Do you speak Korean? No? Nor do I, but I'm willing to wager there are certain things coming out of Pyongyang that you are still capable of comprehending. More on this in a moment.
In her latest
New York Times op-ed entitled "Yipes, It’s Congress on the Move" (
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/opinion/collins-yipes-its-congress-on-the-move.html), Gail Collins concludes:
"As if we didn’t have enough on our plates, this week’s Times Magazine has a story by Jonathan Van Meter announcing that former Representative Anthony Weiner is seriously thinking about running for mayor of New York City. This year!
That one I’m pretty confident we can handle. The citizens of New York just have to decide whether to forgive an elected official who tweeted pictures of his crotch to women he had never actually met. We’ve had bigger challenges. Maybe we can form a committee."
Indeed, Gail, we've had, and currently have, bigger challenges (although Anthony might not agree).
Go to the following recent video from the North Korean government website,
Uriminzokkiri. Some two minutes and fifty seconds into this cinematic gem, you will witness an imaginary missile attack on the White House and the Capitol:
You may not speak Korean, but most people know when they're being threatened.
In a recent guest
New York Times op-ed entitled "Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff." (
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/opinion/stay-cool-call-north-koreas-bluff.html), Andrei Lankov, a professor of history at Kookmin University, wrote:
"Scores of foreign journalists have been dispatched to Seoul to report on the growing tensions between the two Koreas and the possibility of war. Upon arrival, though, it is difficult for them to find any South Koreans who are panic-stricken. In fact, most people in Seoul don’t care about the North’s belligerent statements: the farther one is from the Korean Peninsula, the more one will find people worried about the recent developments here."
Yes, South Koreans even remained remarkably "cool" when, in 2010, North Korea torpedoed a South Korean navy vessel, killing 46 South Korean sailors (see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10129703).
Lankov continues:
"A closer look at North Korean history reveals what Pyongyang’s leaders really want their near-farcical belligerence to achieve — a reminder to the world that North Korea exists, and an impression abroad that its leaders are irrational and unpredictable. The scary impressions are important to North Korea because for the last two decades its policy has been, above all, a brilliant exercise in diplomatic blackmail. And blackmail usually works better when the practitioners are seen as irrational and unpredictable.
Put bluntly, North Korea’s government hopes to squeeze more aid from the outside world. Of late, it has become very dependent on Chinese aid, and it wants other sponsors as well."
Well, that's a helluva way to go seeking aid, unless you've come to the realization that America's president is as tough as a marshmallow.
And what does Chuck Hagel, Obama's new secretary of defense, have to say about North Korea's thinly veiled threat? As reported by
CNN (
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/10/world/asia/koreas-tensions/index.html):
"North Korea is 'skating very close to a dangerous line' after weeks of saber-rattling, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Wednesday as northeast Asia watched for an expected missile test.
'Their actions and their words have not helped defuse a combustible situation,' Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon. He said the United States and its allies want to see North Korean rhetoric 'ratcheted down,' but if that doesn't happen, "our country is fully prepared to deal with any contingency."
'We have every capacity to deal with any action North Korea will take to protect this country and the interests of this country and our allies,' Hagel said."
You can just imagine the credibility that Kim Jong Un attaches to the remarks of Hagel, who agreed that America is the world's bully.
Declaring that North Korea is nearing a "dangerous line"? That's the same tactic the Obama administration has taken with Iran for the past four years, and there is no end in sight to Tehran's nuclear weapons development program.
Me? I believe that when somebody threatens to annihilate you, you take them seriously. But then, we also have Anthony Weiner's crotch to contend with.
