The Star Makes It Sound Like Somthing You Would Get At The Source

Korea's brazen threat May 27, 2009
Why is North Korea's ailing Kim Jong-il brazenly courting the world's ire by defying the United Nations Security Council, testing a small nuclear bomb and firing off rockets? For a slew of reasons that betray his pariah regime's inherent ...

Steven Edwards: U.S. meets North Korean nukes with empty words

It’s said North Korea is led by an unstable and unpredictable ruler who can’t be trusted. Still, when statements in the name of Kim Jong-il promise new nuclear bomb and missile tests, the Stalinist country appears true to its word.

Having trouble following through on his finger wagging, meanwhile, is U.S. President Barack Obama.

In April, North Korea launched a long-range missile in defiance of international law, and Obama interrupted his speech in Prague on denuclearization to speak of a “need for action” against Kim’s regime.

He promised a response that day from the UN Security Council, and declared his administration’s “determination to prevent the spread of these weapons.”

Alas, the UN Security Council took a week to produce a legally non-binding statement criticizing the launch. It took several weeks more to agree on what turned out to be minor sanctions against three companies said to be money earners for Kim.

North Korea, meanwhile, demanded an apology for the Council’s criticism, or it would conduct a nuclear test, and fire off another ballistic missile.

The UN Security Council met quickly to condemn North Korea’s second nuclear test in less than three years Monday, and Obama said the “international community must take action” – calling the detonation earlier that day “reckless.”

North Korea responded by firing off two short-range missiles. Maybe no long-range ones had been available on the launch pad.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, was dispatched to wag the administration’s finger Tuesday, declaring in an NBC interview North Korea would “pay a price” if it does not “reverse” its course.

“We will take steps … to convey the message to North Korea that the path it’s on doesn’t serve its long-term interests, and is not acceptable to the international community,” she said.

As if to emphasize that the Obama administration means it this time, she made the point in interviews she granted to a host of other U.S. television networks, including CNN and CBS.

UN Security Council “technical experts” were Tuesday huddled in closed-door consultations in a bid to write a draft resolution that will contain the promised “price.”

Rice insisted that the new Council resolution and any additional sanctions were “not the sum total of the response available” to the United States and its allies.

“We’ll be looking at what other steps we can take, along with partners in the region, to increase the pressure on North Korea and to make it plain that these actions will not be tolerated,” she said.

North Korea said in a statement carried by its official news agency KCNA that it was clear Washington’s “hostile policy” towards Pyongyang had not changed.

Seismologists said the new nuclear test had the power of a 4.5 magnitude earthquake, and was far more powerful than the country’s first nuclear detonation in October 2006.

Russia said the explosion was of a size comparable to the U.S. bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Following the 2006 test, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1718, which forbids the reclusive regime from conducting any future nuclear or missile launches.

Obama’s rhetoric may have been enough to neutralize one political opponent after another as he advanced to the White House. But on the international stage, something stronger is needed. And it is unlikely to be found at the UN.