AIRTIME FOR TYRANTS IS NOT WORKING
Once again our international leadership is sucked in by the dramatics of the clownish behaviour of an idiot trying to gain attention on the world stage – no disrespect intended towards professional working clowns who provide the laughter needed to distract us from the appalling ineptitude of the United Nations.
This guy is just getting too much airtime, and lovin’ it. Once in a while a bad egg will show up, posing a real threat to his region or perhaps even the world at large. The fellow shown here is not in this class. While recognized as a mean bastard of a leader by his people and observers abroad, it is foolish and indicative of a certain lack of sophistication that the Security Council is lathered up over this chap.
One can see clearly the road ahead. Discussion among the members, suggestions, threats, a vote, another toothless resolution, more debate, more resolutions followed by disagreement over the same things we disagreed over before; the chief among them being sanctions versus action.
What irritates perhaps more than anything else is that history itself points to so many instances where nations have risen in protest against regimes and leaders who have conducted themselves in somewhat less than humane ways. The Pan-Africanist movement in South Africa successfully overcame the apartheid regime, notwithstanding that some sanctions were indeed implemented by the world community. For that matter many nations throughout Africa held true to the Harold Macmillan forecast in his ‘winds of change’ speech delivered in the 1950s to a then disbelieving white leadership in Southern Africa. Most of Africa is now free of the European Kim Jong Ils of an earlier age. Asian nations have spent thousand’s of years in similar turmoil, constantly changing from school of political thought to another, either through force or by choice.
Is it perhaps not time that the people of North Korea rose up and dumped this fellow? There are many, many people prepared to lend a hand in the exercise. But the drive has to come from within North Korea, not from within the inner sanctum of the Security Council. For the better part the Security Council is more concerned with the security of their jobs. Little Kim, but acting out the role of nuclear nut has done little to create a real threat and a lot to creating jobs for life for those lucky enough work for the United Nations.
While the United States impresses us with its ability to measure radio activity in the air above North Korea who is busy measuring or forecasting the affected areas of ‘egg on our faces’ in a few years when it comes to pass that Kim Il Jong does not have two beans to rub together, let alone two atoms. This one has Hans Blix written large all over it. One might recall this quote from the BBC: “Speaking to the BBC's World Service, Mr. Blix said he was more certain than ever that there was no WMD in Iraq.” I wonder if Blix is still on the contact list on the new Secretary General’s Blackberry. He may be well advised to give Hans a call.
Who can fail to remember the hundreds of thousands of hours we helped the media with when it came to being intrigued by the life and times of Saddam Hussein. Well, from the people who brought you Osama and Saddam, watch out, because here comes Kim “it’s an IL nuclear wind that blows no good” Jong.
Sanctions are too expensive and time consuming. If Kim wants to play with the N-gang then the best solution, by far the cheapest and perhaps less costly a (in the collateral sense) is to drop one right on top Kim and end the discussion right there. The bush assault on Iraq has cost some 700,000 lives and 500 + billion dollars. From every aspect, including humanitarian, a nuclear answer to a nuclear threat would seem to the elegant solution in this instance. Shareholders of CNN may not wish to hear this as while it may be a big story it would also be a short story and we would soon be back to fighting terror and protecting borders once more, but it is hard to please everyone.
Forget pandering to Kim Jong Il's need for 15 seconds of fame; give him one split second, from one split atom and let’s move on.
Once again our international leadership is sucked in by the dramatics of the clownish behaviour of an idiot trying to gain attention on the world stage – no disrespect intended towards professional working clowns who provide the laughter needed to distract us from the appalling ineptitude of the United Nations.
This guy is just getting too much airtime, and lovin’ it. Once in a while a bad egg will show up, posing a real threat to his region or perhaps even the world at large. The fellow shown here is not in this class. While recognized as a mean bastard of a leader by his people and observers abroad, it is foolish and indicative of a certain lack of sophistication that the Security Council is lathered up over this chap.
One can see clearly the road ahead. Discussion among the members, suggestions, threats, a vote, another toothless resolution, more debate, more resolutions followed by disagreement over the same things we disagreed over before; the chief among them being sanctions versus action.
What irritates perhaps more than anything else is that history itself points to so many instances where nations have risen in protest against regimes and leaders who have conducted themselves in somewhat less than humane ways. The Pan-Africanist movement in South Africa successfully overcame the apartheid regime, notwithstanding that some sanctions were indeed implemented by the world community. For that matter many nations throughout Africa held true to the Harold Macmillan forecast in his ‘winds of change’ speech delivered in the 1950s to a then disbelieving white leadership in Southern Africa. Most of Africa is now free of the European Kim Jong Ils of an earlier age. Asian nations have spent thousand’s of years in similar turmoil, constantly changing from school of political thought to another, either through force or by choice.
Is it perhaps not time that the people of North Korea rose up and dumped this fellow? There are many, many people prepared to lend a hand in the exercise. But the drive has to come from within North Korea, not from within the inner sanctum of the Security Council. For the better part the Security Council is more concerned with the security of their jobs. Little Kim, but acting out the role of nuclear nut has done little to create a real threat and a lot to creating jobs for life for those lucky enough work for the United Nations.
While the United States impresses us with its ability to measure radio activity in the air above North Korea who is busy measuring or forecasting the affected areas of ‘egg on our faces’ in a few years when it comes to pass that Kim Il Jong does not have two beans to rub together, let alone two atoms. This one has Hans Blix written large all over it. One might recall this quote from the BBC: “Speaking to the BBC's World Service, Mr. Blix said he was more certain than ever that there was no WMD in Iraq.” I wonder if Blix is still on the contact list on the new Secretary General’s Blackberry. He may be well advised to give Hans a call.
Who can fail to remember the hundreds of thousands of hours we helped the media with when it came to being intrigued by the life and times of Saddam Hussein. Well, from the people who brought you Osama and Saddam, watch out, because here comes Kim “it’s an IL nuclear wind that blows no good” Jong.
Sanctions are too expensive and time consuming. If Kim wants to play with the N-gang then the best solution, by far the cheapest and perhaps less costly a (in the collateral sense) is to drop one right on top Kim and end the discussion right there. The bush assault on Iraq has cost some 700,000 lives and 500 + billion dollars. From every aspect, including humanitarian, a nuclear answer to a nuclear threat would seem to the elegant solution in this instance. Shareholders of CNN may not wish to hear this as while it may be a big story it would also be a short story and we would soon be back to fighting terror and protecting borders once more, but it is hard to please everyone.
Forget pandering to Kim Jong Il's need for 15 seconds of fame; give him one split second, from one split atom and let’s move on.
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