Friday, September 15, 2017

Gallop Poll: U.S. Majority Backs Military Action Against North Korea

A passerby walks under a TV screen reporting news about North Korea's missile launch in Tokyo, Japan September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Reuters: U.S. majority backs military action vs. North Korea: Gallup poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of Americans support military action against North Korea if economic and diplomatic efforts fail, according to a Gallup poll released on Friday amid rising tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and recent missile launches.

The survey of 1,022 U.S. adults last week found that 58 percent said they would favor military action against North Korea if the United States cannot accomplish its goals by more peaceful means first.

Such support, however, was largely split along political party lines. Among Republicans, 82 percent would back military action compared with 37 percent among Democrats. Among political independents, 56 backed such action.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: 58% favor a war of choice against North Korea .... that is a number that surprises me (I expected 30% to 40%).

10 comments:

fred said...

Now, perhaps, we can ask the South Koreans and the Japanese how they feel about going to war since they will be the directly involved while many voting for a war here will in fact not serve in a war or be directly in the line of fire

Carl said...

Yes, bad ideas are too often popular.

B.Poster said...

"War of choice?!!?" North Korea is threatenibg to annihilate us and thry are getting strongdr at an incredibly rapid rate. In fact, in the face of an adversary threatenening to exterminate them who is steadily gaining strength, many Americans have concluded or are close to concluding we "have no choice."

The "choices" appear to be, as of right now, a.)do nothing, absorb a crushing blow from North Korea, and hope we are still able to respond or b.)act preemptively to try and deal with this problem before we get hit. To put it another way, allow the bully to hit you breaking multiple bones and causing serious injuries perhaps even placing your life in danger or take preemptive action against the bully.

Perhaps we aren't there yet but we are perilously close. Those who support the action are looking at this as though there is no choice. We've been backed into a corner anf have no choice but to take preemptive military action and there is substantial evidence to support such a position.

As for South Korea and Japan, the South Korean president is opposed to the deployment of US nuclear weapons on South Korean soil. Such an action severely limits our options, places our people in even more danger, and makes it even harder to defend either America or South Korea. If the South Koreans will not allow American nuclear weapons to be deployed or develop their own, the US will simply have no choice but to cancel the alliance with South Korea effective immediately. From there the US will serk a resolution to the North Korean problem independently from South Korea. I can foresee significant advantages that would result to America from being unencumbered by South Korea. Specifically we would have greater flexibility. I'm not sure about Japan's position. If it is similar to South Korea, the same dynamic will apply.

I hope and pray it does NOT come to war. If it does, I find DJT's statement of "fire and fury" comforting. This appears to suggest we will not be nation building an we will not be hamstringing our military with ridiculous rules of engagement. In other words, the goal will be to uttetly destroy an enemy eho is sctively trying to uttetly destroy us. If we must be destroyed, GO OUT FIGHTING!!

Know this. If war does happen, millions of Americans on the mainland will die but, as of now, we may have no choice. This problem cannot be solved until Americans can feel safe. A certain world leader a few weeks ago had this completely backwards.

Sorry about the long rant. To sum up, many Americans aren't convinced this is or would be a war of choice and they have good reason to believe this.

A previous post I submitted was not posted. It may have been offensive snd perhaps not well thought out. I apologize to the editor for this for any offense and ask for forgivness. Any offense was unintentional.

Anonymous said...

Fusion..you must not have followed this blog closely. Or at least you might have overlooked the poor performance results of our missile defense system against single (!) Expected test missiles of known characteristics and flight paths. Only about 80% effective. Now, North Korea may not be able to get one through with absolute certainty, but every week their systems get better and we still only have 80% in controlled missile tests against one (!) Single missile. Now it doesn't take a genius to see where this is heading. Also, if they get through just one missile (which they credibly could do very very soon), it will kill millions of Americans and on top devastate or economy. Think 9/11 was bad? That was 3000 people and a handful buildings and a few hundred billion in damage. We are talking literally 1000x fold here. Double digit trillion losses. Up to a million dead. Thousands of buildings flattened. Their nukes are already estimated to be nearly 20x as powerful as Hiroshima. Oh. .and just to make things worse. .it's a totalitarian state. No checks and balances. If Kim Jong Un decides to send them, his generals will do it or dogs will maul them to death, slowly.
Now please reconsider your position. Thank you.

