Dangerous View: Isn’t North Korean Missile Launch Security Crisis?

The Korea Times ^ | 7/10/2006 | Korea Times Editor

[medscribe]

A senior aide to President Roh Moo-hyun said, “North Korean missile launches were not targeted at anyone. So, it is just a political issue not a national security crisis.” People are dumfounded at this remark, reflecting the president’s opinion, made by the senior presidential secretary for public information. The remarks, posted Saturday on the Chong Wa Dae Web site, were part of the government’s response to the outpouring of criticism in the media, accusing the government of an inadequate response to the missile launch.

[medscribe]

Even the usually liberal Korea Times staff is shocked by the Blue House's reaction to the North Korean missile launches last week.

[camle]

i think he ought to launch more missiles at nothing. he can't have that many - missiles are expensive.

[Brilliant]

Remember the Democrats told us that Bush was mixing apples and oranges when it put NK in the Axis of Evil.



Now the Dems talk like it was their idea.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Well, lessee now, if I walk downtown, pull out a pistol and start randomly firing, I'm OK, so long as I don't aim at, or hit anyone? Riiiiiiiiiight...

[cake_crumb]

"Dumbfounded" is an understatement. It's like someone saying "the bomb didn't kill anyone, so it wasn't a terrorist attack."

[johnny7]

Nobody likes to see their leader pull down his shorts before a sworn enemy.

[theDentist]

he can't have that many - missiles are expensive.

True, but when you don't feed your people, that cost is more easily met. I read last week that the Chinese are considering stopping shipments of rice, becuase every time a train is sent into NK, it's unloaded, then the trains are "confiscated".

[Citizen Tom Paine]

I have been watching the news reports since the launch of the North Korean missiles. Did these missiles have warheads on them? Were they armed? Did the ICBM have a nuclear armed warhead? Is radioactivity now leaking into the ocean? Where are the environmentalists? Perhaps they are hugging a tree somewhere. Does Uncle know if there was a nuclear warhead on the North Korean missile? Are we trying to recover it? How about the next on? Will it have a nuclear warhead? And so on.

[Red Badger]

THE RONERY KIM (KIM THE RONERY ONE)
Manfred Mann

With APOLOGIES TO - Bob Dylan, writer

They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim
They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim

Everybody's eating wood chips and living in the dark
Kim is building monuments, while others are eating tree bark
Everybody's in despair, every boy and girl
But when Kim the Ronery One gets here
Everybody's gonna wanna hurl!

They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim

Seven Holes in One, the first golf game he’d played!
You dare not contradict him, ‘cuz everyone’s afraid.
Everyone is on their knees, tryin’ to fulfill his ev’ry whim
But when Kim the Ronery One gets here
All the people gonna laugh at him!

They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim
They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim

Let him do what he’s gonna do, we can't agree at all
Just tell me where to aim 'em and we'll send him a fireball
He ain’t gonna get no sleep, he’d better stay on his toes,
But when Kim the Ronery One gets here
Everybody's gonna see he glows.

They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim
They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim
They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim
They can’t get out, We can’t get in
We’ve not seen nothing like the Ronery Kim

[camle]

i heard that. i also heard theat if a poor man eats a chicken, at least one of them is sick. each time jong launches a missile, he eats a chicken.

[D1X1E]

China very likely backed or at least encouraged this "missle strike" by NK in order to gauge US action and response to it. How far can they push without us pushing back? The world,whose opinion I generally disdain, wants to know. I dont give a hoot for the opinion but I do care that they know the US wont take any sh..t.

[camle]

LOL~! Best one i've seen in a long time.

[ClaireSolt]

It is dangerous to assert such based on assumptions. China has had this nutcase over seven times to see the benefits of liberalizing an economy. I'd say they have tried to do their part. Maybe they have about as much control over NK as Bush has over Schwartzneger sending NG troops to border.

[cake_crumb]

"China very likely backed or at least encouraged this 'missle strike' by NK in order to gauge US action and response to it."

Oh, no doubt. It's well known that Kim is a puppet of China. Any "concern" showed by China - which could wipe DPRNK off the map any time the Chinese government chose, is a lie to make it seem as though China has given up on it's imperialist tendancies.

Also, remember China had Kim throw one of his nuclear hissy fits just in time to distract us from military action in Iraq....now there's this problem with Iranian aggression...coincidence? I think not. China is/was a heavy trading partner in crime of all three regimes.

[silverleaf]

Gee Kim's order to repoint those missiles to the right would have taken all of .... minutes. Then they would have landed on all the major population areas in South Korea. That's what "tests" are designed to help perfect.

The ROK is in serious case of denial about the mentality of the leadership of the Dear One's son. I bet they don't even believe all those stories about the gulags full of Koreans that lie just hours away from their happy-go-lucky lives.

[golfisnr1]

China gives a lot of aid to NK, especially food. They do not want a lot of NK refugees crossing the border into China causing a evacuee crisis. China cooperates in containing NK since they fear that Japan will again arm themselves. Thats the leverage we have with China.
Giving Japan antimissile capability is probably shaking up China. China's big fear is that Japan gain Nuclear capability. Japan already has the basic materials.

[theBuckwheat]

>>
...North Korean missile launches were not targeted at anyone...
<<

This brings to mind the picture of the jackbooted, flack-jacketed, helmetted Border Patrol agent pointing a machine gun at little Elian Gonzalez as he cowered in Donato Dalrymple's arms.

We were reassured by Janet Reno that nobody was in danger because the agent's finger was not on the trigger.

I guess the gun was just a prop. I guess that North Korea's missiles are too.

[ClaireSolt]

Oh you mean during the "due process" Clinton administration when our civil liberties were guaranted by tanks, snipers, swat teams amd executive orders to bomb countries and seize coal fields. sarc/

[hershey]

NPR last week was talking about NK's missile launches, and the woman reporter choked as she wondered what would have happened if 'that long range NK missile or part of it had landed in Alaska...by accident of course'. (In the real world, if something aimed at you, hits you, it's no accident.) Then she said: 'It would have been more dangerous is a missile or part of one had landed in Japan'. (The US MSM can't control Japan's right to defend itself.) She was almost in tears.