By Robert Field
NEW YORK TIMES: …“‘It’s too late on the nuclear weapons program — that is not going to be reversed,’ William Perry, the defense secretary under President Bill Clinton during the 1994 nuclear crisis with North Korea, said in August at a presentation in Kent, Conn. The only choice now, he argued, is to focus on limiting the missile program.”
That just about sums up the chapter length articles run yesterday and today in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, both media leaders in the United States and influential around the world.
What isn’t mentioned is the so called ‘elephant in the living room’, what is on the minds of knowledgeable observers: What about pre-emptive military assault to take out North Korea’s ‘pirate’ government and nuclear weaponry?
Apparently the editors of these leading newspapers along with their media colleagues believe their reporting and commenting on the alternative would be be provocative. But this isn’t a matter of national security. Every informed person knows that the US has the most formidable military in the world with ample capacity to destroy North Korea’s nuclear threat.
A proper concern is that this would lead to tens of thousands North Korean casualties. Nevertheless, this has to be weighed against the level of threat to hundreds of thousands Americans and others, and conceivably more, if North Korea either launches or provides nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations.
The Soviet Union was a threat during the Cold War and Russia theoretically remains one now. But their leadership then and now has always been rational and concerned about the general well being of their citizenry. The same is true of China. But can we say that about the leadership of Kim Jong-un?
Do we recall Adolph Hitler and the world’s acquiescence leading up to the Second World War?
Joseph Stalin was a dangerous opportunist. But Hitler was an aggressive mad man. Which is Kim Jong-un?
To assuage China’s fears of a subsequent uniting of North and South Korea, China could be allowed to occupy North Korea after such U. S. actions. A de-militarized zone of a hundred miles could separate China and South Korea.
Perhaps discussion by the media of such possibility would send a message to both North Korea and China that the USA may not allow a terrorist, irrational regime – a total world outlier – to be a blackmailer.
No, we are not advocating pre-emptive strikes and government decapitation. But we are saying that the subject should not be treated as taboo. The national media should not be gagging itself. Their job is to report and comment on the news, with the single caveat of considering national security. Once again we see them remaining on the sidelines during important events at the very time that they should be performing their responsibilities.
Below are the headings and links to the WSJ and the NYT recent articles. (Without an Internet subscription, it may not be possible to access the Journal article.)
Despite Tough Talk, Further Isolating North Korea Looks Difficult
A Big Blast in North Korea, and Big Questions on U.S. Policy
Again, we are not war mongers, far from it. Rather, we are for open and candid discussion of important issues by responsible media.
Look how well our preemptive military strikes worked out in Afghanistan and Iraq. What could go wrong with attacking North Korea? It would be a cake walk. The people would be throwing flowers in our path and hailing us as liberators.