This week’s cyber-hacking of Sony Pictures by agents of the government of North Korea has brought multiple issues to the attention of our nation. Among them the focus of investing resources preparing for the next conflict instead of the last one. We’ve known about nature of future hostile actions against our nation for some time and now here it is. Who and what dictates policy for US businesses? I am four square in President Obama’s corner when he said “Sony made a mistake” by pulling their movie “The Interview“ for its Christmas Day release. I also agree with the President that a proportional response to such an attack is appropriate. That brings us to the overarching issue in all this; the US relationship with North Korea. Ever since it launched the invasion of South Korea in June 1950, North Korea has been a skunk that has never been never been friendly to the United States or any of its allies. As a single party totalitarian state, it would be fair to say the leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is less about any real ideology and more about assholeism. After a very cold armistice in 1953, the temperature of relations with the DPRK has been varying degrees of cold with occasional flashes of red hot. Probably the hottest of these occasions was the seizure of the US Navy environmental research ship USS Pueblo in January 1968. In spite of being in international waters 12.4 miles off the North Korean coast, DPRK naval forces seized the vessel, took the captain and crew prisoner and held them in brutally austere conditions for some 11 months, and to date still hold the ship. Thanks to my involvement in my ship’s association I have been able to meet and visit with one Ed Murphy. Ed was navigator of my old ship, USS Robison (DDG-12) and division officer of the same division I was a member of some 15 years before my assignment aboard the vessel. Ed’s claim to fame however is being XO of USS Pueblo when the ship was seized by the North Koreans. Ed is a valuable source of information regarding the Pueblo incident and published his account of events in his book Second in Command. Long story short, Captain Pete Bucher, Ed Murphy and all the crew of USS Pueblo demonstrated up close and personal that 12.4 miles is purely academic when the assholes are boarding you! Sony Pictures is not 12.4 miles from the North Korean coastline. Indeed, a response to this latest flash of heat from the DPRK needs to be swift, certain and proportional!
LT. Ed Murphy
Yours Truly with LT Ed Murphy