It may seem a bit odd that the approaching Apocalypse would be greeted as good news… but this is so only if you’re a Republican, of course. In this case, that would be North Korea’s announcement that it intends to test detonate a nuclear bomb. While it is widely believed that North Korea has around 11 nuclear bombs, no one knows for sure that any of them work. Given the failure of its mid to long range Taepodong missile earlier in the year, it is always possible that its nuclear ambitions and capabilities are greatly overstated. A successful test of a nuclear weapon… would clear up all doubt. (Of course, an unsuccessful test wouldn’t remove doubt the other way… though it would be a tad embarassing… though Kim Jong Il is not one to be embarrassed easily.)
In yet another example of the successful strategy of telling our most irritating enemies that we think they are evil and that we mean to impose regime change on them after which we will arrange for show trials and death sentences for their leadership, it comes as no surprise that Axis of EvilTM numbers 2 and 3, Iran and North Korea, are moving along with their nuclear programs as fast as possible (though Iran is widely rumored to be scheduled for an American attack in late October as part of this year’s mid-term pageant, because it is so much farther behind in getting its bomb compared to North Korea.)
It’s all odd, really. What to do with North Korea? Well, it’s difficult because it’s such a pain in the ass to deal with, with millions of starving people at the same time it is developing nuclear weapons and longer range missiles… we try to deal with it through China, but China has its own angle (and its own regional hegemony… to a degree.) The Japanese and South Koreans are rightly concerned… though less concerned than we are (and indeed, remittances from those two countries, along with Chinese aid, are helping to keep North Korea propped up as it is.)
Well, let’s just hail North Korea and its coming nuclear capability as yet another shining success of the Bush Administration’s simplistic foreign policy. Really, what else can we do?
tdog
Well, they HAVE to test them to find out whether or not they actually work, right? So, what the hey?
How do you deal with someone like Kim? Honestly, I believe he’s a madman. (I believe Our Dear Leader is a madman, also, but I’m straying from my point just a tad…) Maybe Kim is jealous because Iran is the more popular Axis of Evil member?
The citizens of North Korea are truly the victims here. What can we do to help them without pissing off the rest of the world, I wonder. Regime change would be nice and all, but we haven’t been really swell at doing that…
I guess I will just try not to think about it too much and thank my lucky stars we haven’t gotten as bad as North Korea has gotten. Yet.
Mixter