Matthew 24:6
Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 07:22:49 AM PDT
So I woke up this morning to the news that North Korea is denouncing U.N. sanctions imposed on it in the wake of its purported nuclear weapons test last week. According to an AP report in the WaPo:
The North broke two days of silence about the U.N. resolution adopted after its Oct. 9 nuclear test, issuing a Foreign Ministry statement on its official Korean Central News Agency.
"The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war" against the North, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The North warned it "wants peace but is not afraid of war" and that it would "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.
It would appear that we must add strategery to the lengthening list of things which the Boy Who Would Be King and the passel of chickenshit chickenhawks who advise him on war and foreign policy folly either don't know or failed to remember. North Korea is already the most isolated nation on the face of the earth. There are tinpot dictatorships in the middle of the African rain forest that have greater access to what we're pleased to call the First World and all that comes from it than do Kim Jong Il and his sorry, downtrodden people.
Now, before the conservacon-artists accuse me of getting all touchy-feely about the sufferings of the poor North Koreans, let me make it perfectly clear that I'm not suggesting we should send over a brigade of clinical psychologists to give them emergency "I'm OK, you're OK" therapy sessions. That would be both pointless and stupid--which would, however, represent a significant improvement over what the Bu$hevik Brigade has been trying, which has been pointless, stupid, dangerous, and almost completely based on wishful thinking instead of hard evidence.
North Korea is the classic example of why Sun Tzu advised leaving a surrounded enemy a means of escape. When your back is against the wall, you'll fight anybody who comes at you, and fight to the utmost, simply because that's what you have to do to get out of a rotten situation. Kim Jong Il, the North Korean Communist Party and, to a lesser but still significant extent, the entire population of the DPRK is in such a situation. They've never been able to feed themselves, a situation that hasn't been helped any by the Dear Leader's delusions of grandeur--which require him to spend flipping great wodges of cash he doesn't have in order to buy weaponry to defend himself as much from the possibility of a revolt from within as an attack from without.
And let's face it, Kim is not exactly the most thoroughly well-adjusted leader in the world. His father ruled North Korea with an iron fist for nearly 50 years and is at least officially revered as something awfully close to a god. The North Korean constitution refers to Kim Il Sung as the country's "eternal president," which doesn't exactly redound to the credit of the current holder of the presidency. That's a tremendous burden to have to shoulder even when one is actually playing with a full deck.
What the Bu$hoviki seem to have forgotten is that people who are trapped in an unfavorable situation, like people who are not entirely mentally stable, are unpredictable. They need to be handled with kid gloves and patience, whereas the Bumbling Band of Boobs in charge of U.S. foreign policy, taken together, don't have the patience between them to wait for a three-minute egg. Combined with the fact that their entire policy agenda seems to revolve around the projection of U.S. power no matter the cost, it's hard for me to see how this game of Ultimate Mexican Standoff is going to end well for anyone.
Returning to Sun Tzu, for all the counsel one will find in his thin volume of classic wisdom about the best way to run a battle, one of the themes he comes back to time and again is that the general who wins a hundred victories in battle is not to be considered the best leader. The true leader is the one who breaks the enemy's will to fight before battle is joined, who convinces his foe to flee before his superior forces even when his armies are numerically the lesser. And, summing up the whole course of the last six years of Bu$hevik strategery, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
It is precisely because of crap like this that we need to sweep the Republicans from power in Congress, before taking back the White House in 2008. We simply can't afford--on any level--to give the Shrubbery any more rope with which to hang itself. Because if we do, they're going to make sure they hang us with it first.
(Oh, yeah. The Scripture reference in the post title: μελλήσετε δὲ ἀκούειν πολέμους καὶ ἀκοὰς πολέμων, "You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars." Most Christians take this verse as something to avoid. It would appear that the Busheviki and their Christianist allies seem to think that the wars and rumors of wars should be hurried to fruition, that Jesus may come back all the quicker. I find that a disturbing and disgusting basis for our foreign policy, but then that's why I'm a member of the reality-based community.)
Cross-posted from Musing's musings because deepfish asked me to. But you should definitely go read--and recommend--his diary on the subject.
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