2013-03-31 – Does anyone know why North Korea wants to go to war against us?

When I was in high school in the mid-60s, I asked a similar question about North Vietnam. More precisely, the Vietnam question had to do with why we wanted to be at war against them. But these things are multi-directional. So the question is similar enough.

At first, I thought that my lack of an answer was due to my youth. Even though Vietnam had been in existence for millions of years, I had only become conscious of it shortly before I began to ask why were at war. I was a kid and just becoming aware of politics. I figured, at that early stage, that, if we were at war, there was a good reason for it. I decided to research the question. In those pre-internet days, research was done in books—particularly encyclopedias. I found nothing. And I was stuck for a while.

Eventually, I began to watch the news and figured out that there really wasn’t a good reason to be at war in Vietnam.

We’ve been in several wars since then, some more justified than others. But at least I knew what was going on.

Now we are seeing all sorts of threats coming out of North Korea. And I’m back where I was in the 60s. I have no idea why this is happening.

Yes, I know that we fought them in the early 50s. Yes, I know that the war was never formally ended. But, c’mon! If there had been good reason to fight, do you think that both sides would have stopped just like that?

So I figured that no one wanted to say the Korean War was over. But it was over. And it’s been over for around 60 years.

What has changed in that time? South Korea has become prosperous. North Korea has stagnated. And its allies have gotten a little unsupportive. This doesn’t seem to put North Korea in the best place to be making war noises?

The diplomats say that they think they are just noises, but that we are prepared if they are not.

They seem to be saying that this is a replay of the 1959 Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse That Roared. In that movie, the United States is attacked by the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a small country (the mouse) that hopes to be swiftly defeated so that the United States would give it aid. But the Duchy accidentally defeats the United States by arriving to attack during a disaster drill and wandering into a secret lab that has built a doomsday device.

Is this what Kim Jong-un is hoping for?

Why don’t these folks let us know what their grievances are?

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