Bush Threatens a Military Strike Against Pyongyang

by Steve

If you see enough screw-ups, you start seriously thinking that much of the administration, even the senior military officials, are incompetents. After seeing the North Koreans surprise us once again by shadowing one of our spy planes in international air space yesterday, we now find out that we didn’t have fighter support anywhere nearby when the plane was on its mission. General Myers all but admitted we were outfoxed once again:

In fact, American officials are concerned that the North seems to attempt a new provocation every few days. Today, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the encounter in skies over the Sea of Japan on Saturday "a well-planned operation by the North Koreans" in which they took "their relatively short-ranged aircraft that far away from a land mass" and surprised the United States.

"Obviously, they'd been thinking of this for some time and had planned it," General Myers said. "What all that means, I don't know. We're evaluating the safety and security of our reconnaissance flights right now."

The American reconnaissance missions are being reviewed, Pentagon officials said, and it is likely that future flights will be accompanied by fighter aircraft.

Duh!

Add to that the stupid and provocative statement by the man in charge today to small market media that we would go to a military option to take out the recently restarted processing facility if our nonexistent diplomatic effort fails:

Senior Pentagon officials said today that two dozen long-range bombers would be sent to Guam, within easy striking range of North Korea, after President Bush said that if diplomacy failed, he might be forced to turn to military options to prevent the North from making nuclear weapons.

The president, according to a transcript of his comments released by the White House today, had repeatedly told reporters from small and mid-sized newspapers on Monday that he believed diplomacy would work in restraining the North's nuclear program.

Mr. Bush then added, almost as an aside, that if the administration's efforts "don't work diplomatically, they'll have to work militarily."

The statement seemed to reflect a concern in the White House that within weeks it could be dealing with simultaneous crises. "This is all about the recognition that North Korea may decide that the next few weeks are their best shot at starting to build a nuclear arsenal and getting away with it," a senior official said today. "That's what we've got to stop — if we can figure out how."

That last line just about says it all. Bush has blundered into a situation of his own making by not acting to defuse it. His military now admits they have no clue what they are doing about it, and the man tosses off asides about preemptive strikes as if he was talking about baseball stats. And he is commenting about a regime that manages to successfully outmaneuver us every several days and has nothing to lose.

Examine the idiocy of Bush’s statement for a minute. Supposing Rummy and Uncle Dick decide we should try and take out the facility. Supposing we even are successful in taking it out. What do we expect Pyongyang to do next? Sit on its hands and not rain destruction upon Seoul and our troops? Does Bush really think that our bombers and a bunch of missiles will stop a million-man army and their missiles?

Be afraid of these guys; be very afraid. And I’m not talking about the North Koreans.

How do you think the South Koreans feel after hearing about Bush’s comment today?