HURTLING TOWARD ‘FIRE AND FURY’
It’s easy to discount Trump’s bluster, based on his long history of practicing the art of “bullshit.” Maybe he’s just trying to make Chinese leaders nervous about his intentions, so they try a little harder to rein in Pyongyang. Surely he understands by now just how devastating a war with North Korea would be, right? …North Korean leaders have consistently maintained that they want and need nuclear weapons only to deter a U.S. attack, not to start a war against the world’s only superpower. Most experts on Korea agree. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who actually negotiated with Kim’s predecessor in 2000, asserts that while the risks of inadvertent war are growing, North Korea has no intention of launching a surprise nuclear attack… President Trump’s views on preemptive war are rejected not only by the experts, but by the majority of Americans. Fewer than a third of U.S. adults believe the situation in North Korea requires a military response, according to a new CBS poll, and 61 percent are rightfully uneasy about Trump’s ability to handle the situation. More
Is Donald Trump Tweeting the U.S. Into a War on North Korea?
Perhaps more disturbing than what Trump tweets publicly is what he is telling influential U.S. senators privately. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said recently that Trump told him he is willing to militarily obliterate the nation of North Korea if necessary. “There is a military option to destroy North Korea’s program and North Korea itself,” Graham told NBC. Trump, he said, “told me that to my face.” … Tensions on the Korean peninsula are not new. And every U.S. administration seems to find itself in a similar conundrum with the regime. But Trump is erratic and tends to just spit out whatever he is thinking. And that could prove very dangerous with nuclear weapons and nuclear powers. More
What’s Worse:
Trump’s Campaign Agenda or Empowering Generals and CIA Operatives to Subvert it?
Ironically, Trump’s principal policy deviation around which elites have now coalesced in opposition – a desire for better relations with Moscow – was the same one that Obama, to their great bipartisan dismay, also adopted (as evidenced by Obama’s refusal to more aggressively confront the Kremlin-backed Syrian government or arm anti-Russian factions in Ukraine).
It is true that Trump, being Trump, was wildly inconsistent in virtually all of these pronouncements, often contradicting orabandoning them weeks after he made them. And, as many of us pointed out at the time, it was foolish to assume that the campaign vows of any politician, let alone an adept con man like Trump, would be a reliable barometer for what he would do once in office… Nonetheless, Trump, as a matter of rhetoric, repeatedly affirmed policy positions that were directly contrary to long-standing bipartisan orthodoxy, and his policy and personal instability only compounded elites’ fears that he could not be relied upon to safeguard their lucrative, power-vesting agenda. More
Russia, Iran, North Korea
Talks and Reconciliation, Not Sanctions!
Last week Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that applies sanctions to Russia, Iran, and North Korea. President Trump is expected to sign it. Yet, this dangerous bill will needlessly provoke all three countries and move us away from productive solutions to the issues the sanctions supposedly address. We are extremely disappointed to report that all eleven Massachusetts members of Congress, and every Democrat in all states, voted in favor of these counterproductive and destabilizing sanctions. Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, and three House Republicans were the only no votes.
US INTERVENTION IN SYRIA IS NOT OVER.
US support for “anti-ISIS” armed groups, together with US bombing in Syria (illegal under international and US law) and Iraq (technically “legal” but unwise and immoral) is on-going -- with horrific civilian casualties.
The U.S. is also risking a catastrophic military clash with Russia or Iran in Syria. There is no legal or moral basis for the United States to be waging war in Syria, risking conflict with Russia and nuclear apocalypse for us all. ISIS is retreating in Syria and Iraq, but the US is not. The Trump administration has not made secret its hostility to Iran -- and the drumbeats for war are building.
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