Ok, admittedly, I had no plans to continue this series once I finished Part Two not long after I completed Part One. However, recent developments in the Iran/North Korean threat have prompted me to expand this to three parts. With that in mind (and the first two parts of this series), enjoy.

The test we all feared

It was only a matter of time before this looming moment took place. The North Korean government had been saying for quite a while that they had developed nuclear weapons and it was up to the rest of the world to question as to whether or not those claims were true. It could have been a well-played bluff by the Koreans or, a situation even worse and far scarier, the claim was true and the North Koreans were indeed in possession of the most dangerous weapon humanity has ever witnessed, capable of leveling entire cities and making the lands and waters that were in the effected area unusable for a long, long time.

According to ABC News and now a slew of other news outlets that are picking the story up in suit, an underground nuclear test is not far away for the country led by dictator Kim Jong Il. The information obtained by ABC came directly from U.S. officials with knowledge of the developing crisis. A senior State Department official said that a test is "a real possibility" while a top military official informed the network that "suspicious vehicle movement" was going on at the site that is believed to be reading for a nuclear test.

ABC News went further to detail the movement, which included "the unloading of large reels of cable outside P'unggte-yok, an underground facility in northeast North Korea." Those cables happen to be the ones that can connect a nuclear device to another location where the weapon can be detonated. ABC News suggested an outside observation area.

President Bush has already been made aware of this impending situation but the United States has known for quite a while that a test was in the works. After all, it would make little sense to drop a bomb on Tokyo or Los Angeles without knowing if the people you hired to build the device did the job right.

What remains to be seen is what will come of the test once it occurs. The international community was struck back in early July when North Korea launched long range missiles towards Hawaii. The missiles failed in mid-air, crashing into the Sea of Japan. Despite their failure, concern has been on the minds of the country's immediate neighbors, South Korea and Japan (China does not seem to care and this is most likely due to an unofficial buddy system with North Korea, a fellow communist country) and other the United States, who is in range of the North Korean weapons if they were successfully built and do not fail in mid-air like their predecessors.

As I said in my last edition of this series, action should be taken to prevent North Korea from continuing to strengthen. It is high time we took the proper actions to defend our homes and, by association, our homeland. For years and years and through the majority of two administrations we have been attempting to calm the threat from North Korea and it has led no where.

How much further will this country allow the enemy to continue to empower himself before taking action to stop him?

(And yes, I have a picture planned for this article but I am in the process of re-installing Windows and the rest of the programs on my notebook computer and the one I am currently working on has problems closing windows which is a problem for uploading pics on Blogger. The pic will be put up later tonight when my notebook is back and running swell again.)

(Photo Credit: http://adweek.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/puppet3.jpg)