this is far from the first time threats like that have been made... they practically threaten to turn seoul into a sea of flame nearly every week.

I think it does matter ...

One viable strategy for the United States and South Korea (if they believed this was a credible threat) would be a preventative strike on North Korea and to deal with the diplomatic fallout from China afterwards. This is an approach which would be evaluated and considered by an president but probably won’t be considered by Obama; and every leader in the world knows this.

What the most likely result of this is going to be is that the United States will send diplomats to North Korea, the United States will give North Korea food and medical aid, Kim Jong Il will use this event to produce propaganda, and (overall) Kim Jong Il will be rewarded for threatening the United States.

North Korea will not be able to get a nuke in the air. The US is strong enough to whip out North Korea in a few days, if not hours. We also have very powerful anti-missile defence systems. North Korea can hardly get a bomb in the air. I doubt they will do anything. Most likely North Korea will be upset and just sit and mope. 

I don't think they will gain anything from this.  Like another poster stated earlier, they do this shit like every few weeks.   If they want food and medicine they usually just threaten to fire up their nuclear reactor to produce more bomb making materials.  And that gets them what they want.  This is just more saber rattling bullshit...

If N.Korea was afraid of preventative strikes under Bush they wouldn't have tested nuclear weapons when he was president. N.Korea does crazy shit no matter who's in charge of the USA.

not likely that anythinginteresting would happen

you say all that like they aren't problems in your country and don't worry the us hates you just as much as you hat it

Come on man.  The UK has just as many if not more problems than the United States and it's slightly smaller than the state of Oregon.  Not to mention the UK is probably the United States biggest ally.  They are in the US's back pocket with a healthy percentage of decisions. 

As for North Korea?  The biggest threat they pose is the potential relationship / ally with China.  The United States is not going to engage North Korea entirely head first without knowing that it won't enrage China causing a complete fallout on a global scale.   By the same token,  If North Korea provokes an attack on it's country the world will support the move and China will be nullified as well. 

<table style="width: 90%;" border="0"><tr><td><strong>HappySqurriel said:</strong><br /><table style="width: 90%;" border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td><strong>Rath said:</strong><br> <table style="width: 90%;" border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td><strong>HappySqurriel said:</strong><br> <p>While he was an awful president, if W. was still in charge I doubt North Korea would make this threat</p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p><br>I don't think it matters who is in charge of the USA. The only country with any real influence over N.Korea is China and even they seem barely able to stop them doing something suicidal.</p> <p>N.Korea isn't going to nuke anything, they might test a nuclear weapon as retaliation but they aren't actually going to attack. Even they aren't that crazy.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p>I think it does matter ...</p> <p>One viable strategy for the United States and South Korea (if they believed this was a credible threat) would be a preventative strike on North Korea and to deal with the diplomatic fallout from China afterwards. This is an approach which would be evaluated and considered by an president but probably won’t be considered by Obama; and every leader in the world knows this.</p> <p>What the most likely result of this is going to be is that the United States will send diplomats to North Korea, the United States will give North Korea food and medical aid, Kim Jong Il will use this event to produce propaganda, and (overall) Kim Jong Il will be rewarded for threatening the United States.</p></td></tr></table><br /><br />

i would agree with you in some cases but this is just not one of them.  The Korean war is still not over and the US has a treaty and obligation with South Korea to protect them.  Like it or not the US is doing the right thing here, and in this case it doesn't seem to be because they can gain wealth out of it.  Now if you want to talk about iraq....