On the other hand.... NK Explosion Is US Sabotage?

The US's response to the report of the enormous explosion in North Korea has been one of calm, almost disinterest.

My response, in stark contrast, was one of hysterical concern.

Why the difference? Both the US and I know that NK is marked by Bush as a founding member of the Axis of Evil. That NK is hyping up its nuclear weapons capability. That Bush claims to operate under a foreign policy doctrine called "pre-emption", in which the US acts militarily and unilaterally against another country when it perceives that country contributes to a terrorist threat against the US. These four things add up to loading planes with bombs and an imminent invasion of NK.

Some counter-arguments, which I'm sure Derek had in mind when we bet two days ago on whether or not the US would invade NK within 14 months: (1) Afghanistan and Iraq were politically isolated and friendless; North Korea has a close friend in China -- although its arguable that the Chinese-NK friendship has frayed since the 50's to the point that it's no closer than the Iraq/Russian friendship, or Iraq/France; (2) the Bush administration had a head-on to attack Iraq since Bush's inauguration, and the Iraq war was brought in on pretenses which have been shown to be groundless; they have no such head for a NK invasion; (3) the US is bogged down in Iraq; even if we wanted to, we don't have the people for a unilateral invasion.

And then there's one more: the Siberian possibility. Recall the recent revelation that the US helped engineer the enormous gas explosion in Soviet Russia , by selling them purposely flawed operations chips. Perhaps the relative calm over the recent NK explosion is simply the same public stone-face after the Siberian explosion.

In which case, one can only say, oh. Hmmmm. Well, good show then.