Mister Kim and the Temple of Doom

Some sense of normalcy has returned today with work being a regular day after having two back to back 16hr days.  Whilst it may be nice to go out for dinner on a Saturday night it isn’t so great when you have to do it for work on a week night and talk “shop” and then back up for an early start the next day.  Having said that though, went to a nice restaurant last night – Coast at Cockle Bay – and I would probably go back there again with Niki.

Off work stuff, which I must admit must read pretty boring, I saw this morning on the news celebrations in North Korea in which they celebrated 80 years of “Freedom from Imperialism”.  The shot was taken at night in Pyongpang (sp?) in which legions of people (soldiers?) were marching in regimental lines carrying a flaming torch each and the long shot was incredible but at the same time chilling.  Reminded me instantly of Nazi Germany in which massive crowds of people marched in unison at the behest of a crazy dictator.

However, what is causing all this.  I think the regime in North Korea is perhaps the single most evil regime in the world today.  But what gets me worried is that whilst Saddam Hussein in Iraq was really a despot who ruled by fear and peoples genuine feelings were that they wanted him gone (not an excuse for the US to bomb the fuck out of everyone mind you) in Nth Korea, I have this feeling that the people are genuinely behind Mister Kim and that any military action there would be disastrous.

But why are we doing this?  What is wrong with saying “too bad too sad” and just leaving the Nth Koreans to enjoy their Communist way of life?  Do we have to forcibly influence them?  So what if they’re advancing Nuclear Technology?  We lived with the Russians for years as a totalitarian communistic state that spewed daily rhetoric about the West and our immoral way of life.  Do we really feel that threatened that Nth Korea may build A (yes singular) nuclear bomb?

How are they going to deliver it?  They cannot shoot it much further than Japan probably.  Do we really have to stir the hornets nest whilst the West has pretty much fucked the Middle East for the next 100 years?

But no, we have to put in sanctions – which will do nothing to Nth Korea because they are an insular society and will gladly close the doors on the world and play the martyr role – and then threaten to take “military action”.  But we do and we rattle the sabres and we follow our own crazy despot in George W Bush and our own elected leader laps it up like the well trained dog that he is and we move the pieces on the board one step closer to oblivion.  When will this end?  At what point will the US go, that’s it we’ve had enough and withdraw?  They say that history is written by the victors, but at the moment we aren’t winning and what will they say about the “Coalition of the Willing” in 100 years?  That they were a warmongering corrupt coalition of nations hell bent on taking all the worlds resources?  Sort of fits doesn’t it…