President Obama has led international condemnation of North Korea this morning after it launched an intercontinental rocket over Japan, defying weeks of warnings from world leaders and risking new sanctions and high level denunciation in the UN Security Council.
Mr Obama called the launch “provocative” and a clear violation of UN Security Council rules.
“The launch today of a Taepodong-2 missile was a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which expressly prohibits North Korea from conducting ballistic missile-related activities of any kind,” the US President said in a statement.
Strong letter to follow!
So, um, whatcha gonna do about it B.O.? I know; you could read him a speech from the teleprompter. That ought to do it.
No, wait…I was forgetting that Democrats just throw money at problems. Time for a summit where you can bring Kim some money and get a promise from him that he’ll never do it again. You could throw in some help with his nuclear technology program to sweeten the deal. It worked well for Slick William.
[blockquote]President Obama called for North Korea to be punished after the isolated communist state fired an intercontinental rocket this morning….”[/blockquote]
Looks like King Jong II won’t be getting any IPods or CDs anytime soon!
I’ll just bet that Kim Jong Ill is sorry for his misdeed and mightily ashamed of himself in the face of Obama’s displeasure…NOT!
Why not cut off his wine supply? Oh, I forgot: His wine cellar has enough wine to last him a lifetime. Let’s see……what else can we deprive him of? Movies? Naww……he’s got a library full of ’em. Ohh, I’ve got it…….spare parts for his personal airliner……not that he ever goes anywhere!
This. was. not. supposed. to. happen.
The Dork from Nork obviously read the ‘Kick Me’ sign.
Here is a video of Kim Jong (mentally) Il’s punishment at the hands of the U.N. – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hk9vaqWUg (caution, there is some strong language at the end).
Daniel, you beat me to it. Calling Hans Brix!
One word, excuse me, speech, from our duly-elected leader and North Korea does as it pleases…
Thank goodness we (the USA) no longer feel the need to react to such provocation and we can patiently await the development of an international consensus to contemplate how such an action might have a destabilizing influence in the developing world. IOW let’s wait until the French, the Germans, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Cubans can all agree on a suitable response.
It’s official: T19 comment threads have become as bitter and inane as those over at Virtueonline.
You mean we’re still NOT #1???
Pres. Obama’s response to N. Korea was to volunteer to disarm.
Irenaeus,
I can go as far as ironic and acerbic, maybe even cynically sarcastic, but I cannot agree with bitter and inane. T19 patrons are too sophisticated for cheap shots of the literary variety.
#11. Irenaeus,
How is critical and off topic an improvement on “bitter and inane”? Why don’t you model what you would like to see by posting an insightful and relevant comment?”
[i] Please return to the original post. [/i]
Apparently the Administration still believes that we have the time to learn that liberal vacuous beliefs on the essential rationality and benevolence of everybody are actually untrue. Dither, dither, dither….we plod while the enemy unloads his quiver.
I don’t at all agree with Irenaeus’s comment about the comments of the many political conservatives who comment at T19 — so please don’t take my comment as that.
But good grief people — what is Obama supposed to do? Invade North Korea?
No — there is nothing that he can do. And furthermore, there would have been nothing that George Bush could do or Ronald Reagan, for that matter. North Korea will do as it pleases. And unless one is willing to invade a country, ultimately most countries will do what it pleases.
And the world will do nothing: “UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council Sunday adjourned three hours of closed-door talks on North Korea’s long-range rocket launch with no agreement on how to respond to what Western members called a clear violation of UN resolutions.” As long is N Korea is supported by Russia and China nothing will continue to happen and N Korea will become a nuclear power. http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/north_korea_united_nation/2009/04/05/199959.html
And I think that Obama is going to run up against the reality of needing to act and finding that the rest of the world simply will not act. Then he must decide whether to do nothing or to act unilateraly.
Then I must ask myself, what is the purpose of the UN beyond endless and empty resolutions? Again and again that body seems to prove itself incapable of doing much of anything. They have a big fancy building in New York with lots of staff and presumably lots of meetings [and parties.]
I am sure my ignorance shines and remain in hope of reeducation in this…
The UN should have pretended it was Israel that launched the rocket. Then it would have sprung the length of its chain to condemn the act.
I must agree that unless we invade North Korea or otherwise cause its regime to fall, there is nothing to be done. Obama’s situation in this respect is no different than Bush’s was. We could, for instance, under the table encourage the Chinese to go in and clean it out, under the theory that the Chinese today are more rational than they were and certainly more rational than the N.K. regime. Beyond that, are there any ideas that don’t involve American military action?
Continuing work on the missile defense system is a good idea. And this does demonstrate once again the futility (at best) of the U.N.
I think people are reacting to Pres. Obama’s tone – Sarah is right in that the U.S. cannot do anything to N. Korea unless we’re willing to invade, and we’re not. But this, combined with Obama’s comments overseas denigrating America and his inexperience on the international stage, present to us a picture of inaction and possible ineptitude, and it seems as though N. Korea is fully prepared to take advantage of this perceived inaction and inability to defend ourselves.
Ronald Reagan was right! Star Wars anti-missle defense system would have taken care of this problem and we would have developed it and paid for it by now. But I digress – I disagree with my friend, Sarah. There are things that we can do militarily other than invade – for instance, I do not see why we could not have shot the missle down after it was launched, or better yet, as soon as the missle was put on the launch pad, have one of our destroyers off the NK coast send a missle to that launch pad. And every time the NK puts a missle on a launch pad, we blow it off. We keep drawing lines in the sand and Kim keeps crossing them, with impunity. Time for impunity to stop and line drawing to stop. Same with Iran. We need to stop worrying about what the rest of the world thinks of us and let the rest of the world worry about what we think of them. We are the nation of exceptionism, regardless if our present President believes it.
I agree with Billy that we could have shot the missile down, had it fired as intended. I suppose we won’t know any time soon if that was underway when the N.K. missile was launched, and then aborted when the test failed and the missile fell into the sea.
But Billy — sending a missile into a sovereign country is, by definition, an act of war! So you’re saying “go to war with North Korea.”
I accept that as a possibility — but I just don’t think we’re ready for that. What about Syria? What about China?
Sarah,
I can see arguments on both sides of the “act of war” issue. We took out a chemical factory in Sudan (later called an aspirin factory) when Pres. Clinton was Pres. by missle attack, but no one called that an act of war. Israel bombed nuclear facilities in Iraq several years ago, and war did not ensue. I’m not sure a very limited targeting of a specific thing in a country, in order to enforce a UN resolution, is an act of war. Unfortunately, you are probably correct that if we did what I suggest, NK could once again invade SK and another regional war could begin. Question is what other measures does the rest of the world have to deal with this rogue regime?