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Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Is It Time to Panic Now? Um, Yeah

My favorite pics lately have been this











 and this









Recent events have moved from concerned and alarmed to frightened.  About what?
About war with North Korea.  The two bits of news that have increased my level of fear:
  • Today's news story that Victor Cha, the man Trump chose to be Ambassador to the Republic Of Korea, was dropped because he was critical of war plans, such as punching North Korea in the nose.  Yeah, they wanted an expert, the expert said this was a bad idea, so they dumped the expert and not the bad idea.  Max Fisher indicated that he had thought the war talk was a bluff, but this suggested otherwise.  I indicated via twitter that the Trump WH will have a hard time finding someone who recommends war and is willing to move to Seoul, which is the primary target for a North Korean response.
  • Trump mused that he'd really like a uniting event to help reduce the divisiveness in the US.  Putting aside how blindingly un-self-aware he is, that his entire campaign and Presidency are not just divisive but deliberately so, this raises the possibility of Trump seeking out a 9/11 or a Gulf of Tonkin or some other event that causes Americans to come together.  He didn't say wag the dog, but he seems familiar enough with the idea.  
Put those two things together, along with Trump's belief that American ballistic missile defense (whose motto should be "Hope is Our Plan"), and, yeah, I am very, very worried.  A strike against North Korea will not end there--there will be a response and it will kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Koreans and then Japanese plus Americans in the region.  Oh, and it will cause tremendous turmoil in the world economy.... What Trump doesn't get is that if he starts this, there will be no rally around him.  He will get the blame for starting a war that is quite avoidable.

So, what should be my go-to pic now?
Because all is not well.

Update: Given that the Korean crisis got more play than nearly anything else and it hints at regime change (depraved character of the regime as the core issue), I am now thinking war is more likely than not.  Not good.

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