North Korea test fires at least 3 long-range missiles

(via boingboing)
This doesn’t sound good. Reports carried on CNN and Reuters today indicate that North Korea has test fired several long range missles this morning. The different reports indicate anywhere from 4 to 10 missiles were test fired. The upside is, the one missile with the range to reach the US failed to launch and fly successfully. The bad news is North Korea has already been warned that missile test firing would be considered an act of aggression.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — North Korea test-fired a long-range missile and five shorter-range rockets early Wednesday, but the closely watched long-range test failed within a minute, U.S. officials said.

That’s the good side I mentioned.

The tests began shortly after 3:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. Tuesday ET) and lasted for about five hours.

The Taepodong-2 missile, which some analysts believed capable of hitting the western United States, failed after about 40 seconds, U.S. officials said.

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley described the missile launches as “provocative behavior,” but said they posted no immediate threat to the United States.

And there’s the bad side. More, from the Reuter’s report.

On Monday, the North’s main news agency quoted an unidentified newspaper analyst as saying Pyongyang was prepared to answer a U.S. military attack with ”a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war.”

And here is what concerns me most. We have an enemy nation which we know for a fact has weapons capable of truly threatening the US. We have a President who has repeatedly stated he will protect the nation against any real threat, even going to war against one which may or may not have had provably threatening weapons technology depending on which intelligence report you believe. For two years I’ve been saying if his convictions are indeed real and his claims of protecting the nation are true, we will end up in a war with North Korea. Now we have a visible act of aggression which has occurred after the country was warned that missile firing would be viewed as an act of aggression.

So, if the President really is at war with Iraq because it was necessary to protect the US, then the President will have to prepare for war with North Korea. North Korea is currently provably more threatening to the US than Iraq was according to the intelligence we had at the time Mr. Bush started the war. That’s my view – if Bush is really serious about protecting us and that’s why he went to war in Iraq, then he must be making preparations for war with North Korea – the greater threat from North Korea is provably true, not just my view.

And honestly, I want to be wrong about President Bush, because I don’t want to believe he’s as bad a President as I’ve been saying since he was first elected. I’d much rather be a kooky conspiracy theorist (alhtough I don’t try to convince anyone of my beliefs, which separates me from my such kooks) and find out that Mr. Bush is as sincere and honest as he claims. I’d rather I (and the rest of the country) find out he’s a good President who has not appeared good because of how bad things were when he took charge. But I’m still waiting for the proof of his sincerity and how wrong I am.

Let’s see how we handle this, though.  Maybe I can be proven wrong about President Bush and we can avoid another war.
[tags]North Korea, War, Missile test firing[/tags]