Tag Archives: North Korea

International news

Nuclear threat a boost to tourism? Who knew?

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You’re the governor of a remote U.S. territory. The crackpot dictator of a highly militarized regime then threatens to strike your home. The president of the United States calls ostensibly to offer you support.

Then you hear the president say something about how a possible nuclear missile attack could “boost tourism” on your island.

Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo fielded a call from Donald Trump.

Here’s how the New York Times reported a portion of the call: Mr. Trump said: “I have to tell you, you have become extremely famous all over the world. They are talking about Guam; and they’re talking about you.” And when it comes to tourism, he added, “I can say this: “You’re going to go up, like, tenfold with the expenditure of no money.”

I can’t stop laughing. The president is just killin’ it, don’t you think?

The president did say “we are with you 1,000 percent.” I hope that gives the governor some comfort. To be fair, Gov. Calvo didn’t seem disturbed by the seemingly flippant tone of the president’s call.

But really, Mr. President? Tourism is on your mind as you and Kim Jong Un continue to rattle the world with your reckless threats against each other?

International news

What does Kim Jong Un want? Part 2

Donald J. Trump has complicated what ought to be the simplest of Kim Jong Un’s reported demands of the United States of America.

He wants guarantees that he can keep his job as North Korea’s strongman. 

In other words, no “regime change.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sounded semi-conciliatory in that regard the other day when he said that United States has no interest in overthrowing Kim and seeks a “diplomatic solution” to the growing crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Then the president chimed in with comments threatening “fire and fury” and saying that U.S. military is “locked and loaded” in case Kim decides to make any “overt threats” against the United States or its allies.

The term “locked and loaded” means, in military terms, that your weapon is loaded and that you’ve put the first round in the chamber. You’re set to fire said weapon. Is that what the commander in chief meant? Are we now set to launch a first strike against the North Koreans?

Kim is thought to be mindful of past U.S. military actions, providing him with cause to make the demand that he not be tossed out by an invading force.

I present you the March 2013 U.S. invasion of Iraq , which was launched for the expressed purpose of ridding Iraq of its own dictator, the late Saddam Hussein.

President George W. Bush and his national security team told us Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction,” which became the primary selling point for launching the invasion. Our military launched a full frontal assault. It got to Baghdad. We scoured the country from stem to stern looking for WMD. We found none. Nothin’, man.

Oh, we eventually pulled Saddam out of that spider hole. The Iraqis put him on trial, convicted him of crimes against humanity — and hanged him.

Kim doesn’t want that to happen to himself or his closest sycophants.

The secretary of state is trying to sound a reasoned, rational tone. The president, though, keeps pre-empting him with talk of an entirely different nature. What’s more, the secretary of state does serve at the pleasure of the president.

national news

Trump trudges along lonely path

I’ve written already about how Donald J. Trump belongs to an exclusive club. He’s one of six men alive today who’ve held the office of president of the United States.

He’s now in the midst of a potentially catastrophic international crisis involving North Korea and its budding nuclear weapons program.

Has the president called any of the five men who preceded him? Has he sought their counsel, their advice, their wisdom in how to handle this situation, or himself?

You can stop laughing now.

The 45th president’s non-relationship with the 44th president is most puzzling and troubling, although it shouldn’t be too surprising. Barack Obama sought to provide a smooth transition. Trump and Obama met for the first time in the Oval Office shortly after Trump’s election. Trump said they got along well. “I like him and I think he likes me,” Trump said.

It went downhill from there.

The president thinks highly of himself. He has great internal faith in his ability to solve any problem, quell any crisis that comes his way. The men who preceded him all were “losers.”

Trump’s presidential isolation goes against tradition. Imagine that.

John F. Kennedy sought Dwight Eisenhower’s counsel during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Harry Truman faced crises in Europe after World War II, so he called Herbert Hoover for advice. Obama had to help Haiti recover from a devastating earthquake, so he enlisted George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to assist in that effort.

The norm has been that these men rely on each other to provide advice and counsel that only they are qualified to provide.

The president won’t change his ways. That’s a given more than 200 days into his administration. It merely speaks to the arrogance of a know-nothing who has at his disposal the collective wisdom of individuals who faced their own share of crises — and who might have something of extreme value to pass on.

Donald Trump won’t listen.

To borrow a word: Sad.

International news, national news

Tillerson gets tossed under the bus … but why?

Rex Tillerson deserves a good word for sounding like a serious adult.

The U.S. secretary of state has declared that Americans should “sleep well at night,” even in the wake of the bellicosity coming from the North Korean dictator and the president of the United States.

What does he get from a member of Donald Trump’s national security team? Sebastian Gorka, a key member of the National Security Council, said that Tillerson is a diplomat and has no authority to talk about military matters.

There you go. A key NSC adviser tosses Tillerson under the bus. For what reason? For suggesting that the North Koreans aren’t about to launch missiles at the United States or that the United States is about to go to war with the rogue regime.

