Absolutely nothing … except making a bunch of money by hoodwinking folks across the country we have nothing to fear but a lack of fear itself. And in the process we leave any form logic and common sense behind.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters nationwide favor a military response to eliminate North Korea’s missile launching capability. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 15% of voters oppose a military response while 28% are not sure.

(57% Want Military Response to North Korea Missile Launch, Rasmussen Reports, 04/05/09)

Standing by, primed and ready to take advantage of this built in fear are the fear mongers …

Arguing that the U.S. faces a future gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week asked the White House to approve plans to build a pair of large, cutting-edge spy satellites along with two smaller, less-expensive models commercially available today, these officials said.

(Satellite Proposals Gain Traction After North Korea’s Launch, Wall Street Journal, 04/05/09)

First off let’s put the most blatant bullshit lines to rest: North Korea did not launch a missile, they launched a rocket with a non-weapons payload, and we are no more in danger of some mythical satellite capabilities gap then we were in danger of those equally mythical Iraqi drones cheney/bush & co insisted were ready to be launched off our coasts to spray our women and children.

The more important point, however, is how we as a nation deal with those who are suspicious of us … even have been at war with us in the past and continue a relationship mutually based on a difficult to police armistice. Okay … call North Korea a paranoid nation if you wish. But you don’t bring paranoids into a common fold by threatening them.

Is North Korea a threat to anyone? Nope. It is that simple. North Korea has never invaded another nation. When the Korean war exploded in 1950, it was the result of both the north and south pushing for re-unification … under THEIR respective leadership … not that of the other.

North and South Korea hadn’t existed for more than half a decade at that point. Korea had been divided between the Soviet Union and the non-Soviet Union allies at the end of World War II, and by 1950 neither North nor South accepted that solution.

In the minds of the Koreans there was still only one Korea … period. So began a civil war.

Since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war, North Korea as a government has been content to keep its own population under control and maintain dictatorial power.

In that time North Korea has developed (with initial help from the Soviet Union and then China) a sophisticated home grown missile and rocket industry that has even proved itself capable of export. This is also true of their nuclear power/weapons know how.

And that last paragraph is the real answer to our current dilemma vis-a-vis Korea. We should be telling the North we will gladly join in and provide technical help to move their programs forward.

Any nation that has the capability to put a satellite in orbit, which North Korea is only a launch or two away from, is technologically advanced. This type of technological know how takes educated people, and educated people are open to new ideas when they get a chance to hear them.

As an aside I recommend this as our approach to Iran too.

As long as our approach to the North is as belligerent as their approach to us we will remain at a stalemate. We can’t attack the North without an overwhelming conventional response attack on the South. And if we get into a nuclear weapons pissing contest we all lose … literally.

We need to change our approach in a fundamental fashion … one that does not include useless threats or disastrous war.

Unless we want to buy that bullshit about some mythical “gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities” which will lead to more weaponry built by us which will lead to more suspicions on the part of North Korea which will lead to greater public acrimony which will lead to more military spending which sooner or later will lead to yet one more massive war built on the backs of the working class to enrich a few privileged money brokers …. which is what Washington DC seems all about today.

Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is the conquest of fear. We need to realize we are prepping ourselves for wholesale slaughters and destruction unless we overcome our fears and move into a future based upon courage.