Why do we entertain missile tantrums

At what point have we gone too far? If you haven’t seen it yet, North Korea is yet again shooting missiles. Except this time, they have a target and a point that their dictator wants to make.

On Wednesday, North Korea launched more than 20 missiles. It started as a test-firing of the missiles when one landed across the border which then started a chain of events. South Korea sent three missiles toward the border as a response and then received 100 rounds of artillery and more missile launches from North Korea.

This might seem like another dumb missile test that North Korea is trying to do that leads to nothing. But this time around could be different.

Different analysts have different ideas of what Kim Jung Un was trying to do but overall, it seems like a step towards bigger things. 

South Korea sees it as “a violation” of their territory and don’t want to escalate it to the level of war. And North Korea wants to challenge South Korea and the trade sanctions the United States have put on the country while building his nuclear arsenal according to nbcnews.com.

This could lead to nothing, another missile firing in North Korea that didn’t lead to anything other than putting people on edge in South Korea for a few days. And I’m sure most people in the U.S. won’t think much of it, after all if it’s not here it’s not our problem.

Except that it is, the U.S. has a habit of making other countries their business. The U.S. currently has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, according to reuters.com. We decided to make it our business in 1950 when we joined the Korean war and never found a way to leave.

After almost 70 years, I think we probably could have found a way out. Staying and helping keep peace and helping South Korea develop for a while was a good idea. 

But now I wonder if 70 years later we should have let them try to stand on their own. Our presence is helpful but maybe instead of just letting our presence do most of the talking we should have used it to help them and teach them how to stand on their own.

Granted, they have done military training with the U.S. troops but if we’re still there we obviously think it hasn’t been enough.

But at some point we have to decide if we’ve been there too long and whether we’re really still helping. We should have been slowly deciding if we needed to move out and stop supplying troops and start supplying weapons or other things that don’t put extra lives on the line. 

This isn’t something American lives have to be at risk for. 

We should have been working on this the past 70 years so that both the South Korean and American people are safe from North Korea, instead of having to entertain his missile tantrums.