While we were all being distracted with the protracted war in Libya, the political drama in Washington and London, the world averted what would have been a bloody nuclear war over the last days of May 2011.

It was reported that the US Navy tried to intercepted and board a ship suspected of carrying banned weapons technology from North Korea to Burma, on May 26, 2011.

There was a stand off at sea for several days as the North Korean crew members refused to be boarded.

The US was then in a direct conflict with North Korea, had the chance it had been seeking for several years now to flex its naval military powers and technology, and overwhelming military superiority. But something made it back down.

It did not cross the red line of forcing the issue and boarding the North Korean ship. Instead it used some matured diplomacy this time to defuse what would have been either war or lose of face for both parties.

North Korea is nuclear armed with one of the wickedest militaries on earth, and has the will and technology to deliver the pay load.

U.S. officials instead contacted and sought support from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Burma and China, to pressure Pyongyang to halt the ship.

These nations then privately asked North Korea to relent and call its ship back home. But they resolutely promised that the North Korean ship would not be boarded by anyone.

With that assurance, the North Korean regime then summoned their ship back home to port. They have refused to make any comments about the incident.

The US government, still high and pink from the victory flush of killing an unarmed so-called Osama Bin Laden, and from killing a set of 3 unarmed innocent grandchildren of Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, announced that it had attained another major victory.

If this is victory, I wonder what defeat smells like.

More incidents like this will occur, eventually leading to a huge conflagration by some mishap. These are dangerous days indeed.

Oguejiofo Annu

June 19, 2011