“We … have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North),” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The news agency used the colloquial term “nukes” in its English-language account.
Wow.
So what are we doing in Iraq?
Great - we’re making it a better place for democracy and freedom. And of course these are causes worth fighting and dying for. But the stated reason for the invasion wasn’t to oust a dictatorship and bring the population those ideals - besides, other countries suffer under depotism, and we’re not sending in the Marines to liberate ‘em. No, the stated reason was that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and that they posed a threat to the United States.
So while we’ve been busy hearing five or six different reasons for our invasion of Iraq, North Korea is just sitting over there in Asia laughing their asses off.
North Korea suffers under a regime that I dare say is worse than that which was under Saddam Hussein. So why aren’t we going over there to bring freedom and democracy? Oh, right, it’s unlikely the North Koreans are going to roll over as easily as the Iraqis did. It’s unlikely that almost two years into a hypothetical occupation of North Korea that we’d only have fifteen hundred dead servicemen and women.
Let’s say George W. Bush makes the decision tomorrow morning that we’ve got to invade North Korea. Where is he going to get the manpower, the resources, or the public support for such an invasion? I’m not just talking about liberals and other lefties standing on the side lines saying “HELL NO!” I’m talking about political conservatives and those who supported the Iraqi war being unwilling to write him a blank check of support given this adminstration’s blatant lies regarding the presence of WMD - you remember, the WMD that the adminstration said was the cause of the invasion. The WMD that no one can find, even though supposedly Saddam Hussein had giant manufacturing plants producing them.
North Korea has Weapons of Mass Destruction? Well, nothing we can do about that, except hope they’re not feeling particularly genocidal.
Oh:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the North had no reason to believe the United States would attack.
“The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea,” Rice said in Luxembourg.
I don’t know what boggles the mind more, but I tell ya’ what, the more I hear people say “We invaded Iraq because the President wanted to get even with Saddam for trying to kill his Dad”, the more plausible it sounds.
We invaded Iraq when it had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and posed very little threat to the United States. And now that North Korea, which poses a big threat to us and our allies, admits to having WMD, we’re just “Eh, whatever dude.”
I’m just really steamed, in large part because it seems like the President hijacked 9/11 to wage the war he wanted to fight, against Saddam Hussein, and that the countries which pose the greatest threat to the United States and our allies are those that aren’t getting the smackdown they’re screaming for.