Have you ever noticed that when countries get into a battle of words it often comes off as two four-year-olds pretending to be superheroes? For example, take the latest flare-up over North Korean (that’s the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for those of you fluent in doublespeak) nuclear capabilities. I can just imagine Kim Jong-IL as a little kid with thick glasses and that ubiquitous track suit and Bush as a kid who is way to fond of his halloween cowboy costume. The conversation goes something like this:
KJ-I: I got this totally cool new toy. It’s, like, the ultimate weapon and it could, like, kill you if you, like, hit me.
GWB: Nah-ah.
KJ-I: Oh yeah? Watch me test it out.
GWB: Well, I got this whole missile defense system that can, like, shoot it down.
KJ-I: Your shield can’t stop my weapons.
GWB: Yeah-hunh. I tried it out. It works. Its like a force-field. Nothing can hurt me.
KJ-I: That’s not fair.
GWB: Yeah. And then I would, like, hit you back way worse than you tried to get me, because I got, like, thousands of those nukes and they have, like, multiple independent reentry vehicles so you couldn’t stop them with a shield.
KJ-I: Mrs. Bush, Georgie’s not playing fair!
At any rate, that is how I see it. And I think it is all the more sobering when one realizes that despite my facetiousness this is more or less the level of discourse that occurs between these two countries. I don’t think that either side has really considered that when it uses this type of excalating rhetoric it is potentially threatening the lives of millions of innocent people who don’t care a lick about this squabble and want to just go about their lives. I can’t even imagine how the world would be if the same type of rhetoric was used in one’s personal life.
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