In the latest display of ineptness and impotency the world led by the US allowed the rogue state of North Korea to launch their missile rocket on 11:30 a.m. local time on Sunday (2:30 a.m. GMT). This launch provided the North Koreans and their Iranian guests with valuable telemetry and other data as the communist state struggles to gain militarily what it is unable to achieve diplomatically.
In a continuing show of weakness and inability to help enforce existing UN resolutions regarding North Korea, president Obama stated the launch would be "provocative" and the US would, "take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can't threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity". The US is perhaps the only nation that possesses the technology to intercept the missile. Seems a stern letter to the North Koreans will teach them a lesson.
No word on how this will impact tensions on the Korean peninsula or elsewhere in the world. North Korea is believed to be the worlds largest exporter of ballistic missile technology as a means of obtaining hard currency for the cash strapped nation. Rouge nations must be taking heart though as another in a long line of useless UN resolutions is broken. The word is still out as to what the agenda driven members of the UN Security Council will decide. This body infrequently agrees on anything and often with some member openly supporting or blocking actions to effect a successful resolution.
With the US president away on his "feel good" tour of Europe, this author holds little hope anything of substance will occur regarding this matter. The time for action has passed, North Korea's rhetoric castrated the newly humbled US and brought them a great victory.
UPDATE!!!
Flash forward May 2010. North Korea is at it again. This time the evidence points to them in the sinking of a South Korean warship, in the souths waters, by a torpedo, last March. Again the US is faced with doing something or nothing. Again North Korea, tweaks the nose of the US, while the administration looks on dumbfounded. Why doesn't the world love us, yet? Wasn't that part of the "deal" for no more "four more years of Bush" that was heaped upon the McCain ticket?
The Obama foreign policy "honeymoon" with the world was very short lived. Crowds around the world cheered wildly as Obama denigrated the US at each stop of his post election "Apology tour 2009". His skillful shunning of close US allies while bolstering ties with "less concerned" nations has been and is renown. Now the US, with its newly diminished clout on the world stage must make a case to the very same world that got what they wanted ... a politically castrated US and have moved on.
North Korea knows its opponents all too well, as it peaks from behind China's apron. This time they know they can go further as they have seen this administration practically grovel, like a puppy, at the PRC's feet. They know that the US is powerless to ask its financial benefactor for anything significant that would punish its communist "spoiled child". Very recently the sickly North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, went to China. I, for one, wonder what subjects were discussed and if a "contingency" plan for this incident was formulated.
The world watches, both friend and foe, as these events unfold. How many other "North Korea's" are planning their move now that the world police is stuck in the donut shop?