War Threats

This is why nothing about our political leadership is funny.

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president said Tuesday. “They will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before."

Update (August 9):  Bob Cesca thinks many Republican voters didn't expect their candidate to win and thus didn't fully consider the consequences.

Choosing national leaders isn’t a game or a whimsical matter. We shouldn’t be casting our votes just to troll people we don’t like on Facebook. And now we’re learning why.

And Steven Rosenberg says hearing too many lies makes it hard to know what to believe.

A representative government like the United States requires the public to trust the words and actions of its leaders, and to hold those elected leaders accountable. What are we to make of this latest apocalyptic threat ...? No one knows. And that’s precisely the problem with having a pathological liar as president.    

Update (August 10):  As always, he can't leave bad enough alone.

“Frankly, the people who were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn’t tough enough" ... [He] would not comment on what’s tougher than “fire and fury.” 

[He] doubled down on his comments later Thursday afternoon, promising retaliation if North Korea “does something in Guam.” 

“It’s not a dare,” he said. “It’s a statement of fact.”

Update (August 12):  I guess violence can be the answer for everything.

The people are suffering and they are dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.

Update (September 5):  Who is provoking who?

Update (September 7):  This inspires confidence.

[Fuckface von Clownstick] is demonstrating that you can be obsessed with the idea of strength and go to absurd lengths to show you have it, but just wind up proving that you're weaker than anyone thought.

Update (September 24):  Our Dear Leader makes fun of their Dear Leader and now Iran is in the mix.

[Von Clownstick] should be providing leadership in pursuing an effective international strategy to deter North Korea, reassure US allies, add sanctions pressure, and engage in real diplomacy.

Instead, [Fuckface] is looking to rip up the deal that is currently preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. If he succeeds in doing so, he will help turn Iran into the next North Korea and ratchet up the chances of conflict.

Update (October 9):  He keeps dropping hints.

Update (October 14):  There is no good reason to decertify the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Update (November 18):  Mary Papenfuss reports on a talk from General John Hyten.

The top nuclear commander in the U.S. said Saturday that he would reject an “illegal” nuclear attack order from [Fuckface von Clownstick], and would instead steer the commander in chief to other “options.”

I hope it's not even more troubling to realize parts of the government think we need some reassurance.

In congressional testimony earlier this month, retired Gen. Robert Kehler, who served as the head of Strategic Command from 2011 to 2013, also said that the military is only obligated to follow legal orders.

Update (December 4):  The U.S. and South Korea are conducting large-scale military drills--ignoring requests from China and Russia to avoid provoking North Korea.

Update (December 9):  In an interview, Daniel Ellsberg discusses threats with nuclear weapons.

[A]t the moment, they’re being pointed. And they’re being pointed by two people who are giving very good imitations of being crazy. That’s dangerous. I hope they’re pretending. They might be pretending. But to pretend to be crazy with nuclear weapons is not a safe game. It’s a game of chicken. Nuclear chicken.

Update (January 8, 2018):  Could it be that their Dear Leader has more common sense than ours?

Update (January 17, 2018):  Here's something to add to the nightmares -- from the Washington Post.

In private conversations, [von Clownstick] has told advisers that he doesn’t think the 2018 election has to be as bad as others are predicting. He has referenced the 2002 midterms, when George W. Bush and Republicans fared better after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, these people said.

Update (February 23, 2018):  Senator Jim Risch is worried about what von Clownstick might do to North Korea.

[Fuckface] has "at his fingertips" the ability to trigger "one of the worst catastrophic events in the history of our civilization".

Update (March 25, 2018):  For now, Patrick Lawrence doesn't see much difference in attitudes toward North Korea with the appointment of a new national security advisor.

Update (April 27, 2018):  The leaders of North and South Korea have met and are declaring an official end to the Korean War.

The South and the North confirmed their joint goal of realizing a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons through complete denuclearization.

Update (May 8, 2018):  As expected, von Clownstick kept his promise to make sure the United States can't be trusted to keep its promises.

I am announcing today that the U.S. will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions.

He can't pass up a chance to undermine anything Obama did. I sure hope Iran has more enlightened leaders than we do.

Update (May 14, 2018):  Michael Klare warns against a third Gulf war.

Pay attention to the words of Netanyahu in Washington and [von Clownstick] in Riyadh. Think of them not as political rhetoric, but as prophesies of a grim kind. You’re going to be hearing a lot more such prophesies in the months ahead as the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia move closer to war with Iran and its allies. While ideology and religion will play a part in what follows, the underlying impetus is a geopolitical struggle for control of the greater Persian Gulf region, with all its riches, between two sets of countries, each determined to prevail.

Update (May 24, 2018):  A planned summit between the U.S. and North Korea is cancelled. We seem have resumed the usual threats.

Update (June 8, 2018):  So the summit is back on but now our allies get insulted. Heather Digby Parton:

[O]ther countries see that playing chess with [von Clownstick] is like playing with a three-year-old. He gets an intent look on his face and appears to be thinking through his strategy, but really he's just moving pieces randomly all over the board. We will all have to hope that somehow he doesn't have a tantrum and upend the whole board. He's playing with millions of people's lives.

Update (June 12, 2018):  Parton suggests the summit was little more than a photo opportunity.

I have written before that any day we are not in a nuclear crisis with North Korea is better than the alternative. In that regard, the Singapore summit was a success. But after [Fuckface's] aggression against U.S. allies at the G7 in Quebec and then, in his own words, the "bond" he formed with the North Korean dictator just days later, nobody should be reassured. It looks as though the more consequential of the two big meetings was the first one, not the second.

Is this trip simply another business opportunity for our Dear Leader?

They have great beaches. You see that whenever they're exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, 'Boy, look at that view. Wouldn't that make a great condo?'

You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective.

Update (June 13, 2018):  Parton quotes James Acton:

There are real risks to [von Clownstick's] expectations being dashed. Once diplomacy has been tried and it has “failed,” then the administration may start arguing that war is the only answer.

Update (June 19, 2018):  Michael Klare argues that China is the most likely confrontation.

With the possibility of war with North Korea fading in the wake of the recent Singapore summit, one thing is guaranteed: the new U.S. Indo-Pacific Command will only devote itself ever more fervently to what is already its one overriding priority: preparing for a conflict with China. Its commanders insist that they do not seek such a war, and believe that their preparations -- by demonstrating America’s strength and resolve -- will deter the Chinese from ever challenging American supremacy. That, however, is a fantasy. In reality, a strategy that calls for a “steady drumbeat” of naval operations aimed at intimidating China in waters near that country will create ever more possibilities, however unintended, of sparking the very conflagration that it is, at least theoretically, designed to prevent.