Hard to believe, but....
"a country that sends political dissenters to gulags, wobbles under food shortages, channels money to the military, and uses the occasional satellite launch as a way to show off a ‘‘thriving nation.’’"
We have the secret torture sites, the hunger crisis, and the military-industrial complex, Americans; however, we are now missing the space program.
"North Korea’s plan to launch rocket seen as missile test" by Chico Harlan |
Washington Post, December 02, 2012
SEOUL — Security analysts say the North could be using the launch as a way to firm up support for leader Kim Jong Eun, who is overhauling the country’s massive military with a handpicked lineup of new officers.
In power for nearly a year, Kim has done little to break with the policies of his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, who built a country that sends political dissenters to gulags, wobbles under food shortages, channels money to the military, and uses the occasional satellite launch as a way to show off a ‘‘thriving nation.’’
According to North Korea’s state media, two of its satellite launch attempts — in 1998 and 2009 — were successful, placing into orbit devices that can forecast weather and transmit revolutionary songs. But international tracking data indicate that both satellites dropped into the sea. The North also conducted a long-range missile test in 2006, which failed about 40 seconds after liftoff....
‘‘The question is whether they have really gone through the engineering corrections or are they rushing it for political reasons?’’ said Dan Pinkston, a Seoul-based security analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Like the U.S. did to get Challenger of the ground?
The Saturday announcement did not come as a total surprise, because recent satellite images had shown a flurry of activity at the launch site, including the arrival, in trailers, of two stages of the rocket. Analysts in Seoul said the North was taking a risk with its launch because the move could anger China, its lone major benefactor, whose Communist Party last month promoted a new circle of leaders.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, asked Tuesday about a potential launch, said only that ‘‘it’s the common responsibility and shared interest of all parties concerned to maintain the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.’’
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If North Korea succeeds with its launch, the family-run police state
will become a more urgent security concern for President Obama....
Why?
An intercontinental
ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland, although key
hurdles would remain....
--more--"
