Opinion

Latest North Korea nuclear test likely to go unchecked by UN, Obama

Terrorists attacked our embassy and killed our ambassador in Libya Sept. 11, 2012 and the Obama Administration apologized for some hack’s anti-Muslim video. The same day, our embassy was attacked in Egypt and the administration sold them weapons.

Tuesday, North Korea successfully conducted a third nuclear test as its government seeks to produce a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. This presents an immediate threat, and the world, including the U.S., just shakes its collective fist in sterile indignation. Susan Rice U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, delivered another of the empty threats that have become the standard of the U.N.

“(The U.N. Security Council) must and will deliver a swift, credible and strong response,” Rice said. “(North Korea) does not and will not benefit from violating international law.”

Translation: more and tougher sanctions.

Perhaps the response will be similar to the “swift, credible and strong response” the U.N. delivered to Iran to stop its nuclear ambitions. The idea of starving a nation in order to force its hand in making concessions does not work on rogue states. Iran and North Korea will continue to forge nuclear swords.

U.N. action — or rather, inaction — has done wonders for Syria as well. Submitting to the will of Russia and China has saved so many lives.

Tuesday, Navi Pillay, the U.N. human rights chief, estimated that over 70,000 have been killed in Syria’s civil war, with an estimate 9,000-plus killed this year alone. President Barack Obama’s lack of resolve on the issue was evident in a Jan. 27 interview with Chris Hughes of The New Republic.

“In a situation like Syria,” Obama said, “I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situation? Would a military intervention have an impact? How would it affect our ability to support troops who are still in Afghanistan? What would be the aftermath of our involvement on the ground? Could it trigger even worse violence or the use of chemical weapons? What offers the best prospect of a stable post-Assad regime? And how do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?”

Well, there’s the prospect of intervening to secure those chemical weapons, the prospect of stabilizing the country and stopping the killing, plus the fact the U.S. launched a military strike in Libya without pulling a single soldier from the Afghan campaign to do it.

We will not do anything to stop North Korea, Iran or Syria until a lot more lives are lost — American lives, and thousands of them.

 Aaron Manuel is a print journalism senior and may be reached at [email protected].

2 Comments

  • And what, Aaron, about the American lives that would be lost in an intervention? I don’t see the French or British volunteering to intervene in Syria as they did in Libya. Or are you suggesting that we wage complete drone war? The civilian casualties alone that this might cost would earn as many enemies as it would secure friends. And what about all other consequences the president mentioned?

    The reason these interventionist strategies are rejected is because they will do more harm than good, and may not accomplish the ends we seek as a nation. If we intervene in Syria, we will not be able to guarantee a stable government afterward, as well as exclude Islamic extremist elements from participating in such a government. Not to mention antagonizing the Chinese and Russians. If we intervene in North Korea, we guarantee war on the Peninsula and may provoke China beyond the breaking point. I, for one, am not interested in provoking nuclear war in order demonstrate how tough we are. Neither should you be, Aaron.

  • For a print journalism senior I would expect better knowledge of geopolitics than this. North Korea is filled with a giant standing army. A massive arsenal is aimed at Seoul, just waiting to strike. The entire North Korean side of the DMZ for several miles is a complex network of bunkers and concealed heavy weaponry. They are not afraid to kill people. And you propose to somehow do something about North Korea? Add to that the integration required to pull South Korea, one of the most technologically wired countries on the planet, together with its northern neighbor, a dreck of a country stuck in the 1960s, just out of a multi-year famine in the 1990s where people stripped the hillsides of grass just to survive. Such integration would take decades and might not even be possible. Tell me what’s a good solution (and nuking everything is not one of them).

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