Since July 4th I've been pondering an answer on what should be done with North Korea and its recent launching of some seven missiles. In fact it looks like North Korea is playing its typical shakedown games in which they shoot off various missiles into the ocean or in the vicinity of Japan to get the Americans and the world community fidgety enough so they are offered something like energy supplies, bank accounts being un-frozen, or loosening of country by country sanctions in which they subsequently cool off their jets and they scamper back into their lair only to reappear some years later with something new and more deadly. The best solution for this situation is to stop rewarding the thugs in Pyongyang like we did in 1994, 1998, 2000 and 2004 in which we either offered them light water reactors, fuel supplies, sending various diplomats to wine and dine Kim Jong Il or giving them a seat in diplomatic talks. All of these have resulted in the furthering of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs that just endangers Japan, South Korea and our troops stationed in these respected countries and embolden the Hermit Kingdom to continue their aggressive actions.
Now I'm all for the US and its partners seeking a diplomatic solution to the current situation but after years of thinking and observing the actions of Kim Il Sung and his son, I'm beginning to believe that the North Korean government is like a child who doesn't get enough trips to the woodshed for their temper tantrums. So I say that we launch several missiles on the various ballistic missile sights and warn them that the next time they do this again we'll drop even more but it'll be to cripple Kim Jong Il's regime. Though this will anger Russia and China not to mention a possible conflagration with North Korea it just demonstrates that we mean business with regards to preventing North Korea from expanding their deadly projects. Though my advice doesn't seem to hold water with the world community or the current administration , I'm betting that it probably would shake Kim Jong Il and his friends up and get their attention.
While my take on North Korea might be too aggressive for the US to do, I'm willing to offer a third way which is the rollback of the Stalinistic regime of Kim Jong Il. It'd be far better for us and the innocent people under the iron boot of the 'Dear Leader'. I think the editorial board of the New York Sun summed up this third way today in a editorial when they noted the following:
President Bush, the United Nations Security Council, and the American foreign policy establishment are all aflutter about the North Korean missile launch. But the one who by our lights appears to understand the matter better than anyone is the 39-year-old president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili. "I just sent over to President Bush the letter that Georgian freedom fighters sent him seven years ago, and it never made it to the White House. It was intercepted by KGB and all the people who wrote it were shot," Mr. Saakashvili said yesterday during a visit with the president in the Oval Office. "I'm sure lots of people out there in Korea are writing similar letters today. And I'm sure that North Korean missiles will never reach the United States, but those letters will, eventually, very soon, because that's a part of the freedom agenda that President Bush has and we strongly believe in."I prefer missile sights being engulfed in bright glowing explosions with Kim Jong Il and his buddies cowering in Pyongyang and forgoing their missile and nuke program but I'm game with the suggestion of removing the regime root and branch. Whatever we do, let's find a better solution to ending the problem without bending over backwards and handing them the kitchen sink in hopes they calm down.
President Bush, the United Nations Security Council, and the American foreign policy establishment are all aflutter about the North Korean missile launch. But the one who by our lights appears to understand the matter better than anyone is the 39-year-old president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili. "I just sent over to President Bush the letter that Georgian freedom fighters sent him seven years ago, and it never made it to the White House. It was intercepted by KGB and all the people who wrote it were shot," Mr. Saakashvili said yesterday during a visit with the president in the Oval Office. "I'm sure lots of people out there in Korea are writing similar letters today. And I'm sure that North Korean missiles will never reach the United States, but those letters will, eventually, very soon, because that's a part of the freedom agenda that President Bush has and we strongly believe in."
The point we take from Mr. Saakashvili's comments was that it isn't the North Korean missiles themselves that are the threat but rather the Communist regime in Pyongyang. The reaction to the missile launch - American consultations with Russia and Communist China and a race to the U.N. Security Council, which itself includes Russia and Communist China, is in that sense beside the point. Communist China does not want a free North Korea, for that could lead to a free mainland China. Nor is President Putin, who spent 17 years in the KGB, particularly interested in chalking up another big win for freedom and democracy. Even South Korea isn't particularly interested in being unified with a free North Korea. Seoul is wary of the economic challenge of bringing its impoverished Northern neighbors up to modern standards of living the way West Germany did when it was reunited with a liberated East Germany.
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