyongyang to persuade it to return to the six-party talks, which are hosted by Beijing. Hill said Washington was working with both China and Russia to force a common approach.

Still, he raised a rare question about how influential Beijing really was with the enigmatic regime.

"I must say the issue of China's influence on DPRK is one that concerns us," Hill told reporters. "China said to the DPRK, `Don't fire those missiles,' but the DPRK fired them. So I think everybody, especially the Chinese, are a little bit worried about it."

The DPRK refers to the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Despite the opposition, Japan showed no signs of backing away from the U.N. resolution.

"It's important for the international community to express a strong will in response to the North Korean missile launches," Abe told reporters. "This resolution is an effective way of expressing that."

China was also active on the U.N. front.

Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing "exchanged views" by phone Sunday with his counterparts from 11 council members and South Korea, the Foreign Ministry said on its Web site. He "stressed that any action should be conducive to maintaining the peace and stability in the region and the unity of the Security Council," the two-sentence statement said without elaborating.

On Monday, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, China's chief nuclear negotiator, and Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu arrived in Pyongyang for a six-day stay. The two governments exchanged congratulatory messages marking the 45th anniversary of a friendship treaty between the neighbors.

The Chinese government hasn't said whether Wu or Hui would bring up the six-nation nuclear talks. But a ministry spokeswoman said last week that China was "making assiduous efforts" in pushing for a resumption of the negotiations.

Talks have been deadlocked since November because of a boycott by Pyongyang in protest of a crackdown by Washington on the regime's alleged money-laundering and other financial crimes.

A North Korean delegation was expected in China on Tuesday to mark the treaty anniversary.

North Korea agreed in September 2005 to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for aid and energy, but no progress has been made to implement that accord.

As a way out of the impasse, China has suggested an informal gathering which could allow Pyongyang to technically stand by its boycott, but at the same time meet with the other five parties. Hill backed the proposal on Saturday, and said Washington could meet with the North on the sidelines of such a meeting.

Hill said he discussed the proposal with Japan's Aso, but he refused to provide any details.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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As I mentioned in the other thread, this is the problem - North Korea doesn't have to do something stupid... they just have to make OTHER people do something stupid for us to end up in an unnecessary situation.
 
What would happen to my beloved Tokyo and Seoul. The otaku outrage would be huge. Imagine every otaku on the planet joining the US/Japanese army to fight NK?
 
Bush Doctirne FTW.

norinrad21 said:
What would happen to my beloved Tokyo and Seoul. The otaku outrage would be huge. Imagine every otaku on the planet joining the US/Japanese army to fight NK?
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Doubtful If giant robots aren't involved.
 
Tommie Hu$tle said:
Bush Doctirne FTW.




Doubtful If giant robots aren't involved.
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Giant robots BETTER be involved dammit... this is the perfect opportunity to unveil them to the world!
 
I wonder how the Bush Admin is going to handle this. I mean every one of their arguments for going pre-emptive on Iraq is actually true with North Korea this time. Not that it would stop them, but it seems any stance against this would be hypocritical at best.
 
norinrad21 said:
What would happen to my beloved Tokyo and Seoul. The otaku outrage would be huge. Imagine every otaku on the planet joining the US/Japanese army to fight NK?
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Picture2.png
 
how do you think the Chinese view North Korea at this point? Like their retarded little brother who keeps trying to pick a fight with everyone at school? I mean, honestly, what does North Korea offer China at all at this point, besides ideological support (and even that is debatable, as China really isn't communist anymore)? I have to imagine at some point China needs to play a little bit more hardball with the DPRK or the situation is going to just get ugly.
 
ronito said:
I wonder how the Bush Admin is going to handle this. I mean every one of their arguments for going pre-emptive on Iraq is actually true with North Korea this time. Not that it would stop them, but it seems any stance against this would be hypocritical at best.
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The Bush Admin's doctrine is not one of pre-emption, but prevention. Following this, NK would never have gotten close to pressing a single button to test launch even a wiffle ball. All you need is the idea of threat, however fabricated, not an actual action that can be taken as hostile. In either case, they will still come off as hypocritical (at best) because they are so.
 
