Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Start the Clock


North Korea has attacked a South Korean island and killed South Korean troops.  Technically, this is an act of war, except North and South Korea have never been at peace.

I refuse to watch cable news, but I think we can start the clock on John Bolton swaggering forth, his walrus mustache thrusting from his face, and saying that this is entirely Obama's fault, because fuck him that's why.

One thread of our diplomatic and security politics that is especially ridiculous is that everything in the world revolves around us.  The 9/11 attacks?  That was our failure rather than their plan.  Why did they attack us?  Our freedom!  Simultaneously we are failures and awesomeness incarnate.

North Korea is in the process of changing from Kim Jong Il to one of his brood.  (I'm not going to bother to learn his name until they decide which spawn of Pocket Satan will take the throne.)

Whatever the calculus of the attacks are for North Korea, I am reasonably certain they involve North Korea. If they involved the US, they probably would have attacked US troops.

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