With the news that Japan, a nation whose militaristic tendencies were turned into radioactive ash some 61 years ago, is considering the ethics of taking a poke at North Korea in the name of self-defense, one has to ask this of the North Koreans: WTF?
I mean, really; WTF?
Maybe there's some kind of cachet attached to being the last place on the planet that tourists can't visit, and wouldn't want to if they could; maybe there's a consolation in knowing you're the last holdout of Stalinism in a world where all your Fraternal Comrades were seduced from the true path by detente and glasnost and Levis; maybe there's some kind of martyr-complex smugness inherent in being the only Pacific Rim nation to never experience the buzz of wallowing in the bounty of an economic boom. None of this, however, explains the attraction of acting in a fashion that causes even the bitter old commies in Beijing to pretend that they suddenly don't know you; of potentially goading a pre-emptive strike from a nation whose military is only slightly more numerous and aggressive than the Swiss Navy; of playing nuclear chicken with nations that still possess enough throw weight to turn every hamlet between Kiev and Vladivostok big enough to rate a traffic light into a heap of glowing slag.
Of all the tacks you could have taken to get attention, to get help, to draw concessions, you had to pick the only one that was sure-fire guaranteed to draw international condemnation. We have to assume there's a method to your madness, because the alternative is even more depressing, so tell us, please.
WTF?
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Kim Short-Dong, or whatever his name is this week, is trying to compensate for his,er...shortcomings.
It's his own form of Viagra, or something, I think.
No other explanation makes a damn bit of sense to me.
Sort of reminds you of a 14 year old gangbanger wannabee who gets a cheap .25 pistol (and has never shot a gun before)and is ready to brag and kick the ass of everyone in the 'hood.
He's just so ronery, that's all.
Hey, you can say what you want to about the Swiss Navy, but that $50 tour they give of Lake Lucerne can't be beat and the training they receive in the preparation of rösti is second to none.
Dammit! Marko beat me to the punch! Grrrr....
Maybe he has some kind of terminal cancer and he wants to take his entire country with him when he goes?
"Hey, I'm 14!"
Your are also NOT an irresponsible, childish idiot. If it weren't for young people like you, I would be very worried for the future of this country. I'm still worried, but at least it's not a lost cause.
Think that NoKo is the ultimate closed society right now...and how the outside world sees them is immaterial.
Shoot missles at Hawaii: ...gotta shoot them somewhere and it plays well with the masses.
Steal Chinese trains: ...our infrastructure is crappola and we need train stock, gotta get them from somewhere.
NoKo will do what is wants to no matter how they appear to the world. It would be best just to ignore them unless they get a bit too nutsy...then smack them down hard.
What are they going to do...use nukes? Nukes only work if you don't use them...as soon as you do, they don't work anymore...and the user gets extinct real quick.
NK's been doing the crazy-cripple-with-a-knife act for decades. It's got little else going for it.
Believe it or not, NK does have a tourist industry...mostly from South Koreans! The sheeples down south see the North as more racially pure and authentically Korean, less over-developed by industry, etc. Same sort of people who wear Che Guevara gear in the States.
Hey, I can explain quantum mechanics. I can't explain Kim Jong Il. Anyone who honestly thinks he can, should be locked up in a secure institution himself, just to be safe.
"Maybe there's some kind of cachet attached to being the last place on the planet that tourists can't visit, "
Nonononono...It's because they never got around to finishing the big hotel in Pyongyang.
I give you, The Ryugyong Hotel. Located in scenic downtown Pyongyang.
Click for Google Maps satellite image.
Yes, that's right. At a time when millions of people were starving to death in North Korea, Kim Jong Il blew 2% of his nation's GDP on building a hotel that looks like something constructed by The Covenant from Halo.
And it never opened owing to the fact that the concrete of so shoddy as to make the whole thing structurally unsound.
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