Random Thoughts . . .

South Korea’s Call

In regard to the latest provocations of North Korea against South Korea -- when China and North Korea are eager to resume the Six-Party Talk, one cannot help but wonder if this diplomatic effort is just being used by North Korea and China to advance North Korea’s interests. According to this article, “After quitting the six-nation talks in April 2009, North Korea has shown it is eager to restart them to gain much-needed fuel oil and aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament. However, North Korea's recent revelation that it has developed a large uranium enrichment facility, giving it a new method for making material for bombs, has further called into question its intent to disarm.”

I think that the best way on the part of the United States to engage North Korea is to eschew these diplomatic maneuverings, stand behind South Korea in its declarations of defending its national security interests against the North, and provide it, as a partner and ally, with the military assistance that it needs. Strong statements made by the South Korean President and the newly-installed Defense Minister against the North suggest strength and a sense of national purpose. "If North Korea carries out a military provocation on our territory and people again, we must retaliate immediately and strongly until they completely surrender," Kim Kwan-jin said in a speech Saturday to senior military officials. Hear! Hear!


Coeds Rooming Together at GWU

Where have our sensibilities gone? I know I am not the only one who is indignant over this (to read the WP article, click here). I have friends who can write treatises about the natural roles and natural dynamics between males and females, about the moral and gender boundaries that should govern the actions of the young in their interactions with one another, about natural basic appetites that must be properly channeled into evolving, growing, and ultimately consummating of human desires based on human affections and reason. I can think of two unintended consequences that can come out of this new way of social living among students: they may become either sex-crazed (for sex and partners are free) or asexual (emerging from a displaced disposition that sharing a room with the opposite sex makes you cool, non-judgmental, and progressive in your thinking). Dorm living could now be fraught with sexual tensions. That or it could be devoid of them.


Why the Urgency Behind the Repeal of DADT policy?

“I think if we spent five solid days on this bill – we came in at 9 in the morning and we worked until 7 or 8 at night, I think it’d be hard for anybody to say . . . that we haven’t had opportunity for a good, thorough debate,” so said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), commenting on the testimony of military commanders before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday, Dec. 3rd, 2010.

With 2 million Americans unemployed, a national security that is facing terrorist threats, a foreign policy that recently has been undermined by Wikileaks revelations, etc., why would our lawmakers consider the issue of repealing "don't ask, don't tell" of paramount importance? As Ed Rogers puts it, . . . Obama will again appear to have priorities that are wildly different than those of average American voters. Friday’s unemployment report reinforces the desperate need for serious economic initiatives that unleash the American private sector to drive economic growth and create Jobs” (Washington Post, Sunday Opinion, Dec. 4, 2010).