North
Korea a real threat to U.S.
From behind his glasses the eyes of the
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il do not reveal
the mind of a man who would send a nuclear
missile careening towards the West Coast
of the United States. Instead they are shrewd
eyes, eyes that betray the man behind the
boyish face.
Each calculated move that is downplayed
by the Pentagon and the White House is exacting
like a chess strategy. Kim Jong Il crosses
the line as our government hastily redraws
the line a few paces in front of him, crossing
their fingers that their tactic of punishing
bad behavior by ignoring it is working.
And each time the leader leaps forward it
is without asking the United States, “Mother
may I?”
Since North Korea admitted to restarting
its nuclear program in October of last year,
Washington, D.C. has been playing this cat
and mouse game with the administration in
Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. In this
particular game of diplomacy it is unclear
who is the cat and who is the mouse.
The United States ceased supplying fuel
and other aid to North Korea after news
of its nuclear program was released. In
a diplomatic counterstrike Pyongyang denounced
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and
fired up its Soviet-built nuclear power
plant to solve the nation’s growing energy
crisis. North Korea’s rationale — without
the oil from the United States, it has no
other way to power the country.
In an attempt to elicit one-on-one talks
with the United States, North Korea has
placed bait on the end of hooks that in
any other situation the White House would
be wriggling in glee to get to duke it out.
But for some reason the administration is
bipolar in its diplomacy. On one side the
administration is endlessly badgering Iraq
and inspectors for action and on the other
side stolidly ignoring one offense after
another from Kim Jong Il, going so far as
to allow a twenty minute face-off between
U.S. surveillance aircraft and North Korean
jets.
You would think our little cowboy in the
big White House would have his trigger finger
itching for that kind of audacity. Maybe
his aides are slipping Valium in his warm
milk before bed because barely a militarized
peep has been heard from the president on
this subject.
This is not the first string of problems
that we have had with North Korea. Kim Jong
Il is suspected of having North Korean operatives
execute two bombings in the 1980s. One of
the bombings in 1983 left 17 South Korean
officials, including four cabinet members,
dead in Burma. A second bombing in 1987
killed all 115 passengers of a South Korean
airliner.
In 1997 Hwang Jang Yop, a powerful member
of the North Korean government, fled to
South Korea seeking asylum and told of war
preparations that “exceed your imagination.”
And yet billions of dollars in international
aid have been sunk into North Korea.
Why? So that Kim Jong Il can keep up his
military of one million. Aid for the starving
North Koreans continues even now, though
the distribution methods have been called
into question.
When will the time be right to face North
Korea? This “cold shoulder” the United
States is giving Kim Jong Il and Pyongyang
is simply adding to the flare and boldness
of North Koreas actions. Perhaps the
White House has gotten diplomacy confused
with child-rearing; perhaps in this case
a little attention could save everybody
a lot of trouble.
Monica Pardee is a journalism major at
Cal State Long Beach.
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