Somebody has to help these people- North Koreans

They do if their nuclear blackmail brought them rewards before:
The North's nuclear blackmail has worked brilliantly. Look no further than the recent deal: an agreement by the North to slow down its nuclear developments in exchange for a large volume of unconditional aid.

Because the UN isn't in charge of running North Korea. It's not their job to decide what kind of govt or dictatorship any country should have.

You make a good point about the military. There's a risk to saber rattling and threats when it comes to both North Korea and Iran. These aren't countries that will skirmish when attacked. They have strong defenses and they aren't worried about body count. If we could not win decisively in Iraq and Afghanistan after ten years - we don't need to be attacking countries with REAL military strength.

Technically, none of the above matters... or, rather, it does, but it's not the #1 issue which is, in fact, China.

Nobody can attack North Korea without Chinese approval.

For such an attack to be sanctioned by the United Nations, it would have to be approved by the Security Council, which China will simply veto if it isn't to their liking (and they will, with the possible exception of a war unambiguously initiated by North Korea... though even that couldn't be taken for granted either).

And, in the case of an attack outside of international law, the Chinese will be compelled to intervene in defence of the North Koreans. While they don't actually have that much time for the North Korean regime anymore, expecting them NOT to intervene would be like expecting the United States to not to intervene in a scenario where a third-party attacks and/or invades Canada or Mexico.

It simply won't happen.

(Also, the fact that most of the Russian Pacific Fleet is based less than 3 hours from their (admittedly small) border with North Korea can hardly be ignored too.)

Thunderbird is right... in the absence of the Soviet Union, North Korea survives at the behest of the Chinese. They could easily stomp Kim Jong-un into the mud if they wanted to, and things would change very rapidly. As of right now, though, I don't think they have any reason to want to do so, at least not at anything other than a snails pace.

However, within a decade or two from now, I think it's very likely that one of the three scenarios above will have already been played out to some extent. The least-worrying and most-likely is simply an intact North Korean regime that has been significantly changed for the better by Chinese pressure. A Chinese-sanctioned military intervention by the United Nations is the next most likely. And the least-likely, but most worrying, is a unilateral attack on North Korea precipitating a full military response by the Chinese.

Thats terrible. At least I dont have to carry my sense of hatred closely enough for anyone in my OWN pathetic circle of personal enemies... They have just come up a notch to mere "dislike".

I have to ration it, because normally Im not capable of much hate...:rolleyes: But even that has been a change, because prior to a year ago I wasnt capable of it at ALL.

None of my own enemies are THIS bad...I know who I hate more than any man on earth now. Negative energy officially shifted out of my personal space, and across the world.

Actually one of my enemies kinda behaves alot like this guy... "I vow to take down John Durham at all costs, no matter who is destroyed in the process..." but , sorry dude, this guy is much worse. You are merely "disliked" now, by comparison.

Now that I know what is truly worth hating, I cant hate you anymore, there isnt enough hate energy to go around.

The UN put Robert Mugabe on a council for Human Rights...what's to understand?

.........

Sorry, I got the info twisted up, he was asked to be an ambassador to tourism last year, but after so much opposition, to this - they reneged - mea culpa

Well, the israel strikes were a given. Only a question of when, but the end time has been rapidly closing for a few years, since iran is creating fission material, and threatening israel. Nato going against things like libya was a given too. There is a lot of strife in the middle east and africa. For russia, I know a lot of them are allied with and/or supported by russia.

Oh well, THIS is why they have the prime directive on star trek, and why the manhatten project was SUPPOSED to be SECRET!

Steve