Exclusive: Under congressional and media pressure to confront U.S. “adversaries,” President Trump alarmed the world with rash rhetoric about inflicting “fire and fury” on North Korea, a frightening prospect, says Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
“Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.” – Donald Trump, August 31, 2013
Like some demonic Hollywood director, President Trump keeps finding new ways to make us jump out of our seats, just when we think we’ve seen everything. On Tuesday, he outdid himself by twice pledging to meet any further North Korean threats to the United States “with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
North Korean missile launch on March 6, 2017.
His headline-grabbing comments were sufficiently incendiary that White House staffers rushed to reassure reporters (and the public) that the President was just improvising, not speaking from an approved script. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insisted that the President simply meant to say that “the United States has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack . . . So the American people should sleep well at night.”
People at home and around the world were rattled but not too alarmed, judging by the modest drop in stock prices on U.S. and foreign exchanges. North Korea responded to Trump’s threat with a threat of its own to vaporize Guam, yet no war broke out. So far, leaders of both countries, like taunting schoolboys, seem content to lob only harsh rhetoric across the ocean, not fully armed missiles.
It’s easy to discount Trump’s bluster, based on his long history of practicing the art of “bullshit.” Maybe he’s just trying to make Chinese leaders nervous about his intentions, so they try a little harder to rein in Pyongyang. Surely he understands by now just how devastating a war with North Korea would be, right?
I’m not so sure. What increasingly keep me up at night are the uncontradicted claims of one of the GOP’s leading foreign policy spokesmen, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, that Trump is ready and willing to launch a preemptive war “if [North Korea tries] to keep developing an ICBM with a nuclear weapon on top to hit the [U.S.] homeland.”
North Korea isn’t quite there yet, but some U.S. intelligence officials claim that Pyongyang has already produced a miniature nuclear warhead suitable for delivery by missile, and its accelerated testing of long-range ballistic missiles means that the time is quickly drawing near when Kim Jong Un’s regime will be able to put the United States at risk.
Tough-Guy Senators
Early in Trump’s presidency, the influential Republican senator went to the President with a powerful message. Graham asked Trump, “Do you want on your resumé that during your presidency the North Koreans developed a missile that could hit the American homeland with a nuclear weapon on top of it?” Trump replied, according to Graham, “Absolutely not.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Graham advised President Trump that if all else failed, he must order a military strike. As Graham put it, “It would be terrible but the war would be over here (there), wouldn’t be here. It would be bad for the Korean Peninsula. It would be bad for China. It would be bad for Japan, be bad for South Korea. It would be the end of North Korea. But what it would not do is hit America and the only way it could ever come to America is with a missile.”
Speaking to NBC’s “Today” show this month, Graham reiterated that Trump isn’t bluffing about preparing an all-out strike against North Korea’s nuclear program. “He has told me that. I believe him,” Graham said. “If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here. And he has told me that to my face.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, R-Arizona, was with Graham for the private meeting with Trump in April, and did not dispute his colleague’s description of the conversation. He added only that a preemptive strike would be a “last” option.
Trump has said nothing to call Graham’s account into question, either. Indeed, one of his first tweets of 2017 was a flat-out declaration, “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!” Trump’s national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, confirmed just this month that allowing North Korea to acquire functional nuclear-tipped ICBMs would be “intolerable, from the President’s perspective.”
The Trump-Graham doctrine recalls the George W. Bush administration’s justification for preemptive war against Iraq in 2003 — with the key difference that North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction are real, not mythical. Contrary to all evidence, Trump appears to believe that America’s immense nuclear arsenal will be insufficient to deter North Korea from attacking the United States or its allies.
North Korean Fears
North Korean leaders have consistently maintained that they want and need nuclear weapons only to deter a U.S. attack, not to start a war against the world’s only superpower. Most experts on Korea agree. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who actually negotiated with Kim’s predecessor in 2000, asserts that while the risks of inadvertent war are growing, North Korea has no intention of launching a surprise nuclear attack:
A map of the Korean Peninsula showing the 38th Parallel where the DMZ was established in 1953. (Wikipedia)
“I have studied North Korea for several decades and have had serious talks with many of their military and political leaders. . . . They are not crazy, as some people believe. North Korea is a pariah state and nearly alone in the world, but there is logic to the actions of its leadership. Fundamental to that logic is an overriding commitment to keeping their regime in power, to sustain the Kim dynasty. . . . and they understand that if they launch a nuclear attack, their country will be destroyed, and . . . it would end the Kim dynasty.”
Experts also reject the Graham/Trump assumption that preemptive war with North Korea would be merely “bad” but manageable. Pyongyang has thousands of artillery aimed at Seoul, hundreds of rocket launchers, vast stocks of deadly chemical weapons, and as many as 60 nuclear warheads, which could render much of South Korea and Japan uninhabitable and rock the world’s economy.
Defense Secretary James Mattis’s gloomy warning that any conflict with North Korea would be “probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetime,” was almost certainly an understatement. As I have discussed previously, even without functioning ICBMs, Kim’s regime already has the ability to wipe out major U.S. coastal cities simply by floating nuclear bombs into our harbors, hidden in container vessels.
President Trump’s views on preemptive war are rejected not only by the experts, but by the majority of Americans. Fewer than a third of U.S. adults believe the situation in North Korea requires a military response, according to a new CBS poll, and 61 percent are rightfully uneasy about Trump’s ability to handle the situation.
But what experts and most Americans think doesn’t really matter. The U.S. military is undoubtedly ready to carry out an order from its commander-in-chief to attack North Korea. It holds massive training exercises every year for just such an eventuality. And the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott Swift, answered unequivocally “yes” when asked whether he would follow an order by President Trump to launch a nuclear attack against China, a vastly more dangerous foe than North Korea.
So how, under these circumstances, do I get any sleep at all? Deep down, I suspect that Trump is too gutless to start an unnecessary war that will kill millions of people. I also have faith that South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer, will refuse to cooperate with a preemptive attack, making it difficult for U.S. forces to go it alone. I hope and pray that I’m right.
Jonathan Marshall is a regular contributor to Consortiumnews.com.
WHAT ABSOLUTELY GETS MY GOAT IS THE MINUTE ANYTHING THAT IS SAID OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM THE FIRST THING PUNDITS WRITER AND TALK SHOW MORONS DO IS QUOTE THE STOCK MARKET.AS IF EVERYTHING HUMAN IS ON WALL STREET.SHOW THE POWER THESE ROTHCHILD AGENDA CRIMINALS HAVE . AND SECOND THE MARKETS ARE NOT BASED ON ANYHTING REAL ONLY WHAT THE FED AND ITS PARTNERS THE BIG 6 AND THEIR PAWNS DO.THE FEDS MONSY IS USED FOR CORP PRIVATIZATION AND DRIVING STOCKS TO THE SKY.,MAKING TRILLIONS FOR THE CORP CRIMINALS. R A FEIBEL
just think about how the USA has developed, there is no media outlet in the USA that will condemn Trump or for that matter, any general, president, senator ( ie graham, mccain ) or any one else that kill people. Best if they have resources but not necessary as long as they kill a lot of people.
A little late for American and French people to realize that they have given the nuclear power to very sick men…
Crazy Alzheimered Trump knows that he will be soon dead. So he does not care about the rest of humanity. Ha may even have the help of an other mentally hill psychopathe president from France Emmanuel Macron…The ultimate apocalypse is seriously approtching.
just like an ordinary bully at high school.
why can’t you just leave NK alone?
How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atlas-network-alejandro-chafuen-libertarian-think-tank-latin-america-brazil/
Trump’s Venezuela military threat is right wing policy antagonism against Cuba and the Bolivarian Revolution supported by Right Wing (rich) Rubio Cubans. If you don’t know the complete history of Cuba- The US Colony controlled by US mobsters, you walk in darkness.
Trump’s Dominionist declaration (threat) of a military deployment in Venezuela is prelude to an “annexation” of South America into US Sphere-of-Influence economic concession. Tying Venezuela with North Korea under US military threat is a shout out to his Nationalist/ Libertarian Base.
{:
A new investigation published by The Intercept exposes how a libertarian think tank called the Atlas Network is remaking Latin American politics with the help of powerful conservative institutions and funders in the United States, some of whom you may recognize, such as the Koch brothers. The Intercept reports the Atlas Network is behind dozens of prominent groups that have supported right-wing forces in the antigovernment movement in Venezuela, as well as those who ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. We are joined by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, who covers the intersection of money and politics. His new piece is tilted Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics.
The danger is really that Trump’s twitter rants will inspire some rogue Dr. Strangelove type in the Pentagon to do what he’s always wanted to do and wage an attack without waiting for the official order which probably won’t come. Nuclear brinksmanship encourages the unhinged.
“Deep down, I suspect that Trump is too gutless to start an unnecessary war that will kill millions of people”.
Jonathan – this is a good article, like many of yours that I have read, and thank you for trying to offer something into the public eye that is qualitatively different from most of the mainstream’s dreadful reporting. However, this line from your article needs revision. It implies that Trump believes such a war is unnecessary (as it is to you, and to me certainly), and therefore would then be “gutless” to wage one with its consequences. Neither you in this report, or anyone else in another context, has shown with any assurance that Trump believes such a war would be unnecessary. Trump’s fire and fury spewing at the mere suggestion of a threat from NK I would think would convince many that he would not see such a war as unnecessary.
