By watching the Breaking News Channels I've learned that we should all be stocking up on Spam and Twinkies and Gatorade so as to get us through the upcoming Nuclear Winter. I'm thinking this must be cable TV ratings week. I just don't buy it that the Short, Fat One and the Tall, Orange One are going to step out back and settle this like men.
N Korea's Kim Jong Dung is threatening to launch four IRBM's toward Guam (a US territory) next week to show us how cool and powerful and worthy of respect he is. The N Korean's say they aren't going to actually hit Guam, but hit just close enough to impress us with their technical prowess.
Pres Donald Trump is threatening to shoot down said four missiles, and maybe even lob a few of ours Kim's way, just to show him we ain't skeered. Seems to me both have more to lose than to gain by their bluster.
Based on past performance, the N Korean's missiles don't exactly have the best odds of making it all the way to Guam without falling apart mid-air, which would be a HUGE embarrassment to Kim Jong Dong.
For our part, based on past performance, I think there is some doubt about the ability of our THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missiles, backed up by our slightly aged Navy Aegis anti-missile missiles, to knock down all four commie rockets if called on to do so. Our two most recent THAAD tests went well, but before that the previous four test's success rate was only 50/50. If we threw all we had at Kim Jong Poop's third world missiles and one still got through, that would be a HUGE embarrassment to us.
And what if Kim missed the 100-gazillion-square-mile Pacific Ocean target and actually hit Guam? Oops! Then we WOULD wipe up on N Korea, and maybe light up S Korea and maybe China, too, in the process. That's a lose/lose/lose/lose if there ever was one!
I don't think either Kim Jong Un or Donald Trump wants to be seen by the world as a loser. I think they'll just stand 7,000 miles apart and bloviate and shadow box. It's just what Short Fat guys and Tall Orange guys with bad haircuts and tiny hands do.
Trust me, I'm an expert on international bloviation. (I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once.)
S
LATE EDIT: I've just read that the last 15 THAAD tests have gone well. (?) If true, that will make Kim Jong Dud's missiles look even more pathetic. Better to stand down, Dung, and not shoot yourself in the foot.
An hit man in NK would be nice now.
ReplyDeleteGood reading, but not all the story. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/12/dam-leaves-crimea-population-chronic-water-shortage-161229092648659.html
Another thing on trump's off-kilter mind is the knowledge that currently he wouldn't be re-elected, and his numbers continue to go south.....one solution that might work is war. A conventional (oxymoron if there is one) war would destroy most of South Korea and all of North Korea, but in his mind trump might be thinking this would bolster his standings.
ReplyDeleteA nuclear war would enable him to simply declare a national emergency for the foreseeable future, and cancel not only the 2018 but also the 2020 elections, effectively declaring himself president for life.
Any other time and any other president I'd say this idea is ludicrous. With our current one, I fear it's plausible.
I wouldn't put too much stock in those THAAD tests; the Pentagon fudges that stuff all the time. The problem for Trump and Un (like Saddam before him) is they're trapped by their fake tough guy personas. And it could get us all killed.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if that guy leading North Korea choked to death on a chicken bone? His people probably haven't seen a chicken in years.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how unlikely it is that really serious stuff will happen, it still scares me. Our leaders shouldn't scare us, they should calm us and lead us.
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