IS ANYONE ELSE SURPRISED BY NORTH KOREA, in a good way?

[katekat]

I'm sure it's unpopular with a large segment of the American populace, but I'm kinda looking at North Korea and smiling in their general direction. OK, before you freak out, no, I don't know much about North Korea, except what's shown up in James Bond films and other random non-educational sources of entertainment. So I'm not really sure exactly what their take on the world is. Ok, I have admittedly vague memories of atrocties and I believe something called the Korean War happened there, but it's all lost in a cloud of playstation and the OC.

The only things I'm mostly sure of is they picked a position and stuck with it today - and even if it does seem like a case of the little daschund trying to pick a fight with the pitbull, they're actually telling the US to go screw itself (well, or telling us we have to deal with them one on one and we can't legislate their nuclear activities).

It doesn't seem like that happens often enough. I mean, why should we be one of the few countries that gets to continue to make our own nuclear bombs? And why should we require that no other countries manufacture them? Double standard? Indeed.

Note: Want to read a little bit more about it? Check out this little summary from Amy's Robot

Comments

[phendog.livejournal.com]

All I can say is Kim Jong Il (or however you spell it) scares me shitless. The man is an insane Neapolianic...power hungry as hell and it wouldn't suprise me a bit if he proved far more dangerous than most people give him credit for.

Question: Did you see the movie Team America: World Police? I addition to mocking America, they weren't kidding about the little North Korean dictator. Really he's far more likely to be a threat than Sadam ever was, IMHO.

[katekat]

didn't see it, although i've heard similar things from time to time. sad to say that i just don't know much about NKorea. But after listening to NPR this morning, i do kinda feel like the US could've done something about it besides completely ignore them, or besides calling them a national threat when they were willing (a couple of months ago) to come to the table to talk about things diplomatically.

[phendog.livejournal.com]

That's the problem...the US is really good at letting its attention be diverted elsewhere. Besides, so long as we're at war with Iraq, it's probably in the government's interest to keep us more concerned with Iraq.

In truth, most of Asia is afraid of Kim Jong Il

I know I'd feel a lot less discomfited if the nation standing up to the US were someone like Japan or Madagascar or hell even China and Nepal. Just saying.

[katekat]

I know I'd feel a lot less discomfited if the nation standing up to the US were someone like Japan or Madagascar or hell even China and Nepal. Just saying.

I completely agree with you there. It's not like anyone's going to sleep better at night becuase there are *more* nuclear weapons out there rather than less.