THE PRESIDENT’S LATEST LIE COULD BECOME DEADLY

…President Trump after threatening N. Korea’s Kim Jong Un

 

Trump declares a red-line against North Korea

 

President Trump has lied to us again, and this time it’s about as critical of a lie as has any statement by a US president.

 

The president said that he doesn’t “draw red-lines”, as President Obama did about Syria, and that he says he doesn’t telegraph what he’s going to do, when he’s going to do it and where he’s going to do it.

 

Well then, what in the hell did he think he was he doing when he said to the North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong Un: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

 

Sure sounds like drawing a red-line to me!

 

Even the former Vietnam “prisoner-of-war”, and the current Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said about the above Trump comment: "The great leaders I've seen don't threaten unless they're ready to act, and I'm not sure President Trump is ready to act," McCain told this to an Arizona radio station. "I take exception to the president's comments because you got to be sure you can do what you say you're going to do."

 

The senator said the US should instead be focused on working with China and building up its missile defenses in the wake of a report that an updated intelligence assessment found North Korea now has the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead for delivery at the US by a N. Korean ICBM.

 

The president’s unsettling threat, aimed directly at North Korea, was reckless and unnecessary.  It resembled exactly how Kim Jong Un regularly denounces the United States.  Its bombastic, frantic and hyperbolic. Why would the president of the world’s most powerful nation want to descend to third-rate North Korean dictator’s level?

 

To raise the specter of nuclear war,  and to do so to ward off mere bogus threats, that alone is drawing that red line in a foolish and destabilizing manner.

 

Since nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seven decades ago, they were never again been used in combat.  There is a reason for that.

 

However, the danger that they will be used again has never disappeared.  Unfortunately, the years since the end of World War II have been filled with many false alarms and close calls, which under Trump, could easily begin recurring.

 

The United States and Russia have kept thousands of nuclear missiles on launch-ready alert, meaning they are ready to launch within minutes of a presidential order.   American adversaries know this. Mr. Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” may sound like hype to American ears.  But those words could be heard quite differently by others, such as Mr. Kim.  Being a belligerent leader of a nuclear North Korea, Mr. Trump’s language could easily be misunderstood.

 

No, he didn’t say precisely what exactly would lead to that “fire and fury”.  But he did say that North Korea should stop threatening the United States.  And how did Kim Jong Un respond to the president’s statement?  He immediately went against Trump's statement and threatened that they were considering an attack on the American island of Guam.  Yes, it was a threat against a threat.  At some point, when will the threats become a reality?

 

The upshot of these threats could be a major miscalculation by either party, or heaven forbid, an accidental entry into a conflict that has haunted the globe since the dawn of the atomic age.

 

The US nuclear arsenal is kept in harness for one purpose only: that is as a deterrence.

 

The definition of deterrence is to “offer a credible threat of retaliation” that would prevent an adversary from attacking. Credibility, the essence of deterrence, means the other side has to believe the threat is real.  But with all the lies and falsehoods that have come from this Trump administration, how does anyone know if a threat is real or false?  At any time, Kim Jong Un could say "It's for real", and then immediately order an attack on their neighbor and US ally, South Korea, not the US.

 

Deterrence flows from maintaining a modern and capable nuclear force, not from boasts or thoughtless threats. “We should not be engaging in the same kind of blustery and provocative statements as North Korea about nuclear war,” said Ben Cardin (D-MD), from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “No one should think that a conflict with North Korea will be a quick little glorious war, or be tempted by false hopes that North Korea’s nuclear program can be destroyed with a single antiseptic surgical strike.”

  

During Trump’s stay at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, this was where the president made his seemingly “off-the-cuff” statement against North Korea.

 

North Korea’s steadily advancing nuclear weapons and missile programs are highly serious. The Post reported that intelligence officials believe the N. Korea capital city, Pyongyang regime, has successfully miniaturized their nuclear warheads to fit on a missile.  That is the latest step in a weapons system that could possibly hit the United States, Japan, or even Russia.

 

Dealing with that threat from N. Korea will require patient pressure and skilled diplomacy, perhaps continuing for many years.

 

Instead, Mr. Trump just had to strut his stuff into the arena with a jarring bombastic and rhetorical hand-grenade.

 

If this is how our president is going to react to such serious threats, we are in seriously deep do-do.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017