Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017
Those were Trump's early morning tweets today, though he also took a moment to suggest that Mitch McConnell might need to quit his job.#USAF B-1B Lancer #bombers on Guam stand ready to fulfill USFK’s #FightTonight mission if called upon to do so https://t.co/O3oVeFrNrG http://pic.twitter.com/IAm2qLwcWY— U.S. Pacific Command (@PacificCommand) August 11, 2017
Yep Trump seems very committed to escalating this thing all out of proportion.
And North Korea seems totally down with that.
Courtesy of Mediaite:
In brief footage played during Shepard Smith Reporting, an unidentified spokesman blasted the U.S. President as “senile” on North Korean state media.
“We cannot have a sound dialogue with a senile man who can’t think rationally,” the spokesman said. “And only absolute force can work on him. This is the judgment made by our soldiers of the strategic force.”
I hate it when I find myself somewhat agreeing with an unnamed North Korean spokesman. (Not about the absolute force part of course, but definitely with the senility part.)
But here's the thing, it is a strong possibility that both of these so-called "world leaders" are overreacting to hype.
Yesterday during the opening of her show Rachel Maddow made the point that the initial reporting on North Korea's ability to miniaturize an atomic warhead and place it in a missile was from a single source, that had been wrong about this very thing four years ago.
Here is Rachel discussing this very issue with a former CIA analyst and professor who specializes in North Korean relations. As you can see not only does this interview raise questions about the veracity of this recent reporting, but it also points out that Trump's reaction to it has been unnecessarily aggressive in response to the actual threat.
However now that Trump has reacted in this way, he has triggered a similar chest thumping response from North Korea and now we really ARE facing a potential catastrophe.
When all of this first started to heat up at the beginning of this month I suggested that all of this might be nothing more than a distraction designed to pull our attention away from the Russian probes.
And that may very well be true. But the problem is that if more journalists like Rachel Maddow don't start raising that possibility and working to verify the sources suggesting that we are headed to World War 3 are accurate, we may well find ourselves actually IN World War 3.
As Bloomberg points out from the time that Trump gives the order it might only take five minutes before a nuclear armed missile is leveling the city of Pyongyang.
The question we have to continually ask ourselves is "How many people is Donald Trump willing to sacrifice in order to shut down the investigations into his possible collusion with Russia?"
I think we all know the answer, and it is terrifying.
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