Someone refresh my memory, how is wiping out Kim Jong Il's regime NOT a good idea?

And if Japan does it, all the better for us, so we don't get picked on for being the bully.
 
Pellham said:
Someone refresh my memory, how is wiping out Kim Jong Il's regime NOT a good idea?

And if Japan does it, all the better for us, so we don't get picked on for being the bully.
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Perhaps, because all of S. Korea would be un-inhabitable for the next 220k years give or take. While they don't have the means to hit us they do have the means to hit most of our interests in that region.

The US is sick about the 2500 US troops we lost over the past 3 years in Iraq. We would lost that many in first 4 hours.
 
Pellham said:
Someone refresh my memory, how is wiping out Kim Jong Il's regime NOT a good idea?

And if Japan does it, all the better for us, so we don't get picked on for being the bully.
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If he were to just stay still while we did that, yeah that'd be great. However, it's not that simple. I mean you got South Korea to worry about first off.
 
maynerd said:
Don't do it Japan. This might delay the Wii.
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somebody get this man an audience with Japan.

Please have a massive heart attack evil korean dude :(
 
Perhaps the countless numbers of artillery pointed directly at Seoul from North Korea would be a deterent for a military strike....
 
**** man, if Japan wants to do pre-emptive action again, China'll have a word with them

Really, why is Japan so damn stupid ? It's like they still think the empereror will save them
 
Jacobi said:
**** man, if Japan wants to do pre-emptive action again, China'll have a word with them

Really, why is Japan so damn stupid ? It's like they still think the empereror will save them
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Well... and I could be crazy here... but it might have something to do with NK lobbing quite a few missiles in their direction.
 
hey guys, look on the bright side. maybe japan will start buying actual games for a change. you know, a tom clancy game or two. maybe even mercenaries.
 
norinrad21 said:
What would happen to my beloved Tokyo and Seoul. The otaku outrage would be huge. Imagine every otaku on the planet joining the US/Japanese army to fight NK?
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Geez....GAF is going to look absolutely dead.
 
Jacobi said:
Not if they bring their DSes+PSPs
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True. I guess we'll have to endure a ton of posts complaining about how their commanding officer isn't some androgynous man with long purple hair. :(


On a serious note, I hope Japan thinks long and hard about what they're doing. A pre-emptive strike would seriously endanger South Korea and pull a lot more nations into this hole mess and effectively end a long standing cease fire.
 
Nerevar said:
I mean, honestly, what does North Korea offer China at all at this point, besides ideological support [] ?
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A place other than China for North Korean refugees to stay?


[edit: BTW/FYI, the "Bush Doctrine" is the part about not drawing a distinction between terrorists and the states that wilfully harbor them]
 
Japan feels safe in knowning that should anything start between them and North Korea, the Sony Defense Force would assemble within minutes, and use their collective skills to negotiate a peace "for the good of the PS3". If that failed, they'd convince Kim Jong Ill that as a BluRay Player and Game Machine, the PS3 really is a good deal. He'd be so distracted, and awed by the power of the PS3, that he'd immediately pre-order one and MGS4.

Barring all that, they'd just use their bodies as human shields.
 
goodcow said:
Pfft, even if ALL of North Korea moved into China it'd only be a 1.75% population increase.
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Yeah, but China doesn't want to bear the logistical brunt of starving an additional howevermany people...
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Japan feels safe in knowning that should anything start between them and North Korea, the Sony Defense Force would assemble within minutes, and use their collective skills to negotiate a peace "for the good of the PS3". If that failed, they'd convince Kim Jong Ill that as a BluRay Player and Game Machine, the PS3 really is a good deal. He'd be so distracted, and awed by the power of the PS3, that he'd immediately pre-order one and MGS4.

