06.24.09
Summer starts hot
North Korea threatens to wipe the United States off the globe if we – well, what? Enforce the sanctions that the Six-Way Talk parties got the UN Security Council to enact?
There are three current aspects to the North Korean situation: the Myanmar-bound Kang Nam, which we have good reason to believe is carrying a cargo of weaponry, which has just passed Shanghai, and is being shadowed, but not stopped and boarded, by the USS John McCain, the two journalists, whose fate is now directly in the hands of heir-apparent Kim Jong Un, and the upcoming Taepodong-2 test, aimed in the direction of Hawaii.
The regimes in Iran and North Korea are watching each other to see how best to taunt TCM. Is there any real question as to why the level of testing and taunting of the US president has gone up dramatically this year?
The effete and mush-headed gushers, the climate-change Kool-Aid drinkers, the Fairness Storm Troopers and the remnants of the hippies may have thought, and may still think, that TCM is some kind of “light worker,” a being so oozing with enlightenment and purity that a few utterances from his radiant mug will make turn the world into Big Rock Candy Mountain. The world’s thugs have no such illusions. They smell weakness and know that this is the moment to go for it.
If we squeak through this summer without experiencing truly unthinkable developments, we’ll still have the issue of a seriously diminished United States to deal with. The one blessing will be that TCM will be rendered so ineffectual that we won’t even bother to look to him as the go-to-guy for handling truly important stuff. There will be a vacuum that, hopefully, some truly American figure can fill.
It will be late in the game for such a realization, but that’s better than not realizing it at all.
Mr. Dings said,
June 24, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Have you been tested for paranoid schizophrenia?
Junior Dings said,
June 24, 2009 at 11:31 pm
How great would it be to see China and Russia step up and take a leadership role in this situation? Chinese and Russian envoys intercept the ship carrying illegal cargo. Meet with the leaders in NK and tell them to knock this shit off or deal with the GLOBAL response. This is the situation we were told we were in in Iraq. Nuclear armament. Imminent threat. Only this time it appears to be real. I feel the opposite about our President. I appreciate the fact that we are working with other nations to diplomaticaly diffuse this situation rather than charging in guns drawn. As I screamed at the top of my lungs in March of 2003, the time for diplomacy has and will never end until the first shot is fired. When you fire the first shot you are the aggressor and you’d better damn well be prepared to deal with the consequences. Where did we end up in Iraq? We blew the shit out of their architecture, to be sure. We spent trillions of dollars in tax payer money. We lost thousands of US men and women and maimed and wounded many many more. And we tarnished our image across the globe. And for what? We have not stablized nor set up a democracy in the Middle East. But enough about Iraq, because that country will be a distant memory in the very near, very near future. This is the real deal here in North Korea, methinks. If you enjoyed your front row seat for Iraq II then you’re gonna love this one. It will not be pretty, but the one thing that I am banking on and the one hope I have in this situation is that we have a global response to these fuckers that includes UN member nations China and Russia. Without them we are fucked and you can find me and mine living in the back woods somewhere near Canada. With them the world is ours and we can remove the fucks that are pulling the strings at the moment in North Korea and with luck a new era will begin for the North Korean people.
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Hawks v. Doves always a serious split in this the greatest military power in the world. Whatever our current Commander in Chief does will be too little, too late, for the hawks, or “same as the old boss” to the doves. What gets to me sometimes is that the hawks think the doves are clueless and weak. Hard to be a dove on this issue though. Hawks will say to screw international coalition-building, and, judging from the Iraqi invasion and occupation, will invent rationales to get their way. Doves can suffer from delusional idealism. Now I just became a reasonable gentleman. Hot world, summer in the hemi. Perhaps another winter or three, or more of discontent awaits us in that theater. For me it’s hard to view Norkor’s Dear Leader as anything more than a nutso case. Methinks we’d better have at least China “with us” if we invade or drop some firepower.
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 2:22 pm
And damn you, again, who thinks you’re “truly American”, for postulating a seriously diminished America. Should we return to loyalty oaths?
The Red Scare during the 1950s and the Congressional hearings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy helped to sustain a national mood of concern about communist agents and a fear such agents may injure the U.S. government through espionage or outright violence.
But, admittedly, the left had their oaths too: Loyalty oaths were common during World War II. In support of Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, 100,000 school children marched to Boston Common and swore a loyalty oath administered by the mayor, “I promise as a good American citizen to do my part for the NRA. I will buy only where the Blue Eagle flies.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
June 25, 2009 at 2:38 pm
If the Chinese were really interested in doing something decisive about the North Korean dilemma, don’t you think they would have by now?
And you can forget Russia. They have already congratulated Ahmadinejad on his election victory and declared continued mullah rule in Iran a done deal.
Who said anything about “firing a shot” at this juncture? I do think that if they launch that long-range missile, we ought to knock it down before it reaches cruising altitude. We also ought to be stopping abd boarding that ship headed for Myanmar.
Your last three comments are full of “on the one hand, hawks take this stance, and on the other hand, doves take this stance.” Never mind labels and generalities. Where do you stand? In fairness, you have said you’d like to see China and Russia step up, but, in light of the dubious prospects for that, what’s your policy proclivity?
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I agree. Shoot the missile down, but try to get China to agree. We may still board the ship. I think we will. What if we find nothing, as there is intelligence out there saying that. But I realize you are neither assured nor reassured:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iURO8fOyWVOA0ytFlaAGuC9F7R9wD98VS8A80
President Barack Obama assured Americans in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S. is prepared for any move North Korea might make amid media reports that Pyongyang is planning a long-range missile test in early July.
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 3:18 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090625/wl_nm/us_iran_election
“Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things … our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former president George W.) Bush used to say,” the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Well, I say, “Fuck him” and presume Obama does too. I’ll suit up and it’s OK with me that Obama is our Commander in Chief now.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
June 25, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Suit yourself. I want him gone as Commander in Chief at the first possible opportunity.
Mr.Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 6:21 pm
May our God be with you. Or do you have someone else in mind?
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2009 at 7:02 pm
You should be happy. Obama’s pissed Ahmadinejad off too. Too little, too late, I presume.
Junior Dings said,
June 26, 2009 at 12:30 am
“Suit yourself. I want him gone as Commander in Chief at the first possible opportunity. ”
Precisely how I felt about Bush. I have a feeling you will have to witness 8 years just like I did, and possibly more if your conservative bretheren don’t stop revealing their true identities (see below).
Where are you posts about Republicans gone bad? I tuned in to the usual right wing talk shows this morning and not one single mention of the SoCar Gov cheating and lying scandal! Had that been any Democrat or liberal leaning public person it would have been all I heard all day. Not even a peep out of Savage, though by that time on the way home the King of Pop had passed away.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
June 26, 2009 at 2:24 am
Junior Dings, see the post entitled “The Sanford Matter.”
Mr.Dings said,
June 26, 2009 at 11:06 am
Pray for our President!