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Wednesday, August 9, 2017

If There's A Time To Stand Behind Trump, It's Now


The Omnivore might piss off a bunch of his readers--but here goes.


  1. North Korea Has Always Been A Bad Scenario: Ever since there was a North Korea, Seoul has been in-range of a ton of conventional artillery. The price for attacking North Korea was never worth Seoul--and today, the math is still catastrophic.
  2. North Korea Has Always Been A Bad Actor: Nork had a deal under Clinton. They broke it (started nuke development)--and basically said "Go ahead, make my day." We let them. Bush let them. No one in charge has ever decided that stopping NK was worth millions dead in South Korea.
  3. It's About To Get A Whole Lot Worse: We are about to see a massive step-up in Nork capability. A nuke that can reach Tokyo or San Francisco is far, far worse than a conventional warhead that could do the same. Given that NK's history has been toxic since the start, it seems foolish to live them maturing their nuclear capacity. And even if you think that's okay--what happens when Iran sees this--and goes with their sprint for the bomb?


Why Stand With Trump On This?

The Omnivore is sure you can come up with many reasons not to--but consider this: (a) if we have to do something we should all do it together and (b) if we could get an ounce of national unity out of this . . . might that be worth going for?

Look--whatever you think of him, he's not going to be impeached in the next 10 days. Even if you think someone else might have a better chance of negotiating with NK, Team Trump is what we've got.

There is a chance that millions of people could die.

That number--that number is monstrous. Yes: you might not fucking know any South Koreans--but trust The Omnivore, if this goes down, a best case exchange scenario (if we obliterate them and take no loses, hey!)--is tens of thousands dead. It's probably way worse.

So in light of that? Why not, back the US government--and its head of state?


What The Government Needs To Do

This is the time to behave in a completely even and sober manner (no, we can't turn back the clock--but we can start now). We need our allies on-board. We need to be fundamentally clear about what we're heading towards. We need to ensure that we have maximal credibility with the rest of the world--and our own people.

If there was ever a time for a president to seek a declaration of war from congress? This is it. We need to have foreign aid lined up. There will be massive civilian causalities if things go the way rolling-back North Korea's capability is likely to go. We want help from the world community lined up--behind us--since we'll be the ones "breaking it."

We need to make sure our regional allies are onboard. They will suffer the primary damage. They have the most skin in the game. We need to make sure that whatever the deal--we all agree. Our geopolitical foes, China and Russia will move quickly to place most of the moral blame on us. We need to be ready for that--both in the UN and the world at large.

Finally, if we act, we must act decisively. That doesn't mean using nukes--but it does mean attacking in a way, The Omnivore asserts, we have never attacked--nobody has ever attacked--in history.

It's a terrible, sobering situation--but it seems to only get worse from here on out.

3 comments:

  1. I agree on this, but it's a horrifying tragedy that Trump is the president in this crisis. We can only hope that those generals he loves have what it takes. I also think a lot of the comments that seem to be....ah...less affected by the gravity of a rogue nation developing rapid and serious nuclear power may not be the gen Xers and boomers who grew up with the constant threat of nuclear conflict during the Cold War.

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    1. Now that I've slept on it, the problem here is...what are we getting behind? I'm inclined to agree that it's hard to be sure Trump actually intended anything by his threats (because he's so reliable, y'know). And if he did....are sanctions and military actions focused on defense and retalition what's in order, or are we looking at a pre-emptive strike, even a nuclear strike? Because I am for the former but would never support the latter.

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  2. Dunno about that. If polling tells Trump that going to war will improve his popularity, he'll go to war; if it tells him it'll go (even further) into the toilet, he won't. Best not let him believe that war will be the cure to numbers.

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