Though experts still doubt the US blaming North Korea for the hack on Sony Pictures, the Obama Administration is treating responsibility as a settled question, and moving on toward retaliation.
How big of a overreaction the US has toward a nation that may well not have done it in the first place is an open question, but President Obama at the very least is insisting that hacking Sony over a comedy movie is not in and of itself an “act of war.”
Obama went on to label it “cybervandalism,” but puzzlingly is also considering adding North Korea back to the list of “state sponsors of terrorism” over the hack, which doesn’t seem to be terrorism by any stretch.
Even playing the terrorism card didn’t satisfy hawks, and Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) is beating the war drums once again, with former NY Gov. George Pataki calling for the US to “declare cyber war” on North Korea.
What that even means isn’t clear, and Gov. Pataki conceded he isn’t even sure how North Korea’s economy works, or how its communications systems would need to be disrupted in such a war, though he was confident the US could do so.
North Korea, for its part, is reiterating that it didn’t do anything in the first place, and offering a joint investigation into the hack. The US will not accept, of course, as they’ve already officially blamed North Korea and, evidence aside, will stand by that allegation.
So why bother then making up the whole North Korea story if you're not going to use it to declare nuclear war? What's the point, aside from blaming "the others" for your own shortcomings.
Keep ratcheting up the fear as a pretext to keep raising "defense" spending to new obscene levels and justify yet more crackdowns on what's left of our civil liberties. This allows the thugs running "our" country to, as George Carlin would say, keep running to the bank with our money.
If North Korea was responsible wouldn't they want to take credit for it? For bragging rights in order to show their hostage population in North Korea that communism works and that dear leader can sit and squash capitalist into submission who mock him. North Korea is making ridiculous threats now so its not like they are bashful. They desperately want to be sophisticated. They have a nuclear program and the US doesn't care because they know that North Korea isn't much of a threat. The hackers could be form anywhere and could even be sympathizers from South Korea.