Politics will now insert themselves into this column for the first, but certainly not the last time.

It’s hard to miss the blaring headlines in the last few days about the latest North Korean nuclear test and subsequent missile launches, which is designed to develop their technical prowess. Given the breathless pronouncements and endless analysis that stream from American media and government, I can understand how ordinary folks seem obsessed with NK, especially now.

Few people are fooled by North Korea’s propaganda – it’s hardly the paradise it portrays itself to be, with a repressive dictatorship, and it’s militarized and impoverished population kept on a short leash. But, in fact a number of countries could qualify in those categories, and for the most part, we ignore them or use them as allies.

But when NK thumbed it’s nose at the U.S. and threatened to become a two-bit nuclear player (and a not very successful one at that), the U.S. couldn’t ignore the spitball.

God knows, the world does not need more nuclear weapons.

But why have most people so quickly forgotten the lessons of Saddam, who reminds us from his grave of how we were so easily fooled by alleged weapons of mass destruction?

And one of the rationales being used to try and stop NK’s nuclearization is how South Korea feels threatened by such tests.

In spite of what you read in U.S. newspapers, most South Koreans are far less concerned about North Korea then Americans. Here in rural, somewhat conservative Goheung, I’ve been talking with my fellow teachers and others about this issue. While not a scientific poll, I have yet to find one person that is concerned about the latest turn of events. In fact, most people are far more concerned – and affected – by the recent suicide of a very popular ex-president (Memorials are being held spontaneously around the country.)

In reality, NK poses little if any threat, in spite of their bellicose statements and verbal threats – they seem more sad and pathetic than anything else.

One needs to also understand Asian geography: NK faces a newly hostile S. Korean government led by conservative president Lee Myung-bak, in a country that houses tens of thousands of US troops and a huge arsenal pointed at it. NK also faces a hostile neighbor to it’s east, in the form of Japan, who is now openly talking about abandoning their official pacifism and building up their military for a preemptive capability.

And Koreans also understand the hypocrisy of the country with ten thousand nuclear weapons (and the only one to ever use them) threatening a country if they develop even one weapon.

So overall, S. Koreans don’t get too worked up about their poor brethren’s often empty threats. Instead, many want to reunite a painful rift that has haunted both countries for over half a century.

By the way, I happen to live in the one Korean county that has a Space Center, and plans on launching it’s first satellite into space in a few months. Will the U.S. react the same way when the much richer, westernized Korea launches, thereby developing their technical prowess? Umm…. I doubt it.

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