I tend to think of Tillerson as one of the grownups with whom the president has surrounded himself.

Gorka, on the other hand, provides another bullying voice for the president, as if Donald Trump needs any assistance in rattling nerves around the world. The president has done plenty of that all by himself with his “fire and fury” and “locked and loaded” rhetoric.

As for Tillerson, I’m going to presume he’s opened all the back channels he can find between Washington and Pyongyang. Perhaps he’s able to pass along to some North Korean functionary about the grave danger that can result from a foolish act of aggression.

International news

‘Locked and loaded’ to release ‘fire and fury’

The alliteration might sound good as it rolls off the tongue or typed into a tweet.

“Fire and fury” has given way to “locked and loaded.” Is it realistic? Or logical? Does it further the cause of peace?

I want to consider for a brief moment something about this confrontation between the United States and North Korea. It is the rhetoric that flies out of the pie hole of Kim Jong Un, the boy with the bad haircut who runs North Korea.

Kim sounds like the two previous Kims who ruled the nation before he inherited the regime. His father and grandfather both said much the same thing about how they would destroy South Korea, Japan, the United States or any nation that “interfered” with the “internal” politics of the Korean Peninsula.

One key difference, though, is that the current Kim reportedly can deliver a nuclear weapon aboard a missile to faraway targets.

But has he acted on his threats? Daddy Kim blustered and bellowed until his death. Grandpa Kim did invade South Korea in 1950, precipitating the Korean War; the shooting lasted until 1953 with the signing of a ceasefire, but there has not yet been a peace treaty signed that officially ends the state of war between South and North Korea.

The more serious change in the rhetorical barrage, of course, comes from our side. The U.S. president has decided to fire back with tweets and assorted public pronouncements about how he intends to release “fire and fury” on Pyongyang if that government keeps threatening the United States. Donald Trump now has said that the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” in the event the commies do anything foolish.

The president’s bellicosity does not make me feel safer. It gives me little comfort. It doesn’t provide any assurance that the current Kim is going to work overtime to find restraint in his own bizarre impulses.

Diplomatic decorum would dictate that the president — the commander in chief of the world’s mightiest military — remain calm, reasoned and rational. Kim knows the United States can obliterate his country. Is he going to doom his people — and himself — to certain death now that he allegedly has the capability to launch a nuclear weapon at the United States of America?

I don’t know. I do know that he hasn’t delivered on any of the threats he has made already. As for the man he is staring in the face, Donald Trump, he doesn’t need to boast in front of the whole world about being “locked and loaded.”

We get the point, Mr. President. We’re the biggest, baddest dudes on the block. I’m quite sure Kim Jong Un knows it, too.

national news, political news

Trump’s troubles have nothing to do with ideology

Michael Dukakis once was derided when he said while accepting the 1988 Democratic Party nomination for president that the election was “about competence.”

His foes shredded him for that suggestion and he lost the election huge to Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Three decades later, another president is facing crises of his own. They relate in some measure to his own competence. Or lack thereof. They also concern his fitness for the job and whether he actually is of sound mind.

A former Republican U.S. senator — a member of Donald Trump’s own party — is urging his former colleagues and members of his home state of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation to remove the president from office as soon as possible. Gordon Humphrey said that Trump is of a “sick mind.” He calls him “seriously sick” and “dangerous.” Sen. Humphrey’s concern stems from that reckless statement about “fire and fury” that Trump threatened to bring to North Korea over that country’s threats to the United States.

There’s a good chance we’re going to hear more of that kind of talk as Trump continues to exhibit an absolute disregard for anything approaching diplomatic protocol or decorum. He reportedly ad-libbed the “fire and fury” threat while on vacation in New Jersey — and it is continuing to reverberate around the world.

The curious aspect of all this anti-Trump fever/fervor is that it seems to have nothing to do with ideology. Why? It’s because, in my view, Trump lacks an ideology. He doesn’t have a guiding principle on which he seeks to govern. His interests lie solely in “winning” at all costs. It matters not one damn bit whether a policy fits into a neat ideological niche.

He shows his incompetence daily by refusing to reach across the aisle to Democrats, with whom he must govern in a cooperative manner. For that matter, he’s swatting away the hands of many leading Republicans, too, the guys on his team.

Then he inflames all of it with his utterly frightening threat to North Korea. “Donald Trump is impaired by a seriously sick psyche,” Humphrey wrote. “His sick mind and reckless conduct could consume the lives of millions.”

Will any of this result in some sort of removal strategy? I haven’t a clue. I am of the opinion that we are going to hear much more of this kind of talk coming from within the Republican Party, which might be awakening finally to the mistake that occurred when Donald Trump got elected president of the United States.

International news

More confusion from POTUS … about war!

The president of the United States blusters about raining “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continues to threaten this country.

