A ‘stern warning’ is the namby pamby response when a boot on the throat is required.
The South Korean government earlier this week received some good news and some bad news. The good news is that South Korea never shot and sank its own patrol ship on March 26.
The bad news is that North Korea did.
South Korean military investigators have found evidence that the patrol ship that exploded and sank with 46 lives on March 26 was hit by a North Korean torpedo.
The South is in an unenviable position. Its public want a strong and aggressive response to avenge the lives of its murdered seamen, but such a response will inevitably escalate into a regional war.
Restraint and rationality are not the Dear Leader’s strong points and he will have no hesitation is pushing red buttons at the first sign of a South Korean attack.
So what now? The option the South is going for seems to be the namby pamby one – diplomacy – and the government has dusted off the thesaurus to find the strongest verbal response possible.
What it has come up with is the decision to give North Korea a “stern warning”. You heard right. They are pulling no punches this time.
While not unprecedented, Korea analysts say the warning is a step up from the “grave concern” level of the past but stops just short of “condemnation” of the rogue communist state.
Come on, guys. The lunatics up north killed 46 of your countrymen. In our book that requires a lot more than a “stern warning”. That’s what you give your teenage son when he drinks half your whiskey.
No one wants a regional conflict, but as far as declarations of war go, sinking a neighbour’s warship with a torpedo is pretty much one of those. The world needs to quickly stand behind the south in an aggressive show of force.
But most importantly, it is time for China to step up and start throwing its regional weight around. Dealing with the North as though it is some kind of equal instead of a rogue and oppressive state has been wrong for a long time.
China must put its foot on the Dear Leader’s throat and extract a groveling apology for sinking its neighbour’s warship.
Because as long as North Korea believes it can get away with such overt military actions it will keep them coming. That needs to stop now.