On Monday, October 9, North Korea successfully tested a nuclear bomb up in the mountains above a town called Kilju. This was the culmination of Kim Jong-il’s three-year-long program to develop a nuclear program for North Korea.

In 2003, when Mr. Kim began developing nuclear weapons, U.N. inspectors were present. He kicked out the inspectors, quite conspicuously, in fact. Yet the news of this dictator’s and American enemy’s nuclear development was overshadowed by the news of the possibility that Iraq might, just might, have some of the tools needed to make nuclear weapons. Does anyone else see a problem here?

It was also already known that North Korea has been a worldwide weapons system salesman, and has threatened to sell its nuclear technology. Wow-good thing we invaded…Iraq?

Why is it that while one dictator admittedly has and was developing nuclear power, we chose to invade a country that would maybe link up with other anti-American entities and could choose to develop nuclear weapons? What does Iraq have that North Korea doesn’t? What makes Iraq so special? Can anyone say oil?

In the New York Times on Tuesday, an article stated that White House officials insist that they will continue to try and persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. You mean some kind of diplomacy? That doesn’t sound like the Bush White House we know and love (or at least know). Where’s the invasion, the ground troops, the staged aircraft carrier photos? What’s more, how on earth can this administration justify invading one country on a hunch, and settling for “talking down” a country that has just successfully tested a nuclear weapon? I am not suggesting that an invasion of North Korea is necessary, but where on earth was the diplomacy four years ago?

It all comes down to U.S. interests. Translated, that actually refers to the interests of the tiny percentage of power elites who run this country. Without oil the economy would crumble before our very eyes, and although the technology is already in existence to make us free from this dependency, such technology has coincidentally hit a wall. I urge you to always consider what politicians mean when they talk about “interests”. Just whose interests, specifically, are U.S. interests?

Personally, I like to think of U.S. interests as not getting having to withstand a nuclear attack from a hostile dictatorship. Maybe I’m old fashioned that way. But now, Mr. Bush, we want to know something: just how are you going to explain the waste of time, man-power, tax dollars, and thousands of lives, on a threat that never existed, and ignoring the blatant threat that was in plain view to anyone who bothered to look? Could it be perhaps, that the fear mongering of your administration was just a tool to garner support for a war about oil?

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that if a dictator tells you he is creating nuclear weapons in Korea, you don’t go looking for them in Iraq.