U.S. protecting an ally, not provoking North Koreans

Robert Burgess, Henderson

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Stan Olson, in his Friday letter to the editor, headlined “Let’s not wave a red flag in North Korea’s face,” wrote: “Maybe we should not be engaged in war games off the coast of North Korea. If Russia and China were conducting war games off the coast of California, we might become slightly annoyed.”

But Mr. Olson fails to point out the difference. The U.S. is committed to supporting South Korea in any eventual encounter by North Korea.

With thousands of our military in South Korea, we are already there. The U.S. has common ground with South Korea to engage in maneuvers. North Korea, meanwhile, has been brewing trouble for many months.

There have been pre-emptive strikes by North Korea, such as against the South Korean military vessel, the Cheonan, which was sunk by the North, resulting in 46 sailors being killed. And North Korea recently fired more than 100 artillery shells onto a South Korean island (four or five people were killed).

Also, in 1983, Kim Jong-il directed an assassination attempt on the South Korean president, who was traveling in Burma. That plot killed 21 people, including several members of the South Korean Cabinet.

North Korea is run by a terrorist government. Neither China nor Russia has an agreement to defend the U.S., so why would they be in our waters doing war games? We would not like it if they were here and there wouldn’t be any reason for them to be here. We are not threatening nor harassing our neighbors.