Is North Korea a Chinese Stalking-horse?

What does it mean when the U.S. Secretary of State says of a 'rogue" country testing missiles presumably capable of being aimed at the U.S.: "I can't really judge the motivations of the North Korean regime, I wouldn't begin to try"?

Well, when do we start trying? After a missile reaches us? Whose job is it to understand such motivations if it isn't hers? According to Tony Snow, this country "isn't in our neighborhood," so we don't need to get too involved. Whose neighborhood is Iraq in? Where was this handy excuse then?

The U.S. keeps portraying Kim Jong Il as a petulant, loose cannon nut case so anxious for undivided attention that he's willing to ignore world protestation and fire test missiles into the Sea of Japan. We're told his actions are "provocative" as opposed to threatening - the kind of distinction usually made when you know something about someone's motivations. The missile we were most concerned about supposedly "failed," which in turn supposedly indicates North Korea can't reach U.S. targets anyway. So, we should all rest easy. Where's the evidence for these assumptions? How is it that we know so much based on admittedly knowing so little and, because it isn't our neighborhood, caring even less?

Why not assume that North Korea is a stalking-horse for China? Could these frenzied missile launchings be a strategy to raise U.S. dependency on China, to demonstrate the United States' vulnerability, to raise China's prestige in the U.N. and the world, to unsettle U.S. international strategy, or worse? What makes this assumption any less valid than others? Nothing.

We seem very determined to know as little as possible about this North Korean "provocation." Don't you think there's something quite fishy going on here? Don't you hope we're right this time?

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