There are 39 comments.

1. Coolidge
   Skyler

   @Skyler

   9:13 AM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Cato Rand (View Comment):

   Doug Watt (View Comment):
   China and Russia both use Kim Jong Un to provide a measure of instability that benefits their efforts to achieve their goals in the Pacific. I wouldn’t look for any help from the Chinese to reign in Kim.

   If worse comes to worse one of our objectives should be to hunt down Kim’s barber.

   I can only assume that if we had the access to kill Kim, he would be dead. I’d like to think even Obama would have taken him out and I’m fairly certain Trump would, given the opportunity.

   I’m pretty sure we have laws against assassinating heads of state.

2. Inactive
   Roberto

   @Roberto

   9:26 AM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Skyler (View Comment):

   Cato Rand (View Comment):

   Doug Watt (View Comment):
   China and Russia both use Kim Jong Un to provide a measure of instability that benefits their efforts to achieve their goals in the Pacific. I wouldn’t look for any help from the Chinese to reign in Kim.

   If worse comes to worse one of our objectives should be to hunt down Kim’s barber.

   I can only assume that if we had the access to kill Kim, he would be dead. I’d like to think even Obama would have taken him out and I’m fairly certain Trump would, given the opportunity.

   I’m pretty sure we have laws against assassinating heads of state.

   This is incorrect. What we have is a series of Executive Orders banning political assassination. Starting with  EO 11905 under Ford, followed by Carter with EO 12036, Reagan with EO 12333 and most recently Bush. I am unsure if Obama took any action here. Regardless the most recent policy is fairly loose on this question I believe.

   Previously, EO 11905 (Gerald Ford) had banned political assassinations and EO 12036 (Jimmy Carter) had further banned indirect U.S. involvement in assassinations.[6] As early as 1998, this proscription against assassination was reinterpreted, and relaxed, for targets who are classified by the United States as connected to terrorism.

3. Inactive
   Cato Rand

   @CatoRand

   9:41 AM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Skyler (View Comment):

   Cato Rand (View Comment):

   Doug Watt (View Comment):
   China and Russia both use Kim Jong Un to provide a measure of instability that benefits their efforts to achieve their goals in the Pacific. I wouldn’t look for any help from the Chinese to reign in Kim.

   If worse comes to worse one of our objectives should be to hunt down Kim’s barber.

   I can only assume that if we had the access to kill Kim, he would be dead. I’d like to think even Obama would have taken him out and I’m fairly certain Trump would, given the opportunity.

   I’m pretty sure we have laws against assassinating heads of state.

   Maybe.  I’m not sure.  I do know we tried to assassinate Castro about 1000 times, dropped bombs on Khadaffi’s house, and tried to target Saddam with bombing at the outset of the second gulf war.  If we have ’em, they’ve got a lot of loopholes.

4. Coolidge
   ctlaw

   @ctlaw

   12:17 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Cato Rand (View Comment):

   Skyler (View Comment):

   Dan Hanson (View Comment):
   he might find himself taking a bullet for the team, delivered by one of the officers around him who would rather he stay alive for a while longer.

   That’s what we thought about Saddam, Castro, the ayatollah and any number of other brutal dictators. History would seem to show that an uprising will not be spurred by an outside threat or even an attack. The fear he instills is magnified, and opposition is not. Attacking North Korea will require using nuclear weapons against them and risk a larger war with China.

   I’m okay with that, but Americans as a whole are not.

   I’d be very surprised to see China come to NoKo’s defense. What’s really in it for them? I think it’s more likely fear of Trump’s erratic and unpredictable behavior moves China to help for once. I think they’d prefer to preserve an authoritarian client state that wasn’t threatening the rest of the region in NoKo to all the losses that war would entail, including the potential loss of that client state.

   The irony is that if the NorKs were taken out the US would probably pull out of Korea.

5. Inactive
   Mark Wilson

   @MarkWilson

   12:24 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   The irony is that if the NorKs were taken out the US would probably pull out of Korea.

   Do you think a US pullout from ROK that would be initiated by the US or ROK?

6. Coolidge
   ctlaw

   @ctlaw

   12:32 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Mark Wilson (View Comment):

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   The irony is that if the NorKs were taken out the US would probably pull out of Korea.

   Do you think a US pullout from ROK that would be initiated by the US or ROK?

   Yes.

7. Inactive
   Mark Wilson

   @MarkWilson

   12:58 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   Mark Wilson (View Comment):

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   The irony is that if the NorKs were taken out the US would probably pull out of Korea.

   Do you think a US pullout from ROK that would be initiated by the US or ROK?

   Yes.

   What are the key differences between ROK and say, Germany, Japan, or the other strategic places we have a semi-permanent military presence?

8. Coolidge
   ctlaw

   @ctlaw

   1:15 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Mark Wilson (View Comment):

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   Mark Wilson (View Comment):

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   The irony is that if the NorKs were taken out the US would probably pull out of Korea.

   Do you think a US pullout from ROK that would be initiated by the US or ROK?

   Yes.

   What are the key differences between ROK and say, Germany, Japan, or the other strategic places we have a semi-permanent military presence?

   Koreans hate us for not being Korean even more than the Japanese hate us for not being Japanese.

   If we pull out of Korea, we still have an in-theater presence in Japan.

9. Member
   I Walton

   @IWalton

   3:46 PM EDT ⋅ Apr 5, 2017

   Penfold (View Comment):
   If the Chinese are going to “do something” they’ll want something in return. Speaking with very little research or evidence, I’d venture to assume that a land grab would net them very little except more mouths to feed. They already have substantial influence in NK for little cost and they can leave the headaches to Kim. Instead, I think they’d bargain for concessions in their current sphere of influence (China Sea) from the US, Japan and maybe the Philippines. Then they’d reign in their lap dog enough to satisfy the UN after which they can start the game all over again.

   Not creating  chaos on their border or setting the stage for reunification, or allowing the US to claim a decisive military victory should be enough for China.   We don’t have to give them anything except not taking out North Korea’s regime and what little infrastructure they have.  As I say if we do anything other than plead with China it must be a massive air campaign.  Which has many benefits for us, few costs and none for China, unless Obama has so degraded our military/naval capability we can’t even take out that tiny dysfunctional pip-squeak.