North Korea and the U.S.: Paranoia Abounds

Contrasting the attitudes of Americans and South Koreans reveals much about the paranoia that U.S. politicians and the feckless news media are able to inspire. While North Korea has escalated its threatening rhetoric aimed at South Korea, Japan, and the U.S., it should be fairly obvious that the actual, and not perceived, threat that North Korea poses is fairly minimal. South Koreans, who are certainly more knowledge about and accustomed to dealing with their despotic neighbor, seem almost totally unconcerned with the threats emanating from Pyongyang.  

from The Wall Street Journal:

While worries about North Korea remain high in the U.S., Japan and around the world, there is little interest or discussion about the apocalyptic predictions from Pyongyang on the streets of Seoul, where restaurants and cafes remain full and conversations drift toward the latest pop single by Korean rapper Psy…

“South Koreans see this [latest flare-up] as a very short-term thing, and they expect a clear resolution,” says Karl Friedhoff, program officer at the Asan Institute’s Public Opinion Studies Center. “Whatever the result may be, South Koreans don’t expect this to impact long-term national security.”

Meanwhile, in the United States:

A CNN/ORC International poll…indicates that for the first time, a majority of the public is pessimistic that the situation involving North Korea’s missile program can be solved by diplomatic and economic means alone.

According to the survey, 41% of Americans now characterize North Korea an immediate threat to the United States, an all-time high for that measure.

41 percent of Americans are dead wrong about North Korea, primarily because media outlets such as CNN allow paranoid “experts” to drone on about North Korea’s supposed ability to nuke “any city” in the U.S. Even The New York Times, alleged bastion of good journalism and liberal politics, published an op-ed yesterday entitled “Bomb North Korea, Before It’s Too Late.”

This is how wars begin. This is how thousands upon thousands of innocent people unnecessarily lose their lives. It is not Kim Jong-un that Americans should fear, but rather the unscrupulous pundits and politicians who always seem so eager to ship their sons and daughters off to war.