Should SEAL Team Six Go After Kim Jong-Il?

[ChokingHazard]

If the people I've talked to in the military are to believed it would be a better idea to send delta.

[GeorgeLucasLongLostChin]

Originally Posted by clb10

A. South Koreans want re-unification with their northern relatives.

How would that affect a North Korean reaction to an assassination?

B. Once Kim falls, so does the brutal vise-grip on the nation (just like Saddam).

Wrong. Kim is already setting up his son to succeed him. And north korea brass is apparently even more fanatical. The risks of having Seoul obliterated in an artillery barrage is one no leader will ever take.

C. The SEALs operate stealthily. They would be on choppers back to Seoul before the northern generals even knew anything was wrong.

You watch too much TV.

D. The United States has counter-nuclear measures in place: USAF Counterproliferation Center (http://cpc.au.af.mil/combatingwmd.html - broken link)

The problem is not nukes, it's artillery. Nukes are only used as deterence and provocation by North Korea to get attention.

E. North Koreans, like the Japanese after WWII, would be peaceful and, in fact, contribute to the fields of advanced electronics and engineering after only one generation. We could have a program where freed North Koreans would be given free educations at places like MIT, Harvard and Stanford.

You seem to have everything figured out. Why aren't you president?

[Frank_Carbonni]

While if the US did liberate North Korea, I would absolutely not have any moral objection, as a matter of fact, I would be delighted to see Korea unified under the South Korean government. However, the US does not have unlimited resources and it cannot afford to go around liberating ever dictatorship on earth and would quickly run out of money (already happening) if it were to do so.

[floridasandy]

let's liberate our own country first.

[clb10]

Originally Posted by GeorgeLucasLongLostChin

Oh boy....that is embarassing to read.

The US didn't enter WWII to liberate Jews. The US entered the war in 1941 and started finding out and liberating camps in 1943.

And the US never joined the war for noble reasons. It tried to strech its isolationist foreign policy until Japan attacked and Germany declared war on the USA, not the other way around.

As for North Korea, the situation is entirely different than with OBL.

North Korean generals would quickly fill any void left by Kim Jong Il's death. And having so many artillery aimed directly at Seoul would not end well.

North Korea is not called the 'land of lousy options' for nothing. Major powers have their hands completly tied.

Not only that but Kim Jong Il isn't some rogue terrorist. You can't just barge into a country and assassinate a leader with no direct arm conflicts or UN mandate.

We could go on and on to show how your comparisons make no sense, but we won't. You think the US joined WWII to save jews so it will be too tedious to explain things to you.

I guess America is a weak country that is all talk and bluster then.

[Casper in Dallas]

Oh just in-case you did not know Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians not us.
No we cannot go around killing the leaders of other nations just because we do not like them. As fo North Korea, let China deal with them and they may very well do just that if the North Koreans interfer in Asian economics, money is a huge motivator.
Casper

[GeorgeLucasLongLostChin]

Originally Posted by clb10

I guess America is a weak country that is all talk and bluster then.

The US still surpasses any country militarily with military expenditures exceeding those of the entire world combined.

But it has limited options to exert that power. We're not ancient times. Conquering nations has become increasingly difficult, even when a juggernaut like the US invades a third world country.

So in a way, you're right, the US has to use a lot more talk than anything else to maintain its image of the world's policeman though that image is increasingly losing its luster.

Of course, the US could always use its massive arsenal (including nukes) to bomb its foes into oblivion, but that would only work short term since enemies would multiply exponentially.

Each situations require a different approach. North Korea doesn't offer a lot of good options. Its citizens are completly cut off from the world and fiercly loyal to its crazy leadership. I remember an interview with a US general who said that although the massive north korea military is outdated, it is a clever military which has adapted.

But the main problem remain its close range with South Korea will make ANY intervention disastrous for civilians since
North Koreans can retaliate against its neighbor at the snap of a finger. We would witness the largest artillery barage ever seen and that would mean the end of Seoul. "Hell through proximity..."

Surely you agree that this isn't an enviable scenario.

North Korea will continue to provoke like the recent shelling of a south korean island and then call for peaceful talks, and then provoke again...and round we go. It's been doing this for years and will continue to do so to get attention from the international community knowning full well they can act in full impunity providing they don't cross a certain line.

I doubt they are interested in a full scale war with the US. The North Korean stalinist regime only interest seems to be its own and creating the perception of a constant outside american threat only serves to justify their existence.

Anyway, that's how I view this situation. Not saying I got it all figured out. But what I want to show is that each situation requires a different approach and comparing OBL with Kim Jong Il or anything else makes little sense. You play with the cards you have.