Then the secretary of state weighs in with more measured rhetoric, saying that Americans should “sleep well at night” even though North Korea keeps blabbing about hitting the United States with nukes.

Which is it? Fire and fury or diplomacy and negotiation?

Donald J. Trump has flown off the rails with his fiery rhetoric. Meanwhile, Rex Tillerson is seeking to calm the fears of an anxious world.

I am reminded of how past presidents have handled these so-called threats. Did they bluster and bloviate about what awaits potential adversaries? No. They went about their business quietly and left the nuts-and-bolts of diplomacy up to their senior aides and officials.

Two previous Republican presidents — Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower — famously adhered to more restrained postures in the face of potential or actual conflict.

They knew that loud-mouthed threats do nothing to advance the cause of peace. Donald Trump doesn’t know any of that — or anything else, for that matter. He instead yaps and yammers without considering the consequences of his words.

The man has no understanding or appreciation that as president of the United States — and the commander in chief of the world’s pre-eminent military machine — his words echo around the world.

When he threatens a budding nuclear power with “fire and fury,” he sends the rest of the planet into a state of, um, heightened anxiety.

Is that helpful to anyone? Not in the least.

International news, military news

‘Threats’ produce possible war?

Donald J. Trump is now threatening to wipe North Korea off the face of the planet because of “threats” the rogue nation is making toward the United States.

Have the North Koreans made any demonstrable moves against the world’s only super-duper power? Have they proved they are even capable of inflicting damage on this country? No.

They are threatening to do bad things. So that prompts the president of the United States to say he’ll bring unprecedented “fire and fury” to bear on North Korea, which has the ability now to deliver a nuclear weapon on board a missile.

As usual, the president isn’t thinking about what he is saying. He isn’t pondering how North Korea is going to respond to threats of maximum force. Oh, no. He’s simply popping off once again.

His statement delivered while on vacation has drawn some rebuke from military experts and from leading Republicans in Congress.

One of the critics is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a man who knows combat and the consequence of war. “I don’t know what he’s saying and I’ve long ago given up trying to interpret what he says,” McCain said during an interview with a local Arizona radio station. “That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.”

It doesn’t.

McCain added: “In other words, the old walk softly but carry a big stick, Teddy Roosevelt’s saying, which I think is something that should’ve applied because all it’s going to do is bring us closer to a serious confrontation. I think this is very, very, very serious.”

A first-strike response against North Korea is going to prompt a major ground war on the Korean Peninsula. Is that what the president wants to occur? Of course not, but that is going to be the inevitable consequence.

Trump must be able to deliver on his tough talk. McCain and others are unsure he can and are mortified that he would say out loud that he would issue such a careless threat.

But … the president “tells it like it is.”

International news

‘Power like the world has never seen’?

Donald J. Trump has issued the sternest of statements to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. It’s full of bluster and a bit of bravado.

It’s also frightening in the extreme — to our side as well as to the North Koreans!

The communist regime reportedly now is able to place a nuclear weapon aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States. That’s a line that the president cannot tolerate.

So, while vacationing in New Jersey, Trump issued a direct threat to North Korea, saying that the United States is prepared to unleash “fire and fury” and a “power like the world has never seen.”

Let’s hold on. The United States once did unleash “fire and fury” on an enemy combatant state. It occurred on Aug. 6 and again on Aug. 9, 1945. We dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. World War II was drawing to a conclusion and President Truman decided he needed to deploy those weapons to persuade the Japanese that continued fighting would be futile.

Truman learned of the Hiroshima bombing while returning from the Potsdam Conference.

The strategy worked. Japan surrendered just days after Nagasaki was incinerated.

If Donald J. Trump is proposing measures that would eclipse those twin events in August 1945, then we are truly embarking down the most dangerous path anyone ever imagined.

International news, military news

‘Mad Dog’ sounding reasonable, rational

I am continually amazed that a senior federal government official with the nickname of “Mad Dog” sounds so reasonable, calm and rational in the face of potentially grave danger.

So it is with Defense Secretary James Mattis, who today sought to assure the world that war with North Korea is not imminent in the wake of that country’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“Mad Dog” Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, said that the United States is “not closer to war” with North Korea. Meanwhile, other officials — including the president of the United States — keep rattling their proverbial swords while talking of possible retaliation if the North Koreans were to launch a missile at us or one of our allies.

Maybe it’s Mattis’s experience as a combat officer that builds in a certain calmness. He’s been to war, has led Americans in combat and he knows better than, say, the president himself about the high costs associated with armed conflict.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is traveling in Europe and he warned of “severe consequences” as a result of North Korea’s “dangerous” behavior.

I am not minimizing the potential for grave danger here. I just prefer to have cooler heads dominate the conversation in the White House Situation Room.

As of now, the calmest voice in the room appears to belong to “Mad Dog.” Ironic, yes?