North Korea is a brutal, almost beyond measure, regime. Gun running, drugs, counterfeit currencies, smuggling of all types, you name it, this government not only advocates and assists, but creates budget line items for these activities. While millions suffer starvation and ill-health, they develop nuclear weapons and the corollary technologies needed to deliver them.
What has been the response from the world to their past activities? Food, medicine, and the items they need to keep a civilian population docile and non-revolutionary. In the name of humanity and charity the Transnational Progressives consign millions to a life of misery and hopelessness.
The world response to Iran's nuclear program are sanctions designed to make the civilian population unhappy and more likely to throw off their theocratic oligarchy while in North Korea we send in items to keep a captive civilian population alive. What does this say of our overall intentions? On a spectrum of activity where do we draw a line? One one side of it we undermine in the hopes of causing dissension and regime change (or at least a policy change) and on the other side we know we can not change the regime (inwardly they know this) so they attempt to feed the population while the dictatorship continues unmolested to do as it pleases without fear of a civilian uprising.
Napoleon stated that all you needed to keep the peace in a conquered land was to make sure that the people always had enough food to fill the belly and trinkets to spend their few coins on. For the most part this concept paid off for him. What are we doing here?
Evil must be confronted. Containing evil does nothing but amputate a portion of the human population. Containing evil consigns the innocent, both living and unborn into a life of servitude.
Every time the North Koreans wanted more aid they just rattled their sword and made threats. The world always obliged and upped the aid. If the world hesitated or scolded they would pull the sword out of the scabbard a little, by shooting at a South Korean navy vessel or shell an isolated military outpost. Now, with a power transition underway, along with all the internal power struggles getting ironed out, they are upping the attacks on South Korea as a way to unify their people, keep others busy both inside the Koreas and outside. I'm sure their intent is not to start an all out war, they feel that the US will keep a leash on the South Koreans, just as we do on the Israelis. It is a dangerous game they play because sooner or later the South Koreans will grow sick of the casualties piling up and decide to simply remove the dangerous threat to their North. Unification be damned, they just want the danger gone.
Looking at the larger picture concerns me. We have the North's leash-holders, China, unable, or unwilling, to keep their little yipping dog under control. We have our disagreements going on with China right now about currency and debt. China is flexing its muscle and making demands of Japan on territories that China has no traditional right for. Russia and China are dumping the dollar as the currency of trade. Russia is our only way to the Space Station once the Shuttles are retired (thank you Obama), China is buying our debt (thank you Obama), the EU is melting down economically, the US dollar is in free-fall as it is printed into oblivion (thank you Obama), and we have Britain and France combining military services to save money. I have not even mentioned the other problems such as immigration policy and domestic policies around the world. It is a lot to take in. Things are unstable and no one is taking real steps to stabilize anything.
What I'm starting to get afraid of that the reasons for waging war are beginning to emerge. We have a national debt that is unpayable. War industries put people to work and jump start lobotomized economies. Just ask FDR, Hitler, and Stalin. If we happen to be at war with China we can simply disavow the debt as a means of hurting their economy. Problem solved, right? We can pull India closer into our orbit as a balance to Pakistan and China. Their population is huge, right? We can sell to them. China has 95% of the rare earth elements that can be exported economically in the world. Perhaps we nuke the crap out of the areas around that and simply administer them in the interest of the greater global community? The world did this once to China, why not again?
People are angry and restless around the world. For 70 years the tinder and dead wood has been accumulating. Sparks are always flying but so far the results have been brush fires and not a conflagration. It almost feels like I can smell it in the air, here on the Stoa, just like you can smell the ozone of an approaching thunderstorm. The winds and the air feels right. It smells right. Sarajevo started WWI, Hitler and Japans expansion in Asia started WWII. Could the repeated provocations by North Korea start up the next? Could the dysfunctional "peace" process (FARCE) going on in the Middle East finally do it?
I don't have those answers, but I will fill some sandbags and place them around the Stoa for my students. I'll watch the weather in the hopes that the winds will change and bring more favorable conditions.
Live well.
--Zavost
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