North Korea and Nuclear Weapons

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly and thoroughly a lie can be embedded into the public mind. By simple sheer repetition and a monopoly over the means of public discourse, the corporate media can make a lie into fact.

One of these lies that has become fact is that North Korea has admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program.

Not a single shred of evidence has ever been offered for this claim, other than a U.S. government statement. Yet, it has become fact. Indeed, many people even believe that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, much less a weapons program!

People should really examine this case, and look at what exactly has been admitted by the NK government, and what has been repeated by the western corporate media.

Sigh…I should know better then to respond here, given the drivel you spout in the Kosovo thread, but I’ll bite.

You assert the US Government is lying to us? Then why don’t you tell us what is really going on in NK?

Special challenge: No Zmag-linked articles to prove your point.

Yes. It has been repeated ad nauseum that NK has admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program. Yet, no such “admission” has ever been made, nor has even a shred of evidence ever been offered to show that such a program exists.

But, since I can’t prove a negative, all I can do is to say that these things don’t exist, and offer for somebody who believes they do to present the evidence.

Are you high? Have you been watching the news? NK admits to having nukes. NK kicks out international inspectors and warms up its breeder reactors. Etc.

But I suppose ‘The News’ is controlled by ‘The Man’, and does not constitute a valid source of information to you. Kinda makes this debate pointless.

This is exactly my point. Yes, “the news” has repeated ad nauseum that NK “admits to having nukes.” (Kicking out international inspectors, btw, doesn’t mean anything other than that they don’t want international inspectors in their country.)

Please, though, if you are so sure that NK has admitted to having nukes (!), much less a nuclear weapons program, please show me the statement where a NK official made such an admission, or show me the evidence for the existence of a NK nuclear weapons program.

Chumpsky Can’t you see the sticky at the top of the page?

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=106060

According to the Korea Times, you are wrong.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/lpage/nation/200211/kt2002112117182210610.htm

Moderator’s Note: Edited thread title.

NK admits it.

SK is worried about it.

No, really.

Yep.

Thanks MEBuckner, I was excited about a "lie’ thread.
Instead, here’s another source:
Asia Source

MEBuckner: I resent your having changed the title of this thread. The topic of this thread is “lies,” and the lies about NK nukes merely one example of such lies. This is not intended to be about North Korea, except insofar as the situation is an example of lies.

No, according to the Korea Times, the U.S. State Department said that “The North Korean officials acknowledged that they have such a program.”

Yes, according to the U.S. State Department, NK has admitted to having a nuclear weapons program.

However, since the State Department is about the least reliable source of information on Earth, perhaps we should be skeptical of its claims.

Again, no official of North Korea has ever admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program. The only such “admission” seems to have come from Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. The North Koreans, on the other hand, have admitted no such thing. Furthermore, as I stated before, there is not a single shred of evidence that such a program exists.

One thing is instructive here. I point out how the media has repeated a lie so many times that it has become fact. What is the response? To give examples of media reporting this very lie.

I KNOW THAT THERE ARE NUMEROUS MEDIA REPORTS OF NORTH KOREA “ADMITTING” TO HAVING A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM.

However, what is important here is that there is no statement from any North Korean official to this effect. In fact, quite the opposite. What we have, instead, is a lie spread by the U.S. state department, and picked up by the mass media, repeated endlessly until it has become fact. Yet, nowhere did this lie have any basis whatsoever in reality.

Once again, you say the US is lying. Once again, I ask for a cite. How do you know the US gov’t is lying? Or are you repeating yourself often enough, hoping that words become ‘truth’?

The U.S. State Department announced that North Korea admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program during a meeting between senior officials of both countries. Yet, no NK official has ever issued such a statement to the press, even after the State Department announcement.

There isn’t a single shred of evidence for the existence of such a program, and such a program is highly unlikely to exist. Therefore, we can conclude that the State Department was simply lying about this so-called “admission.”

However, as I said, if there really was such an admission, I encourage somebody to present the evidence for this admission. Where is the statement from NK? Where is the evidence for the nuclear program? Brutus has stated that NK has admitting to not only having a nuclear program, but to having nukes already. Where is the evidence for this, apart from State Department statements?

Here, from a nice and commie website for you:

“DPRK ambassador in Beijing calls the renewed nuclear program an act of self-defence against US aggression…”

No US State Dept. people involved, only beloved communists of varying shades of Red.

Now take a ‘Great Leap Forward’, Chumpsky, and admit you were wrong.

“Lies and the Corporate Media” would have been a suitable title if that is what you had intended the thread to be about. “Lies” would still have been rather too vague of a thread title for that subject; it might do as a title for a debate about when or whether it is ethically justified to lie. Since your original post and subsequent responses in this thread have been almost entirely about the North Korean nuclear weapons program, that’s what I changed the title of the thread to reflect.

Why “highly unlikely”? They don’t have the reactors? They don’t have the resources? They don’t have the smarts? Give is something (without an appeal to suspicion) to chew on would ya?

Do you consider the BBC, CNN, and AsiaSource credible?
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/17/nkorea.nukes
North Korea’s Pyongyang Radio said Sunday the country “has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists,” according to the Yonhap news agency which monitors North Korean broadcasts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2485829.stm

North Korea has said for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. A commentary broadcast on state radio said North Korea had developed “powerful military counter-measures, including nuclear weapons” to cope with what it called mounting nuclear threats from the United States.

http://www.asiasource.org/news/at_mp_02.cfm?newsid=88268

After North Korea’s surprising confession in October 2002 of having a secret nuclear-arms program, U.S., South Korea, and Japan have been grappling with questions of what to do next. In December, Pyongyang announced that it had no choice but to reactivate its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon because the U.S. was planning a pre-emptive strike. Most recently, North Korea has called for direct talks with Washington and a non-aggression pact after expelling U.N. inspectors monitoring the Yongbyon nuclear complex. But the US has consistently rejected direct talks with North Korea until it dismantles its nuclear facilities.

tsunamisurfer, he’s not going to buy the radio broadcast. It doesn’t count as an ‘official statement’, as the South Koreans thoughtfully point out in your first link.

None of that is credible. Show me ONE (1) article not naming ‘anonymous sources’.

FTR, DPRK said that the US threats of nuclear war (see axis of evil speech, subsequent state dept. releases, etc.) constituted a situation in which the country (North Korea) was unable to guarantee, as per the NPT, that they would not pursue nuclear weapons in the future.

Besides, the DPRKs HWRs have been offline since 1994, which means that for North Korea to have nuclear weapons, they must have had them before 94 - which begs the question, WTF have the IAEA been doing since then? Inspecting rice farmers? And BTW, where is the US movement on the Agreed Framework? Stalled in its tracks, I see.

Hoo-boy! :smack:

Only [b[Chumpsky** would defend the Stalinists! :rolleyes:

Hey! Chumpsky! Lets have a wild weekend playing a little game—we get a couple of plane tickets to the Gulag archipelago, and bring a couple of shovels. The game works like this–we go into one of the old Soviet Slave Labor camps, & dig 1’X1’X3’ holes. 50 of 'em. If even one hole fails to dig up a human bone from one of the murdered innocents, you get my car.
If you do find bones, I get yours, or 15% of your savings account, whichever is better. Loser springs for the tickets, too.

I’m sure you’ll agree to this, as there obviously were never any unjust executions or acts of brutal torture in the Workers’ Paradise.