After sinking a South Korean warship, the DPRK (Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea) aka North Korea, has begun shelling a South Korean
Island. This is in retaliation for "war games" staged by the US and
South Korea. The same games which have been staged for many, many
years. The only difference is that North Korea has nuclear weapons
which it has threatened to use on the South. A nuclear strike by the
North would invite massive retaliation by the South and the United
States. It may even drag China into a conflict it neither wants nor can
afford. This hotbed of friction is one of the many leverage points
remaining in the world from the failure of post World War II diplomacy.
The collective intransigence of the east and west left the world
savagely divided and we are only now beginning to untangle this
post-Cold War mess.
In Germany the reconciliation has been remarkably successful and
peaceful. In the Mideast, less so. It is on the Korean peninsula where
the real danger to the globe slumbers. Until China takes a firm hand in
controlling their defective southern cousin, we will be faced with
continual brinksmanship and chaos. I think the remainder of the world
would actually welcome a Chinese invasion and occupation of North Korea.
I am sure the people of that impoverished land would also be better off
under Chinese control.
As shocked as I am to even suggest that China act militarily against its
neighbor, we have seen the positive effects in Cambodia of Vietnam's
invasion. Although bloody, it ended an even worse transgression by Pol
Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia's return to sovereign rule was
overseen by the UN and has been lauded as the model for conversion from
an occupied state to a free nation.
