In the Era of Fear

There is nothing to fear but fear itself, said Roosevelt. Freedom from fear is one of our four revered freedoms. So why this frenzy of fear in our imaginings?

In a sense, the Era of Fear in the western hemisphere occurred at the onset of the Cold War when distrust of the commies—the Ruskies and the Chinks, and their socialist cohorts in the non-aligned nations like Sukarno and Nasser—became a matter of public policy.

The proponents of Hegelian conflict dualism and ideological contradictional thinking needed a replacement of the godless commies when glasnots was launched and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, so we designated the violent jihadist as our new enemies. No longer were we just fearful; we have become terror-stricken!

Jittery Japan jumped the trigger when it announced Saturday that North Korea launched a ballistic missile. A day later, the North Koreans launched their missile aimed to improve their satellite communication capability, according to Pyongyang. Seoul immediately dubbed it as “reckless” while the U.S. called it “provocative.” Japan, of course, immediately launched a protest in the United Nations, convening the Security Council within 24 hours for deliberations.

Never mind that all of South Korea’s military arsenal and preparedness is toward the liberation of North Korea from its despotic rulers. South Korea’s capabilities far exceed what a defensive stance would require, and its levels of alertness have all its missiles, including undeclared nuclear arsenal, pointed toward the North.

It does not matter that the U.S. Navy routinely conducts naval surveillance provocatively close to, if not frequently within, NK’s international mile limit.

Japan, of course, is still smarting from the surprise it got in the late 90s when Pyongyang shot a missile over its airspace. Japan has since spent billions of dollars to create a missile shield and had vowed to shoot down any missile part that might threaten a landing on Japanese soil. Japan’s state-of-the-art arsenal of missile crafts, particularly its vaunted Patriot missiles, are directed toward the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

I am reminded of our response when the Urdu-speaking Hindus, and later, the Urdu-speaking Muslim Pakistanis, tested their nuclear arsenals. We were sure you could not trust these trigger-happy backward nations from exposing the planet to an atomic holocaust.

With Kim Jong-Il about to preside over NK’s legislative assembly, and a trial of two Americans about to be launched in a border town near China, obviously meant to attract the Western press, we can only wish that the new satellite launching capability will henceforth make North Korea accessible to the world, as well as teach the rest of us to reign in on our overly nurtured culture of fear.