Sea of Fire
Though I addressed the issue of North Korea's
nuclear brinksmanship only a
week ago, it's not my intent to make the
subject a recurring theme. However, I couldn't let
North Korea's threat yesterday to "turn the citadel
of imperialism into a sea of fire" go by without
repeating it here. Such strong words from a country
with the power of thermonuclear fire at (or soon to
be at) its disposal rattles my cage. That's the
kind of rhetoric one hears these days from hidden
terrorists via Al-Jazeera, not from the state-run
newspaper of a developed nation.
North Korea's threat was made more disturbing by
other news yesterday that Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld signed orders to double the number
of American forces in the Persian Gulf region. A
war with Iraq now seems inevitable. With the U.S.
military preoccupied with a conflict in the Gulf,
any pressure brought to bear on North Korea will be
largely toothless. Kim Jong Il will know we don't
currently have the resources to fight Iraq and
North Korea at the same time, at least not without
a serious strain.
As my brain runs ahead, a little faster than my
fingers on the keyboard, it suddenly occurs to me
that perhaps a war with Iraq—a possibility I
otherwise think is a bad idea for many
reasons—could be a good thing after all. With
the U.S. military busy in Iraq, the Bush
administration will have no choice but to seek a
diplomatic solution to Kim Jong Il's nuclear
swaggering. Given a choice between the two axes of
evil, I'd rather see the U.S. military go up
against a (likely non-nuclear) tyrant with a small
army that turns tail whenever it meets the Marines
than against a (most likely nuclear) tyrant with an
army over one million strong and a heavily stocked
arsenal of weapons.
Such fun times we're living in!
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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