Did anyone really expect to see a smiling Kim Jong Il say “Just kidding you guys, we were just messin’ with ya!”?

While yesterday’s test is unfortunate and it may be some time before all the ramifcations are known, is anyone really surprised? The US, playing the role of world bully (perhaps sheriff would be a nicer way to put it) for many years now, has had sanctions against the country since the Korean War. But in the five years since our Chief Bully called the country part of the Axis of Evil, the North Korean government withdrew from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, said it had nuclear weapons, refused to return to six-nation talks, and launched at least seven missiles into the sea of Japan. Unlike the still yet to be found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, unless North Korea was lying, we knew there were weapons or at least weapons technology there, yet we decided to go after Sadam Hussein. While it would have made me wet myself laughing, did anyone really expect to see a smiling Kim Jong Il say “Just kidding you guys, we were just messin’ with ya!”?

It doesn’t take much observation to see that if someone is bullied enough, they eventually fight back. Imagine that you are one of three kids being constantly bullied on the playground and the bully leaves you alone for a few days to focus on some other kids. While his back is turned are you gonna stay there and wait for him to come back and do the same thing, or are you gonna do like most and make sure that next time he passes by, you at least have a box cutter or a shank to let him know enough is enough? If you had the capability, wouldn’t you give your friends shanks too so you could make sure this bully would finally learn his lesson? Perhaps all of you sitting down and working out your problems would have worked at one point, but generally one can only take so much humiliation. Perhaps North Korea finally reached that point. Now the question is, what are the bully and his friends going to do about it?