by Jerome Stillson

Created on: April 16, 2009

North Korea's recent test was of a sattellite platform. It was not a missile, and the test was not successful.

If the test was, in fact successful and we secretly shot it down, then it was a successful test of our anti-missile technology and the North Korean response to this act of war (shooting down their missile) has been nothing, rendering the question moot.

What the North Korean launch DOES signify is a complete and utter failure of diplomacy, and in many ways, our very Democracy.

North Korea has been vilified as a Communist State. Since the Korean War, our Nation has touted itself as the bastion of freedom and personal dreaming. Meanwhile the current economic crisis proves beyond doubt that our current system is as corrupt, in as obvious a manner as the Communists always said it was. Capitalism isn't about freedom, it is about the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. No successful Capitalist made it all alone as an individual. It usually takes lobbying, multi billion dollar marketing campaigns, and nefarious barely legal transactions that push the boundaries of decency in order to carve your niche in the annals of American success.

Most, if not all, Americans wish peace. They fervently ask for this again and again, and even have this desire in their hearts when they enlist in the military, knowing full well that the business of an Army is to kill human beings. For more than 50 years, foreign policy "experts" have been claiming to know more than mere citizens can comprehend as a rationale for perpetuating and inflaming diplomatic tensions across the globe. These people, the Macnamara's and Rumsfeld's, made decisions based upon their best guess as to what was in everyone's best interest.

By doing this, they also closed their ears to any valid critique, they ignored the will of the people, and they oversimplified other members of the human race into a binary "friend or foe" generalization. North Korea is run by a despot. Kim Jong Il did not arrive by accident either. He is certainly no worse than leaders who were overtly placed into power and supported by our own government over the years. What is it about Capitalist Dictators that is so much more appealing than Communist Dictators?

By posing the question, "Does North Korea's missile test represent a real threat to the United States?" the reader is left with a choice that makes no sense. It is either a threat or it is not. The way we have been conditioned in this society is to react to a threat with unilateral

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>