North Korea:
While the President has stoked tensions
with North Korea, language emanating from White House officials and
Republican senators indicate they are so desperate for a war, they're
willing to risk two simultaneous engagements: North Korea and Iran.
This isn't only about the bellicose statements the President
recklessly tweets in his his campaign for title of toughest son of a
bitch in history, but rather the insidious propaganda
campaign
more
akin to President Bush's efforts to seduce the public into the
invasion of Iraq.
President has been denouncing the two
as his own duality of demons since the presidential primary, but over
the last few months, and even days, the message has escalated.
Coming from the White House and its hawkish allies, the quiet,
pervasive theme is, we will be at war with North Korea and Iran soon.
Don't take my word for it. As far back
as August 1st, 2017, Lindsey Graham has been slowly
inflating the potential for conflict, aided and condoned by Trump's
administration. After North Korea's second test of an
intercontinental ballistic missile, Graham said the United States
can't allow a “madman”
to have a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the continental United
States.
Graham and Trump, who in the past
called each other nutjob
and a
kook unfit for office,
have bonded over their mutual desire to bomb another nation into
atoms. According to Graham, the two conversed and agreed upon a
shared plan. North Korea's nuclear ambition must be stopped
regardless the cost, but as North Korea's ability to acquire nuclear
weapons capable of striking anywhere on the globe becomes assured,
experts have pointed out it's something the United States may have to
live with.
Yet,
Trump's cabinet disdains acceptance, and is still offering
bloodthirsty cries of fire
and fury, or total
annihilation.
What began in August didn't end there. Graham has steadily
escalated his language, on September 15th,
insisting
that the United States, “forcefully back up our diplomatic efforts
with the threat of a credible military option.”
A
single, solitary voice of sanity inside the White House has continued
to argue against aggression. Tillerson, a global
oil exec,
pretending to play diplomat and musical
chairs director,
has repeatedly reassured the world, that the United States is willing
to talk,
only to be shot down by his boss.
Other voices inside the White House overshadow his, especially
McMaster's, but Lindsey Graham seems to be eager to lead, and the
occurrence of his warnings is accelerating.
December
3rd,
“I
think it’s now time to start moving American dependents out of
South Korea … We're getting close to military conflict.”
And
on December
14th,
in explaining his recent discussion with President Trump over a round
of golf, Graham said, “I would say there’s a three in 10 chance
we use the military option,” and if the North Koreans conduct a
seventh test, he advances, “I
would say 70 percent.”
In the same
interview he helpfully compares allowing North Korea's nuclear
ambitions to Britain's appeasement of Nazi Germany, and reminds the
reader of his clearsightedness, not willing to soften the truth when
he declares, “There is no surgical strike option.” War with
North Korea is total and perpetual until their annihilation.
Meanwhile
the White House keeps tripping over itself, to reassert its
aggressive stance. Rex
Tillerson said on the
12th
of December that the United States was willing to speak to North
Korea without preconditions, but the next day White House officials
retorted that North Korea's behavior must improve before talks can
begin.
McMaster
continues to offer a stance which professional diplomats say is
impossible:
“Denuclearization is the only viable objective and if we all focus
on that, we have a strong chance for success.” As long as they
keep believing that, they'll ignore other practicable options.
As
for the other target, after refusing to re-certify the Iran nuclear
deal, while admitting that Iran was legally
compliant though violating “the spirit” of the agreement, the
White House has searched everywhere for an infraction. On December
14th,
Nikki Haley, United States envoy to the United Nations, presented
evidence supposedly linking Iran in supplying weapons to Houthi
rebels in Yemen, in violation of an unrelated United Nations
resolution, while the United
States aids
Saudi Arabia unconscionable
blockade
of the country. The White House is simultaneously
presenting evidence in its preparation for conflict.
As
said earlier, McMaster's will only accept denuclearization, so why
won't North Korea give up its nuclear weapons? Another Trump
official has made the case perfectly clear.
When the United States convinces a regime to divest its nuclear
ambitions, security does not follow: elimination is the result. In
spite of this conclusion,
they might still talk.
In the lead up
to the atrocity of Iraq, the Bush administration deceived the
citizens of the United States into the belief that Saddam was
preparing an imminent attack with nuclear or other destructive
weapons. This was a lie, and Noam Chomsky rebutted it by explaining
the difference between preemptive and preventative: “US planned
to carry out preventive war: preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever
the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for
preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its
current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an
invented or imagined threat, so that even the term "preventive"
is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the supreme crime
that was condemned at Nuremberg.”
Though for some
the difference may seem like splitting hairs, preemptive war is used
to halt an imminent, immediate threat, while preventative war occurs
when no threat yet exists. One may think preventative war superior
to preemptive, and personally this author holds both as egregious
moral errors, but regardless, if one is willing to attack any nation
when it could be a threat, one must admit that many nations are
currently our targets, and an attack against any is reasonable and
just.
Unlike
Iraq, no one will dispute North Korea's agenda, they want
intercontinental nuclear weapons, and they nearly have them. But do
they want them to attack the United States, or for the same reason
every nation desires them. Israel, India, and Pakistan all have
nuclear weapons for deterrence. Is owning nuclear weapons a
justification for war? During the Cold War, the United States coined
mutual assured destruction, and doubled down on it, devoting
more of our military spending to nuclear weapons, while the Soviet
Union focused on conventional warfare. Is it possible, that North
Korea, a country the United States invaded in defense of South Kore,
wants only the same assurance as the other nations of the world? To
not be enthralled to the threats of other nations?
North Korea
continually threatens its neighbors, abuses its citizens, and
declares destruction to be the fate of the United States. Yet,
bellicose statements and insults often conceal weakness (just ask our
POTUS), and the nation is more akin to an abused dog than a threat.
If threats are a justification, then the United States, and many
others are guilty for inciting war.
In conclusion, Lindsay Graham said
“madman” can't be allowed to control nuclear weapons. At what
point does the United States become the madman?
The authority of the president in the use of the nuclear arsenal is
absolute.
If United States' policy is to launch a preventative strike any
nation which may become a threat, who is safe as global hegemony
slips away from our grasping fingers?
The question isn't whether we can live
with a Nuclear
North Korea, but whether the world can live with us.
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