SQUASHED LIKE A BUG

Have you ever been sound asleep in your warm, comfortable bed only to be awakened by a buzzing mosquito? You swat at it and swat at it but it just will not leave you alone. Finally in exasperation, you get up, turn on the light, find the offending insect and squash it like the bug it is. You savor your victory by returning to your bed and falling back into delightful sleep.

This, however, is not a column about mosquitoes or sleep. No, this is about Kim Jong-un, Pillsbury Doughboy look-alike and current dictator of North Korea who has been acting like just such a mosquito. Lately he has been buzzing around rattling sabers, and generally making a nuisance of himself talking up war. His latest pronouncement is that the peninsula of Korea is in a state of war. He is threatening not just South Korea but he is also preparing his military for war against the United States. He has even gone so far as to select targets. They include Washington D.C. as well as Hawaii and, for some unknown reason, Austin, Texas. Just as a side note, he might get away with threatening Washington but when he threatens Austin, Texas, he is asking for more trouble than he could possibly imagine. Texans don’t take too kindly to people threatening Texas.

I don’t know about you but there are times when I get so tired of hearing from these little tin pot dictators that I just wish they would send one of their missiles up. We would, of course, shoot it out of the sky. Then we surface one of the several nuclear submarines we have just off their coast and vaporize Pyongyang and all who dwell therein. I know that is a brutal way of looking at the situation but sometimes I just wish we could end all the nonsense. It is indeed sad that so many people will die if North Korea decides to commit national suicide by trying to start a war with anyone. Their so-called million man army would be gone in a flash, literally.

So, what should we do? Should we acknowledge their threats? Should we give any credence to their arming of missiles and moving them around? In other words, should we be concerned? I think the answer is yes. Yes, we take them seriously. Yes, we believe they are stupid enough to fire a missile at us or even at South Korea. Then, if they do, finish their presence on this earth. I heard an Army General this weekend saying our military believes it would take approximately fifty hours to completely decimate the entire North Korean military. That, ladies and gentlemen, is less than a long weekend.

It is indeed possible that North Korea doesn’t know or believe this. That miscalculation would be to their peril. It is also possible that we have in place such an inept administration that we could lose a lot of people before the unqualified politicians we have in power actually pull the trigger and take care of business. That remains to be seen.

These things are certain. North Korea is just trying to be noticed and taken seriously. Any offensive action taken by them against any of our allies or against us would be a fatal decision on their part. It may take us awhile to act, but eventually we would act and that probably would end North Korea’s existence on this planet. Like the mosquito buzzing around your ear at night, a serious bug squashing would follow and the rest of the world would then return to peaceful sleep.

Ron Scarbro April 3, 2013