U.S. Senate Hearing On North Korea Falls To Temper Tantrum

North Korea has always been a security concern for the countries in Northeast Asia and the United States since the Armistice ending the Korean was signed at Panmunjom in 1953. With no formal Peace Treaty the governments of South Korea and the United States reached agreement on a joint Defense Treaty thereby allowing the U.S. military to station troops in the South at a level commiserate with its security needs. At present there are an estimated 28,000 troops on the ground down from a Cold War high of 38,000.
In the intervening years sign the secession of hostilities the North has made threats of all manner and shape. At times those threat have become all to real. Capitan Author Bonifas stationed at the Joint Security Area which separates North and South Korea was killed when he a small force went to trim a tree branch for which they had permission. Capt. Bonifas and another U.S. service member were killed after being attacked by North Korean soldiers.

In 1996 the North landed a three person special operations reconnaissance team on the shores near Gangneung. Their mission was to gather intelligence on nearby Navel installations and return. That never happened. Instead the reconnaissance team the crew of the submarine which brought them to South Korea abandoned ship and attempted to escape back to North Korea its believed only one made it.

There have been many other such incidents most involving both nations Navel forces mainly in what the Koreans call the West Sea.

North Korea has had an operating nuclear reactor since 1967 with a second reactor completed in 1972 which were of Russian design giving North Korea the ability to produce weapons grade plutonium even though that wasn't its original design function. There had always been suspicion that North Korea had produce this weapons grade material. 1993 proved to be watershed year when the North Korean government announced it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signalling to the world that their suspicions about the Norths nuclear were true. In the ensuing years a deal was negotiated between the Korea's and the United States which became known as the Agreed Frame Work providing for the construction of a nuclear reactor which produced electricity but incapable of producing weapons grade material. That agreement fell apart in January of 2002 after George W. Bush gave his Axis of Evil speech. Since then North Korea has tested two nuclear devices. Even after the Six Party Talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. attempt to reign in North Korea's nuclear program it ended in failure.

So this week a Senate committee was scheduled to hold hearing on North Korea those scheduled to testify included the Commander of U.S. Forces in Hawaii and the Commander of U.S. Forces Korea. Those hearings never took place as Republican Senators using a little known rule which requires unanimous consent of the its members to hold hearings after the conclusion of the Senates business. So these two commanders who had literally flown great distances to testify were unable too because the Republicans are acting like Little Emperors.

North Korea is an unstable and unpredictable country which has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and is completely paranoid about the outside world why would anyone cancel a hearing involving security on the Korean peninsula.

Because they lost the Health Care Reform fight.