Barring all that, they'd just use their bodies as human shields.
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Or just drop planeload after plane load of XBox360s on the country, and let the increased power usage, heat induced fires, and arrival of Chineese import sales destroy the power grid, livable space, and economy of the country. Then the west can just move on in and sell them Levis and BigMacs so they can recover :)
 
Phoenix said:
Or just drop planeload after plane load of XBox360s on the country, and let the increased power usage, heat induced fires, and arrival of Chineese import sales destroy the power grid, livable space, and economy of the country. Then the west can just move on in and sell them Levis and BigMacs so they can recover :)
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why not just drop the original xbox consoles on the country? Or better yet, PS3s? I mean, you'd have to deal with the logistical problem of how to get a plane to take off carrying such a massive cargo payload, but once you've solved that you've created the worlds heaviest and deadliest tool for widespread carpet bombing.
 
Nerevar said:
why not just drop the original xbox consoles on the country? Or better yet, PS3s? I mean, you'd have to deal with the logistical problem of how to get a plane to take off carrying such a massive cargo payload, but once you've solved that you've created the worlds heaviest and deadliest tool for widespread carpet bombing.
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I love GAF.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Well, with the 360 you get the impact from the system, and more importantly, the power supply. MASSIVE DAMAGE!
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Don't forget also you'd get the fallout from millions of microtransactions. That place might be uninhabitable for years.
 
shidoshi said:
Well... and I could be crazy here... but it might have something to do with NK lobbing quite a few missiles in their direction.
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Didn't NK previously fire one actually over Japan and not just in the general direction a few years back?

If that is the case then imagine what would happen if one of those test missiles fails over Japan. Not a very smart risk to take.
 
Instead of pre-emptive strikes, Japan should just say "they are going nuclear." That will force China and Russia too see their side in the UN, because no way in hell, they want Japan to have nuclear weapons.
 
Pellham said:
Someone refresh my memory, how is wiping out Kim Jong Il's regime NOT a good idea?
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Actually I think North Korea is a sovereign state, that's why.

And if Japan does it, all the better for us, so we don't get picked on for being the bully.
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I hope they don't make their colonies fall on earth in return.

I wouldn't be so optimistic: being nuclear stuff involved there could be unforeseen consequences, if hollywood b-movies taught me anything.

A Robot Taekwon V vs the Great Mazinger would be nice tho
 
knitoe said:
Instead of pre-emptive strikes, Japan should just say "they are going nuclear." That will force China and Russia too see their side in the UN, because no way in hell, they want Japan to have nuclear weapons.
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QFT

Japan could have nukes in less than a year, they have the technological means.
 
APF said:
Yeah, but China doesn't want to bear the logistical brunt of starving an additional howevermany people...
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China's corrupt rulers don't give a shit how many additional people die of starvation.
 
locci said:
Actually I think North Korea is a sovereign state, that's why.


I hope they don't make their colonies fall on earth in return.

I wouldn't be so optimistic: being nuclear stuff involved there could be unforeseen consequences, if hollywood b-movies taught me anything.

A Robot Taekwon V vs the Great Mazinger would be nice tho
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Doesn't N.Korea have an 80 foot tall Optimus Prime or something? I could have sworn I've seen a pic of this.

norinrad21 said:
QFT

Japan could have nukes in less than a year, they have the technological means.
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Or we could just, you know, give them to them on the DL. It would serve our interests as much as theirs
 
knitoe said:
Instead of pre-emptive strikes, Japan should just say "they are going nuclear." That will force China and Russia too see their side in the UN, because no way in hell, they want Japan to have nuclear weapons.
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Japan doesn't want to open that can of worms. Don't escalate this foolishness! If NK wants to be an ass, let them be an ass alone.
 
Japan will have a fully deployable army ready in a month or so with reserves training and ready in 3 to 6 months... if they decided to go ahead with this today... this country (if the people know it or not) is primed for this..
 
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