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I think the issue with asking why we're not in there comes in the hypocrisy of criticizing the US government for acting without the UN on one thing and then saying it should act without the UN for another.
And, by the way, we're not out of the UN.
Politically, yes, no matter what the administration does they will be criticized - you're providing an example for that right now. You can't get angry over something and say they should do the opposite, and then get angry when they do just that. So you say it wasn't the fact we went at it without the UN with Iraq that made you mad, but the reasons we did it? That's fine, then DON'T SAY THAT YOU'RE MAD THAT WE WENT AT IT WITHOUT THE UN. Otherwise, it just makes you look like a hypocrite.
Either way, the reason we're not in there right now has nothing to do with upcoming elections or not wanting to go against the UN or anything like that. There is a fundamental difference between Iraq and North Korea here - intelligence showed Iraq as having weapons of mass destruction of the chemical and biological nature, and that they may have looked into nuclear weapons. However, they had no weapons of a long enough range to do much damage - but did have weapons of a longer range than they should have. So, the situation wasn't as sticky, and was a matter of stopping things before they got worse.
North Korea is entirely different.
North Korea HAS 10 nuclear warheads, and 2 nuclear devices capable of being carried by a transport vehicle. They have missiles capable of hitting the US - WITH nuclear warheads.
These are not idle threats being made that they can attack the US. And they don't care that we can match whatever they'd do tenfold. If they can destroy Los Angeles for example, they would be perfectly accepting of the fact we'd destroy all of North Korea. Not that they wouldn't fight, just that they're not afraid of it.
So, it's not about upcoming elections, or the UN, or not caring about humanitarian needs. It's a matter of the lesser of two evils. We can work slowly at this - think Cold War II slowly - or we can have them fire nukes and other missiles at us, as well as possibly S Korea, Japan, and other countries on their bad side. Personally, living in Chicago, where they have missiles that can reach, I'd rather not wake up one day to hear antiquated cold war-era raid sirens.
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Le temps détruit tout
"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling
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