Author Jason Hirthler writes about how our past is prologue. Hirthler makes a lot of historical sense with this essay of his, and the sense he makes is worthy enough to make his sense be known to the many others, who may have never realized to just how hell bent the U.S. has been to create this global empire, and how not but just one person but that there have been many who were behind this rise to power. From Wilson to Obama, and Trump and possibly beyond, this plan for world domination, has been with the U.S. a lot longer of a time that most people realize.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/11/the-tempest-of-american-power/
Although Mr Hirthler doesn’t mention it, I always find that the establishment of the U.S. Federal Reserve seemed to create more war, than it ever did show the way for it yielding a peaceful planet earth, but then again, that’s me.
anyone else wondering where “the resistance” is …. I think Trump has won … looks like no one knows what to do except “wait and see what he “really” means”
Though a state of war exists between the two Korean provisional governments and has since an armistice was signed as a peace pause, in 1953, no peace treaty ending the state of war was signed then or up to now. The Republic of Korea and the United States have a treaty to aid one another in the event either one is attacked. Echoing President Truman’s the nuclear option on the table, President Trump is doing an encore voicing of President Truman’s threat. Most Americans don’t remember during “The War of 1812”, the burning down of U.S.government buildings and the half done “President’s House” in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. during a 24 hour British occupation that spared Washingtonians’ homes from blazing, unlike the United States dropping more bombs on North Korea by a wide margin than all the tonnage that fell through bomb bay doors during the whole of World War II in the Pacific war theater. Have not seen a tonnage accounting of U.S. bombs dropped on South Korea. General Curtis Le May is on record as saying thanks to bombing, twenty percent of the population of North Korea was killed. Homeless and wounded not scored. “Police action” bombing, both North and South, caused rubble and ruin where cities once were, with more cities destroyed in Korea that allied bombing did in Germany or Japan as Koran civilized waste lands ran from the U.S.S.R./Korea frontier to Korea’s Southern land’s end above The East China Sea. With the provisional state of Israel as the only rogue nation outside of the rule of law with its nuclear weapons program, and countries that surrendered their ability to have nuclear weapons as Iraq and Libya did destroyed and occupied by terrorists and foreign legions with chaos still, it should not be a surprise that North Korea holds firmly to its own self wrought security blanket as Israel does its ace in the hole.
Rally Round Your Flags Boys
Rally round your flags boys; get ready for World War Three
Your “leaders” will be in their luxury bunkers, watching it on T.V
Millions will be killed and millions will be maimed
Ask yourself this question: Are your “leaders” bloody insane?
Millions will be dead and dying, and the earth will be all aflame
Will “victory” be assured and “won” in your name?
Then if there is anybody left breathing and dreadfully still alive
Your “leaders” will hand out medals to those who might survive
They will call it a great “victory,” after creating hell
But when lunatics are in charge, propaganda does sell
Has the earth been captured by those of a mental disorder?
Is this the satanic culmination of the New World Order?
War for these evil ones is an “opportunity” to bask in the limelight
Just don’t ask your “leaders” to be in the frontline of the hellish fight
They will lead as always from their palatial bunkers at the rear
Safely watching the action and protected from any fear
So rally round the flags boys; NATO is in control
Once those nuclear missiles start arriving, there will be a great big hole
The world will be contaminated, decimated and also on fire
A monument to madness is the earth’s burning funeral pyre
Bodies burned and vaporized, as the world goes up in smoke
This is what happens when power is in the hands of crazy folks
So rally round your flags boys, and get ready to support the insane
Your “leaders” are hiding in their bunkers, their last resting places of “fame”
And if there is anybody left boys, don’t forget to clap and cheer
We must not forget our war madness so don’t even shed a tear
Nuclear war is the final parade and the last bloody profits for the elites
So rally round your flags boys, let’s praise the hellish “victory”—or is it defeat?
And when the last battle is “won” and there is nothing left to lose
Those still alive will wonder and ask, “Did we win or lose?”
Then they’ll sing their national anthems, and perhaps even cheer
So rally round your flags boys, hell on earth will soon be here…
[more info at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/11/rally-round-your-flags-boys.html
Common sense was expressed in an rt article of July 6, calling for dialogue with no pre-conditions:
https://www.rt.com/news/395423-russia-china-unsc-korea/
Here’s the memo that blew up the NSC.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/10/heres-the-memo-that-blew-up-the-nsc/
I have this question: Why is the US not touting and bragging about its anti-missal defense systems? The US has at least six THAAD batteries in SK additionally SK, Japan have other anti-missal systems. There are even more on Guam and on ships in the oceans.
If NK does fire missals to the waters around Guam – why would the US not shot them down to demonstrate its awesome power to do so? Why has the US not shot down any previous missals?
Can they really?
I think that too MaDarby. I even wonder if that’s what Trump meant with his ‘fire & fury’ comment?
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/gulf-government-gave-secret-20-million-gift-to-d-c-think-tank/ comments too
who are Youself Al Otaniba, MBS, CNAS, ECSSR, MEI.
Are unseen forces driving this N. Korea crisis; examine difficult to read, but extremely revealing, report.. Does (Russia (NORDII), Syria, China, Iran and Qatar) East vs West (OPEC, Houston) ..LGN competition contribute understanding?
These payments are well known. It’s fine that The Intercept wants to highlight this particular one, that seems to be what The Intercept does. Repeat the same water is wet stories of little consequence or provide any analysis to help us understand.
Basically, all The Intercept does is whine and complain about an established order that it ultimately supports and just wants to “fix” while accepting the US history of 72 years of continuous slaughter was done for the “right reasons.” I could show you articles on that website which fawn over the US as a “beneficent” empire – that is their editorial view – they support the Empire of slaughter.
Just shout hysterically and John Bolton will go away.
China has apparently warned Washington not to launch a first strike against N.K. or it will intervene.
“BEIJING (Reuters) – If North Korea launches an attack that threatens the United States then China should stay neutral, but if the United States attacks first and tries to overthrow North Korea’s government China will stop them, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Friday.”
F.G.Sanford is right: multi-front war if the Pentagon pulls the trigger first against the Norks.
Will someone (Russia) defend Iran if it is made a target by Washington? The pressure will be intense on Putin, but taking military action against NATO could mean curtains for civilisation.
After reading F.G. Sanford’s comment, and yours Realist, the two opinions expressed make me contemplate to if the Global U.S. Military can survive the stress, of a multi global front war? I’m not saying this to scare anyone, or to give comfort to anyone who is impressed with all this U.S. Military power, but I’m wondering if tactically the U.S. could bear it. I guess there’s no time like now, to find out, but this wouldn’t be the first time that something big finally discovered that big’s biggest flaw is it’s too darn big, to function properly.
Sadly, as I have said many times before, the U.S. could have used it’s huge military size to leverage other nations to the peace table. Although, this can only happen, if the biggest military country wanted peace.
War with NK in reality will become (as intended) a war against all four of the US’s four horsemen of its apocalypse – Iran, NK, China and Russia. Any attack on NK is a start of that war.
This situation is squarly the fault of the CIA, the DNC and traitors like Rachael Maddow and her employers at MSNBC, CNN, WP, Times, etc. Ultimately the 6 parent corps that own all of our media in America. Lindsey Graham and John McCain should be in jail or a psych ward.
Our entire gov is rogue, following the orders of psychotic multinational corporations instead of the will of the people for decades now.
More great news from Big Brother.
Sources in the State Department say that one of Russia’s four consulates in the U.S. may be shut down in retaliation for the expulsion of 755 U.S. personnel in Russia. When will complete diplomatic relations be cut between the countries? Such a move can’t be far off, since the U.S. seems intent on escalating its assaults on Russia. After trade sanctions and shut down of diplomatic relations, the next step in the history books has always been war. The American state is playing this absolutely brilliantly, if a massive cull of the human population is the prime objective.
Just about everyone in the Venezuelan government is now under sanction from the U.S. The reason given was Washington’s opposition to the new national assembly chosen by voters in July, which is empowered to rewrite the country’s constitution. Washington says this can’t happen because Washington does not approve or recognise the new assembly. You know, like it’s OUR call. The American state has absolutely gone postal and is ready to make war on every continent like some crazed shopping mall shooter.
Realist – “You know, like it’s OUR call. The American state has absolutely gone postal and is ready to make war on every continent like some crazed shopping mall shooter.” Perfect description.
it is no surprise because the military companies are the biggest lobby group
Realist – just to show the generation gap, one day I said to my kids something like “the guy went postal”. My son said, “What does that mean?”
Thank you Realist. Another Tragedy in the making!
If the United States attacks either North Korea or Iran it will be entirely a matter of choice, not necessity. Neither of those two countries poses a threat to invade or take over any other nation, let alone attack the United States. Iran is helping Syria to defend itself against outside aggressors, many recruited, trained, armed and paid by Washington. That is not aggression and not a valid pretense for an American military attack against that country. The worst thing NK or Iran is guilty of is using harsh rhetoric against the Yankee bullies.
Just leave them alone and there will be no war. There will be no killing of hundreds of thousands, or probably millions on the scale that must be envisioned to take down either of those countries. The entire infrastructures of these countries need not be leveled to rubble as you see what was done in Iraq, Libya and Syria (we are not even shown the damage in Afghanistan, Yemen or Somalia), but that is what will happen in an action that will make “shock and awe” look tame in comparison.
And when nuclear facilities are hit, as they are sure to be, with American warheads, be they nuclear or conventional, the radioactive fallout will poison lands far beyond these targets of American wrath. China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, the Middle East and perhaps Central Asia and even the Philippines will be poisoned in events worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima. The United States should be condemned for even contemplating such genocide and such wide-ranging and persistent destruction against other societies (and innocent bystanders, i.e., neighboring states) that have caused it (or any other countries) no harm. The envisaged military actions against these societies are light years away from what Christian scholars ever considered to be a “just war,” they are more like the war crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg.
It is ridiculous to think North Korea wants a war.. IT has not been stated enough nor loudly enough that their response is solely to defend themselves and deter CAPITALISM from destroying them if they can not do it economically.. look at any map of the world and compare U.S Foreign bases to North Korean foreign bases. We must take an anti IMPERIALIST approach to ending this madness.
