When madmen cheer

“ballistic missile activities,” which, by the way, will be “closely monitored.” Pyongyang trembles. With laughter. After last week’s sub launch, Kim Jong Un—North Korea’s pudgy little dictator—was all smiles. He called it the “success of all successes.” For those who might think that success in North Korea might mean feeding the people there one day, remember that North Korea’s philosophy has always been Military First. And it’s showing the world it means it.

The papers say that having missiles launched by submarines could give the North Koreans the ability to attack South Korea and even Japan—and United States bases in both countries. But why stop there? Why not L.A. or Seattle or Miami? The United States has trouble enough following cargo ships between Cuba and North Korea. What’s to keep a little submarine from going unnoticed in the seven seas until it creeps close enough to these shores?

SOME OF the braver reporter types had the opportunity to interview a few North Korean civilians for the story. And the civilians dutifully praised their leaders. After all, who wants to come out a head shorter after talking to the press?

“This shows that our national defense strength has reached a new level,” said a factory worker named Choe Kum Chol, who knows what’s good for him. “We are a nuclear power and everything is ready, so we have nothing to fear.”

Nothing to fear. Which scares a lot of us.

We’ll go further than the UN. What North Korea is doing isn’t just troubling. It’s frightening. What if that country, that regime—which has nothing to fear, remember—sells this kind of technology to terrorists? Complete with a nuke to go with it. It could make 9/11 look minor by comparison.

Does the rest of the world have to wait until that day before the navel-gazers at the UN are able to come up with something besides “condemning closely monitored missile activities”?

People of action aren’t always good guys. Sometimes they’re all smiles in Pyongyang. And need to be challenged, resisted, by people of action with more sane designs for the world.

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE THERE’S A difference—a big difference, sometimes a life-or-death difference—between men of action and men of words, and only words. Of course, men of words are not to be sneezed at. It’s only when they are men of only words, and don’t back them, that...