Unknown said...


Fred,

The South Korean weighed in.

They want nukes.

We should give them the nukes.

In even to war, North Korea will send some nukes to South Korean targets, but some will hit the important areas in the U.S. like the Left coast or the NE corridor (D.C, Boston (silicon valley east), NYC, etc). Fallout in those areas will be fierce.

I'll leave you with some wisdom about paying the butcher's bill.

Pay it up front and take fewer casualties or pussy foot around and pay a higher casualty total later.

Trying to avoid paying the bill causes you to pay a higher one later.

Knowing you, you do not believe this.

Unknown said...

"Expected test missiles of known characteristics and flight paths. Only about 80% effective"

"Only about 80% effective" That part is true. Mostly. 81.7%

"Expected test missiles of known characteristics and flight paths." A lot of time & money have been spent on firing projectiles form ships against ship and tank versus tank to achieve hits.

There are all difficult problems (yaw, pitch, roll) and yet tanks hit other tanks all the
time.

I think the citizens will take a 81.7% success rate over nothing any day.

If the North Korean salvo so can air defense. Or will we maintain that only the bad guys can salvo because that is scarier and we want our 'purported' side to assume the fetal position, because that is what it sounds like.

We usually get some heads up to coming missile and nuke test due to activity. Will that change? It take about 20 minutes to fuel a liquid propellant missile. Plenty of time to bomb it.

We also can have up to 3 or more chances to hit missiles.

We have a good chance of hitting a missile mid course. That would be the M in GMD (Ground-based Midcourse Defense).

www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf

If it is really so super hard as Anon wants us to believe we could go back to Nike. In that case the more the easier it gets.

I really think in an Anon world that it would just be easier for the NORKs to place a nuke on a Lear jet and innocently fly it over 'enemy' territory. After all Anon would not want to piss off the NORKS by denying them passage or denying them free flow of commerce.

Anonymous said...

Aizino. Your logic is flawed. It is easier to shoot a gun or rocket, than to hit that projectile in mid air. Add to this our admittedly lacking knowledge about north Korea and add to that that we're always and constantly being surprised by the faster than expected progress the north koreans make. Add on top the fog of War principle.

To sum it up more clearly, I say: be worried about your enemy and his capabilities - especially if you constantly underestimate him.

You appear to be disagreeing. Happy to hear your arguments once more.

Andrew Jackson said...

It's a trap ,NK has no oil and must be supplied By Russia or China. Putler is praying we're stupid enough to go in to that hell hole. We should bring in thousands of napalm bombs to drop on the NK army if they fire on Seoul .Use our Navy to sink every ship they have,mine the NK ports and coast ,show no mercy,starve them! My father fought the Japanese,he said when we used napalm they started to surrender.Nobody stands up to fire weapons!!

Unknown said...

You lead a missile the same as you lead a rabbit.

The missile is going faster of course.

You have problems with distortion.

Missiles can alter course. So can rabbits. Sometimes it takes more than one shot to hit a rabbit, because it zigged or zagged. Hunters still hunt and they still often get the rabbits on the 1st try.

Just put up some anti satellite weapons in space. The U.S., Russian, and China have all tested them. If it can take out a satellite, it is not that much harder to take out a missile. Look at it this way. What are the chances that a missile has been programed for radical maneuvers mid course? If it has to evade it is burning fuel it might need later for evasive maneuvers. If it is evading, it might miss its target a city and hit a cornfield.

Unknown said...


"He's getting help, boys."

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/e/enemy-of-the-state-script.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3poKUuvtyM

With modern server workstations, textbooks and software for mundane engineering /scientific tasks it could all be North Korean at this point. Still the Iranians have been present in North Korea of several test.

It doesn't matter. You take them all out. It is the way it is in war. In WW2 Norway was a battleground because of Sweden and Sweden was "neutral". (Sweden was and still is fascist, but whose counting?)