Posted on 07/07/2006 12:52:39 AM PDT by AndrewWalden
A Tokyo-based newspaper reports in its Friday AM edition that North Korea’s failed Taepodong-2 missile was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii. (Here’s the story in Japanese.) The target should have been no surprise: the islands’ far-Left leadership has rendered Hawaii uniquely vulnerable to attack.
Citing multiple sources in the U.S. and Japan, the Sankei Shimbun article indicates that U.S. and Japanese tracking of the missile’s altitude and angle of approach after takeoff indicate it was headed for what Reuters describes as, “waters near Hawaii”. Sankei Shimbun has no English-language edition. The Reuters article reprises the content of the Japanese article.
Wednesday’s North Korean launch was the decrepit Stalinist regime’s first attempt at firing a Taepodong 2 missile. Because it has never been flown before, expert estimates of its range vary with some believing that it can hit Alaska, others believing it can hit the US mainland. Hawaii lies between the two extremes.
According to Reuters, “North Korea may have targeted Hawaii to show the United States that it was capable of landing a missile there, or because it is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet. “An alternative explanation might be that a missile could accidentally hit land if fired towards Alaska….”
The waters off Hawaii are currently hosting the annual RIMPAC naval war games. In addition to U.S. forces, the games include Japan, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Britain, Chile, and Peru. Ironically, anti-American war protesters and so-called “environmentalist” lawyers from the misnamed “Natural Resources Defense Council” convinced U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper to block the US Navy from training with use of “active sonar” technologies necessary to detect North Korean and other diesel submarines until July 18. The excuse was the poorly documented claim that whales and other sea mammals are injured by US Navy Active Sonar. Appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1999, the Canadian-born Cooper is a 1971 graduate of City College San Francisco and a 1975 graduate of the Whittier School of Law.
In Hawaii, the two fronts of the War on America meet. In 2004, Hawaiian Democrats pledged one-third of their delegates to support Dennis Kucinich for president. Hawaii was the only state to give Kucinich significant support. Kucinich and many other leftist Democrats have opposed the development of missile defense technologies capable of knocking down incoming missiles. The University of Hawaii-Manoa was recently the scene of anti-American protests against military research on campus.
North Korea claims to have constructed several nuclear weapons. There have been no reports that the Taepodong 2 missile or any of the other missiles North Korea launched on Wednesday were armed. The missiles fell into the Sea of Japan a few hundred miles from their launch areas.
Strategic Defense System technology for destroying enemy missiles in flight are developed and tested at Naval Station Barking Sands, host to the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. Anti-missile systems were deployed on Aegis-based .U.S and Japanese Navy cruisers in the Sea of Japan. There have been no reports that they fired on any of the out going North Korean missiles.
North Korea is reported to have positioned several missiles for additional launches. Their payload and potential destination remain unknown. The Left’s policies of disarming Hawaii deserve to be more widely recognized.
Will anything awake our little pet wingnut crew from their
ant-American antiwar fantasy world? I wish they would start swimming.....
What the press aren't reporting is that Taepodong is Korean for Pocket Rocket - an allusion to the size and portability of the Korean projectile. No improvement, Kim Jong-il's Taepodong 2 seems to have failed him too.
I think this gives a nice opportunity here.
>>>the islands’ far-Left leadership has rendered Hawaii uniquely vulnerable to attack.
That makes no sense at all really. Geography renders Hawaii vulnerable. It's with the missile range of the Korean missiles. State government in no state has much to do with missile defense. The navy is however busy on the subject.
In truth I'd expect Hawaii is better sited then anyplace other then Norfolk to defend itself by means of shipboard missile interceptors in and around Pearl Harbor. Even moreso then Alaska since it's my best understanding the Fort Greely battle-management radar isn't yet fully functional.
It's too important an issue and story to be publishing such non-sequitors. Sonar isn't related to this.
Perhaps they are preparing to hurl a couple of coconuts in NK's direction? Hmmmmm?
"N.K. is looking to become an arms merchant. They marry a nuke to the Taepodong-2 and they have a winner. They may sell a lot of these to third world countries.".....BINGO...like maybe? Iran?
"launch it, and auto-destroy it"
First it was 42 seconds...then we're told it's 7 minutes...first the main land...then Hawaii..."
I want to know if our systems are working? We don't have a week to analyze a real threat and determine its trajectory...we only have seconds.
So far SDI has managed to knock down 50% of planned tests (that is known trajectories...known launch times...)
typically lobotomized
Thank you for signing up again to share your wisdom. Enjoy your short stay.
Lil' Kim needs some of that there Viagra...
How stupid can you be? This stupid, I guess.
This reminds me of the ill fated Alderan Revenge.
Back in my Rocket Scientist days I wanted to design a three stage rocket that would spectacularly climb out of sight. I worked tirelessly using the Estes design manual to design the fins, the nose cone, the various stage engines. I measured and blanced and tested to insure I had the weight properly distributed. I painted it a bright dayglo orange for maximum visability.
At last, the big launch. I took it to the nearby state park rocket launching ground and off it went. It zoomed up and as the first stage coasted began to veer off the vertical. As the second stage fired the veer became horizontal. The rocket disappeared.
About ten minutes later it reappeared in the hands of an angry park ranger. It had landed in the picnic area quite a distance away. The third stage did fire, just off the ground and insured the rocket had enough momentum to dig into the ground.
I can sympathise with the North Koreans. It ain't as easy as it looks.
We need to stop screwing around with these a-holes in nations like North Korea, Iran, etc. and do something about it.
If the "international community" wants to sit back and wax their weasels with endless diplomacy, fine. Let them clean up the mess we leave in the wake.
Men need to turn their baseball caps around the right way, get up off the couch or out of the titty bars and go to work.
..he's so ronery..
"First it was 42 seconds...then we're told it's 7 minutes...first the main land...then Hawaii..."
On the purported NYC tunnel bombing, one reported the Lincoln tunnel, another the Holland tunnel, and a third said it was the subways. I wonder if disinformation is intentially being fed to suspected leakers.
From July 2006.
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