Tag Archives: North Korea

military news

Enter the USS Carl Vinson

I heard the news of a Navy carrier battle group heading toward the Korean Peninsula and took special note of the aircraft carrier leading the group.

It’s the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered beast with which I have some limited familiarity.

I don’t know, of course, what all this means overall. North Korean madman/dictator Kim Jong Un is rattling his sabre yet again. He’s launching missiles into the Sea of Japan and threatening war against South Korea, Japan and maybe even the United States.

So the Carl Vinson battle group is heading toward the peninsula in a show of strength.

I received a marvelous assignment in 1993 at the invitation of the late U.S. Rep. Charles Wilson, an East Texas Democrat who was a huge supporter of military affairs. I was editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise at the time and our paper circulated deeply into Wilson’s 2nd Congressional District.

He invited me to join him on a tour of the Carl Vinson, which at the time was home-ported at San Diego, Calif. The ship was at sea at the time of Wilson’s invitation. I asked my editor if I could go; he said “yes.” The paper purchased my plane ticket and I flew to San Diego to meet with Wilson and his congressional party.

We landed on the Carl Vinson and spent three days and nights aboard ship. Rep. Wilson spent time talking to pilots, deck crew members, machinists, cooks. He told all of them how much he appreciated the work they did and the service they performed in defense of the nation.

By the way, you have not lived until you’ve been through a tailhook landing and a catapult launch off the deck of an aircraft carrier. Believe me, there is nothing in this entire world quite like either experience.

During a tour of the flight deck, the skipper of the ship at the time, Capt. John Payne, told us of the immense firepower contained on the ships comprising the battle group.

He then said something quite astonishing. He said the group — which comprised several warships, including cruisers, destroyers and frigates as well as support craft along with this monstrous carrier — contained more explosive firepower than all the ordnance dropped during World War II.

Of course, that prompted the question from yours truly: “Skipper, does that mean this ship is carrying nukes?” Capt. Payne looked me in the eye and said, “Now you know I can’t answer that question.”

OK. Got it.

Twenty-four years later, the USS Carl Vinson is still on active duty. It’s now heading for a potentially very dangerous zone. I do believe the ship and its massive crew will be ready for whatever occurs.

International news

North Korea: most dangerous worldwide threat?

Let’s turn our attention for a moment or two to North Korea and its lunatic leader, Kim Jong Un.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the other day that military action against North Korea is “on the table” if Kim decides to do something foolish, such as launch a missile in the direction of the United States or one of our allies, such as, say, Japan or South Korea.

I guess it’s always been understood that military action would be an option for the United States. However, for the secretary of state to tell Kim Jong Un out loud and to put this guy on alert seems to me to be a dangerous potential gambit.

I’ve noted already that Kim may be nuts, but he ain’t stupid.

It’s the nuttiness that should cause us all grave concern.

North Korea has more than a million of its citizens in the military. The country has a total population of around 25 million. It spends far more than it can afford on its military apparatus.

Do you wonder what a guy like Kim would do to avoid a war with the United States? Look at this way: A leader who would allow his people to starve to death, to subject them to famine and to deny them health care just so he can build a military machine is capable of just about any act of idiocy imaginable.

Yeah, this guy is a frightening individual.

I am not sure whether Tillerson thinks his talk about the “military option” is going to persuade Kim Jong Un that a fight against the United States is not winnable.

My hope would be that it would give Kim pause. My fear is quite different. I fear he might conclude that a U.S. attack would finish the destruction of his country that he and his communist forebears have begun.

How in the world does one analyze what goes through what passes for this individual’s mind?

My next question is this: Does the president of the United States and his national security team have the moxie and savvy to contain this guy?

International news, military news, national news, political news

Hey, what about Bannon and the NSC?

It’s almost impossible to keep up with all the stories that pass through the light of intense publicity only to disappear into the darkness … as it relates to Donald John Trump’s administration.

Remember the story about Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart.com executive, alleged white nationalist, political adviser becoming a member of the principals committee on the National Security Council?

Bannon is still on the NSC. He’s still getting the regular briefings, sitting in a chair that should be filled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and the director of national intelligence. Trump demoted those two military and intelligence leaders in favor of partisan political animals such as Bannon.

He’s a political hack who serves on one of the most ostensibly non-political bodies in our massive federal government.

Why is this guy still there? Why is the new national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster sitting or standing still for this travesty?

Bannon doesn’t belong on the principals committee. He now serves as chief political adviser for the president. He fulfills an entirely different role, vastly separate from anything that the National Security Council does. The NSC’s role is to provide the president with keen, sharp and non-political analysis of national security threats. The national security adviser essentially is the chief administrative official of the NSC. From all that I’ve read and heard about Lt. Gen. McMaster, he appears to be a scholar with a superb military mind.

