| Hokay, show of hands: who thought this was coming? |
| Even though diplomacy is the only possible approach to solving the problem of North Korea, donchaknow ... |
| Of course not. The Chinese won't curb their dog, the Rooskies enjoy meddling, and the rest of the Security Council is ineffectual and unwilling to take action. |
| We already have one of those. The next step is to do something about it, which the UN won't do. |
| Though Susie has no idea what the outcome should be. Her timid boss, our President, refused to shoot down the missile and then expressed 'outrage' that the Norks launched, and thus demonstrated himself to be a paper tiger. And his ambassador is clueless as to what we should be doing. In and of itself the Nork's long-range missile is almost laughable. The Norks can't seriously threaten us. We have a missile defense system that works. It certainly works well enough to stop a single, or a few, TD-2 missiles. A Nork land invasion of the south would roll as far as the first big-box discount store in the South and come to a halt. The Norks can't hurt us, can't really hurt Japan, and could hurt the SKors only if they want their own country to cease to exist. But what they can do is what they've been doing: sell their WMD technology to any group of thugs that have the cash. It's no accident that the Iranians were in attendance. Bet the Syrians have a full report by now. And Hugo. And so do various terrorist groups that would love to get their hands on a Nork nuclear device. And so the missile launch was not just a test, it was advertising. It shows the Iranians and the rest that their technology works. And it shows the world that we, the West, the US, the UN, Japan, etc., won't do a damned thing about it. Our ambassador, Susan Rice, doesn't know what to do and what kind of outcome she wants, other than the most base platitude. All she can do is spoon out pablum. Do we want the Norks to stop building WMDs? Do we want them to stop building and testing missiles? Do we want them to stop their proliferation efforts? What are we willing to do to stop them? Diplomacy has failed. Clinton tried. Bush tried. Bambi now will try. Pretty soon their efforts will rival our efforts to produce a lasting peace in the Middle East. We can enlist the Party-of-Six. We can bring in the UN. We can perhaps even enlist the EU for all the good it will do. None of it will matter. Diplomacy is meaningless with the Norks, because it's been shown previously to be meaningless. No serious person wants a full-out war with the Norks. Lots of innocent people would die, and such a war could destabilize our relationship, such as it is, with China. Indeed, the Chinese might now be telling Barry, "mess with the Norks and we won't buy your T-bills anymore." You can bet that Timmy the Treasurer worries about that. But it is time to put the Norks on notice: we won't do another damned thing to help you. No more food or oil. Threaten all you like, launch as many missiles as you want, even test your puny nuke device if you wish. We obviously can't stop you. But there will be no more aid of any kind. We'll follow that up with relentless efforts to shut down all your ways of bringing in cash. Nork ships carrying missile parts will have tragic accidents. Nork diplomats will be compromised. Nork military officers will have fatal strokes. Nork counterfeiting, money-laundering, and drug-running schemes will be discovered and shut down. We'll starve you for cash, Kim: no more cognac, no more blondes, and no more boodle to spread to your generals so that they tolerate you in power. We had fifty years practice in running a cold war, Kimmie, we know cold war. And we make it clear to the SKors: if you aid the North, we'll pull out and let you defend your own country. We can base our AEGIS ships from Yokohama, we can pull our other forces back to Okinawa or Guam, and you can handle Kimmie yourselves. |
| Never mind that the Norks have already increased tensions. Apparently they're the only ones allowed to do so. |
| So the snow-job worked. |