North Korea attempted to launch three missiles this afternoon after sitting on the one Taepodong-2 ICBM for the last few weeks. Unfortunately for Kim Jong-Il, the arrows he shot into the air fell to ground -- and we know where:

North Korea launched a long-range missile Wednesday that may be capable of reaching the United States but it failed after 35 or 40 seconds, two State Department officials said.

The missile was one of at least three that were fired. The two others were short-range missiles. All landed in the Sea of Japan, said the Japanese government, which was unable to confirm that they included a long-range missile.

The officials in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the long-range missile was the Taepodong-2, North Korea's most advanced missile with a range of up to 9,320 miles.

The launch came after weeks of speculation that the North was preparing to test its advanced Taepodong-2 missile from a site on its northeast coast. The preparations had generated stern warnings from the United States and Japan, which had threatened possible economic sanctions in response.

Pyongyang apparently planned these launches to coincide with the American launch of the space shuttle to distract attention from the space program. They certainly got everyone's attention, but they probably wish they hadn't. The failure of all three is a huge embarrassment to the Kim regime. It appears clear that while Pyongyang continues to build missiles, they don't build them particularly well -- and the billions of dollars spent in development has gone up in smoke, or down in the Sea of Japan, as it were.

CNN reports from its Situation Room that the missiles fell into the sea just offshore of the northern island of Hokkaido. That seems to indicate that North Korea sent the missile on a route that would have taken the missile towards Alaska, or perhaps a polar route to North America. Shooting missiles at the US on our national holiday guarantees a rather hostile reaction from America.

We have not yet officially responded, but our response should remind North Korea that we will not sit quietly while nutcase dictators shoot missiles at us or our allies. Even when such dictators produce such stupendously incompetent products, we will not rely on their technological incompetence for our national security. We cannot allow such provocations to go unanswered. Japan especially will want to respond strongly since the smaller Nodongs appeared to be aimed at them.

One has to wonder at the sudden and early failure of all three rockets. After all, the Kim regime has successfully launched the Nodong before. It seems a little strange that all three missiles failed so quickly after their launch. Besides sheer incompetence, two explanations could apply. On one hand, the North Koreans may have launched them because they could not safely defuel them; they could have aborted the missiles shortly after launch to ensure that they did not fly long enough to provoke an American response. If that were the case, though, one would expect that they would have notified at least the Chinese in order to ensure that we did not overreact to the launches.

Alternately, the US could have activated anti-missile defense systems and taken all three of them down immediately after their launch. So far, the news reports do not address that possibility. We moved a lot of those assets to the theater when Kim staged the rocket. Could we have had three successful tests of that system? If so, we mau have neutered the threat from both North Korea and Iran. That's wishful thinking, and unless the administration starts talking about that soon, we can probably discount that possibility.

Whatever happened, one fact is certain: Kim has been caught with his pants down.

UPDATE: I'm still watching CNN, and their expert on North Korea, Han Park, tells them via phone from Seoul that the North Korean missiles posed no threat to the United States and we shouldn't react at all. He also says that North Korea wanted to show their expertise at weapons production in order to sell their wares abroad -- and figures that the results reflect positively on Pyongyang.

In other words, Park wants us to believe that North Korea actually impressed people by staging a demonstration of missiles that can't fly even for one full minute. Riiiiiiiiiiight.

UPDATE II: CNN now reports that six missiles got fired today, including another Taepodong-2. No word yet on the success or failure of the second TD-2.

UPDATE III: The White House only confirms five tests. Presumably the second TD-2 test was a bad call by CNN.

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