The weirdest thing about the NK situation is that i can’t imagine that China, strategically, would want NK to have nuclear weapons and ICBMs in the long term either.
Well this could just be bullshit from the Trump administration to wag the dog. Maybe he’s telling his people to make up a justification to attack NK because the only time he gets called Presidential is when he’s lobbing missiles.
But unless they’ve got an up close photo of a ballistic missile that basically can not be disproven, I can’t imagine Congress going along with it. We’ve been down this road before.
We’re talking about the U.S. congress, right?
I mean… yeah… they’ve been down this road before more than once so I think it very plausible it would happen again.
Don’t worry I’m sure John McCain will make a bold statement about how we should not attack North Korea, right before he votes to allow Trump to attack North Korea. And Lindsey Graham will have a town hall saying how terrible this is.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-thaad-idUSKBN17R2VA
The United States and South Korea have agreed to deploy THAAD in response to the threat of missile launches by North Korea but China says it will do little to deter the North while destabilizing the regional security balance.
Trailer trucks carrying parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system entered the site on what had been a golf course in the county of Seongju in a southern region of South Korea, Yonhap news agency and YTN television reported.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-idUSKBN17Q06N
The port call by the USS Michigan, which is designed to carry ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, came as a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group steamed toward Korean waters in an effort to deter North Korea from a sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions.
Instead of a nuclear blast or a big missile test, North Korea marked Tuesday’s 85th anniversary of the founding of its military by deploying a large number of long-range artillery units on its east coast for a live-fire drill, South Korea’s military said.
South Korea’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was monitoring the situation and “firmly maintaining readiness”.
South Korea’s navy said it was conducting its own live-fire exercise with U.S. destroyers in waters west of the Korean peninsula and would soon join the approaching U.S. carrier group.
North Korea was defiant, saying its military was prepared “to bring to closure the history of U.S. scheming and nuclear blackmail”.
Actually, the best we could hope for might be for the Chinese to liquidate the Kim cabal, install their own puppet, and gradually dismantle the entire North Korean system, replacing it with something more like the Chinese system. It would still not be unified with the South, and would definitely still be in China’s orbit, but it also would not be batshit insane and lethally provocative. I’d go for that over most other outcomes.
Lots of posturing from both sides at this point. This is just waiting for a provocative action for the flashpoint to turn bad, really quickly.
The glimmer of hope I’m holding on to is that Lil Kim is smart enough to realize he has a pretty sweet life as the God King of an entire country and he won’t do anything to provoke our unstable, irrational, idiot leader into killing him.
I really hope so.
That’s actually a pretty interesting idea. I wonder what would happen if China were to simply say “OK, screw this” and just invade NK. Just like the U.S., China could knock out much of NK’s military capability in the first 24 hours of an invasion, and unlike a U.S. scenario, NK has practically nothing defending it’s border with China, so there would be little immediate retaliation (I doubt they would shoot at South Korea while being invaded from the north by China…then again, who they hell knows what KJU might do?).
And what would the world have to say? If the U.S. complained, China would only have to claim they were “liberating” the oppressed NK people from an insane dictator who has WMDs in his possession, then point to Bush and Iraq. The North Korean people would almost certainly be better off day-to-day under a Chinese puppet government, especially since the whole world would be watching to make sure China didn’t just march off and leave everyone to starve to death.
I doubt China would ever decide to invade NK because of the costs, risks and political fallout involved, but it makes for an interesting scenario and certainly would change the political landscape in Southeast Asia overnight.
Agreed, both that a Chinese invasion might be the best “realistic” resolution and that it will almost certainly never happen. I also doubt the US would raise much of a whimper if they did it, either.
You think Trump would let himself get cucked by China, standing by while they invade NK? The best resolution is for NK to calm the fuck down until we have a leader that isn’t a unstable man-baby.
Hell, Trump might just decide that if Russia can annex the Ukraine, China can invade North Korea, then the U.S. should just go ahead and take Mexico. I mean, look at all the positives he could claim after a successful invasion of Mexico and it’s subsequent acceptance as the 51st state:
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Much shorter border wall to build between U.S. and Central America!
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All those factories and jobs that went south to Mexico now in United States again! Instant #MAGA!
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Many pesky NAFTA trade issues instantly resolved!
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Illegal Mexican immigration problem handily resolved. Everyone is a U.S. citizen by annexation!
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Government budget augmented by billions of dollars as U.S. Armed Forces seize drug cartel assets, scoring giant victory in War on Drugs in the process!
Believe me, you will be so sick of all the winning that an invasion of Mexico would bring!
Maybe we could just split the difference, China getting half of it and South Korea getting half of it. Draw a line, call it 40th parallel or something.
Citizens second class are authorized to work in the following fields:
- agricultural
- food preparation
- landscaping
- hospitality
- personal service
Heh. The idea crossed the minds of (mostly southern) Americans back in the 19th century. There were quite a few who wanted us to annex all of Mexico after the Mexican War.
Considering the Enquirer is run by a close friend of Trump and the way they have been spewing WH propaganda, that’s disturbing.
I like how they apparently have step by step instructions for what Trump is going to do.