A Prelude to Armageddon

Kent Anderson
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

“This is probably the worst way a President can handle this. You want to be strong, you want to be calm, you want to be resolute. You want to be in-sync with your allies. You do NOT want to play ‘nuclear chicken’ with North Korea. This is, the seriousness of the situation with North Korea cannot be overestimated, not because North Korea can hit us in a bold attack that could take out Los Angeles and Seattle, no, what you’re worried about is that you have two inexperienced, insecure, impulsive leaders in control of a vast amount of destructive force squaring off in the most heavily militarized area on earth. A conventional war could kill hundreds of thousands in the first few hours. A full out conflict could kill millions.” Joe Cirincione, Ploughshares Fund President, on The Rachel Maddow Show last night.

Or as Carl Sagan said “Billions and billions.”

There are so many ways to dissect the last 24 hours and none of them have Occam’s Razor written in the scenarios given. There are no pleasant outcomes when you start taking nuclear war. Which is what happened yesterday when El Claudio de Mar-A-Lago said this:

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening — beyond a normal statement — and as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Oh great. Well, that would solve absolutely nothing. This morning, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to tamper down the Libidinous Orange’s threats by saying the US doesn’t want “regime change, reunification or war,” with Pyongyang.

While just a bit reassuring, it still hasn’t stopped Kim Jung-un from making more outrageous statements. Like threatening Guam. Or Tillerson saying “(Kim) doesn’t understand diplomatic language.”

That may be, Rex, but he does understand when your boss* uses the kind of language he used yesterday.

Keep in mind, this is the same guy who asked, three times, during his first intelligence briefing after becoming the Republican nominee for President, why we don’t use our nuclear weapons? Because they’re a deterrent, dumbass.

Maybe there is a “Seven Days in May” scenario that plays itself out here. Where the military steps in and renders a President’s order mute and summarily ousts him. But then what? President Pence, President Ryan or Hatch? And what happens on the Korean peninsula in the meantime? A conventional war with the South? An attack at the Winter Olympics in PeyongChang? Attacking Japan? Okinawa? Vietnam?

Both countries are backing themselves into positions where there’s very little wiggle room. This is an international crisis not seen since 1962.

“Our weapons dictate what we are to do. They force us into awful corners.
They give us our living, they sustain our economy, they bolster up our politicians,they sell our mass media, in short we live by them.
But if they continue to rule us we will also most surely die by them.”
Thomas Merton, Cold War Letters (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2006), p. 65.

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy, June 10th, 1963.

Kent Anderson

Written by

Purveyor of Truth and Facts.

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