The demagoguery has to stop, and we should be the ones to lead it.
Too often I hear stuff like this from us. (or our representatives)
"Why are we in Iraq? They don't have WMD--North Korea sure does."
"Iraq isn't nearly as dangerous to us as North Korea."
"How can we be doing all this in Iraq while ignoring North Korea
What does rhetoric like this do? It backs us into a corner, with everyone on the record as being "totally cool", with getting busy on the Korean peninsula. It also really pisses off South Korea. Why does this piss off South Korea? Why does this matter? Let's start by looking at South Korea.
South Korea has around 30,000 American troops stationed there. I think that too often there is some belief that these 30,000 troops are all that stands between South Korea and Kim Jong il. This is hardly the case. South Korea is a military juggernaut. South Korea has almost ¾ of a million active duty troops, with 1 million reserves. How are the South Korean troops? Are they as good as Americans? Go find a Vietnam Vet and ask about South Korean troops sent to aid the US in that horrible conflict. If you can't find a Vet, just know that you can find a South Korean soldier's wallet; it's the one that says BadMotherFucker on it. If we were to rank the South Korean military like a boxer, it would a heavyweight ranked number 3 in the world. We all know who the champ is.
This military, with or without American support, would cut through North Korea like paper. The 1.4 million underfed, poorly equipped troops north of the DMZ wouldn't stand a chance. (North Korean military equipment hasn't been upgraded since disco music.).
Why is this important? Well South Korea has a policy called "sunshine" in regard to the North. The gist of which is that they will be nice to North Korea, and when it collapses, which will happen when Kim Jong Il dies or sooner if we're lucky. They will be poised to rush in and reunify the country under democratic rule. What South Korea sure as hell doesn't want to do is kill 2 million, and yes it could kill 2 million, by invading.
Guess who is fucking up the "sunshine" policy, we are. Every time we rattle our sabers. North Korea has a handful of nukes at best, now if you think that they will use them against Los Angeles, instead of pointing them due south at the war machine poised to fuck shit up if someone farts sideways, then you're just being dumb. More importantly, every time we rattle our sabers we are picking a fight, not with our troops, but with 1.7 million Korean troops. Bush is trying to pick a fight with someone else's balls--please don't join in.
In 1910, Japan assassinated the South Korean Princess (Don't laugh about monarchy--everybody was a monarchy but us until after WWI) and occupied the peninsula. They outlawed the use of the Korean language, their culture, Korean inventions claimed as Japanese, enslaved the population, and raped the peninsula of its natural resources to build its imperial war machine. This was the situation until 1945. After the Korean War "ended", the result of Japanese occupation and the Korean War left the peninsula utterly destroyed. To this day, you would be hard pressed to find a tree in South Korea that was more than thirty years old. South Korea has seen enough War. We shouldn't be trying to start one for them. They sure as hell don't want one, and they would be the ones fighting it.
What is the South Korean Government like? Well in the nineties they finally got a true, totally American Style democracy going, despite Reagan's interference in the 80's. You may recall a little clip on the news a few months ago of the South Korean congress. It showed a Korean dude at a podium getting rushed by another representative, the guy rushing in punching the podium guy in the face. Well here's the back-story, and it tells you all you need to know about South Korea.
The man at the podium was a member of the GNP (Korean Republicans, just as bad as ours, moonies etc..). The guy rushing in was a member of the Uri Party (Dems baby, and they are currently in power). The guy at the podium (Rep) was trying a parliamentary bullshit maneuver that would allow the privatization of South Korean Schools (school vouchers), totally sneaky. So a Korean Uri (Dem) rolled up and knocked him on his ass. Word.
South Korea can handle Kim Jong Il. We just have to shut up about it and let them do their thing.