Remember that kid in your elementary school classes or that kid on your bus, or hell, just That Kid? The one who got in trouble so much it didn’t matter how he acted out next, no one would pay attention to him? The one who, when he acted out the next time, someone got seriously injured?
Is that kid North Korea? Because it might be.
Like, we hate taking anything North Korea has to say seriously at all. Part of that is, of course, because somehow Dennis Rodman is good friends with Kim Jong Un. No, thank you.
Lately, though, it seems like the threat of some kind of attack or war from them is becoming more and more real.
Not real in the sense that we should build underground bunkers and hide from bombs by hiding under our desks because those help very little. But real in the sense that we ignored that country for so long because it seemed so outrageous to believe anything it had to say.
“I consider the current North Korean threats very serious,” said South Korean President Park Geun-hye to the South’s generals, according to a New York Times article. “If the North attempts any provocation against our people and country, you must respond strongly at the first contact with them without any political consideration.
“As top commander of the military, I trust your judgment in the face of North Korea’s unexpected surprise provocation,” she continued.
If South Korea is starting to take North Korea’s threats more seriously, then the rest of the world should follow suit. Because if anybody should be fed up with the North’s attitude by now, it’s the South.
“White House press secretary Jay Carney said Mondays [sic] the U.S. has not detected any military mobilization or repositioning of forces from Pyongyang to back up the threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,” a CBS News article read.
“Carney called the U.S. response ‘prudent,’” continued the article. “He noted that such tough talk from North Korea is part of a familiar pattern. Carney says the White House takes the threats ‘very seriously.’ But he says the rhetoric ‘is consistent with past behavior.’”
Two F-22 fighter jets, which are said to be the world’s most advanced warplanes, arrived in South Korea and are considered a display of America’s commitment to confronting North Korea.
“The bombers’ mission came after threats from North Korea to attack U.S. soil with missiles, a capability the North likely does not yet possess,” reported USA Today.
While the North is likely blowing hot smoke up everyone’s collective global buttholes, we don’t want them to get to the point where they actually act on a nuclear threat.
A Pentagon spokesman told CBS News on Monday morning that the F-22’s presence over the peninsula was not a “recent addition to the exercise,” but Pyongyang classified the “joint South Korean-U.S. war games a preparation for invasion,” wrote CBS News.
Take the news with a grain of salt. It’s likely not true, but the global political climate could be shifting.
