[personZ]

I mean, Obama has straight up said that he plans to attack NK.

He said absolutely no such thing, and it is rather incredible if people think this. The US has warned that they will respond, which will end up being a complaint in the UN.

Just to be clear, North Korea regularly warns the US of nuclear annihilation, imminent attacks, and so on...and people think the thing that will put the US over the top is a minor Sony hack?

[throwaway751822]

North Korea has a history of only threatening violence, but the United States has the history of following through. The last time the US said it would respond "at a time and place of its choosing", I believe it decided to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, did it not?

[ssmoot]

What honest person interprets "response" as anything but "attack"? Seriously?

I didn't mean to imply that there'd be a body count attached to the "response" BTW. That's (hopefully) far-fetched. But an attack in the same way that hacking some computers and releasing some embarrassing information is an "attack"? Absolutely.

Isn't that the entire point of the quote? (And yes, I reproduced Obama's words pretty faithfully I believe. They were playing on repeat on the radio.)

I mean, if you don't think "response" means "attack" in a gimmicky "cyber-warfare" way, what does it mean? A strongly worded letter?

If I run over my neighbor's cat, and he says to me: "I'll respond all right. At a time, place and method of my choosing." Any rational person would have to interpret that as an explicit threat of an impending attack.

Just because politically it may be weaseled out of does not mean it's in any way ambiguous in delivery or intended reception to Joe the Plumber.