Submitted by Claude Bogardus, Feb 14, 2007 08:31

The Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, is treated with a strange new respect in North-East Asia, for he is now potent with plutonium. While he contents himself at present with petty extortion, he sees to the South a rich Korea inhabited by sheep wearing a golden fleece that he covets. The South Koreans are aware of Mr. Kim's envy, but they aspire to a magical state of invulnerability. Their amulet is the United States Armed Force presently deployed in South Korea, an Army too large to be abandoned and too small to prevail. The South Koreans have recently shown that they are past gratitude for their status as a United States Protectorate. Their view of South Korea's strategic placement is unfocused, desirous of of ridding their soil of the American Detachments, while keeping the threat of Kim Jong Il at bay. So they dither. The American President, of whatever party, will extract those troops just as soon as it becomes politically possible, for they are become hostages, casualties to be avenged when the Dear Leader moves South to shear those fat sheep. Then what are Japan's options? They are a race of warriors, don't forget.

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