Bannon status as political hack in chief ought to disqualify him from such his posting as a member of the principals committee.

Yet this story stays hidden in the background.

What kind of advice does Bannon give the president when, say, a Middle East nation moves on another one? What kind of advice does he offer when North Korea lobs a missile into Seoul, South Korea? Or when Hamas starts firing ordnance from Gaza into neighborhoods in southern Israel?

Bannon offers no national security credibility. There he is, though. He’s perched among the other “principals” offering advice to the president of the United States.

This guy frightens the crap out of me.

International news

Now it’s POTUS who’s flinging around information

I’m confused … apparently.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was pilloried and pounded because of her “careless” use of e-mails while served as secretary of state. Republicans wanted to “lock her up!” because she used a personal e-mail server to conduct official State Department business.

Leading the “lock her up!” chorus was none other than the guy who’d become president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

Now there’s this: Trump takes Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to his glitzy Florida estate and then, allegedly, starts discussing national security matters regarding North Korea in front of unclassified estate staff. Trump reportedly has left sensitive material laying around where just about anyone can get their hands on it.

Where is the outrage over this sloppy handling of material that should be seen only by those with the highest level of security clearances.

Trump and Abe also reportedly were talking openly about how the United States and Japan should respond to North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.

Didn’t the president get some advice during his presidential security briefings about the dangers of blabbing too loosely about this kind of thing? Oh, wait! He said he didn’t need to be briefed regularly by his national security team. Maybe the spooks who advise the president on these matters never got around to telling him about that stuff.

I’m now waiting to hear from previously outraged Republicans about whether the president of the United States of America is doing something far worse than the things they accused his 2016 campaign opponent of doing.

International news, national news, political news

Gov. Johnson needs to study up on foreign affairs

bbx3lse

The world’s most indispensable nation needs a leader who is well-versed on the world that surrounds it.

The United States of America remains the greatest nation on Earth, despite the ridiculous assertions of Donald J. Trump that we’ve become something significantly less than that. Accordingly, whoever becomes president needs to understand the principals involved in some of the world’s greatest trouble spots.

Libertarian nominee for president Gary Johnson flunked that knowledge test yet again.

Sigh …

He asked an interviewer “What’s Aleppo?” He didn’t know that Syria’s largest city is the epicenter of the hideous refugee crisis that has engulfed so much of the Middle East and Europe.

Then, when asked by another TV interviewer to name a single foreign leader he liked and/or respected, he couldn’t name one.

The latest gaffe came when Gov. Johnson was asked to name North Korea’s leader. He couldn’t come up with Kim Jong Un.

One of the tests of leadership in this country must include knowledge of far more than such basic information.

An exceptional nation needs to have exceptional leadership at its helm. Two of the four people running for the presidency — GOP nominee Trump and Johnson — are flunking the leadership test. I won’t speak yet to the knowledge base owned by the Green Party nominee for president, Jill Stein.

The fourth candidate is Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. She has demonstrated that she fully prepared to assume the role of president of the world’s greatest nation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gary-johnson-couldnt-name-north-koreas-leader-kim-jong-un/ar-BBx3t5v

International news

Note to Kim Jong Un: Study up on ‘MAD’ doctrine

getty_2012_04_13_kimjongun_lede_

I have used this blog on occasion to question North Korea’s fruitcake/dictator’s sanity on judgment, but not — necessarily — his intelligence.

Still, someone in Pyongyang needs to take the young man aside and explain the MAD doctrine to him.

The letters “MAD” comprise an acronym, meaning “mutually assured destruction.”

The United States and the Soviet Union understood its implications.

If one country were to launch a nuclear strike against the other — or its allies — then all hell would break loose. Both sides would be destroyed. Gone! Obliterated.

Now, though, Kim Jong Un says he won’t use nukes unless his country’s sovereignty is threatened.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news-other-foreign-policy/279172-kim-jong-un-north-korea-ready-to-improve

Even that caveat makes any thought using nukes, well, rather MAD … don’t you think?

It’s important to note that he is the lone leader of a nuclear state that keeps referencing the potential use of nukes. Does the People’s Republic of China say anything about it? How about the United States? Or Russia?

Oh, wait! I almost forgot! Presumed GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump has said he wouldn’t oppose Japan or South Korea developing nuclear arsenals as a hedge against North Korea.

That, too, is MAD.

It’s simply in Kim Jong Un’s best interest — really and truly — to consider the implications of what MAD means.

 

International news, military news, Uncategorized

Paranoia strikes deep in North Korea

north-korea-to-kick-off-nuclear-armageddon-probably-not-1414440285

Kim Jong Un must be clinically paranoid.

