Things that go boom in the night: Nuclear North Korea

Growing up in Oceanside and being a Marine Corps brat I can remember the Cold War only too well. I remember being taught about spent munitions and more importantly what not to do if you happened to come across, say, a mortar round that failed to detonate. If Merry reads this I’m sure she too will remember the class. We did not however, do the celebrated “duck and cover” drills. They would, after all, be useless if indeed we were hit with nuclear weapons.

At North Terrace Elementary School, we had more immediate problems to worry about. We had, as do most schools, bully’s. How to deal with a bully was a lesson that most of us learned the hard way. In a nutshell though, the solution was to place a fist deeply and squarely in the bully’s face prior to him gaining some advantage over you. This is called a preemptive defense, and generally was good for at least a swat from Mister Trainer (sp?), the Principle. A sore butt was well worth having the bully off your back seemingly forever. Perhaps that was my introduction to political economics? The point though, is that it worked.

What does this schoolyard scenario have to do with North Korea? The analogy should be easy to define. North Korea is a bully nation. North Korea is also now a bully that has a big stick called nuclear weaponry. The United Nations is much like the teachers that used to insist that you “talk things out” with the schoolyard bully’s. Talking things over with North Korea only embolden ‘s them, just like it would embolden the bully in the schoolyard. Not to mention that this bully has a few friends called China,  Iran and Syria. Not real friends of course. They just want a big stick also, or, in China’s case it’s more like an errant cousin that you’re stuck with defending even when you know that the cousin is an insane jerk.

Preemptive defense got a bum rap when George Bush sent the United States into an unneeded war with Iraq that we are still entangled with. That however, is not a problem with the doctrine. It is the result of some very poor judgment on the part of the powers that be at the time it was used. That very same doctrine may be what is needed to tame a tiger before it grows to large to tame. The use of surgical strikes that are so devastating that the North Koreans will never again be a threat to anyone beyond it’s borders may be the only solution for a world that is weary of the games being played by others with the lives of others. Simultaneous actions toward Iran and Syria might get the attention of the various up and coming would be world conquerors as well.

Will that happen while we have as President a man that would rather talk than fight? Who refuses to defend the nation from criminal invaders and blames another nations inability to control it’s criminals on the people of the United States? For some reason I am thinking that a man that bows to Kings will not have the honor or integrity to stand up to a schoolyard bully. One that threatens the entire world… Indeed, he would much rather disarm the very people that he swore an oath to defend.

Tags: News, North Korea, Politics, preemptive defense, War