Sunday, April 7, 2013

Op-ed: Stalemate or war...only time will tell

Op-ed: 
Stalemate or war...only time will tell 
By: Diane Sori
 

While Kim Jong-un continues his saber-rattling rhetoric, South Koreans are carrying on as if everything is normal even with the North having formally declared war on them...but they're doing so with one eye open.

And despite US pleas to China to help defuse the situation and get North Korea to calm down, North Korean state television again aired footage (to stir up the masses) of huge rallies against the US and South Korea, with protesters chanting anti-American slogans and carrying banners reading, "Let's destroy our mortal enemy, the United States."

Sounds just like Kim Jong-un's buddy the Iranian nut job Ahmadinejad doesn't it...
North Korea's threats of war have gone on for 40 years, and upping their threats by moving two intermediate-range missile launchers to its eastern coast...missiles with 'considerable range' according to Pyongyang...missiles with a possibility of being able to hit targets in the South or in Japan...could be just more saber-rattlings to mask a test or it could be a prelude to war. And with the North's top military honchos warning that it's been authorized to attack US and South Korea's defenses as well as authorizing a nuclear strike on the US using “smaller, lighter, and diversified nuclear weapons,” we're now forced to take these threats seriously because it's NOT wise to discount a desperate madman.
 
And with North Korea in serious economic straits, the realization that desperate madmen do things differently than the sane do takes on new meaning. Even White House spokesman Jay Carney said a missile launch would NOT be unexpected. "We would not be surprised to see them take such an action...we have seen them launch missiles in the past," Carney said. 

Now add into this that Pyongyang has told all foreign embassies that they could NOT guarantee the safety of their personnel after next Wednesday, and asked them if they needed help closing down and evacuating, the game has been upped a notch.

But NO foreign embassies have announced plans to evacuate by Wednesday or any day, for as like South Korea, these diplomats have heard the North's musings of war many times before. And the significance of why next Wednesday is uncertain, although it has been rumored that Wednesday is the date for the possible closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a facility inside the North where South Korean companies employ 53,000 people. 
 
And how has our military responded to all this...a missile defense system has been moved to Guam, nuclear-capable B2 stealth bombers have been flown over the Korean peninsula in a show of strength and camaraderie with our ally South Korea, and US warships have been deployed and will be stationed off the coast...all of which Pyongyang calls rehearsals for a northward invasion.
 
Like North Korea has anything we or Seoul want.

And all this is because of North Korea's outrage at the newest U(seless) N(ations) sanctions put in place as punishment for them having carried out a third nuclear test, and in response to the annual US/South Korean military exercises.
 
And what has the White House answer been to all this...the usual I would say as true to form of those in this administration who placate our enemies, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has put on hold a long-planned intercontinental ballistic missile test at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that was scheduled for next week, claiming rising tensions with North Korea as the reason why. Hagel said he felt that performing any tests of that nature could be misconstrued by Pyongyang and lead to an escalation of the situation with North Korea, so he decided, with White House approval, to postpone the 'Minuteman 3' missile test until next month.
 
Well guess what...who cares or gives a damn what North Korea or its man-child leader think...this test was crucial to the defense of this country and this country comes first...at least it's supposed to...at least it used to.

That's before we had a president who lets a little piss-ant country like North Korea call the shots and allows them to hold us hostage as we wait and see if their man-child leader will follow through on his threats or just continue to bloviate on and on and on...
 


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