NORTH KOREA AS LECTURER AND TEACHER – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  North Korea gives a perfect lesson in how a rogue nation acts when confronted by a weak, appeasement-oriented United States.  From the New York Post:

You got to hand it to the North Koreans; they don’t take anything from anyone.

First they torpedo and sink a South Korean warship. Then as tensions mount between the two nations with the South imposing trade restrictions on the North and the North cutting off ties with the South in response, the United Nations Security Council is supposed to come in to investigate. The South wants the North to admit its crime. Not likely given the North’s response to the mere suggestion of an investigation.

North Korean UN ambassador Sin Son Ho declared that "If the Security Council release(s) any documents against us condemning or questioning us in any document, then myself as (a) diplomat, I can do nothing — but follow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces," he warned.

Got that? North Korea is demanding that the UN investigation bring “to light the truth of the incident impartially and objectively," North Korea’s government-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary Wednesday. And essentially if the country isn’t satisfied with the outcome of that investigation it will respond militarily.

COMMENT:  What does North Korea have to fear?  Apparently nothing.  The United States is, under Obama, almost indifferent to the sinking of the South Korean ship.  And the South Korean public, tragically, has become almost as casual, possibly reflecting the reality that, with a weak America, confronting North Korea might not be a good idea.

June 16, 2010