[Assam] From St. Louis Post Dispatch

[Chan Mahanta]

Bill McClennan, one of my most favorite newspaper columnists, wrote this :



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/billmcclellan/story/856BCD6A056949F6862572040032465F?OpenDocument 
North Korea has an excuse: Defense against schoolyard bully
By Bill McClellan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/11/2006

Bill McClellan
[More columns]
[Bill's Biography]

  I picked up the newspaper Tuesday morning, and saw the headline on 
the front page: "A Roar of Condemnation." Just above the screaming 
headline was a quote: "No one came even close to defending it."

  Naturally, I figured it had something to do with baseball. After 
all, the Cardinals are about to play the Mets in the League 
Championship Series, and baseball is going to dominate the news as 
long as the Cardinals keep playing. Why not? This is a business, and 
we aim to give the customers what they want. If that's bread and 
circuses, fine with us.

  But when I took a second look, I saw that the headlines referred to 
the North Korean claim that it had tested a nuclear bomb.

  No one came close to defending it? Let me try.
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  First of all, I'm no fan of North Korea. From the little I know of 
their Supreme Leader, I think he's nuts. Then again, I believe in 
meritocracy, and I think it's a terrible idea to have any country run 
by political dynasties. Just because your dad was Supreme Leader 
doesn't mean you should be Supreme Leader. Then again, my congressman 
is Russ Carnahan. My governor is Matt Blunt. My president is George 
W. Bush.

  But when I think of North Korea and the bomb, I think about my childhood.

  We sometimes had bomb drills in grade school. We'd sit under our 
desks. These drills were necessary because the Soviet Union had 
thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at us.

  I remember having doubts about the efficacy of the drills. Would we 
really be safe under our desks? Mostly, though, I wondered about the 
Soviets. Why did they hate us?

  Grown-ups tried to explain the complicated truth. It wasn't so much 
that the Soviets hated us as much they feared us. You see, we had 
nuclear weapons, too, and our missiles were aimed at the Soviets. So 
they figured that if they aimed their missiles at us, we wouldn't 
dare attack them.

  That was the craziest thing I had ever heard. Didn't they know 
anything at all about us? We were the good guys. We'd fight if 
somebody attacked us, and we'd fight if somebody attacked one of our 
friends, but that was it. We weren't about to start a fight. We were 
the toughest kid in the schoolyard, but we were no bully.

  I knew, of course, that we were the only country that had ever used 
a nuclear weapon. But we were justified in so doing. I thought so 
then, and I think so now.

  So I was absolutely convinced that the leaders of the Soviet Union 
had pulled a fast one on their people in order to justify their 
missiles. The United States would never be the first to attack. I 
believed that with all my heart.

  I became more cynical as the years went by, but still, I clung to 
that belief until George W. Bush introduced the policy of 
"pre-emption." He declared that we had the right to attack first - 
even if the country we attacked was not posing an imminent threat to 
us. We used that policy to justify our invasion of Iraq.

  In March this year, we reaffirmed our right to strike first.

  "The president's strategy affirms that the doctrine of pre-emption 
remains sound and must remain an integral part of our national 
security strategy," said national security adviser Stephen Hadley. 
"America must confront threats before they fully materialize."

  People can make many arguments against our invasion of Iraq. It has 
inflamed the world against us. It has strengthened Iran. (There was a 
reason the administration of President Ronald Reagan tilted toward 
Iraq in its war against Iran.) It threatens to further destabilize 
the Middle East. (There was a reason Turkey opposed the invasion.) It 
has cost us dearly in money and blood.

  But there has been another kind of loss, as well. Kids today cannot 
feel about the country the way I did. That's a shame.

  Also, when a country that believes in pre-emption announces that 
another country is part of an axis of evil, can you really blame that 
country for trying to develop a nuclear bomb? I can't.

  But now, back to baseball.