Why is Kim Jong Il smiling?

N. Korea Fires Missile Into Sea of Japan
By SOO-JEONG LEE

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea test fired a short-range missile that plunged into the Sea of Japan Sunday, the White House chief of staff said, adding he wasn't "surprised by this," noting Pyonyang had conducted similar tests in the past.

The U.S. military told the Japanese government of the suspected missile launch, which was believed to have traveled some 65 miles off the east coast of North Korea, according to media reports in South Korea and Japan.

Card told CNN's Late Edition he had heard about the test Sunday morning."

I don't know an awful lot about it. It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan. We're not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before. They've had some failures."

Japanese officials expressed concern last September that North Korea was preparing for a test launch, but later backed off those assertions.

The missile launch came on the eve of a critical conference at the United Nations to reassess the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, with U.S. negotiators urging action against suspected atomic weapons programs in North Korea and Iran.

...North Korea's missile development program has spurred Japan to join the United States in putting together a joint missile-defense system. North Korea startled Tokyo in 1998 by launching a long-range ballistic missile over the Japanese archipelago and into the Pacific Ocean.

The Japanese Cabinet in February approved legislation that would allow the defense chief to order the military to shoot down incoming missiles.

From the Washington Post:

North Korea lashed out at President Bush yesterday for comments he made about the country's leader, Kim Jong Il, at a news conference Thursday, asserting that the North Korean nuclear impasse will never be resolved while Bush remains in office.

Bush is "a half-baked man in terms of morality and a philistine whom we can never deal with," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. The statement described Bush as the "world's dictator," who as president had "turned the world into a sea of blood."
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It would seem Kim Jong Il and the Democrat Bush bashers are on the same page.

President Reagan's push for a missile defense system made a lot of sense, didn't it?

On March 23, 1983, in an address to the nation on defense and national security, President Reagan said:
Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Let us turn to the very strengths in technology that spawned our great industrial base and that have given us the quality of life we enjoy today.

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?

I know this is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of the century. Yet, current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to begin this effort. It will take years, probably decades of efforts on many fronts. There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will be successes and breakthroughs. And as we proceed, we must remain constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent and maintaining a solid capability for flexible response. But isn't it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it is.

...I clearly recognize that defensive systems have limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering an aggressive policy, and no one wants that. But with these considerations firmly in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

Tonight, consistent with our obligations of the ABM treaty and recognizing the need for closer consultation with our allies, I'm taking an important first step. I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles. This could pave the way for arms control measures to eliminate the weapons themselves. We seek neither military superiority nor political advantage. Our only purpose -- one all people share -- is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war.

My fellow Americans, tonight we're launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risks, and results take time. But I believe we can do it. As we cross this threshold, I ask for your prayers and your support.
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Reagan was truly a man of vision.

Although the Soviet Union is history, the nuclear threat is as real as ever. Kim Jong Il embodies the danger.

Wouldn't a missile defense system be very comforting right now?