Michael Moore’s dictum (not that it was his originally) that the media’s job is to scare you so you will rush out and shop more was never more true than the last few months as the CBC and other collaborators zestfully promote the idea that North Korea is an incredibly scary country that is planning to drop nuclear bombs on America. They must be stopped.
The great thing about this story– for the media– is that there is no fix, and no termination point, so they can continue to flog it for as long as they like, or at least until we get a new deadly virus, another terrorist attack in the U.S. or Europe, Internet encyclopedias, or a wave of gypsies kidnapping our first-borns. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as the CBC voices can lower themselves into a husky, knowledgeable but world-weary tone, and advise us on how exactly we can avoid having our children hit by meteorites.
Could someone, anyone, by the way, coach Gill Deacon on how to say a complete sentence, with a subject and a predicate, and an ending?
Anyway, here’s why North Korea is going nowhere. Firstly, Kim Jong-An is not crazy. He’s very shrewd. He saw what happened to the last dictator to give up his nuclear weapons program– Ghadafy in Libya– and has decided that it would be pretty stupid to put himself in the same position. Secondly, China is not going to reign him in to any great extent because China understands that weakening Kim Jong-An could open a can of worms that might eventually lead to an unstable government, rebellion, a coup, or God knows what else, and China will not tolerate a pro-Western state on it’s border. It didn’t in 1953 and it won’t now. Thirdly, all this attention by the world to North Korea’s missile program, including coordinated military exercises with South Korea and the U.S., is exactly what Kim Jong-an wants. It confirms his position as chief guardian and defender of the regime against the nefarious western powers who clearly want to overthrow the regime and drive the North Korean people into indentured servitude.
The Americans love to say– and I think they really believe it– why would any small foreign country think that we or our allies are threat to them? Other than Iraq. And Panama. And Afghanistan. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Grenada. And Cambodia.
North Korea doesn’t listen to China. China does not want 100,000 or a million refugees on its border.
So, the U.S. applies more sanctions which are very unlikely to have the slightest effect on Pyongyang.
Will the U.S. invade North Korea, or try to bomb its nuclear facilities? I am very skeptical, but if they did, it might turn into one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in U.S. history, and even worse than the decision to invade Iraq. North Korea has massive artillery all within range of major South Korea cities. South Korea will be regarded as an ally of the U.S. if there is any military action by the U.S. on North Korean soil. There might be 100,000 deaths initially, and that figure may not play well anywhere, even in Trump’s cabinet. Furthermore, the U.S. could be reasonably certain that China will come to North Korea’s defense. At that point, we are talking a very big war.
Does the U.S. want another war? As has been said by many pundits: why don’t you finish the last two you started first, before you even think about it.
[whohit]North Korea is Not Going to Attack Anybody[/whohit]