Darrell Castle talks about the crisis with North Korea and poses the question – Is North Korea a legitimate nuclear threat to the United States that must be attacked and destroyed militarily? Transcript NORTH KOREA—NUCLEAR THREAT OR JUST BAD PEOPLE Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s podcast. Today is Friday June 23, 2017, and on today’s podcast we will be talking about the crisis with North Korea from the perspective of whether or not that nation is a serious nuclear threat to the United States, or whether it is just a place run by really bad people or perhaps really bad lunatics. North Korea is about the last place one would normally think of as a serious threat.  It can’t even feed its own people without massive help from China and the West.  It can’t seem to make anything such as appliances, air conditioners, cars, etc., most of which it imports from its Chinese benefactor as well as its sworn enemy, South Korea. North Korea keeps its people, those not confined at hard labor in concentration camps, in a total media blackout.  It has been run as a matter of inheritance by the same family of dictators for decades.  The current one, Kim Jong-un seems like the craziest one yet.  He appears to be rather insecure and is constantly trying to convince the world that he is powerful, and a man who leads a nation to be feared and respected.  He acts a lot like a spoiled adolescent looking for attention. In April of this year, Kim held a big parade in his capital city of Pyongyang in which he, in the grand style of the Soviet Union’s May Day parades, showed off a “terrifying array” of massive nuclear capable missiles.  The world wasn’t fooled, however, and headlines around the world poked fun at him for his wooden missiles, and missiles that can’t fly.  He keeps saying that all the missiles he keeps testing, most of which fail, are nuclear capable, but there is no evidence that he has successfully mounted a nuclear warhead on one, or that he even has nuclear warhead capability for that matter. The United States is certainly treating North Korea as a serious and legitimate nuclear threat.  The Trump administration seems to be weary of Kim’s constant belligerence, and threats to attack the United States and its allies. The attack carrier USS Carl Vinson and its entire battle group has been on station off North Korean waters for a couple of months, and now a second carrier battle group, the Ronald Reagan, has departed its home port of Yokosuka, Japan for the short sail to North Korea.  Now the carrier USS Nimitz and its battle group have reportedly sailed for North Korean waters. A total of three strike carrier battle groups, each with about 100 attack aircraft capable of hitting anywhere in North Korea will soon be deployed off its coast.  Keep in mind that when carriers are deployed somewhere they are unavailable to be used anywhere else.  With the George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf that’s four front line carriers committed long term.  It is also very expensive to keep an entire battle group at sea.  I can’t confirm absolutely the figures but I’ve read reports that say $25 million dollars per day for each group, so if accurate, that’s $100 million per day for the four groups. In addition, the United States has taken other action in what appears to be a coming and increasingly unavoidable war. Global Intelligence expert and chairman of Geopolitical Futures Mr. George Friedman stated recently at a Strategic Investment Conference lecture that “it has become apparent that the US is preparing to attack North Korea”.  Mr. Friedman, who has long been a US Government advisor, went on to say that the B-52, B-2, and B-1 bombers based in Guam would be the axis of attack supported by over 100 fighter aircraft.  Civil defense exercises and briefings are being conducted in Guam since it is a US territory and has to be protected. Mr. Friedman says that he doesn’t think that North Korea has offensive capabilities of striking the US mainland...