General Chat

Just spluttered over breakfast when I heard D Trump say, when speaking about North Korea, that the response from USA would be 'fire and fury' if NK carried out its latest threat near Guam.

What immediately sprung to mind was the 'shock and awe' phrase used by G Dubbya preceding his Middle East foray.

Things not going too well at home, DT? New era, new enemy, new conflict?

I hope T May doesn't jump to.

Scary times. Back to the 1950s :-( :-( :-(

Despite the bluster North Korea has no capacity to start a war nor reason to do so. That won't change within 5 years. They have to work out miniaturisation of the warhead and successful reentry to the atmosphere.

even if Nk succeeded the missile, using solid fuel, would be slow, simple parabolic trajectory which the USA has the capacity to intercept. MIRV capacity also missing.

So why do the Nk do It? Auth régimes can only survive with a perceived external enemy. That does not mean they want a war.

Groper Trump needs to be muzzled. Idiot.

totally agree with you Guinevere, every time Trump opens his mouth I think here we go - WW3 (why the Americans voted him in is beyond me).

He said Barack Obama did not come from same country....

Does DT come from the same Planet ?

Whilst I totally don't agree with DT you have to question just when should he step in and say enough is enough as far as NK is concerned? NK is acting like a bully and has to be told enough is enough at some point surely?

See how long before Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction goes to # 1

China and Russia should have clipped his wings already in the past not allowed it to carry on like this. They need to step in now and slap him down so to speak not America.

I's like two schoolboys declaring 'my willies bigger then yours'.
Pathetic pieces of turd.
They should get in a boxing ring together and leave the rest of the world out of their inadequacies. :-P :-P :-P :-P

Unfortunately for us in Oz our PM has already stated that we will stand side-by-side with the USA in any conflict :-|

Pratt !

Will he be holding Trump's hand, to make sure the bomb goes in the right direction? :-D :-D :-D :-D

Hopefully!

And I know which direction I would like the bomb to go in! :-D :-D

At this time Kim Jong un does not have a rocket deliverable nuke and is some years away from having one. Thus there is sufficient window of opportunity for China and the USA to find a resolution.

Trump should therefore calm down and allow the grown ups to get to work.
Otherwise he is in danger of painting himself into a dangerous corner.

And yet Russia and China have mobilized troops to the borders haven't they.

The China / Russia borders have been beefed up in order to make flight an even harder choice for N Korean citizens as famine looms yet again.

Flight from the other deranged president to Canada is fairly easy. The rising numbers get little press attention except for illegals stuck in the snow. Maybe it is the lack of thuggish Canadian border guards and respect of due process which makes rising Us emigration to Canada boring.

Yes obviously the people may suddenly try to make a mass run over the borders, but the military from all countries have been putting on Saber rattling displays in the area lately not just America. It is highly unlikely he'd be able to make a nuclear strike against anyone just yet, but he can make a strike be it within Asia or an American territory, or in theory the American mainland though they'd have to be snoozing to miss that coming over. The point is NK is run by a mad man figure head backed up by mad men in high ranks, and they are in theory a danger to the whole world unless they get stopped at some point....why wait...

Why do you believe that the Nk regime is mad? Sure they don't share objectives with western democracies but that does not make them mad. The regime's objectives are to survive as an elite with the rest of the population treated as undermensch. USA TV has the same idea as drama in "Colony" and "The Handmaid's Tale".

The regime believes that sooner or later S Korean economics and Us conventional power will destroy the regime. This is a correct conclusion. Thus they have developed offensive nuclear technology by devious means running rings around the USA. Unwelcome to the west and China but not any more mad then other countries which rely on M.A.D. including the UK.

China is also bent on preserving the regime which, whatever it calls itself, is the latest incarnation of the country's usual form of govt, Empire. All the signs are there that it will end in the usual way, civil war.

Meanwhile China has played a very dangerous and unwise game of using N Korea as a catspaw against the USA.

China now has a binary choice.

Either it can get serious about preventing n Korea from weaponising its nukes at the risk of the Nk regime collapsing, merger with the south and strengthened Sk and Japan forcing much greater democracy in China and the end of Empire

Or it can allow Nk to acquire working nuclear weapons allowing it to join the M.A.D. club and risk the response of the USA effectively putting the regime's future under the control of POTUS.

NK is very unlikely to launch missiles targetted at the sea around Guam. They have proved that they can and are expertly using threats to wind up Trump even further thus exposing that the cupboard us bare. This beating up on USA credibility in Se Asia sits fine with China of course.

The best fix right now would be for Congress to do their duty and remove Trump as unfit. Little hope of that until after the mid terms 2018.

So, Armageddon by twitter remains a possibility but unlikely. It is not 1962 yet and uf we get to that Trump will be long gone.

My apologies I'm the only one that thinks the NK situation is mad!! He's no puppet either but a free spirited person who's just misunderstood.
I don't think there'll be Armageddon no but I do think he'll overstep the mark thinking he has more power etc than he has, then someone will have to step in and smack his bottom so to speak......

Caroline once again displays that she does not like to do her own tutorial papers preferring a recycled même from Twitter or alt.right. Maybe the reason for the reconstruction of the West Wing is to make space for the creches and prams needed by Trump's jejune staff.