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.
阁下，吉迪恩•拉赫曼(Gideon Rachman)称轰炸朝鲜不应成为一种选择（见英国《金融时报》中文网3月22日刊登的文章《美国应该轰炸朝鲜吗？》），这当然没错。然而，轰炸朝鲜有可能造成灾难性后果的原因要比他阐述的深刻得多。首先，朝鲜有大约1万门火炮和火箭发射装置可将首尔的1000万居民覆盖在打击范围之内。这些武器受到了很好的保护，许多都藏在洞穴和掩体中。如果每枚弹头携带20磅列性炸药（更不必说化学武器），以每分钟5轮的速度发射，那么每分钟将有1000吨炸药落向首尔。一刻钟内造成的破坏将相当于一颗摧毁广岛的原子弹落在这座城市。