Supporting North Korea’s RIGHT to defend itself unequivocally is the first step
THAAD probably works way better than published. To say it was 99% effective against 80s style ordinance would destabilize MAD. The other nations would need to develop stealth measures. An expensive drill that would only reignite tensions NO one truly wants…
Deterrence in an age of stealth nukes is scary.
That said, we probably even have those. And the Russian “nuke the nuke” style things.
What we probably also have by now is a “back stab” treaty we’re China has no choice but to strike if North Korea actually does anything towards “the mainland” which is why they are posturing on Guam. Russia probably has to hit them too.
Dirty all hands so WW3 can’t happen.
Secret treaties aren’t new after WW ONE.
In that scenario, the higher ups might think South Korea will be spared as the attack will be on the northern boarder and with bunker busters, etc. on the south there’s a draw. And the “bad guy” is China which the west won’t demonize for the attack. And China gets to “occupy” so it’s boarder stays isolated from the US.
That makes things truly scary. It’s a “win” on paper for Trump. He just has to hand out enough rope.
Or… As I’m a pacifist and hopeful… We are planning to ratchet tensions to import a whole mess of THAAD and other systems to really clog the south sea. North Korea is just an excuse to encircle China.
Japan goes back to military status and we have an ally to check the Philippines.
The real bad guy for Republicans is Iran, and they have to be watching very intently. As is Isreal. They’ll have a big opening to pop a few while the world looks away.
I’m of the opposite opinion. And that is a darned uninformed opinion, for I have no reliable information about the realism of the tests they do. Could these ABMs work if somebody is actively jamming them? Can they sort out the warheads from cheap decoys and chaff? Can they tell the difference between maneuvering warheads and maneuvering decoys? How good is the software – could it pick up on multiple warhead and destroy them all?
In my humble opinion this is just another way for US taxpayers to give boatloads of money to Big Weapon Makers.
Squandering our precious diminishing resources on massive death-delivery systems while ignoring the essential needs of society and the long-term stability of earth’s ecosystem: that combination is so Homo sapiens. Our species would be voted off the planet if the rest of living creatures had a say.
I’m reminded of the scene in “Cold Mountain” where the North tunnels its way to Southern lines and attacks In Force, surprising the South, except the tunneling system collapses, the Northern troops are stuck in a giant hole, the Southern troops walk up and eliminate them. With brilliant military strategy, what could go wrong?
This is why we desperately need a Peace Department or Advocacy, that presents The Alternative to the military’s formal and rational sounding Plans. It is this very failing that makes American War Planning a failure; over and over again… As they say’ when will we learn?
Christopher Black tells a different story about the N Koreans having met them. Read his article, and learn how Mr Black sees the N Korean people, and all of what has led up to today’s critical crossroad.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/north-korea-the-grand-deception-revealed-the-people-of-the-dprk-want-peace-more-than-anything-else/5603560
Joe Tedesky – that was a very good article. Thanks for posting it. I had previously watched a two-hour documentary on North Korea done through the eyes of two 20-something year-old travel guys. It used to be on-line, but it’s now unavailable. It was excellent and a real eye-opener. These two young guys went through a Korean military museum and they learned of the devastation of North Korea during the war. Such a loss. That article you posted said it all.
Joe, good catch. Thank you for the reminder that “That is what we do” we demonize a country by Propaganda, invade to save the people from their evil regime And then help Our Oligarchs rob them of their Natural Resources. They should have known all along that their Resources are Ours. We’ll teach them!
How much ot. WHITE HOUSE trumpeting war upon Korea is mostly bull crap a grand didtraction that kerps Trump detractors expending enrrgy( while making coins when there are more major concerns we should be worried about, such ad healtcare and most importantly our un and natrual enviroent.
After all we had all these grand boogymen fromcommies to Jihadist in the past but whete elsr on earth are thete boogymen.
Africa has become nomore tha a mish mash of US led states who gladly biy our military eqopmrent and aid Euro Centric loot their peoples reaources..
Latin America ndS. Americans already dance to US Israel and Euro inerest.
For a few years Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution stiffened the backbones of hos closest neighbors.
Venezuela did just as US wanted and by their support of liberal sovialist they fractured the voncept of Communitariaism..
And we never gave up supporting every subversive groups all in the pay of the Oligarch.
Take a lpok at ParaquaybwherevBushies, moonie, and more and more wealtjy Senators and Corpotate interest own 10’s of millions of acers, some 13 villages are invluded withoutevenvoting Rveleges
US military base is hugeand compleyewith evrry luxury avcomodatoon.
Nope what we are actually seeing is a war uon America.
Yes one where oligarchs and Conhress cut up and divide the last of our domestic resources.
If push gets too trong om Trump he can turn to a military an some 90+ millions of zionist Christians and their apocalyptic push to bring Jesus back and move our Capital to Jerusalem.
I just can’t see any scenario that does not expand war to China and Russia and even Iran could be attacked by Israel/Saudi in quick succession. That would be it the US at war with its four horses of its own nightmare apocalypse.
I have a question, if NK shoots missals at Guam – why does the US not shoot them down with all their THAADS and Patriot missal batteries all over the place?
The should show the world their skill and power…if they can.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
What Threat?
Every twittish utterance from our *AIC is likely to get a full panic response from Imperial Control and its lapdogs in government and media and his latest blurtings about fire and damnation if North Korea were to attack is no different in essence, but worse in substance. While his dimness is to be expected, reactions from alleged liberals, progressives and much of what passes for an american left speaks for historically underprivileged mentalities that make Trump’s own formed-by-popular-media consciousness seem almost sophisticated.
All the blather about an alleged menace from North Korea, going so far as to make light weight tv comics even giddier than in their normal low level humor about the AIC, is blessed with all-american ignorance and master race-self chosen people arrogance when it leaves out the dreadful and murderous American attack on that nation back in the 1950s.
In what was called a “police action” to stop the potential menace of communism – a dread phenomena that, among other things, would have people fed even if they couldn’t afford to pay for the food – the U.S.A., along with a token force called the United Nations, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of North Koreans, destroyed cities, towns, villages, farmlands, water supplies, manufacturing facilities and generally reduced the nation to near under-developed poverty, all the while preaching democracy, humanitarian values and peace for all the world.
Like a pimp lecturing on love, this party line never met and still does not meet the test of material reality, but minority control of almost all information flow and possibly the most under-developed consciousness level among any people in the history of consciousness has brought us to a current predicament in which people depicted as monstrously evil rape victims are seen as a deadly menace by their rapists who glorify in their crimes by convincing innocent people it was all about love.
After suffering massive slaughter and near destruction of their nation, North Korea has experienced a generation of something the infantile and brain dead refer to as “war games” being conducted off their shores, foreign armies patrolling their borders, and an endless american propaganda barrage about evil rulers, despotic regimes and malevolent threats to our benevolent society that operates for the good of all humanity, while leaving more than half a million of its people living in the street as it lavishes trillions of dollars on war, billions of dollars on its richest minority and its millions of pets, and righteously screams about injustice , menace and a threatening smell coming from everywhere else while paying no attention to the moral sewage and diseased stench emanating from its financial market place, its military industrial complex and its degenerate diet of fossil fuel .
Is this a great democracy or what?
North Korea represents a threat to Americans the way any would-be, might-be or wanna-be murderer, rapist, burglar or thief would represent a threat to Americans. Get the hell out of Korean waters and away from Korean borders with our military and such a threat will not only vanish from the propaganda encrusted minds into which it has been drilled, but from the material world as well. All the rest is political, economic, racist filth that could lead to not only even worse destruction of that nation than we performed on it in the past, but the reduction of america to a pile of ashes and human misery also worse than we once inflicted on an innocent people who never did anything harmful to any of us.
It is not only time to bring the AIC under control, but far more important, the political economic forces that created the atrocity we live by, and that he has assumed some responsibility to lead.
*Asshole In Chief
email: [email protected]
Frank Scott writes political commentary and satire which appears online at the blog Legalienate
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The president should tell Kim Jong Un:
1. The Korean War was never ended and NK and the US should sign a formal treaty ending it.
2. All sanctions against North Korea will be lifted and he can trade with other countries as he wishes.
3. It’s understandable the North Korean would make nuclear weapons since the US has them,
but the US will never make a first strike on NK. If North Korea strikes first, we will retaliate.
Oh, right, the US doesn’t do diplomacy when bluster and threats are the basis for our foreign policy.
….and oh, yes, 4. We will stop those threatening war games that we have conducted yearly with S. Korea.
The United States is “the world’s only superpower,” speaks to shades of G.W, H, Bush. How so? Militarily it is matched by Russia, which is our equal in nuclear firepower. Economically, we have been surpassed by China as the leading industrial nation. Politically, the world’s center of gravity has shifted to the Russia-China alliance around the booming New Silk Road. It is important for Americans to recognize that the consequences of confrontation and war with Russia will be the destruction of all civilization, including our own. That alone is reason enough to support President Trump’s effort at fostering good relations among the three superpowers, a precondition for solving all the problems facing the world.
US military doesn’t even fight in its own nat’l interest. It is the Imperial Roman Legions for the Trans-Atlantic community, what previous Euro-Empires have morphed into. This is the fight between Amercan Globalist financier capitalists, and America First industrial capitalists who want to go back to just being a Nation among a couple hundred other Nations. Trump comes from the second group. The Deep State and most of the national D&R parties stand with the globalist financier capitalists. This is the fight. This is the reason for efforts to eject Trump and get Pence into the cockpit.
The globalist are of the old geopolitics mindset, destined for extinction. The industrialists will join the New Silk Road, recognizing another way to relate to other nations, instead of the old geopolitics way. China and Russia are not threats to industrialists, they are valuable partners. They’re only threats to the globalists’ dreams of world empire.
Brad, thanks for that reminder. You’re exactly right, of course. Capitalism, if nothing else, is like water and traffic, it flows. The Big distinction here is an old-time mindset that theoretically We know more about how the World Works than You do, so shut up and play along. And, I suspect that that is F. G. Sanford’s point… Also, I like very much that you think that they are destined for extinction. I’d prefer the gallows (actually I’d have to think about that) but I’ll accept extinction as long it’s a family thing.
