Jul 04 2009
North Korea Redux
North Korea this morning courted further international controversy by test-firing a seventh missile, in addition to the six missiles it launched last night.
Source: Telegraph.uk.co
The excerpt above looks like a news story from today condemning North Korea’s missile tests that took place last night. Click on the link if you don’t believe me, but that article was posted on July 5. Of the year 2006.
Let’s look at another excerpt from the article:
But the crisis has occurred at an extremely difficult time for the Bush administration as it tries to corral its European allies and Russia and China into taking punitive action against Iran over its nuclear programme[sic].
Compare that to an article posted today by Fox News:
The launches… will likely further escalate tensions in the region as the U.S. tries to muster support for tough enforcement of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test.
It looks like not much has changed in the past three years. North Korea is still firing missiles like fireworks while the U.S. trys to rally the rest of the world against them, and the rest of the world is still refusing to take definitive action (sanctions hardly count as they hurt the citizens more than the tyrannical regime).
Once you put both of these instances in historical context, however, there are a number of significant differences. Let’s turn to these articles again, with today’s first this time:
The launches, which came two days after North Korea fired four short-range cruise missiles…
And now the article from 2006:
The last time North Korea caused such concern was in 1998 when it fired a missile over northern Japan into the Pacific, proving its ability to hit Tokyo and prompting intensified co-operation between the US and Japan over defence programmes. Since then there has been an unofficial regional moratorium on missile launches.
Notice the difference now? Before launching in 2006, North Korea had not tested missiles in eight years. Before launching last night, they had not tested missiles in two days. They have begun to seriously up the ante and unless bold action is taken fast, we could find ourselves on very thin ice.
