Sir, Gideon Rachman is of course correct in arguing that bombing North Korea is not an option (March 21). However, the reasons this would be a catastrophic act are far more profound than he presents. In the first place, North Korea has about 10,000 artillery and rocket launchers within striking distance of Seoul’s nearly 20m residents. These weapons are well-protected, many in caves and bunkers. If each warhead carried 20 pounds of high explosive, let alone chemical weapons, with a firing rate of five rounds per minute, 1,000 tons of explosive or 1KT of destructive power would land on Seoul every minute. In a quarter of an hour, that would equate to a Hiroshima-level nuclear bomb being dropped on the city.
閣下，吉狄恩•拉赫曼(Gideon Rachman)稱轟炸北韓不應成爲一種選擇（見英國《金融時報》中文網3月22日刊登的文章《美國應該轟炸北韓嗎？》），這當然沒錯。然而，轟炸北韓有可能造成災難性後果的原因要比他闡述的深刻得多。首先，北韓有大約1萬門火炮和火箭發射裝置可將首爾的1000萬居民覆蓋在打擊範圍之內。這些武器受到了很好的保護，許多都藏在洞穴和掩體中。如果每枚彈頭攜帶20磅列性炸藥（更不必說化學武器），以每分鐘5輪的速度發射，那麼每分鐘將有1000噸炸藥落向首爾。一刻鐘內造成的破壞將相當於一顆摧毀廣島的原子彈落在這座城市。