So, should we ignore the dude? Nu-huh, says Cap’n Fred. “The North Koreans do have nukes,” he warns, “perhaps as many as a dozen (even though they’ve tested only two bombs, each of very small explosive yield). They are working on missiles (even if all three of their long-range missile tests have fizzled). An unstable country with these sorts of things can’t be ignored for very long.”
An atomic bomb with a “very small explosive yield” is an atomic bomb that didn’t work, that “fizzled,” as Fred so eloquently put it. The “Little Boy” bomb exploded over Hiroshima in 1945, surely the most primitive nuclear device ever detonated, produced between 13 and 18 kilotons of energy. The 2006 North Korean device produced less than one kiloton, and the 2009 test, less than four. And their missiles can’t even get off the ground. I can remember Charles “Krautman” Krauthammer caterwauling back in the nineties that if the U.S. didn’t abandon its pantywaist, sissy britches “Billary”-style foreign policy, Honolulu would be but a memory, and LA next on the list. Do you really want to go down in history as “Krautman II,” Fred? Isn’t one more than enough?
Afterwords, Part I
Despite his attempts to scare himself, and us, over nothing, Fred does have enough sense to acknowledge that we shouldn’t invade North Korea, or even blow it up. Apparently, we should just be very, very worried about it, and spend lots and lots of money on defense. You know, like it was Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, even though it totally, totally isn’t.
Afterwords, Part II
The reasonable assumption is that someday this monstrously oppressive, inefficient regime will collapse. When that happens North Korea will be a danger, to South Korea and China, who will be hit with millions of starving refugees. Until that time, North Korea will only be a danger to itself. Cap’n Fred can rest easy. Except that he doesn’t want to.
