Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Does Trump Have The Brains To Avoid A Nuclear Confrontation? NO!


Related imageNo automatic alt text available.
"They gotta be taught a BIGLY lesson! That punk Kim Jong Un can't get away with threatening me! I'm gonna bomb 'em back to the stone age!'



The question for the CNN panel yesterday evening was how best to respond to the continuing North Korean threats, including taking out the Carl Vinson and its strike group, while also holding an American hostage. Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson offered the most serious warning: "We can't treat  Kim like a normal guy. It would be a huge mistake".

These echoed the words of Denver Post columnist Gregg Dobbs two days earlier who wrote that he didn't believe Trump had the patience, intelligence or emotional equilibrium to deal with the rapidly escalating situation on the Korean Peninsula.   The basic reasons have been echoed many times from the date Trump "won" the farcical 2016 general election, by the likes of David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Charles Blow, Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen and others.  Cohen early on even recommended Trump be removed under the little known 25th amendment - by virtue of his inability to rein in his egoistic petulance, along with his reckless bombast and narcissism. I agreed, and in a subsequent blog post asserted the Donald is barely able to run a dog kennel, far less an administration or the whole nation.

All these concerns have acquired enormous gravitas as the North Korean standoff has now reached the phase it could instantly turn into a blood bath.  With Trump now deploying the Carl Vinson carrier  strike group close to the peninsula along with the U.S.S. Michigan - a nuclear sub outfitted with nuclear missiles - we're now in a situation close the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. We got through that crisis because we had a man of temperance, intelligence and historical understanding at the helm : John Fitzgerald Kennedy..  Now, we have a "former" failed businessman who actually rode his sleazy real estate empire -  based largely on bankruptcies - to fame and fortune. Oh, after he already got 'nuff millions from daddy via inheritance.


So now we're saddled with a clown:  a bombastic pseudo-business tycoon and former reality TV personality who still thinks he's playing a role on 'The Apprentice' and believes any time he barks he can make lowly staff jump.  But we're in the real world now, not Trump's fantasy world of ego, entitlement and arrogance. And despite multiple warnings from even former military - generals and admirals - Trump can't seem to back off the bellicose rhetoric. This even as the North Koreans have vowed to take down the Vinson using one of their missiles. Rather than pause and reflect, Trump continues to think he's playing 'chicken' or high stakes poker - not that he's playing with the lives of tens of thousands.


As Gregg Dobbs put it, Kim Jong-un is not intimidated by threats, especially hollow ones - and also any pre-emptive strike would be about the worst move  possible. It would ensure the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Koreans as well as U.S. troops stationed there.   There is even the possibility the North Koreans could be spurred to employ one or more of their nuclear weapons, again most likely against South Korea - namely Seoul.

Things might not have reached this malignant stage had the media (most) not done back flips with wet dreams after Trump launched his 59 cruise missiles on a Syrian base. Since then, this deformed mental mutant has been putatively granted the "keys to the kingdom" (read: "respect" from media) by a stupid pack of slobbering suckers and goofballs who'd held their breath for any sign of Trump being "presidential".   Since these sycophantic imbeciles conflate use of force with "being presidential"  it was inevitable we'd now see a guy acting like he's been given his first hit of smack or crack cocaine.

As I wrote before, unless the same media pulls him back to reality - mainly by halting the cheerleading- we may now be in for the "most serious military confrontation since the Korean War" - in the words of one pundit last night.

Except this confrontation may be nuclear and we have a psychotic in charge of the country without the brains, knowledge, forbearance or basic human skills to deal with the situation.

No comments: