Our leaders express incredible shock that North Korea is building nuclear bombs. This emotion of shock betrays the reasons why we have the whole problem with terrorism in the first place. We are victims of terrorism because too many of us — and all of our leaders — are just plain stupid.
North Korea’s leaders are brutal dictators. This fact is well-documented and widely accepted. Brutal dictators don’t merely seek to defend themselves; they also seek to initiate force against others. One need not be a psychologist or political scholar to know this. (In fact, it helps if you are neither).
Since dictatorships always lead to starvation, despair and stagnation, the leaders of dictatorships — in a desperate desire to hold on to power — will naturally build weapons to threaten and intimidate free countries into handing over loot. It distracts their citizens from the fact that their leaders have dictated the country into poverty.
A Communist dictator in North Korea, for example, can tell his citizens, “The reason we’re poor and starving is because the United States is too selfish and rich — and won’t give us some of their wealth!” What this really means is that the U.S. won’t tax its citizens to support propping up a brutal dictatorship.
Up to now, North Korea has been able to successfully intimidate its neighbors into getting what its dictatorial leaders want. For example, the policy of the Clinton Administration from 1994-2000 was to tell the North Koreans, “Please don’t build nuclear weapons. We’ll believe what you say and give you what you want, just so long as you don’t build them. Peace, man, peace!” The neo-hippies who ruled Washington in the 1990’s carried the day.
Will this attempt on the part of North Korea to further intimidate and grab power work now? After 9/11, and after President Bush’s own acknowledgment that North Korea is part of an “axis of evil,” it would be reasonable to expect no such thing. But never underestimate the power of official Washington — currently led by the likes of Enabler-in-Chief, Colin Powell — to allow violent thugs to intimidate us.
North Korea is no less deserving of military attack than Iraq and Iran. If we actually end up disarming Iraq’s dictatorship, North Korea should be next. There’s no point or possibility in making peace with someone who has already, in effect, declared war on you.
