Cheat Seeking Missiles: Cooler Heads Prevailing

It may not look like it, but this photo of South Koreans burning a Kim Il Jung picture is of cooler heads prevailing. Isn't it nice to see them protesting their enemy instead of us?

When news of the NoKo missile launch traced like an ICBM across talk radio and the blogosphere, it seemed like the big question was, "Do we take out the missile on the ground, or wait until it's in the air?"

I saw two big problems with that: First, it would make us an international pariah again, and we'd be accused of struttin' our stuff and showing off our bullying power. Not that I'm all that worried about that, if the cause is right. But in this case, it was a concern.

That's because I felt that by taking out the missile, we were taking out the opportunity for the NoKo regime to fail. And sure enough, they failed:

U.S. officials said North Korea fired a long-range Taepodong-2 early in the day, but that it failed shortly after takeoff, calling into question the technological capability of North Korea's feared ballistic missile program. Pyongyang last fired a long-range missile in 1998.

This reoport being from AP, it took a full 11 paragraphs for the "news" service to report that the most threatening of the NoKo missiles, the one that started the entire furor, was a dismal failure.

Meanwhile, everyone's pissed at the NoKo regime instead of at us. That sets up things better for the next NoKo test. The UN's meeting on it today (don't hold your breath), with this leading the news:

Japan, backed by the United States and Britain prepared a resolution demanding that nations withhold all funds, goods and technology that could be used for North Korea's missile program.