Warning and Action

This issue with North Korea threatening to test their Taephodong-2 long-range missile despite warnings from the United States against this action is alarming.

The two words that stand out here are threat and warning. The word “threat” as used by North Korea that they intend to conduct this test, and the word ’warning” from the United States against such a test. The very fact that North Korea has this missile on the launch pad, despite warnings from the United States to stand down, makes this a future precedent setting scenario.

If we use empty words with the North Koreans then every nutcase with a missile in their possession will feel free to set up long range missiles on the launchers. This means quite simply that Iran, Russia, China and others with missiles could set them up and fuel them, ready to launch at any time. Kind of scary at that point, since they are ready to launch and all that has to be done is initiate the countdown. At that point do we just try to guess which ones might reach us? Or maybe which ones have nuclear warheads?

North Korea is one third of the Axis of Evil as named by the United States a few years back. So what are we waiting on? Do you think for one second that Iran isn’t watching this intently to see our reaction? Has anyone considered that Iran may have put North Korea up to this to test the resolve of the United States? Remember, Iran is under the gun from the United States over the nuclear facilities and uranium enrichment that we “warned” them against. We have also warned them about stalling the “talks” regarding their own actions. Iran, the master of distraction may well be buying more time by using this North Korean missile issue to distract and buy time as they develop the materials to assemble nuclear weapons.

It seems that every time we put the pressure on Iran, there is a world-wide media covering distraction that switches the spotlight off of them for days or even weeks.T ruthfully, I’m not worried near as much about North Korea launching this missile as I am about the precedent we are setting by letting them threaten us with a launch and doing nothing about it. I believe that we are simply inviting trouble by delaying action against them, because if they launched the missile against the United States, it would probably be the last thing North Korea ever did on this planet. I’m far more concerned with the message we are sending by letting them threaten us in such a manner and delaying in our response.

We are under a barrage of assaults against the United States and our interests through terrorist attacks, Islam itself, the organizations within this country that are trying to shove Islam down our throats, third world countries that control oil that we consume, the terrorist and insurgent groups attacking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. When will this “Sleeping Giant” wake up and set a precedent that is in the favor of this country and will send a message worldwide that says ‘Don’t even consider threatening this country”?

I was very impressed with the advisors that said we should destroy the missile in place, on its launcher with a Tomahawk Cruise missile. We aren’t talking about killing a large civilian population by knocking the missile and facility out, as the missile launch site at the Musudan-ri Missile Test Facility is in a remote area. As you weigh out the advantages to a precise strike by the United States, the answer becomes quite clear.
• The immediate threat of a missile being fired at us by North Korea would be eliminated;
• The missile facility isn’t located within a densely populated area and therefore, the loss of life would be minimal;
• The message sent by a strike against the facility would be quite clear;
• Iran would realize the seriousness of even opening a silo or setting up a launch vehicle;
• Japan, our ally would be safe from the missile which is more likely to land on Japan intentionally or by error than ever reaching the continental US;
• The same missile that can hit the United States can hit Israel as well and North Korea’s relationship with Iran (the latter having openly promised the destruction of Israel) cannot be ignored;
• The Axis of Evil would realize that threatening the US will bring death and destruction to them instantly.

I think back to previous moments in history when the action of readying missiles capable of hitting the United States came into play. What would we have done then? What will we do now?