I say extinction because China’s New Silk Road is taking the World by storm. You will only get a full reporting on this phenomena from EIR website, as MSM generally observes a blackout on this topic.. China is building infrastructure in Africa. This is something FDR wanted to do post-war, and JFK wanted to go there too…one of the main reasons he was assassinated as that directly opposed the former colonial masters of Europe who wanted to continue looting Africa for the benefit of their own investment portfolios and keep them in a state of “benign neglect” as D. P. Moynihan so euphemistically put it. China is rebuilding Haiti, finally, after Obama and the Clintons did zero for them. China is doing what our FDR-JFK era wanted to do, and they’re winning friends everywhere, including here in our own business community that still has connection with the real world of making things and growing food and delivering them on real infrastructure to real communities who can buy stuff BECAUSE they are gainfully employed in the making of those things. Henry Ford got this. The Royal Highnesses of Wall Street have lost their way in a forest of delusions about Global Empire, and FDR NAILED their asses to the Wall (in the interest of the “Forgotten Man”) for that reason, with Glass-Steagall and Bankruptcy re-organization.We’ll be taking them to the woodshed again.
Brilliant! So correct Brad. If we Only had people like D. P. Moynihan available today.
I just wonder what the difference is between “fire and fury” and “all options are on the table.” Is the latter a more polite way of saying we will annihilate you if you don’t do what we say? Because that phrase gets dragged out all the time by presidents from both plutocrat parties.
The US has been a psychopathic bully from its inception and only gets worse with age. Somebody stop us before we kill again.
Does anyone remember that, according to the Constitution, only Congress can declare war?
There is only an armistice , still a state of war.
I don’t believe the US declared war. It was always referred to as a police action, and the fighting was done under the UN flag along with other UN members (USSR conveniently absent for months from UN, who,as permanent member of UN Security Council, could have vetoed UN effort) with other countries contributing to the war effort in repelling NKs invasion of SK. Then China (non-member of UN; Taiwan was ROC at the time) joined in after UN got close to Yalu river. Then battles ended on present line (armistice) between UN and China/NK. Don’t know if UN stood down from negotiating table, leaving US alone at table with SK.
A good segment on Democracy Now today, an interview with a 30-Korea independent journalist, Tim Shorrock. He tells how North Korea has been willing to negotiate for some time and how President Moon of South Korea has worked with Kim Jong Un with cultural and economic interchange. Recommend this; take a look and pray the Whitehouse is listening, too:
https://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/24/tim_shorrock_direct_talks_with_north
Thank you Virginia, I recall reading at a similar point in Gulf II, Sadam sent word out that he would leave if guaranteed safe passage to a neutral environment. In retrospect, think of how much better that would have been…
What isn’t talked about nearly enough is that the North Koreans have offered to stop their Nuclear and Missile development programs in exchange for the USA stopping it’s annual war games right next door where they basically practice assaulting North Korea. This is a very reasonable request from a so-called rogue state. No president does it because the warmongers would call him “weak on defense”, and of course war games, along with actual war, are profitable to the MIC. I wish the ghost of Eisenhower would come visit the Donald and give him a good talking to.
Stopping nuclear and ballistic tests by North Korea in return for an end or at least strng reduction of military exercises by the US together with South Korea is what China and Russia suggested in a common proposal. I don’t know if North Korea has agreed to this – to my knowledge, North Korea has neither supported nor rejected that proposal -, but it is plausible that North Korea would support it. The main problem is that the United States does not support it.
The word “military exercise” may sound harmless, but in such a tense situation, it can be very difficult to distinguish this kind of exercise from the preparation and the start of an actual war. Stopping these exercises could be important for de-escalation.
This has been going for almost 1/4 century, going back to the ‘Agreed Framework’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework , which the US reneged on.
N.K. (D.P.R.K.) also signed the Non-Proferation Treaty (NPT), has basically not been involved in war with any other country, except for WW2 and the US war on Korea, for many decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_North_Korea — There is no reason to think N.K. would attack anyone.
Every attempt by N.K. to get a non-nuclear and peace agreement over the years with the US has been rejected by the US empire, which continues to aggressively meddle all over the world.
According to the wiki North Korea is no longer in the treaty.
It’s a mess for sure, and I wish the US of A was wearing a halo. Unfortunately, we’re not. North Korea has some valid security concerns. But so do we. Since “we” are the main reason for their concerns which in turn led to their drive for nukes, it is our responsibility to make some definite and useful moves. I’m not well enough informed to know what we could do to reassure anybody we’re not going to play global thug any more.
Would we be satisfied with a small arsenal of NK nukes? Would they agree to this if both Russia and China gave them security guarantees if attacked? Is it still possible for the US to back down on the Imperial BS?
I just don’t know.
Is ‘fire and fury’ like ‘sturm und drang, ‘sound and fury signifying nothing’, or ‘shock and awe’.? I can’t tell for sure, and I wonder if other countries, especially Russia, China, and North Korea, can tell.
I do find it curious, however, that telling a bully ‘if you hit me then I’ll hit you back’ to be not exactly an ominous threat, in which simple negotiations, the US stopping its provocations, and a peace agreement would do much to avert problems — at least until the US, never to be trusted, yet again goes back on what it said. N.K., as everyone else, must of course, ‘trust but verify’ and keep working on its ability for self defense and retaliation.
When dealing with psychopaths like the US one might retreat from threats but can never let down one’s guard.
There is something deeply and inexorably immoral about policymaking that sanctions the cold-blooded murder of tens, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people on the grounds of “they aren’t OURS”, so it’s acceptable.
The US is going to answer for its karma one day, and perhaps when Americans fully pay the price of the wars they casually unleash on others, they will lose their appetite for it.
Why Democracy? JDoe
Has the point in the pre-amble statement (US Constitution) “WE THE PEOPLE…” DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION .” ..been misunderstood?
Does democracy mean a method the elected, salaried few must use to resolve their differences?
Does “ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH” somehow mean its done, nullifying future non-PEOPLE objection?
Is it possible, separation of powers doctrines applies only to THE PEOPLE who occupy the highest level appointed or elected positions within the three constitutional departments: Legislature, Judiciary, and Executive?
I d\n know but I think misunderstandings are to be found in the organizational documents of nearly every nation?
I believe if we really want peace in this world, we could start by arresting the past and present crop of war criminals.
[See link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/07/when-are-past-and-present-leaders-of.html
I can hardly wait Stephen, excellent links, as always. Thanks for the brilliant research.
Note: This article contains numerous propaganda covers and slants (example: “simply by floating nuclear bombs into our harbors,” reminiscent of those indisputable WMDs, “Mushroom Cloud” enticements of fear, Blair’s 45-minute warnings, and all other supposedly dire threats to us in 2002 – 2003 from a sitting duck Iraq) by purposeful means of the author.
Still, connected and beyond:
“In Narrated Setups: First, Star Chamber interests decide what directions and actions are needed to fulfill what has been chosen for implementation. Next (after successful steps), many months (or even years) beforehand, they dispense Talking Points to concerted operatives, pliable/collusive publications, and fronted or “reliable” “news” sources. Then, the people are (sold) “informed” incrementally as to what is inevitably upcoming. Thus, under the guise of Facts simply being reported, it works (exceedingly) as a well-timed machine.”
Robert Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the trials of Nazis for war and related crimes held in Nuremberg, Germany, following World War II: “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish,” he said, “have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.” Jackson explained that this was not victors’ justice, making clear that the United States would itself submit to similar trials if it were ever forcibly compelled to do so following an unconditional surrender. “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them,” he said, “and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/08/06/you-cannot-begin-crime-good-faith
Ask yourself: Is North Korea (or China) threatening us because they are being threatened (cornered) in utmost premeditated maneuvers (by Hawks who have planned these tactics/steps/escalations years ahead of time)? Are those countries imminent threats? Would they (insanely) first-strike against us, knowing that they would be left as dust – while resulting in a domino-effect of worldwide annihilation? Or, are we planning a (next phase) “preemptive” (remember?) first-strike, because they are (indeed) such imminent threats, like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Russia, etc. – knowing that the results will be a domino-effect of worldwide annihilation (but, being comfortable with the numbers of expendable/necessary casualties)?
Rebuilding America’s Defenses:
Written before the September 11 attacks, and during political debates of the War in Iraq, a section of Rebuilding America’s Defenses entitled “Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force” became the subject of considerable controversy. The passage suggested that the transformation of American armed forces through “new technologies and operational concepts” was likely to be a long one, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” Journalist John Pilger pointed to this passage when he argued that Bush administration had used the events of September 11 as an opportunity to capitalize on long-desired plans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Condoleezza Rice: Mushroom Clouds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyWsyqLDYjE
George Bush: 16 Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvvXnVyJ8lA
Karl Rove: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Victoria Nuland: Leaked Phone Conversation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k
Gary Wood Harper, I think it would be good to start a Neocon Battalion, staffed by those at the bottom of your list and have Karl lead them in The Attack, they’re Always conveniently in the background.
I’d like to see Jonah Goldberg as a Corporal in that unit. The fat ***** was really gung ho to send others to Bush’s BS invasion of Iraq, but he somehow couldn’t make the trip himself.
If I see a newspaper in which that ******* has a column, it’s on my no-read list from then on.
I don’t know about China, but I’m starting to think North Korea is indeed an “imminent threat”. But not necessarily the way being discussed.
