North Korea launches missiles
Posted by Moonage on 04 Jul 2006 | Tagged as: International Issues
North Korea fired probably four missiles today. As expected, the blog world is all over it:
- Expose the Left
- Stop The ACLU has lots of information
I’m sure there’s a LOT more out there already. There’s already differing thoughts on why they did it on July 4th.
- Making it as obvious as possible that this was purely intended to get the US’s attention specifically.
- Upstaging our rocket program. ( Congrats STS-121! ) Didn’t work too well, apparently none of the missiles made past the Sea of Japan.
- Attempting to upstage Iran, who got direct negotiations with the US ( albeit a threat ). This falls exactly one week before July 12th in North Korea time.
- A rogue effort to shoot down the Shuttle, literally.
- Make up anything else you want.
I’m going with #2 for right now. The North Korean rocket threat had supplanted the US rocket program as far as media goes, garnering North Korea a lot of attention they would not have had otherwise. There’s an old saying a lot of people still go by, “Bad press is better than no press”. By shooting bad rockets into space, for the time being, they have gotten themselves back on the headlines the threat of a flawless Shuttle launch threatened to usurp. If any of their launches had been more successful, NASA would have been forgotten. As it is, with the seemingly total failure of the North Korea launches, and the media already downplaying the threat they were feared to have, but not able to prove, the US is once again the king of rockets and North Korea is being relegated to the third world of science. I feel this is more symbolic of an effort than a well planned one. Although the 4th carries a lot connotation to it, it was also a two day warning that the Shuttle was going to be launched after expected aborted efforts on the 1st and 2nd. In other words, once the North Koreans were pretty sure they could launch them, it would have meant nothing to wait a couple of days and pull the trigger. Unlike a shuttle, launching a ballistic missile takes very little fore-planning. I don’t think for one second they were trying to shoot the Shuttle down, but I do think with the Shuttle in the air, it’s too much of a coincidence that a sudden volley of missiles were launched. However, I think it was more that they felt the US would have all their resources aimed at the Shuttle which would allow them a certain amount of obscurity. I think they simply underestimated the US military capability in that matter.
Bottom line, this is a curiosity to me. But, I am less impressed with their abilities than I was before. Apparently there was no need to concern ourselves with shooting them out of the sky as they could barely make it there in the first place. Now, it’s time for China to get serious before they can. It’s not like China can still assume they won’t try. And if China can’t convince them otherwise, we should.
July 5 Update: Scrappleface, which I love, has taken what I consider the perfect view of North Korea’s actions:
Gotta read it. It’s perfect.
Another July 5 Update: They’re apparently STILL launching missiles. The Sea of Japan so far has not surrendered.
2 Comments »
on 05 Jul 2006 at 5:35 pm 1.Planck's Constant said …
Korea: what rockets do when you peddle fake Vxxxxx
Now if only Kim Jong Il whose underpants are emblazoned with the phrase “Home of the Whopper,” would stop peddling fake VXXXX maybe his rockets would stay up longer, or at least fours hours according to the warning label. Wait, what am I saying?
on 05 Jul 2006 at 6:06 pm 2.Moonage
said …
I think it can be safely assumed at this point that he’s peddling fake scuds now.