SB called me on my lunch break to ask if I had read the news. No, I hadn't. He had heard that North Korea had attempted a nuclear test and was wondering if his news reader had accidentally repeated a story. By now, you have probably discovered that Pyongyang has indeed conducted a second nuclear test.
Analysts say that it will be quite a while longer before N. Korea will be able to present a risk to anyone. So why are they acting out and risking further punitive measures? The South Korean ambassador to the US believes that "They think this will enhance and embolden their diplomatic capability to deal with the other countries, Of course, it may be working the other way. But from their point of view, this is their lifeline, which they want to maintain."
Others think that N. Korea is acting out like a spoiled child to get the attention of the US and others, who have been busy paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan instead of them. Various analysts claimed that the tests "signaled Pyongyang's growing disillusionment over the U.S. refusal to conduct bilateral talks. Kim Jong Il, determined to seek more drastic measures to bring the Obama Administration to the bargaining table, could even carry out more nuclear tests as a way to bully the U.S. and its allies, experts said today." (source)
I am not sure that all this is aimed at the US. But I don't really know. Maybe the world really does revolve around us. If this is a maneuver to gain attention, it is working. It reminds me of my junior high chemistry class. We had a teacher, Mrs. Rios, who was always at her wit's end with a student named Raquel. Raquel was very, very disruptive. She was poorly behaved in all the classes I had to endure with her, but she was especially obnoxious to poor Mrs. Rios. Perhaps because Mrs. Rios shared a cultural identity with her, Raquel felt especially needy for attention. She would interrupt and yell nonsense and often Mrs. Rios would finally yell, "Cayate, Raquel!" This would cause Raquel to bang her head on her desk until class had to stop while Mrs. Rios dragged her out to the principal's office. By the end of the day, Raquel was back in class, acting quite sorrowful and upset to gain more attention.
Mrs. Rios eventually resorted to trying to bribe Raquel to shut up. She would flatter her or offer to let Raquel assist in the experiments. There were many of us who would have liked to light the flint or pour the tubes together but our good behavior was never rewarded like Raquel's bad behavior was. She even managed to mess up the experiments so that Mrs. Rios had to quickly redo them or just abandon them entirely. One day during a copper titration Raquel decided to point the test tube at the class and let go of the copper so that it fell into the tube. I was the closest person to her and the tube exploded in my face. Later that day I had to sit in the principal's office with Mrs. Rios to explain what had happened. Mrs. Rios explained that it was an accident while I sat there with my face covered in bandages like the elephant man.
As we were walking back to class, Mrs. Rios thanked me for not telling the principal that Raquel did it on purpose. "Why do you let her get away with everything?" I asked.
The problem is that in the real world, problems do not go away. They have to be resolved, appeased, and dealt with because you have to consider the needs of society over punishment of the bad child. You need to make the bad child feel hopeful and validated or he/she will continue to act out. When someone is desperate, he/she is unpredictable and that is an even bigger problem. In the words of political expert Janis Joplin (and Kris Kristofferson), "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." We may be the free world but Kim Jong Il is the most free of all of us because he can pretty much do whatever he wants.
Analysts say that it will be quite a while longer before N. Korea will be able to present a risk to anyone. So why are they acting out and risking further punitive measures? The South Korean ambassador to the US believes that "They think this will enhance and embolden their diplomatic capability to deal with the other countries, Of course, it may be working the other way. But from their point of view, this is their lifeline, which they want to maintain."
Others think that N. Korea is acting out like a spoiled child to get the attention of the US and others, who have been busy paying attention to Iraq and Afghanistan instead of them. Various analysts claimed that the tests "signaled Pyongyang's growing disillusionment over the U.S. refusal to conduct bilateral talks. Kim Jong Il, determined to seek more drastic measures to bring the Obama Administration to the bargaining table, could even carry out more nuclear tests as a way to bully the U.S. and its allies, experts said today." (source)
I am not sure that all this is aimed at the US. But I don't really know. Maybe the world really does revolve around us. If this is a maneuver to gain attention, it is working. It reminds me of my junior high chemistry class. We had a teacher, Mrs. Rios, who was always at her wit's end with a student named Raquel. Raquel was very, very disruptive. She was poorly behaved in all the classes I had to endure with her, but she was especially obnoxious to poor Mrs. Rios. Perhaps because Mrs. Rios shared a cultural identity with her, Raquel felt especially needy for attention. She would interrupt and yell nonsense and often Mrs. Rios would finally yell, "Cayate, Raquel!" This would cause Raquel to bang her head on her desk until class had to stop while Mrs. Rios dragged her out to the principal's office. By the end of the day, Raquel was back in class, acting quite sorrowful and upset to gain more attention.
Mrs. Rios eventually resorted to trying to bribe Raquel to shut up. She would flatter her or offer to let Raquel assist in the experiments. There were many of us who would have liked to light the flint or pour the tubes together but our good behavior was never rewarded like Raquel's bad behavior was. She even managed to mess up the experiments so that Mrs. Rios had to quickly redo them or just abandon them entirely. One day during a copper titration Raquel decided to point the test tube at the class and let go of the copper so that it fell into the tube. I was the closest person to her and the tube exploded in my face. Later that day I had to sit in the principal's office with Mrs. Rios to explain what had happened. Mrs. Rios explained that it was an accident while I sat there with my face covered in bandages like the elephant man.
As we were walking back to class, Mrs. Rios thanked me for not telling the principal that Raquel did it on purpose. "Why do you let her get away with everything?" I asked.
The problem is that in the real world, problems do not go away. They have to be resolved, appeased, and dealt with because you have to consider the needs of society over punishment of the bad child. You need to make the bad child feel hopeful and validated or he/she will continue to act out. When someone is desperate, he/she is unpredictable and that is an even bigger problem. In the words of political expert Janis Joplin (and Kris Kristofferson), "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." We may be the free world but Kim Jong Il is the most free of all of us because he can pretty much do whatever he wants.
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