Free Republic

With steady Iranian nuclearization correctly at the forefront of world public attention, no country has more to fear than the State of Israel. Less than half the size of Lake Michigan, Israel fully understands that the Iranian president’s incessant bluster about wiping the Jewish State “off the map” is far more than mere posturing. It is, rather, an unambiguous declaration of criminal intent to commit genocide. Genocide is a codified crime under international law. To survive into the future, Israel’s leaders and allies now recognize that Iran’s explicitly exterminatory intent is being augmented by a developing capacity. Left to his...

A top North Korean propagandist raised the threat of nuclear war yesterday as the fighting talk triggered by the isolated regime's missile launches got scarier than any disintegrating Taepodong-2. Kim Myong-chol, a freelance propagandist for the Stalinist state, claimed North Korea would treat any country supporting UN sanctions against it - and that would definitely include Australia - as a nuclear missile target. "Now the US is seeking sanctions for us doing nothing in violation of international law - this is outrageous," he said in Tokyo yesterday. "North Korea considers this an act of war and North Korea will...

the People’s Republic of China won’t help the U.S. rein in the rogue regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il -- which this week conducted a failed test of a missile designed to reach American cities -- then the U.S. should stop helping China with its own economic and technological development. China must support the U.S. position on North Korea in the U.N. Security Council or pay a price for not doing so. In response to North Korea’s missile tests, Japan has sponsored a resolution in the Security Council that would bar nations from giving North Korea money, material...

The same North Korean ICBM efforts that throw a rock at Alaska can throw a large nuclear warhead at every ally the United States has in Northeast Asia. Japan and South Korea are not only close allies, they are critical trading partners. The risk of a war in this part of the world would inevitably threaten Chinese involvement in some form, and possible bloc trade with much of China for an extended period even if China did not become involved. Our troops and our bases in most of Asia would be at hazard as well. Americans need to stop thinking...

When it became clear that the Taepodong 2 missile North Korea test-launched early on July 4 had broken up less than a minute into flight and plunged into the Sea of Japan, many Americans felt a sense of relief. After all, the missile — belonging to a class that is thought capable of reaching the U.S. mainland — had failed, and Kim Jong Il had been embarrassed in the eyes of the world, if not those of the North Koreans who were told nothing of the test’s outcome. But an embarrassed menace is a menace nonetheless. Despite North Korea’s failure...

The US missile defense system was put to its first real test Tuesday and Wednesday with North Korea's launch of a long-range missile and a half dozen shorter range missiles. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was on and off the phone with top US commanders almost continuously for days before the missile tests. "I received the notification of the launch of these missiles probably within of a minute of when they occurred," he told reporters before a meeting with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Pentagon officials were circumspect, though, about how the multi-billion dollar missile defense system performed. "What...

TOKYO - A defiant North Korea test-fired a long-range missile Wednesday that may be capable of reaching America, but it failed seconds after launch, U.S. officials said. The North also tested four of shorter range in an exercise the White House termed "a provocation" but not an immediate threat. The audacious military tests by isolated communist nation came despite stern warnings from the United States and Japan — and carried out as the U.S. celebrated the Fourth of July and launched the space shuttle. None of the missiles made it as far as Japan. The Japanese government said all landed...

most things about North Korea, little is known for certain about the Taepodong 2 missile. But there is no doubt North Korea does have a very long standing and pretty sophisticated missile programme. North Korea's intentions are under the global spotlight In 1998, before it began observing a moratorium on tests, North Korea launched a Taepodong 1 missile which passed over northern Japan and surprised Western intelligence agencies by the use of three stages in the missile's propulsion system. What is striking about the Taepodong 2 is that it could well be North Korea's first genuine intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea will respond to a pre-emptive U.S. military attack with an "annihilating strike and a nuclear war," the state-run media said Monday, heightening its antagonistic rhetoric. The Korean Central News Agency, citing an unidentified Rodong Sinmun newspaper "analyst," accused the United States of increasing military pressure on the isolated communist state. The North Korean threat of retaliation, which is often voiced by its state-controlled media, comes amid U.S. official reports that Pyongyang has shown signs of preparing for a test of a long-range missile. "The army and people of the DPRK are now in full...

