The People’s Democratic Republic of Death Camps has admitted its nuclear program and refused to return to talks on nuclear disarmament, claiming it needs the weapons for “defence against the United States”:
“We … have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Sadly, the international media is playing right into the horrifying regime’s hands, painting this as more of a political issue for Bush than a legitimate threat to the security of the world:
The statement also poses a challenge to Bush, who has long backed a diplomatic solution to the crisis but now faces two nations he once named as part of an “axis of evil” being openly defiant about their nuclear programs — North Korea and Iran. He went to war with the third axis nation, Iraq.
While most people have known for years that North Korea was building up its nukes, this official announcement signals that the “Dear Leader” has been emboldened by the world’s refusal to do anything about Iran or really anything about much of anything lately. Even if North Korea has had the nukes for a while, the announcement is a signal that they might be willing to use them.
This is not good news, to put it mildly.
If we can go so far as to attribute logic to a madman, we might suggest that Kim Jong-Il knows full well that the United States is the only country who might even try to do something and that the rest of the world hates the U.S.’s guts. He’s probably banking on the fact that most people will assume that America is more dangerous than a regime that sends children to prison camps that have gas chambers reminiscent of Auschwitz, that starves its own population en masse, and that ranked dead last in the Index of Economic Freedom for the umpteenth year in a row.
But never mind all that, of course the world would be safer if we just got rid of Bush. Suuuuuuuure.
FreeNorthKorea.net has plenty of reading material about the kind of things that are going on in North Korea even as we speak. I challenge anyone to read it and not be legitimately terrified at the idea that this country could launch nuclear warheads.
Don’t discount China. If they see they’re booming economy threatened by Kim the Berserker doing something monumentally stupid, they’re more than capable of rectifying the situation in they’re own inimitable style.
In a rash way, I rather wish they would…
Oops, make that “their” own style…
Your remarks make me think, and also catch me off guard. They’re good; stimulating.
My feeling is that this is very far from being black-and-white. I mean, once an American President declares certain nations to be evil, one certainly hopes he also has an action plan to deal with the response. My expectation at the very least was that George would honour the direct talks Bill had arranged. Instead he cancelled them and went for a regional approach.
Likewise, I feel that here we have the very country which invented nuclear weapons–the only country to use them on innocent populations–the same country which only reluctantly cuts back on its many thousands of them–presuming to take the high ground vis. nuclear wannabe nations. Its moral indignation has a hollow ring to it.
Finally, my gut feeling is that nothing is going to happen with Dictator Kim without China deciding it has had enough. And to me, China is probably content having a permanently divided neighbour, forever bristling and at odds.
Do we really believe China is looking to promote a unified, democratic and militarily powerful Korea? This isn’t at all black-and-white. Calling North Korea evil doesn’t go any distance in lessening the dangers within and beyond its border.
“…the only country to use them on innocent populations–”
*Bogglement*
Non-combatants perhaps, but by no stretch of the imagination, innocent. I’ve never heard referrence to any kind of Japanese popular resistance or underground movement that opposed Japanese Imperialism. Just the opposite.
Ask the Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Australian, et al civilian populations how they were treated by the Japanese Empire.
When you draw your sword you give up morality as a shield (all other opinions to the contrary notwithstanding). Dead is dead.
Touche. Point taken. Non-combatant men, women and children.
Not having myself lived through that period of history, DaninVan,I nonetheless wouldn’t be surprised if the civilian Japanese didn’t themselves demonstrate the same brainwashed qualities of the millions of present day North Koreans.
Certainly there is no direct correlation, but I truly wouldn’t wish to see a nuclear weapon dropped on P’yongyang by the United States in order to deal with another demagogue who enjoys thinking of himself as a Supreme Being.
Hopefully lessons were learned from doing this the last time.
Far more lives were saved by using the A-bombs than were lost in the blasts and they’re aftermath. As has been pointed out ad infinitum, those were the first and last times that N-weapons have been used.
The World was well served by those two examples of the mass devastation that results from N-weapons.
You don’t see annual demonstrations of Remembrance for the million plus casualties of the Iraq-Iran conflict, eh?
Your logic escapes me DV. I wish you well.
🙂 You too, Lance.