Stop the insanity! Done. Next Item?

The world has changed a lot since the days of the Bush administration when it seemed like international diplomacy was run by a group of loony-tunes.

A few weeks ago, Dear Father* Kim Jung Il of North Korea, feeling lonely and neglected, decided to ring a bell by launching a missile---err satellite---while President Obama was in Europe making a speech about (yawn) eliminating nuclear weapons. Like Pavlov puppies , the US and its erstwhile ally Japan immediately began slobbering.

Resisting the urges of the calmer, more rational folks who suggested some military action against North Korea as long as they themselves didn't get their asses shot off, President Obama sprang into action.

Obama rejected the old Bush wimp-out by refusing to merely call Kim and North Korea bad names such as Axis of Evil. No, Obama decided to hit North Korea where it hurts; to do that one thing that all sends the fear of god through the souls of all dictators and tyrants. Obama, with Japan at his side (the Japan that suddenly remembered that the Six Party Talks about North Korean nukes were about more than just hostages/abductees) went to the UN!

Things did not go as planned at the UN, however, for Russia and China stunned the planet by refusing to play along. No problem, says Barack, we'll talk it over. No more pushy USA, we'll get results by drawing upon the natural love and admiration that the international community always had for the US before Bush.

After much deliberation and singing of Kumbaya, the UN issued a fierce statement saying something along the lines that North Korea had done wrong when it committed the heretofore unheard of act of violating a UN sanction or something like that.

Kim Jung Il, upon receiving the UN nasty-gram, immediately went into a panic and began running around in circles screaming "Oh my god, what shall I do now!" After his generals calmed him down, the unpredictable Kim decided to do that which nobody could have predicted: They decided to withdraw from the Six Party Talks and restart the nuclear facility. (clang! clang!)

Meanwhile, back in Japan, the fearless rightwing was shocked and saddened to learn that the US-Japan alliance had failed. That girlie-man Obama had ruled out shooting down the North Korean missile before it reached the Land of the Rising Sun. This was the evidence they needed to do something that they had never done before and start whimpering that the US was an untrustworthy ally. Many had already reluctantly come to the conclusion that had Japan not had Article 9 which prohibits it from having military unless they are called self-defense forces, it would have been able to have defended itself and shot the missile down at launch. It would have been able to have done this even though it was off just a little---about a day---in its detection of the launch.

Had the Japan rightwing had its way, by god, and attacked North Korea it would have ended the problem in a heartbeat. Japan would have been back on track to regaining its rightful position as the much-loved and respected leader of Asia. China would have shown admiration for Japan's new military assertiveness. South Korea, after seeing an attack on its fellow Koreans by their beloved ally Japan, would have been waving the hinomaru and shouting "Go Nippon!"

It's such a relief to have returned to saner times.

*More commonly called Dear Leader nowadays.