Barstein, my back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that your post count would be 87% higher if you refrained from the delete post button! :)
Sorry! Did it today a few times due to poor “which thread am I in right now” awareness.
They are all so horror filled, it doesn’t really matter. Say your piece wherever!
NPR: Despite Trump’s Escalating Rhetoric, Little Evidence Of War Preparations
SHAPIRO: How big is the U.S. military presence in this region?
MYRE: It’s robust. The U.S. has 28,000 troops permanently stationed in South Korea. And they’re going to get a bit of a boost. There are some exercises, long-planned exercises, set for August 21. So a few more Americans will come in there. But this is a presence there to deter an attack from North Korea at any time. But what we’re not seeing is the kind of moves you would expect if the U.S. was preparing for a major war.
For example, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan just ended a three-month deployment in the region and returned to its port in Japan. I’ve spoken to a lot of analysts about that, and they say you would see much greater movement. And they also said perhaps most of all, there are many U.S. citizens in South Korea. And we’ve seen no evacuation notices, no indication that these civilians would be asked to move.
SHAPIRO: So it sounds like reasons not to worry. What about on the North Korean side? Are there mobilizations happening there that the U.S. is aware of?
MYRE: Well, a lot of things we can’t see in North Korea, so we don’t know the details. Now, they have threatened to shoot missiles towards Guam in the Western Pacific. And you’ve certainly got to take that seriously. But it really doesn’t make sense to announce military plans days in advance. And all the analysts seem to think that Kim Jong Un’s paramount goal is to keep himself in power. And any time he would fire or initiate a conflict, he would put his regime at tremendous risk.
Thank goodness Herr Trump is here, or we wouldn’t have any military plans to deal with North Korea in the event of the worst.
Obama probably just had plans to bow to them.
I think the problem with that analysis is that it assumes Trump is competent. I don’t honestly think this WH would be bothered to issue an evacuation notice before taking action. Nor do I put it past this president to scream “attack!” without moving forces into place ahead of time.
True enough! Of course, moving the USS Ronald Reagan out alone is a bit encouraging. At least buys us more time of not being at war with NK yet. shrug
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn, years from now, that McMaster made sure the USS Ronald Reagan was moved away so Trump couldn’t order an immediate attack.
And just now a friend informed me by phone that a couple of US bombers (nuke-capable) were moved from Guam into South Korea, a couple of days ago. Haven’t followed up on that yet.
Anyone want to start a betting pool on the day of Trump’s first nuke? (Not necessarily NK.)
“Red line? What red line?”
In other words, the magnitude of the challenges that Mr. Trump faces has grown dramatically, but his tone has not. And it remains to be seen if the don’t-mess-with-me attitude that cowed Republican primary rivals like Jeb Bush will have a similar effect on a regime that has managed to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States while making progress toward miniaturizing a nuclear warhead that would fit on top.
In this case, Mr. Trump has told people around him that he thinks Kim Jong-un, the unpredictable North Korean leader, will ultimately be prodded to cut a deal, and that the bluntness of his language is intended to create a crisis that drives him to negotiate before North Korea perfects a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the American mainland.
[…]
Even some of the president’s own advisers have quietly asked each other in recent days if Mr. Trump’s bellicosity toward North Korea is part of some thought-out strategy that they have not been told about or what they suspect is just more on-the-fly instinct. But some aides have found themselves surprised at other moments when Mr. Trump has done something unexpected and seemingly random, only to explain his thinking afterward in a way that indicated more calculation than they had thought.Aides do know that after a lifetime in the real estate business, Mr. Trump starts a negotiation with an extreme position intended to ensure that the other side meets him not just in the middle but closer to his side. While he has little experience in translating that into international diplomacy, Mr. Trump has shown that he is not so wedded to any particular position on almost any issue, meaning he might be more likely to accept a compromise that would seem unthinkable judging by the stark language he uses at the start.
The Hill: North Korea backs off Guam missile threat: report
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he had decided not to launch an attack, but warned he could change his mind.
“If the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the restraint of the DPRK [North Korea], the [North] will make an important decision as it already declared,” Kim said according to the country’s state media, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The statement could help reduce tensions in the region.
Meanwhile, Trump retweets a Fox & Friends tweet: “Sec. Mattis: If North Korea fires missile at US, it’s ‘game on’”
Hey, I think the Chapman contract is gonna bite Cashman in the ass, too. You don’t see me threatening nuclear war about it though.
That’s no coincidence. Experts think this deescalation — what analyst Robert Carlin calls “a decisive break in the action” — happened in part because the president’s focus has been on Charlottesville since Friday night.
“The media (and the president) was distracted over the weekend, which gave some breathing space for the situation,” Jenny Town, the assistant director of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins, tells me.
I think the Norks backed down because of Weird Al’s performance on Last Week Tonight.
See, Nazis saved us from nuclear annihilation. What’s so bad about that?
Well… to be fair that was a pretty slim chance as it was. All they did was distract Donnie from Tweeting about them. The same can be accomplished with a well-written WaPo editorial.
And we always have the Rosie O’Donnal strategic reserve – if things get too dicey we can have pull her out of mothballs to tweet something about Trump and he’ll think of nothing else for a good 72 hours.
Nah, she has been the whole time from what I can tell via retweets from various people. Never gets a reaction.