Kim Il Jung is having delusions of a United States attack. In the meantime while he is having his delusions, in reality his people are starving.

The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say. One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months. One former...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seeking to deepen ties with Iran, with discussions on holding joint military exercises and obtaining uranium, according to Bush administration officials. Hamas also is talking to Caracas about sending representatives to Venezuela to raise money for the militant group's newly elected Palestinian government. But relations with another ally, Russia, have soured over a deal in which Moscow is selling 100,000 AK-47s to Venezuela. The South American country was counting on receiving new rifles, but Russia has shipped a number of refurbished models, prompting Caracas to halt the deal, the U.S. sources said.

Fifty-one years ago today, in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, an influentual New York-based think tank, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles outlined what became known as the policy of massive retaliation. He explained to his listeners that the US would no longer allow itself to be drawn into conventional regional conflicts such as the Korean War--or, for that matter, Vietnam--but would reserve the right to respond to Communist aggression with "massive rataliatory poser" applied at places and with means of its own choosing--or, in other words, nuclear weapons might be used directly against the Soviet...

I need help with the date for the Russkies delivering the billion dollar Air Defense System to the Iranians?

(IsraelNN.com) The Iranian nuclear arms race has reached a point of no return, stated the head of Israeli intelligence, Gen. Ze’evi Farkash, at a meeting of the Knesset Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defense. He believes that the current diplomatic window that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms is soon to close, even within a few weeks. Gen. Farkash stated that diplomatic moves against a nuclear bomb in Iran were reaching a point of no return in terms of the Iranian nuclear arms race. Farkash added that the Iranians had improved their technique of preparing centrifuges to a very...

Lange's anti-nuclear stance became a hallmark of New Zealand's identity The former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, who has died aged 63, introduced an aggressively anti-nuclear stance and bold modernising of socialist politics to the world stage. Before he took over the leadership of New Zealand's Labour Party in 1983, the left-leaning party's anti-nuclear stance had made little impact. But it was soon to become one of the cornerstones of the country's foreign policy - and one that would put it on a collision course with the US in some of the darkest days of the Cold War. When...

On Aug. 6, 1945, an estimated 80,000 Japanese were killed instantly in Hiroshima. Three days later, on Aug. 9, more than 100,000 Japanese in Nagasaki joined them. It was a tragic end to the bloodiest conflict in human history. The irony is that it would have been even worse had President Truman decided against using atomic weapons and instead authorized an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Estimates vary, but on the American side alone there would like have been between 200,000 and 1 million U.S. casualties. The Japanese toll would have been in the millions. And, as recent evidence reveals,...

US bishops mark anniversary of atomic bombings, condemn ‘total war’Washington DC, Aug. 04, 2005 (CNA) - The 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provides an opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the Second World War and to recommit to efforts for a lasting peace built on justice, said the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “Hiroshima and Nagasaki are permanent reminders to the entire human family of the grave consequences of total war,” said USCCB president Bishop William Skylstad yesterday in a letter to Bishop Augustinus Jun-ichi Nomura, president of the bishops’ conference of Japan.The...

In a show of strength to save itself from demise, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rolled out its sinister plan prepared for years, a plan in which the Party makes an insane gamble from its deathbed. It did so in the form of a “speech” posted on the Internet (see Boxun.com of April 23, 2005). The “speech” consists of two parts: “The War Is Approaching Us” and “The War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century.” The two, judging from their echoing contexts and consistent theme, are indeed sister articles. The “speech” describes in...

OTTAWA -- The United States will decide when to fire missiles over Canadian airspace whether Canada likes it or not, says America's ambassador. The blunt warning from Paul Cellucci came minutes after Prime Minister Paul Martin announced yesterday that he will not sign on to the controversial U.S. missile defence program. "We will deploy. We will defend North America," Cellucci said. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would, in effect, give up its sovereignty -- its seat at the table -- to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming toward Canada." The warning was no slip...