North Star Writers Group

Once again, North Korea has gotten the world's attention, this time by setting off a nuclear bomb in an underground test. Whether it was a successful test of a small bomb or a much bigger one that was mostly a dud remains unclear, but that's totally beside the point. North Korea tested missiles in similar fashion back in early July, and now they've tested the warhead that would presumably go on them. Do we need any more clear an indication of what Kim Jong Il's psychotic intentions are? Do we really not understand the existential threat he represents?

Sadly, it seems that much of the world is determined to do its best Neville Chamberlain 1938 Munich impersonation. Just be nice to the evil midget wacko and he'll be nice to us. Who are we to say who can and can't have nukes? This sort of naiveté and stupidity is going to get millions of innocent people killed. If we cannot summon the will to take out Kim Jong Il now, then we are openly inviting him to take the first shot and, in so doing, slaughter no small number of people.

Furthermore, a failure to act will deliver that same invitation to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Al Qaeda and every other murderous thug or terrorist group who can strike a deal with North Korea to share what knowledge and materials it can spare. So we're not just talking about one rogue country here. If we let the evil regimes of the world know that the possession of nukes both eliminates any chance of their forcible removal from power and gives them one free shot at the target of their choice, they'll be lining up like Christmas shoppers at store openings on the day after Thanksgiving.

Are we that blind to the large-scale proliferation that letting North Korea off the hook would cause? Do we really think we can play defense alone and swat down every attempt to set off a nuke that those who obtain them from North Korea would inevitably make? Unbelievably, there are those who are just that blind, naive and dumb. They're called Democrats. You see, it was thanks to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's willingness to trust an evil, murderous dictator that Kim Jong Il now has nuclear weapons (if even only rudimentary ones). Carter took it upon himself in 1994 to negotiate a “deal” with Kim. Clinton signed off on it.

They signed a deal that North Korea never meant to uphold and immediately broke – and both were totally impotent in response to these lies. So the mess with which President Bush must now deal was created by two of his foolish predecessors.

And yet, rather than admit that they goofed and join in full support of doing whatever it takes to clean up the mess that they made, Democrats are going into a full-court press to disingenuously blame Bush and hide Carter and Clinton's culpability. Many liberals would apparently be happy to let North Korea (or whomever else gets their hands on North Korean nukes) slaughter millions, rather than admit that some of their own had messed up. Suffice it to say, anyone capable of such selfish and dangerous irresponsibility in pursuit of dishonest short-term electoral advantage is not fit to hold power. Even if they mean well (which is a debatable point), they are so completely wrong on the facts, so foolish in their beliefs about America's enemies and so completely blinded by their partisan hatred of President Bush that they cannot be allowed to be in charge of our common national defense. The stakes are far too high to take a chance and risk a mistake. (And suffer the extremely deadly consequences thereof.)

And so it falls to us in conservative America (and in a few other places, like Australia and England) to do the difficult things that must be done. The useless United Nations isn't going to do anything beyond its empty-words-and-meaningless-pieces-of-paper routine. Liberal America is either consumed by naiveté or Bush hatred. Which means we are the only entity left to prevent a nuclear nightmare from becoming reality. I hope we have what it takes to accomplish that.

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This is Column # DKK29. Request permission to publish here.