No Land War in Asia

Apropos of the United States' current round of mutual saber-rattling with North Korea, and for the edification of those who may feel that Kim Jong Il's pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles makes him more of an international threat than Saddam Hussein once was, I offer the following corrective primer, courtesy of my friend and Far Eastern Affairs consultant, Jon Lay:

TOP TEN REASONS TO REACT DIFFERENTLY TO NORTH KOREA IN 2006 THAN WE DID TO IRAQ IN 2003:

10) They actually have Weapons of Mass Destruction. You know what those do, right?
9) Restarting the Cold War will significantly diminish the value of Reagan Dimes.
8) Japan is asking us to intervene, and frankly, we're feeling like we've been doing a lot for Japan over the last 60 years.
7) Not threatening to invade them just because they're not Arabs, would – in its own way – also be racist, if you think about it. No, think about it some more. More. There you go.
6) The United States has no idea how to go about waging a war on the Korean Peninsula.
5) Toby Keith still negotiating soundtrack terms. Once we get that worked out, it's bombs away.
4) Disrupting the flow of cheap plastic crap from China is potentially more damaging to our economy than losing whatever it is that we import from the Middle East.
3) George Bush is a pacifist firmly committed to resolving all conflicts through dialogue, as Jesus would.
2) With Army enlistment and morale at such record heights, we're worried we'd beat them so badly other nations would feel bad about themselves.
1) Osama Bin Laden didn't tell us to get the hell out of South Korea like he did Saudi Arabia – so we don't need to move our troops to North Korea.