The Marmot’s Hole

With all the fuss about that pipsqueak of an A-bomb test, maybe we’ve all lost sight of what’s really going on: North Korea may have finally lost it. They think they can get all in America’s grill and eventually we’ll, what, let them unite Korea under the House of Kim? With that in mind, I suggest we call their bluff: Change gears totally and begin negotiations on a peace treaty.

Not only would we really mess with their minds, but it might actually work. We begin with direct bi-lateral talks between the United States and the DPRK. We then bring ROK into it and before you know it, the Korean War ends. Of course, in exchange for the peace treaty, the NORKs have to give up ALL of their WMD.

Of course, I don’t see this happening. The DPRK is a classic paranoid 1984-esque state and once the fear is gone, the government will be gone soon, too. So, in the DPRK’s eyes, peace with the United States is probably just as much state suicide as war. And, really, such negotiations would be diplomatic mental masturbation that may simply be postponing the inevitable. If the DPRK doesn’t collapse one way or another, the United States may face a grim reality: it has no choice but to consider a naval blockade with or without the approval of the UN Security Council. I don’t think an Iraq-like regime change is a good idea, but…something has to be done sooner rather than later.

I don’t know how wise any military action beyond a naval blockade would be. We’re talking the potential deaths of many, many innocent people. That’s why Bush is president and I’m not. If America acts in good faith to give the DPRK a peace treaty and concrete security guarantees and they still babble on about the need to defend themselves from imperialism, something must be done.

It makes me think that maybe Mr. Kim has been watching too many Peter Sellers movies…