GROAN -- Reactive, not Proactive

In an earlier post about North Korea's saber-rattling, I mentioned that it was time for the US to show this bully -- admittedly a pipsqueak bully, but a bully nonetheless -- what real strength we had. I suggested locating the Navy's Standard Missile offshore in international waters, technically not in violation of international law but close enough to blow the North Korean missiles out of the sky during their launch phase. So, Kim Jong Il and his generals could watch their precious missiles disintegrate in front of their eyes and learn, like the Libyans did 20 years ago, that they can "mouth off" all they want but once they get militarily aggressive, America is unafraid to take action.

Today, the US Army announced that we are using missile defense in the event that the North Koreans launch toward Hawaii, on July 4th, as they did a few years ago. But we are using the Ballistic Missile Defense system, which intercepts missiles thousands of miles after they've been launched. It is effectively a defensive weapon.

The difference to the world -- using BMD instead of the Standard Missile -- will be clear. BMD will protect the homeland. But it is not aggressive and certainly cannot be interpreted as an offensive weapon.

This point will not be missed by the North Koreans. Using the Standard Missile is equivalent to shooting out their windows and destroying their guns in the rack. Using BMD is equivalent to putting plywood on your own windows so the bad guy's bullets can't hurt you, while cowering behind the furniture.

The North Koreans only respect strength. They get away with their belligerency because they know the Western World is afraid to use its military might. So the question is, as we approach July 4th, what message will we send them?