Connecticut, USA -- Sending US cruise missiles to destroy a crude North Korean scarecrow is a bad idea. Blowing up Taepodong on the launch pad would set off a fireworks display that may be emotionally satisfying but will not deprive Pyongyang of the nuclear device or the fissionable materials it might be hiding. It would set in motion a logic of counteraction by a humiliated Kim Jong Il and set off an emotional response in South Korea that could prove much more destabilizing than what a test launch might have done.

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