I listened to KBS World Radio English tx at 0200 and there was scant
mention of North Korea's threat to launch an ICBM. It "led" the news,
but the "news" on it was mostly regurgitated AP wire news. Then the #2
story was the election of a new Prime Minister. The commentary that
followed, as well as the "Seoul Calling" current events program, was
concerned with the South Korean national soccer team's latest win in the
World Cup tournament.

Why is South Korea so unconcerned about the North's latest provocation?
Has the US cried wolf a little too often for the South to care? I guess
Seoul doesn't notice that Kim Jong Il is ever so g r a d u a l l y
pushing towards all out war. Kim wants a confrontation, so he can drop
nukes on the South and "reunify" Korea by force-under HIS rule. I don't
think that the South really believes that Kim would start a nuclear war.
But Kim is not rational.

His dad, Kim Il Sung, had at least some sense of the outside world, and
operated on some rational basis. He believed that he could quickly
overwhelm the South in 1950 before the US could react, and he almost
did. But he never tried it again, and he settled for an uneasy truce.

Kim Jong Il however is the hermit king, totally disconnected from
reality, eating steak every night while his people starve. He wants to
reunify Korea, and he's betting that if he can directly threaten the US
with nukes that the US won't come to the South's aid once he marches in.
South Korea is very small, a five minute nuclear bombardment would wipe
it off the map before the US could react. Seoul is only 40 miles from
the border.

Kim is betting that if the US nuked him that China would step in and
start a world war thus defeating the imperialist menace for the greater
glory of communism, which I suspect is Kim's ultimate goal. He's a win
at all costs guy, he doesn't care if the world is left as a blackened
cinder as long as capitalism is defeated.