North Korea’s first nuclear weapon test was in 2006. The TNT equivalent was pitiful, perhaps only 1/2 a kiloton. Experts at the time realized that it was either a pitiful fizzle, or an example of North Korea working towards a miniature bomb from the very beginning. Consider France’s first bomb:
That was in 1960, a full 57 years ago! Another example dates from 1964 when the US government gave two American physics PhD students the project of designing an atomic bomb using nothing except what they could find in the Library. These fellows, who had zero knowledge of nuclear weapons, completed their design in two and a half years. Result:
h**ps://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science
Since North Korea has made several tests and hasn’t even approached the yield of the French or the two amateurs, I must conclude they’ve been working strictly on miniature bombs, and have made a hell of a lot of progress.
Next question is what they plan to do with them. Already the nation’s capacity would seem to be far more than is needed for deterrence of enemies. Secondary conclusion: they plan to sell them as a money-making venture. Why not? North Korea already gets lots of money from Iran for allowing Iranian scientists to participate in the program. Think of the nations in the world who could scrape up the money for one or two of the small and modern weapons to use for projects of their own. Iran is only one of dozens.
Extremely poor nations could scrape up the cost of a weapon or two, and so could wealthy individuals. And recall that billionaires are not necessarily sane. Religious fruitcakes could do it too, just pass that offering plate around a few extra times. The cost of a truckload of NK nukes would be pocket change for Exxon or Apple or Google, to pick some of the wealthier corporations. (I’m thinking now of Robert Heinlein’s 1982 novel Friday in which the Big Corporations or factions within them were the ones starting wars with mercenary armies and mighty powerful private weaponry)
This particular for-profit venture needs to be nipped in the bud. As humanely as possible, but it needs to be stopped.
Or, are we planning a (next phase) “preemptive” (remember?) first-strike, because they are (indeed) such imminent threats, like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Russia, etc. – knowing that the results will be a domino-effect of worldwide annihilation (but, being comfortable with the numbers of expendable/necessary casualties)?
Critical Clarification (update):
Or, are we planning (next phase) “preemptive” (remember?) first-strikes, NOT because they are (actually) such imminent threats (past: Iraq and Libya, etc./present: Syria and Russia, etc.), but, since Star Chamber stages have been set, fulfillment must (now) be met – knowing that the results will be a domino-effect of worldwide annihilation (while being comfortable with the numbers of expendable/necessary casualties)?
And, for further (overall) emphasis: Inside the Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton & Trump
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/28/inside-the-invisible-government-war-propaganda-clinton-trump/
The secret, he said, was “engineering the consent” of people in order to “control and regiment [them] according to our will without their knowing about it.”
He described this as “the true ruling power in our society” and called it an “invisible government.”
Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and film-maker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go [almost completely] unchallenged.
If we are to be saved it will be because artists spoke up? From the artist Brian Andreas at Story People dot com: Real Hero
“Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.”
We already have ‘fire and fury’ in various countries around the world. Caused by, “The War Arsonists.”
…
The structures of countries have been set on fire “intentionally” and “illegally” by war arsonists in positions of power. [1] [2] These powerful war criminals are responsible for millions of deaths. Millions of refugees are in camps, some wander the earth, and a number of countries have been decimated, destroyed, blitzed and bombed into smoking rubble….
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/02/the-war-arsonists.html
My last comment is in moderation; this one may disappear too. But the issue is important enough that I’m willing to try one more time. Look out, folks, this is a setup. This is America’s turn to get the April Gladspie treatment. The Russians and Chinese most likely went along with that Security Council Resolution to get the US to act on its threats. What do you suppose China would do while the Pacific Fleet is pouring “fire and fury” on North Korea? Well, while the US is raining destruction on North Korea, and North Korea is raining destruction on South Korea, and the US is trying to figure out how to evacuate 250,000 American civilians from South Korea, the Chinese will be busy “repatriating” Taiwan. Japan will become a new pawn in the failed “pivot to Asia”, and Russia will most likely move to end the criminal coup regime in Ukraine. There will be nothing left of US hegemony in the Pacific. It may be dramatically discredited in Eastern Europe. Once the fracas begins, the balance of power in the Middle East will be disrupted as well. My guess is that NOTHING will happen because of these realities. But if it does, I hope that the neocons, globalists and neocolonialists will realize…this is a trap, and you’ve taken the bait.
Something needs to be done with this “moderation” business. I’d propose that if a user name/email address has been well behaved for the past couple of years that they are permitted at least one link without getting their post put into lockdown. They can always be thrown back in with the common folks if they abuse it.
I’d already figured out the Chinese would grab a piece of land on the Sea of Japan, but the thought of Taiwan hadn’t occurred to me. The leaders of that country might get an offer – Do we do this the easy way, or the hard way? China is equipped to smash the island, but that’s in nobody’s interest. Perhaps the takeover would resemble that of Hong Kong – a slow and inexorable one. Regarding Japan, I fear that nation would attempt to grab a chunk of chaotic North Korea on some excuse or other if it has the chance. Perhaps even go fully “nuclear” in declaring itself as having the Bomb. Possibly “self defense” for the land grab – that usually sells well back home. That nation has been itching to start Imperial Japan II, in my opinion.
The Russians have had plenty of time to ponder their options in East Ukraine, so if they’ve cooked up a scheme they can sell to the world they might do it. Can’t imagine they’d incorporate the area into Russia – that’s a little too raw, but they could set up a new nation and guarantee its security. They’d also get a land route to Crimea out of the deal if they want it. Poland is not an insignificant power these days, and I understand it has some claims to Ukraine land.
Others who might take advantage of the terror and disruption? Israel has been itching to do the next death march with both the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. What better time? Round 2 with Hezbollah has been on the agenda for a long time – who would notice (or care) if Lebanon got the Exodus treatment?
When a person stops and thinks about it, there are really a lot of chances for old scores to be settled. I agree with the April Glaspie remark – if China and Russia have given Trump the green light, they’re very probably as ready for the chaos as Bush Daddy was when he backstabbed Saddam after giving him permission to take Kuwait.
Our B1 bombers are all at the ready, all President Trump needs to do, is to say the word.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-10/pentagon-unveils-plan-pre-emptive-strike-north-korea-b-1-bombers
Unless Trump’s ‘Fire & Fury’ is all bravado mixed with a lot on jingoistic tirades, and this isn’t a bluff, then stock up on the duck tape and triple A batteries, because we are going to a rumble.
ha! shopping, Disney World, and fight night
gee, I’m thrilled the brass don’t feel there are any good options (have they considered the option of no first strike?) and am really encouraged by the thought that one or two options “at least have the possibility” of not inducing escalation! Amazing…
Unfortunately the author’s reference to Mattis seems to be out of date. What he is now saying is basically appalling. I’m choosing a Fox link to emphasize this.
h**p://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/09/gen-mattis-warns-north-korea-not-to-invite-destruction-its-people.html
Notice how the Fox guys/gals are gloating about the coming death and destruction. Our “battle tested” {experienced war criminal} is threatening to destroy the population of North Korea. The blabber from Mattis’ recalls the old saying: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That’s all he knows how to do – smash things. From the Mattis wikiquotes site:
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
h**ps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Mattis
For diplomacy we’ve got a super-rich psychopath (Tillerson) whose only skill was in grabbing money for Exxon by any means necessary. Their boss is a consummate ignoramus whose “knowledge” comes mostly from the likes of Faux News I quoted earlier.
My take is that the neocons are prepping us for another Shock and Awe campaign. As in all the other nations smashed by the US, that involves targeting the civilian populations – directly or indirectly. Sounds like Mattis plans to do it “directly”.
I’m going to propose another plan of action. Naturally, any version of this ought to be discussed with Russia and China and everybody else at the UN.
During WW2 the Germans were puzzled that the targets of the bombers were almost never against their electrical generation facilities. Modern factories need electricity, and the installations enriching the uranium (and purifying the plutonium) need it by the megawatts. If a “preemptive” attack really is necessary, destroy the electrical infrastructure surrounding these plants. And keep it destroyed. North Korea’s missile program is still quite primitive. The launch facilities could be kept leveled. Any ready-to-launch missile could easily be destroyed.
If there must be an attack on North Korea, keep it focused on the weapons. I can see no need whatever for Mad Dog Mattis (or his clueless boss) to be allowed to start killing civilians by the hundreds of thousands or millions.
Exactly, the electric grid:
“You see, there are just a few magic ingredients that allow the US to continue to exist as a stable, developed country capable of projecting military force overseas. They are: the electric grid; the financial system; the interstate highway system; rail and ocean freight; the airlines; and oil and gas pipelines. Disable all of the above, and it’s pretty much game over. How many “balls of flame” would that take? Probably well under a thousand.”
Why are you associating starting s war with having guts? That type of language is part of the reason we are in the situation now. Leaders wanting to seem as having “guts” through military action.
Two soldiers on the side of the road in “Patton”, “There goes Ol Guts and Glory.” Other soldier, “Ya, Our Guts and His Glory.” One of the many salient points in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” which I’ll bet is not required reading at the academies.
Gregory Kruse…….One of the deep, dark secrets of the Vietnam fiasco was that we had people walking around in country with so-called backpack nukes. They used to be talked about regularly in “Vietnam” magazine. Fortunately, we never used them but it is sort of a moot point because one to two million civilians were already dead. But, I digress….go to your neighborhood hobby store that specializes in radio controlled aircraft and you can buy a fully functioning jet engine that is only three inches long. Nano-technology has been improving year after year. If that’s what the public can buy in a hobby store….imagine what the military has in its bag of tricks. We’ve most definitely come a long way since Louis Slotin’s deadly experiments in Los Alamos in the ’40’s to what we have today. I’m not really worried about the President doing anything stupid, but the risk of N. Korea doing something dumb, even inadvertently, is high. History is full of examples. One off-course German bomber dropped their bombs on an off limits London which opened the door for hell to be dropped on Berlin.
The Republican Party began as the war party of big banks and big business. Their first war of conquest was the Confederacy, which tried to leave the American Union much like Great Britain is leaving the European Union today.
But these bunch of gangsters, beginning with Abraham Lincoln, have continued their wars of conquest from 1881 to today. That is 150 years of murder and mayhem across the globe building a business empire that Al Capone could only dream of.