One of the North Korean strongman/boy’s top hands has declared that if the United States stops its military exercises with South Korea that the North Koreans will end their nuclear tests.

The commies are afraid of a first strike by the South Koreans or, perhaps, by the United States.

A little history should be offered up here. So, I will.

In 1950, the communists started the Korean War by invading South Korea. The United Nations responded with a military counterattack. The UN force was led by Americans. They drove the communists out of South Korea, and then had to face troops from the People’s Republic of China who came to Pyongyang’s rescue.

The fighting stopped in 1953. The combatants signed a cease-fire. There is no peace treaty.

The two nations — South and North Korea — are technically still at war.

The U.S.-South Korean exercises have been undertaken for decades as a defensive measure against North Korea’s demonstrated willingness to start a war.

And to think that the North Koreans view their nuclear program as a deterrent.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/277403-north-korean-official-well-stop-nuclear-tests-if-us-halts-military

I don’t know whether to laugh, scream or laugh some more.

I get that it’s not funny, except that Kim Jong Un has assumed a ridiculous posture if the believes South Korea or the United States is going to launch a first strike against this tinhorn dictator.

 

International news, military news

North Koreans ask for peace treaty?

BBofjOR

There might not a more untrustworthy nation on Planet Earth than the one that occupies the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea says it will end its nuclear testing if two things happen: it gets a peace treaty with South Korea, and the South Koreans and the United States end their joint military exercises.

OK, let’s do it. Right now.

Well, that won’t happen. Nor should it, not without a bucket load of assurance from North Korea that it not only would end its nuclear testing, but that it would dispose of the nukes it has in its arsenal.

How does that occur when we’re dealing with someone as unpredictable, vain and utterly contemptible as Kim Jong Un, the guy who runs the world’s most secretive nation?

Kim Jong Un kills those who disagree with him. The people who live in his country are starving to death and yet he continues to pour money that North Korea doesn’t have into a nuclear arms program. He blusters about going to war with the United States of America.

North Korea has long wanted a peace treaty with South Korea. The Korean War, you’ll recall, ended in 1953 with a mere cease-fire. The two sides never formalized the end of the war that cost about 50,000 American lives. It was a brutal conflict involving many nations that came to South Korea’s defense after the Marxist North Koreans invaded the south in 1950.

China joined the fight and fought head-to-head with Americans on some of the most barren and desolate battlefields of the 20th century.

However, more than 60 years after most of the shooting stopped, the two nations — South and North Korea — remain technically “at war.”

Do we  relent and sign that treaty and pull back our military preparedness in South Korea? Not a chance.

If the North Koreans really mean what they say about ending their nuclear testing program, they need to go a lot farther than merely saying they’ll stop exploding nukes. Their record is replete with examples of how their words cannot be trusted.

 

International news, national news, political news

Trump gives ‘credit’ where it isn’t due

donald

World leaders of all stripes have said essentially the same thing about North Korean dictator/madman/goofball Kim Jong Un.

He’s nuts, unpredictable, dangerous.

Now comes Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States, to give Kim “credit” for the ruthless manner in which he disposes of his political enemies.

Does the GOP White House hopeful include the way Kim had his uncle executed? There were reports that he fed his uncle to starving dogs, which then, well . . .  you know.

I’ll repeat once again: Being the leader of the world’s greatest nation requires a certain understanding of diplomatic nuance. Trump keeps revealing that he has no concept — none, zero — of that notion.

He wants to “make America great again”? How is he going to do that? By offering ill-timed words of encouragement to dangerous despots like Kim Jong Un?

 

International news

Kim Jong Un: Craziest man alive

I hereby nominate North Korean dictator/lunatic Kim Jong Un as the world’s craziest man.

Will I get in trouble for calling him such names?

One of his formerly trusted aides had the bad taste to fall asleep during an event in which Kim was present.

Hyon Yong Chol’s punishment? He was executed — using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot him to death.

http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-executes-defense-chief-treason-charges-south-005116364.html

South Korean intelligence officials reported the execution that reportedly was witnessed by hundreds of spectators. The official charges leveled against the defense chief were treason and disobeying Kim.

The world is full of loons. Some of them actually sit in places of power. Can there be anyone loonier than the young North Korean dictator who took over upon the death of his father, Kim Jong Il — who himself was no slouch when it came to dictatorial madness.

State Department flack Jeff Rathke said this about reports of the execution: “If they are true, (they) describe another extremely brutal act by the North Korean regime. These reports, sadly, are not the first in this regard.”

Allow me to offer this bit of advice to the State Department: While you are seeking rapprochement with many of our adversaries around the world — and that’s generally a good thing if it’s pursued with care and with hyper-vigilance — do not under any circumstances deal at all with Kim Jong Un. This young man is insane.