So the effing North Korean government, on the eve of negotiations with China and the U.S., announce they've been processing spent fuel rods to make nukes, sticking a thumb in the eye of the U.S. before talks even begin.

The BBC's correspondent in Seoul, Caroline Gluck, says it could be a strategy by the North to raise the stakes in the crisis as part of its negotiating tactics at the talks.

Yeah, just like the test-firing of missiles near Japan and invading South Korean airspace. Nice tactics.

And their justification for pulling out of the Non-proliferation treaty, booting out U.N. inspectors, and building nukes?

"The Iraqi war teaches a lesson that in order to prevent a war and defend the security of a country... it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force," the Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.

Which is why they started working on the damn things in the mid-90's, right?

But follow the logic here for a minute, echoed by some on the left. The U.S. is such an evil, unpredictable, renegade threat that poor little peaceful countries like North Korea feel the need to violate every g-damn international treaty on the books and develop the most destructive weapons known to humankind in order to protect themselves from us. That about right?

Well, if that's the case, how come Mexico isn't shitting their pants right now? How come Mexican scientists haven't whipped up an Acapulco Project out in the Mexican desert to put together a pair of nukes?

I mean, we're as close as you can get, right? Why aren't the people or the government pulling out of every international weapons treaty as we speak and developing preemptive WMD? Didn't Iraq teach the Mexicans anything?

Of course, the point is, that stance is utterly ridiculous. The North Korean government is afraid because it is a brutal, disgusting police state, which blocks all outside media, starves its people, and invests the bulk of its pathetic economy in weaponry.

Peaceful, democratic governments have nothing to fear from the United States. And I think it's probably a good thing that the putrid rulers of dysfunctional regimes are at least a little afraid right now. Do we want all the despots in the world feeling safe and happy?

What would be ideal, of course, is some effing international solidarity in the face of such tinpot tyrannies. But the international community just can't seem to get its act together.

I mean, if the five most powerful nations on the planet can't agree that international kidnapping, genocide, torture, reeducation camps, and violating multiple treaties against international will to create and possibly distribute chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons...well, if we can't get consensus on that, we're in deep shit.

What will end up happening, as has happened over the past couple of decades, is that a minority of responsible nations will push for what is right against the pettiness, squabbling, and divisiveness of the rest of the international community. And we'll be blamed and hated every step of the way.