President Trump exemplifies the criminal nature of the Republican Party today by publicly threatening to murder thousands of people in Korea. We listen to him scream about how Korea is threatening us, but then we heard all this before when the Republican Party made the same claims about Iraq.
We are constantly told that war is about getting rid of an evil dictator, bringing democracy to a people, of freeing someone else’s slaves. You know, doing something nice for someone. A good, noble purpose. But that is war propaganda. Wars are fought to conquer territory, conquer resources, and conquer people. Just look at what mobsters and drug gangs do. That’s what the Republican Party does, but on a larger scale. The American people have been brainwashed with war propaganda and are totally clueless.
The fundamental issue of the Civil War was the irreconcilable difference of national policy on the use of the western territories, which had been seized by the United States from Mexico and Indians. The southern planter aristocracy became convinced that its economic survival depended on turning the west into slave-worked plantations, because decades of wastefully intensive tobacco and cotton cultivation in the south was depleting the soil, resulting in ever-diminishing crop yields.
The American people, however, clearly wanted these fertile lands to be open for settlement by free white families. It is telling that after decades of inaction the Homestead Act opening the west to such settlement was finally passed during the Civil War, after southern obstructionist politicians had resigned from the national Congress. (It is also telling that 97% of these public lands were sold at bargain basement prices to influential corporations, but that is another story.)
It was a stroke of brilliance on Lincoln’s part to maneuver the rebels into launching the first attack on the flag at Sumter, thus mobilizing public opinion for decisive military operations against them. By immediately forcing the insurgents into a defensive posture, Lincoln denied them the time they would need to raise and equip an army to challenge the United States for possession of the west.
An aggressive expansionist foreign power at its southern border and in control of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico would have posed an existential threat to the internal security of the states that remained in the federal Union, and to the economic exploitation of the new western territories. The human rights of mere slaves was never a consideration among the Yankee elite who fought to suppress the insurrection with such murderous vigor.
I’ve said the same thing – the Civil War wasn’t fought because very many people in the North cared about the slaves. I believe the main cause for the dogged willingness within the Union to continue the war was fear of Slavery as an Institution. That said, it was fashionable for a while to pretend that it was “humanitarian”. Reminds me of the way the propaganda during WW2 temporarily turned Joseph Stalin into “Uncle Joe”, darned near a real nice guy when you got to know him.
Still an opinion, but I don’t believe the South had enough manpower to do more than try to defend its heartland. Losing Vicksburg was a disaster, turning the Mississippi into a huge moat which ended a big leak in the blockade.
I suspect Lincoln of real cleverness regarding letting the South draw first blood. Their bragging and braying displayed what they really did believe in Dixie – that they were vastly superior in every way to the Northern folks. Rather like the Japanese attitude leading up to WW2.
On the same day Tillerson spoke of dialogue with North Korea and how we all should sleep easy Mattis made a statement: “The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”
This double talking presentation of Official Policy, additional to the President’s childish tough guy talk, is a good demonstration of the utter, abysmal failure of leadership in the US through its various talking heads and its loss of credibility globally.
The statement also feeds into simplistic knee-jerk responses ascribing the problem as TOTALLY their fault, and nothing to do with us, since we are heroic and always right, as well as far right. Mattis basically states shut up and be submissive to our intentions to control you, including our intention to control the globe with our encircling base system, roving warships, etc., and our twice yearly displays of hostility to your country. This attitude is apparently supposed to elicit “Okay, boss, anything you say.”
It’s also foolish to blame China for not controlling North Korea. Nobody but North Korea controls North Korea, so blaming China is blame-shifting and stupidity. As psychosis it’s breast-beating paranoia, similar to the McCarthy pollution of the 1950’s.
D5-5, under normal peacetime conditions, I would agree that China must respect the sovereignty of North Korea and it’s leadership. However, the world today is living under pre world war three conditions. What I mean to say is, all the well known elements that foster major wars are firmly in place and each one effects international instability; Examples are many; a USD currency crisis, where BRICS and the SCO are moving away from the U.S. reserve currency status and it’s influence(s) thus moving away from the Federal Reserve Board(s) in the EU, Japan and World Bank decision making processes. The concurrent rise of the nuclear weapon “have nots” in the hands of people like UN, a no self control glutton, in poor health, committing fratricide, and while in office! Cranking out far more than just battlefield nukes and short range missiles for sovereign protection. The freaky “globalists” who, at bottom, wish to corporatize ownership of land, sea and air (the very rain falling from the clouds), to possess everything the world has commonly shared up until this time (the high seas, polar ice caps, public lands, the ocean surfaces and below them all marked off with a drafting pencil, copyrights on food and life itself-the GMO crowd, the price manipulators sponsored by the late Maurice Strong promoting Rockefeller’s endless scarcity rag “we’re running out of everything” In a corrected translation: I want it all for me, to artificially jack up the price on everything for everyone! but there’s more, much more, and it started immediately after WW II, the European Gladio assassination program sponsored by the CIA in an attempt to shape and maintain a lopsided and uneven distribution of both political and economic power into the hands of the few. Again, (bankers and federal reserve systems) through assassination, intimidation, false flag, political corruption and finally, after injustice piles up higher than Mt Everest, into another, new, needless and senseless war in order to “settle things” …world leaders wise up! you’ve put your own families and your own heads into the guillotine!
I’m not sure of your point here, Elmer. All I wanted to say is that the diplomatic policy of the in your face lissen up, we’re in charge here, and you WILL do as we say is not always that successful. Then the response is demonized. This points directly to the problem: leadership is not bullying and pushing people around.
D5-5, I’m just ranting and blowing off some steam…this crisis will end badly, that is, IF Xi drops the ball. The -back and forth-words, bluster and brouhaha only exacerbates this crisis.
How can I believe that Xi cannot turn to Chinese organized crime families, loosely referred to as the “triad” (and their closely associated family tongs) to assassinate Un and kill or intimidate his appointed military successor(s)? ASIDE: Un plans ahead and this “Cain” (Un) murdered his own brother, not only to remove political rivalry but ensure that a military and fanatical leadership will assume power should he die suddenly-whatever the cause…. The only conclusion to draw is to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the USA won’t get a helping hand with this international crisis from one of the most resourceful, powerful and contiguous (border) nations in that geographic area-China. Xi had years to conspire against Un, and presumably has firmly decided on a plan “B”. In theory, he’s withdrawing his any substantive involvement in exchange for a well known and much grander plan- China’s hegemony in southeast Asia. This emergency cannot be about missiles, since it’s far more practical and technically feasible for UN to order a North Korean submarine to launch nuclear tipped torpedoes at a carrier, flotilla, or the sandy beaches of Guam, noisy subs, as they surely are to our Naval sonar? Further, the G-forces a nuke must undergo during rocket re-entry AND still properly detonate, precisely over the intended target, is a true technical feat, almost, if not more, difficult to construct as working A-bomb. The North Koreans do not have such a capability unless there’s was something about the Abdul Qadeer Khan network that I overlooked.
I hate to pick on scabs but this time it’s necessary and helpful-to expose the real culprits; Donald Rumsfeld who lobbied congress to approve constructing two commercial nuclear power plants in North Korea and President Clinton who signed off on it! Well how ya gonna fix it this now boys? Who knows what the inscrutable Chinese have up their sleeves in their plan B? and Xi is the most inscrutable of them all !!! weeellll? just gonna go and play golf or something?
I do not have to cause the swarm and it will not hurt me
“Has Trump Become a Chump For the War Criminals?”
…
Trump was elected because people are fed up with endless wars and the warmongers running the system, now he, “has raised the prospect of military action.”…
[read much more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/04/has-trump-become-chump-for-war-criminals.html
Wall Street wants war more, and more. All Trump is, is a Wall Street Whore.
They like to steal trillions in tax money through the defence budget.
“Even without functioning ICBMs, Kim’s regime already has the ability to wipe out major U.S. coastal cities simply by floating nuclear bombs into our harbors, hidden in container vessels”. OK, but if Kim and his pals are such horrendous monsters, shouldn’t they be taken out as quickly as possible, before they do anything like what Mr Marshall suggests? But if they’re not horrendous monsters, why would they bother wiping out US cities? Why waste expensive missiles on militarily useless targets like cities? That’s the central contradiction in Mr Marshall’s argument. I share his conclusion though that Trump won’t make war on NK. The only war that will do Trump any good is a war on Putin that gets him out of Ukraine. That’s the only way to kill off the now rapidly expanding Russiagate investigation. Thus, all the fire and brimstone may actually be addressed to Putin, to counter, in advance, the threats of nuclear attack that Putin will inevitably make when the crunch comes in Ukraine.
There’s no contradiction. North Korea’s has acquired the ability to wipe out US cities in order to deter an attack from the United States. The question is whether President Trump is rational and well-informed enough to be deterred–or whether he has been convinced by the likes of Graham to undertake a preemptive strike regardless of the consequences.
Our resident troll doesn’t seem familiar with the concept of “deterrence”, as in an enemy might respond to an attack by attempting to destroy a US city if attacked. Or with “retaliation” – the actual destruction of the aforesaid city because it had been attacked. And unless we’ve read different articles, Mr. Marshall was speaking of a non-missile weapon transport – namely a ship with a hidden bomb inside. That hazard would be one where he and I hold substantially different opinions about the nature of the threat.
Your remarks about Putin were not in the “understandable” category for me.
I believe Trump is just the “new face” of the “political warriors” that don’t fight in battle,
and are addicted to war. Therefore, I ask:
Is There No Law When War Criminals Rule?
Is there no law when war criminals rule?
