Trump’s Asia Trip Targets North Korea:

Experts Say Trump Threatens Nuclear War
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?

November 6, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The danger of a major—perhaps nuclear—war between the U.S. and North Korea looms larger every day. According to experts, as well as major figures in both political parties, cited by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (November 4, 2017), the odds of war breaking out soon range from “20 percent” to “50/50.”

Speaking at the UN in September, Donald Trump said the United States would “totally destroy” North Korea—a country of 25 million people—if its government refuses to bow to U.S. demands. Later, U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham approvingly described Trump’s position: “There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s program and North Korea itself. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here—and he’s told me that to my face.” Graham told Kristof that if Korea continues to test intercontinental missiles—test, mind you, not use—“war is inevitable.” Republican senator Bob Corker—a former Trump ally—has warned now repeatedly that Trump has put the U.S. on a course toward World War 3.

On the same day as Kristof’s article, an admiral speaking for the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a report to a dozen U.S. congressmen in which the Pentagon stated that the only certain way to wipe out North Korean nuclear capability was through a massive land invasion by U.S. forces.

Now Trump has embarked on a nearly two-week tour of Asia which is again targeting North Korea. On the eve of the trip, national security adviser H.R. McMaster warned that “Our president has been really clear on this. He is not going to permit this rogue regime, Kim Jong-un, to threaten the United States with a nuclear weapon. And so he is willing to do anything necessary to prevent that from happening.” Pause on that for a minute: “do anything.”

At the U.S. military base at Yokota, Japan, Trump told assembled troops: “We dominate the sky, we dominate the sea, we dominate the land and space.... Each of you embodies the warrior creed. Your devotion, prowess and expertise make you the most fearsome fighting force in the history of our world.” He promised the troops “a lot more” advanced weaponry, and urged them to “use it well.”

Everybody understood that this speech was a threat against North Korea.

Pro-imperialist pundits claim that Trump’s threats are self-defense, because North Korea’s oppressive Kim Jong-un regime has developed a handful of nuclear weapons, and perhaps an ability to hit the U.S. with them. And for popular consumption, the U.S. paints a picture of Kim as a “lunatic” who would nuke the U.S. just for the hell of it. The U.S. media goes along with this, promoting hysterical fears of North Korean nukes suddenly slamming into Los Angeles.

But in reality the U.S. knows full well that this is bullshit. Speaking of Kim Jong-un at the Aspen Security Conference this past July, Trump’s national intelligence director, Dan Coates, said:

“[O]ur assessment [is that] he’s not crazy. And there is some rationale backing his actions which are survival, survival for his regime, survival for his country, and he has watched I think what has happened around the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have, and seen that having the nuclear card in your pocket results in a lot of deterrence capability. The lessons that [they] learned out of Libya giving up its nukes and Ukraine giving up [their] nukes is unfortunately if you had nukes, never give them up. If you don’t have them, get them, and we see a lot of nations now thinking about how do we get them and none more persistent than North Korea....” (Emphasis ours)

Again, this is Trump’s own director of national intelligence just matter-of-factly admitting that North Korea has nukes in order to deter a U.S. attack on them, and to be able to stand up to U.S. nuclear bullying and blackmail. And it is exactly that ability to reject complete U.S. domination of the economically and strategically vital Asian region that the U.S. finds “threatening,” NOT the made-up danger of a North Korean first strike.

The “America First” fascists find this unacceptable, and the deaths of millions of Korean people count for NOTHING as long as U.S. interests are advanced. Nor are they deterred by the fact that a war between the U.S. superpower and small and weak North Korea could end up drawing in larger powers with big nuclear arsenals of their own, and threatening the very existence of humanity.

It is highly possible that such a war would start with the U.S. delivering a non-nuclear hit against some element of North Korea’s defense structure and provoke a response. The U.S. would then pose as the victim, and move in to do what Trump so baldly threatened at the UN—the wiping out of an entire country and its people.

If such a horror should happen—and if the rest of humanity should even survive it—what will we answer when future generations demand of us, “What were you doing when Trump’s own people made clear to the world what he was planning? How could you not do everything in your power to prevent it?”

How indeed.

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