Performing Surgery With Cinder Blocks, Not Scalpels

The failing NY Times describes (yet again) the deplorable military options vis a vis North Korea:

In North Korea, ‘Surgical Strike’ Could Spin Into ‘Worst Kind of Fighting’

The basic geographical reality hasn't changed in decades:

Even the most limited strike risks staggering casualties, because North Korea could retaliate with the thousands of artillery pieces it has positioned along its border with the South. Though the arsenal is of limited range and could be destroyed in days, the United States defense secretary, Jim Mattis, recently warned that if North Korea used it, it “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

...

North and South Korea, separated by the world’s most heavily armed border, have had more than half a century to prepare for a resumption of the war that was suspended in 1953. While the North’s weaponry is less advanced, the South suffers a distinct geographical disadvantage: Nearly half its population lives within 50 miles of the Demilitarized Zone, including the 10 million people in Seoul, its capital.

Lots of the NoKo artillery is shorter range, but they also have different types of rocket launchers:

A study published by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability in 2012 accounting for these and other factors such as population density concluded that the initial hours of an artillery barrage by the North focused on military targets would result in nearly 3,000 fatalities, while one targeting civilians would kill nearly 30,000 people.

That sounds dreadful but this later excerpt sounds worse:

The Nautilus Institute study projects 60,000 fatalities in the first full day of a surprise artillery attack on military targets around Seoul, the majority in the first three hours. Casualty estimates for an attack on the civilian population are much higher, with some studies projecting more than 300,000 dead in the opening days.

Until the South Koreans figure out how to move Seoul away from the border (or move the border -yike!) that city is a hostage.

Comments

[narciso]

see this idiot, is why the anvil was there in the python sketches:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/23/richard-florida-cities-independent-donald-trump-215288

[JimNorCal]

sbw: "I HAVE to edit your work because it needs it."

How does this work? Do you just publish the edited version ... or do you have to get their permission ... or do you add the editor as a secondary author ... or are their limits to what can be corrected (simple typos) before you need their permission to print it under the author's name tho it's no longer what they wrote?

Great smackdown, btw. Also well said-- your description of telling AP that we want the facts not their framing of the facts.

[Buckeye]

Just heard this for the first time. Kinda funky badass.

https://youtu.be/2gYfXL4rOto

CH, suspect you have heard the drummer before.

[RattlerGator]

yes, rattler,the punk whether it's zuul or gozer, was very vicious to at least two of our departed friends, and he pretended to have a son who had died in Iraq, this is why I compare them to mythological creatures of eastern Europe and russia

Posted by: narciso | July 05, 2017 at 08:41 PM

Oh, hell. *I* might have been tempted to go after that fool.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

May already have been posted;
Canada Awards Confessed Terrorist $10 Million and an Apology for Violating His Civil Rights.
He confessed to murdering an American soldier.

Why are we wasting our time over in the sandbox when we have a perfectly ripe pushover of an oil filled failed state just north of the border we could pick off so much easier?

"Let's finish what they started in 1812! Make Canada great...finally!" should be Trump's campaign theme in 2020.

[Captain Hate]

I just wrote AP about Julie Pace telling them that nobody trusts a smart ass.

Her presence on the panel was a minor reason, among many more significant ones, that I stopped watching Fox News Sunday. I think she has a few insider sources among the staffs of donks and RINOs who feed her tidbits but she's a small timer compared to someone like Fred Barnes.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--I'm thinking this year we ought to reveal that you are available--I think your cup would runneth over with women dying to meet you.--

If only you knew how funny that was, clarice. Perhaps I'll expand on that in a week or two.

Besides, I married a Ferrari 275 GTB NART Spyder. They only built ten of them. After "owning" one of them no guy will settle for a Buick.
If you happen to know one of the other nine send her my way in a couple of years. Otherwise I'd prefer to walk.

[Clarice Feldman]

Oh, I know about the beautiful ferrari.. I just think you're too good to be left alone.

[jimmyk]

Nice greeting of Modi by Netanyahu at the airport:

https://twitter.com/LahavHarkov/status/882237065773142017

I don't know what their history is, if any, but the affection looks genuine. FWIW, India is a huge tourist destination for Israelis, though I suspect tourists from a country with 8 million people to a country with 1.3 billion people do not make that much of an impression, even if they are Israelis (inside joke).

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Thank God for killfile because anyone dissing Dot is on my permenant shit list. He is one of the finest most honorable men I have ever known.--

I agree with the second sentence, but if the first one means his positions are above criticism then I have a hard time agreeing with it and doubt DoT would either.

[jimmyk]

And wouldn't you know it, another thread. I'm getting out of breath.

[Captain Hate]

No, Buckeye, that drummer is new to me and I only know Bramhall in context with Clapton. There's a whole group of Allmans spinoffs, Tedeschi-Trucks and Government Mule among others, that I'm sure are very good but there's so much music and so little time.

[Ralph L]

Yet another new thread.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Still have fireworks going on tonight. Maggie is again ensconced in the shower stall, which I have concluded shields her from noise.

I would like to point out this has been going o since Friday, so we are now at Day 6 of this.

[Ralph L]

We had natural fireworks tonight.

[Sbwaters on iphone]

New thread and I can't post the last page thingy.

[srp]

Not to stick to the subject, but I think the best near-term approach for the U.S. to NK is a missile-defense blockade of any future launches. Key to this policy would be deployment of boost-phase interception systems off their coast. These would be drones carrying fairly simple heat-seeking interceptor missiles, that could be rolled out within a year or two if approached with urgency. Once deployed (and backed by the various mid-course and ted in rminal-phase systems we already have), there would be no more possibility of NK testing its systems at leisure--every one could be engaged and destroyed. Ideally, this policy could be pursued in non-declaratory fashion, putting the diplomatic onus on the Kim or the Chinese to lose face by admitting that the interceptions were taking place.

https://www.hudson.org/research/13686-boost-phase-intercept-is-still-the-best-defense-against-the-north-korean-nuclear-threat

[Tom Maguire]

Good point. I went ahead and posted on it.