Countries are destroyed by warmongering ghouls
There is no justice, just chaos and death
And millions of people who have nothing left
The evil depredations of those in power
Create hell on earth, as countries they devour
Bloodstained profits accrue to this warring filth
Ethics and morals have long been killed
Slaughtered children die, and many starve
Yemen is an example of what evil has carved
Weapons of death and destruction too
Are supplied by this heinous war criminal crew
These villains of violence in luxury reside
Their helpless victims have nowhere to hide
Misery and mayhem are their hellish lot
As the war criminals destroy everything they sought
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen—these are hell holes of destruction
Victims of the war criminals and their war addictions
Are Iran, North Korea, China and Russia their next bloody fights?
Will more wars bring a nuclear finale with the end in sight?
Is it too late to stop these maniacs that are bereft of sanity?
Will they bring the apocalypse to all of humanity?
Who can stop these evil and loathsome ghouls?
Is there no law when war criminals rule?
[much more info at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/08/is-there-no-law-when-war-criminals-rule.html
New Face, Yes Stephen J! And thanks for that…
Stephen, I received this link from CommonDreams this morning, which appears to be very exciting. If it is what it appears to be, we could use a site like this to organize on the web.
https://dcentproject.eu/
So, in my mind when you combine this madness: The executive and the legislative, via last week’s economic warfare the entire Establishment needs to be replaced. No more excuses or division!
What kind of a reply do you want to hear? The Russians can protect their citizens in underground reinforced subway systems and other bunkers throughout the country. In the United States of America the citizens are told good luck you’re on your own. Only the elite and their enablers will survive and live out the fairy tale they have laid out for themselves. The rest of us are toast. What would you have us tell our children when the bombs start to drop? Don’t worry children our demise will allow the plutocrats and oligarchs to live happily ever after.
Divorced from our labors that support them, Oligarchs and plutocrats are useless eaters, unable even to maintain their own ventilating systems and electric-generating/distributing equipment in their fallout shelters, let alone operating the machine tools needed to manufacture replacement parts for those parts that break down. Read about The Summer of Hell on Manhattan Island as they must now repair 100-year old, maxed-out, infrastructure damaged by the recent hurricane, over on EIR website.
Excuse me, but the book of human history is not filled with stories of how the gigarich lived happily ever after. Precisely the opposite is true. Human history is largely the story of the miseries of the gigarich – of the overthrows, infighting, hostile takeovers, backstabbings – of how they ultimately fell, of how they are forced to erode an overfortune meeting the high costs of defending an overfortune – from the poor, from their own closest family members, from other gigarich. History is chockablock the stories of the fall of one wealthpower giant after another – a recitation of how clawing your way to wealthpower is clawing your way to miseries galore – a waste of life, not an increase of happiness and safety.
The underpaid 99% of this weary world should apologize to the gigarich for having piled heaps of wealth upon them thereby sentencing them to unhappy lives of “the plunderer gets plundered”, and vow to put an immediate end to the diabolically cruel custom of using division of labor as an excuse to create an overpayunderpay ratio that is destroying everyone’s everything – before the bombs go off.
Happily ever after? Is it a happy life if one is incessantly under attack from all comers and can never be at peace – no peace of mind no peace of heart? Is that a happy existence for the gigarichpowerful? No.
Teach the children this lesson of history.
It’s interesting to note that Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, the bible of today’s paleocapitalists, stated “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” He also wrote, “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
Most who today praise Smith quote him very selectively.
I keep waiting to hear that there will be THADD systems emplaced along all US coasts, to the tune of billions, if not trillions.
Your thinking here is logical – finagle things so Big Weapons Makers and their Investors will make even more money.
I’m getting mighty paranoid about this entire affair. I’m afraid the “crisis” is going to be the chance for the Neocons to bring back nuclear weapons use for the first time since WW2. And I”m also expecting Japan to use all of this to get back into the pre-WW2 Imperial Japan mode.
The modern scenario of nuclear war is much different than it was in the 1950’s. Nuclear weapons were all of a “mass destruction” type, capable of destroying whole cities, and causing nuclear winter. What should be obvious by now is that the nuclear powers have been busy since then to miniaturize nuclear bombs to the point that in the 1960’s they were already small enough to mount in artillery shells and demolition devices deliverable by hand. By now, I’m sure that they are small enough to make them usable for “surgical” strikes delivered by satellite directed drones and what-not. An Iranian facility in the desert could be obliterated with no serious effect on even the surrounding landscape, making it’s use quite acceptable to most Americans. Of course, sometimes you start small and escalation happens, ending with the use of bigger weapons, maybe even the biggest ones. It’s not something to play with, but like children with matches, there are always some who are not afraid to defy their parents and burn down the house.
Gregory, I’d like your opinion of what Oliver North had to say….
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/08/09/oliver-north-north-korea-nuclear-threat-us-strategy-against-kim-jong-un
Or anyone else who may wish to comment on North’s strategy.
Gregory Kruse,
Good post Gregory. It appears that your worry that small tactical radioactive weapons would be used routinely is a very valid concern. Some claim they have already been used in Yemen. If these videos are genuine, and they appear to me to be genuine since they were captured by multiple angles and devices, it looks like, on some, instead of a classic red fireball, a blue neutron cloud emanates from the first impact of what might be a bunker buster/hybrid weapon. Pixelization sparkels indicate impact by high velocity particles. What do you and other think?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Neutron+weapon%2C+Yemen
Whoops,
It appears the blue cloud videos have been scrubbed off the internet. Here was the address of it; But now it’s gone:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Neutron+weapon%2C+Yemen
Interesting Trump’s threatening N Korea with ‘fire & fury’ on the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…just say’n.
Those events didn’t escape me either. My father, whose 86, didn’t remember the dates as I do and I’m only 63. I lived during the bulk of the cold war and it affected me greatly. Now the nuclear threat is in the open again so perhaps cooler heads will prevail and not let the unspeakable horror of nuclear annihilation be unleashed by a childish fool.
Amen.
COOLER HEADS???
There are a few “cooler heads”. Perhaps they would fit comfortably
in a large closet.
It is easier and evidently more “satisfying” for uncool heads
to express themselves by violent means. From the police
force to foreign policy.
That is the society into which we were born.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
The US has been itching to use it´s nuclear arsenal ever since they dropped the first bombs on Hiroshima and Negasaki. Every year since the 1950s they have threatened some country with a nuclear attack. it would appear that the Grahams and McCains of the US want to ensure that they will see just what that arsenal can do before they die. No one over the age of fifty should be allowed anywhere near government. When they get over fifty death means nothing to them anymore. They also stop valuing the lives of the rest of the people on the planet.
I am 76 and have been a witness to the US willingness to use the club before trying anything else all of my life.
I am over 87, Dan, and I agree with you completely.
I would only add that the US was willing to use them in 1986 when it had that showdown with the USSR, triggered by the assassination of Sweden’s PM Olof Palme, and it was because of American spies that it was prevented. Remember Rick Ames, Robert Hanssen et al. rotting away in prison.
Dan – yes, I think you’re on to something here. At the very least, these politicians should have children that they are close to. Grandchildren would also be a nice bonus. Lindsay Graham never even married. He probably doesn’t give a damn if the whole world blows. Strange and distorted thinking from both Graham and McCain.
I don’t know about the age of 50 as the cutoff because many people don’t even begin getting a brain until around that age, but certainly you want people who are extremely well read across all major disciplines and could debate either side of an issue. IOW, intelligent.
Thanks, Dan. Good post.
All good commentary thanks to all.
I posted above and and mention occasionally one horrific fact (if there is evidence to the contrary please present it)
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAS BEEN KILLING AND CREATING VAST HUMAN SUFFERING EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE PAST 72 YEARS.
The nuclear bombs were only the beginning of the wholesale slaughter the US is engaged in non stop.
This monster must be finally stopped.
“When they get over fifty death means nothing to them anymore. They also stop valuing the lives of the rest of the people on the planet.”
Including their own offsprings.
Sorry, but that “over 50” statement is just ageist. Plenty of people over 50 are against everything the US does in our names. There’s still a huge peace movement in the elder crowd, but we’re stamped out in the corporate media. Bernie is over 50 and had the most progressive agenda of all. Granted, progressives need to speak out against war far more than they do, but at least they’re tackling other issues, like healthcare, public college tuition, immigration, etc..
Dennis Kucinich is also over 50 and is a HUGE promoter of peace.
doray, thanks for your statement. I had been racking my brain for a genuine peace candidate that we could crowd source into office with guaranteed small donations (my one thought about how to defeat the Oligarchy) and I had forgotten about Dennis. My plan: find a certifiable Peace candidate, beyond all other issues, with a viable plan to end Empire, and Swarm them into office…
Unfortunately the so called progressive wing of the Democratic Party has latched onto Tulsi, who is not the anti-war candidate some thought. But her defenders are not defending sanctions because she was for them.
The instability of foreign policy is an effect of the domestic instability of the United States. The capitalist class is deeply divided, “globalists” like the giant banks, big oil, and illicit drug capitalists, versus “America First” capital interests mainly grounded in the domestic economy.
The globalists are much stronger than America First. Call it 60-40, just to illustrate. The tensions are of long standing but broke out into crisis in the election of 2016. The minority candidate, from a ruling class perspective, won.
The result is an unprecedented degree of political turmoil. Hence foreign policy is unstable. There is much more to it of course but the domestic factor must never be left out.
David – really good post!
DAVID HUNGERFORD’S INSIGHTS….
Your post and the relationship of domestic and foreign policies is
right on target. Had I read it when I wrote my response
(“That Good Old Sinking Feeling”, above), I might have
added some of your eloquence to my post.
Thanks so much.
—–Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Graham believes the US lies within some kind of bubble that isolates it from the rest of the Earth … global climate change doesn’t matter, if war is over ‘there’, the US is safe, etc, etc
At times I firmly believe Graham is more unhinged than Trump in matters of foreign policy and warmongering. McCain also comes to mind but his time is short and, hopefully, he may not be able to egg on his fellow hawks. The hawks are a menace to folks everywhere and need to be restrained, (in a straitjacket)!
