TO SAVE time, headline writers really should save some of these in type. Whether it’s trouble in the Middle East, Washington spending more tax money than taxpayers have, or the price of Super Bowl ads setting records each year, some headlines never seem to go outta style. Including the one at the top of Monday’s paper:
U.N. council condemns North Korea
You don’t say? And how long has this been going on? (Here’s a hint, from this paper’s headline writers on June 16, 1994: “U.S. meekly plans Korean arms embargo.” Should we go back to the 1980s?)
Yes, the hard-working honorables at the United Nation’s Security Council got together after Pyongyang’s most recent illegal rocket launch and Strongly Condemned that North Korea action. Strongly condemned. Not just so-so condemned. The Security Council said the test of yet another banned ballistic missile was an “intolerable provocation.”
Intolerable. As in cannot be tolerated. Unendurable. Which the latest Kim regime knows means just the opposite.
The North not only ignored mainland China’s “demand” that it not conduct these kinds of tests, but the latest launch came on the eve of the Chinese New Year, that country’s most important holiday.
Never fear. Because since January 6, Red China and the United States have been negotiating the text of new Security Council sanctions against North Korea. Negotiating the text. Since January 6. Word has it that the West wanted the word “robust” to be in the sanctions, but was dropped after some discussion. (That’s not a joke.) One of these days the text will be approved, and negotiations can then turn to what date to put it on the calendar at the United Nations, and what to serve at lunch. If Russia and China don’t have second thoughts in the meantime.
Of course, even as China negotiates the text on a possible resolution in the future, it tells the world it’s not really interested in doing anything—not really. You see, more sanctions might harm North Korea’s economy (what’s left of it) and China would have to bail out its pesky little brother again.
So there you have it. The world through its diplomats vows to do everything in its power, that is, nothing at all, about the latest North Korean missile launch.
And so it goes. Year after year. Somebody keep these headlines in type. We’re going to need the standing heds next month. And probably next century.