Pardon me for saying this, but I find that to be a massive understatement. Trump is an ignorant blowhard. Graham is – as you say – plain nuts.
:)
They let Graham dress up to play soldier, apparently a childhood game he never outgrew. He’s a full bird colonel in the U.S. Airforce reserve.
So true, Ol’ Hip,
… about Senator Lindsey Graham not possessing all his marbles. Apparently he’s never heard about this thing called the 150mph jet stream which we are all downwind of! Nuking North Korea will throw ionizing radiation into the troposphere and then the jet stream will catch it and in seven days the fallout will happen past Alaska and California and then across the entire USA, just like it did with Mount Pinatubo in 1991. In 1991, Philippine volcanic ash rained down in the parking lots of Sacramento, CA, and will again.
So, there is no “over there” as Graham contends, since the air is all connected. Radiation knows no boundaries. After Fukushima, cancer was projected to become the number one killer of Americans by a CDC statement, projected to displace heart disease for the first time. Can we get some leaders with back grounds in science and medicine for a change?
Took three days to cross pacific from fukushima.
You make good points.. Yet have you watched the jet-stream in recent years? It’s not the river of air it used to be. Most days its six or more short segments, moving randomly i disjointed patterns around the n. hemisphere. Is this a natural phenomenon? or yet more D.O.D. tinkering?
Check it out: http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html
Cheers.
D.Thomas,
Very Good point. The old jet stream I used to fly in NOPAC operations was a smooth circle around the Pole most of the year. Now, as you correctly point out, it’s a slowed meandering mess, weaving all over the place. The Weather Underground guys say that’s because there’s no large differential between the temp at the pole and the temp in the North Pacific anymore. The North Pole was sometimes up to 30 to 50 degrees C above normal last year making 2016 the hottest year in history. That allows relatively hot blobs of air to intrude way North of where they used to melting the tundra for example.
Will the world end in ice or fire? With this trigger-happy establishment in D.C., I’d wager it’s gotta be the latter! If not inadvertent Nuke War, then certainly Greenhouse Warming will get the next generation, if not our food supply in very short singular years. Thirty percent of the wheat crop just failed, due to high temps, I read somewhere. We can hide out in the A/C, but the organisms we depend on to purify our water and air and feed us cannot.
200 species are going extinct every day now. Biologists say we are clearly in the middle of the Six great extinction of the planet. The biggest polluter is light vehicles behind power generation according to EPA. GM still is targeting one billion new drivers in China and India with easy financing to every warm body…
Not good.
You might recall in the South Carolina primary last year Trump called Graham “a disgrace” and “one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever seen.” Trump went on to soundly defeat Graham in his native state, quite a surprising accomplishment in such an arch-reactionary part of the country.
It is amazing to me that he gets elected in that part of the country since, per Wayne Madsen, Graham is a closeted gay.
mindboggling how easy it is to go to war even when the majority oppose it.
What democracy?
https://therulingclassobserver.com/2017/08/08/the-ten-commandments-of-the-supreme-executive/
Nothing about Pentagon-made earthquakes in North Korea since October 2006 for Washington to make out that it was conducting nuclear tests though it had agreed to go along with the Six Nations Talks about nuclear disarmament.
Graham is o delusional and so mentally ill he will put the world at risk of extinction. These republicans and corporate demo are a threat to life on earth.
Russia and China went along with the Security Council Resolution hoping and praying that the US would make good on its lunatic blustering. As soon as the Pacific Fleet gets busy firing and furying North Korea, China will grab Taiwan and Russia will de-Nazify Ukraine. And, there would be nothing left of South Korea to save. The world will be much better off, and the multipolar reality will be indelibly impressed on delusional neocons, globalists and neocolonialists for generations to come. In other words…NOTHING is going to happen. The whole thing would be too good to be true.
I very much doubt it, F.G. , I think North Korea will turn out to just like Iraq which was supposed to be the mother of all wars but turned out to be a turkey shoot when it actually took place. Remember all the bull sh!t we were told about weapons of mass destruction and 45 minutes for Iraq to send chemical missiles into Europe? The Yanks will butcher men, women and children just as they have done elsewhere. When they have finished with their killing spree they will set up their own missile launch pads and military bases. This is all preparation for the big wars to come against Russia and China.
THAT GOOD OLD SINKING FEELING!
Jonathan Marshall’s excellent article fails to put North Korea
and other US explosions in a proper perspective.
Despite US defense power, all of us know in our hearts
that the US is sinking. Despite the glow of today’s
economic statistics (bright as false gold) we are
sinking as a nation into a horrible muck that is slowly
and horribly covering us up. As Americans we find
release in killing, destroying and other acts of
violence to those we consider our inferiors (?).
As with all belligerents, we are given a picture that
our aggressions will be quick, nearly cost-free (in
terms of lives and money) and , of course, our
total victory will be swift and guaranteed.
An observation in a recent article in The Nation by Andrew Bacevich
is relevant:
“Like it or not, the president of the United States embodies America itself.
The individual inhabiting the White House has become the preeminent symbol
of who we are and what we represent as a nation and a people. In a fundamental
sense, he is us. It was not always so…”.
We are all aware that there are many nations with nuclear capacities. Some are
granted eternal immunity like our so-called “ally”:, Israel. There are many others.
Of course we do not “agree with” or like many of these nations. Many we have
ourselves assisted in the development of their nuclear weapons (best example: Israel).
It must also be remembered—and if needed repeated— that too many Americans
just don’t care at all about North Korea. Instead, these are trying to survive,
trying to keep from losing their homes to profit others, dreaming of employment
at decent wages which they suspect will never come again.
Only the wealthy gain on the stock market (sometimes). See the works of Jack
Rasmus (especially SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, the
world’s worst title!).
I recall so vividly a radio report from the “town hall meeting” of a conservative
Congressman in his home district. The subject was military action against
Syria. Said a supporter of this Congressperson in a low and helpless
voice: “I am so tired of going to funerals.”
Dear Mr. Trump and supporters: When you kill and murder, when men
and women die, do you feel washed from “sin”, virtuous, redeemed…???
In fact, you are leading the helpless to their deaths and killing
others. None will stay in a Trump hotel ever. Or indeed in any
decent hotel or home or residence.
Read Andrew Bacevich one more time.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Thanks for this commentary.
“Dear Mr. Trump and supporters: When you kill and murder, when men
and women die, do you feel washed from “sin”, virtuous, redeemed…???”
This is exactly the question that should be asked – it recognizes that US “Exceptionalism” is just a proxy for “chosen people of god”
The US, implementing the the extreme (Calvinist Christian) religious view that god requires and demands “tribute” in the form of the slaughter of the innocents to appease him and to rid the world of “evil.” (the Christian god does not trust that his people really love him so he demands they kill their sons – and slaughter innocents to glorify him)
To this end the religious fanatics of the US (read about the Dulles brothers if you question this) dropped two nuclear weapons on cities full of those innocents which had to be slaughtered – but following those most horrific of crimes, the US has continued the slaughter non stop for 72 years killing and maiming EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Let that sink in, killing of tens of millions while deliberately keeping or putting billions of people into poverty and misery EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 72 YEARS.
All of this human misery has been justified on religious grounds. The same religion that justified the largest genocide in human history against the peoples of the Americas, the same religion that justified slavery, and the same religion which justifies capitalism which is nothing more than biblical feudalism in a fancy dress and which deliberately keeps billions of people in poverty.
I am beginning to see more comments referencing this which is encouraging.
It is clear that nuclear retribution against the “sinners” is becoming more and more likely and people are recognizing the religious ideology which dives desire to slaughter.
HOLY WAR
Many thanks to “MaDarby” for your supportive comments above.
I remember when Barack Obama in accepting his Nobel Peace
Prize Prize said he favored “holy war”. Many who had supported this
“peace candidate” felt a glow of virtue of some kind not really
comprehending what had been said.
While the concept of “holy war” is associated so closely
with St. Augustine (and was replicated by others) other
wars both of the Middle Ages and previously followed similar
formulations. They were equally gruesome.
Millions of years ago, one war counted the number of
victims by severing the male genitals .. However
this system broke down as many of the enemy were
circumcised. On finding this out, hands were cut off instead
to get a more accurate count. After a victory “booty”
would be divided. This included not only valuables but
also women as there were many wives who had become
widdows as well as concubines. And they were considered
“property”.
Religious argument can always be used, but while often
accurate (eg Crusades), other points are preferable.
Avoid questions of what precisely is “religion” and so forth.
Incidentaly, I do not agree with your statement, well-intentioned
though it may be, that “capitalism is nothing more than
‘biblical feudalism'”. This undermines a deeper
understanding of feudalism (see Marc Bloch, THE FEUDAL
SOCIETY, Vols I and II) and economic history
(see Jack Rasmus, (SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY IN THE GLOBAL
ECONOMY, especially re: history and 21rst century
economy).
Once more, thanks for your support. How indelicate of
me to include any criticism.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
The invasion of Iraq was vaunted as a “liberation”, was not expected to last long (Mission Accomplished), and wasn’t supposed to cost much (http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/624/iraq-war-cost-little-and-iraq-oil). Short, heroic, and cheap. Of course the planners knew this was a bill of goods, and that the destruction of Iraq with a view towards Syria and a “remaking” of the Middle East was the idea. They cared nothing for “democracy” or Iraqi self-governance (or Iraqi life for that matter). And as long as D.o.D. gets a blank check, “costs” or how long servicepeople would be asked to hold down forts are irrelevant to warmongers. They knew they could take down Iraq, establish bases, spread counterinsurgency & chaos, and move on. In 2003, they couldn’t be challenged.
Should North Korea be attacked, it would be a different animal. Radioactivity would be part of the equation, and as F.G. alluded to,China and Russia aren’t standing idly by any more…especially so close to home.