Fire and Rain

The sanctions against North Korea to deter its development of a nuclear weapon this past Sunday came too late, as Kim Jong Un's government reportedly miniaturized a nuclear device to fit onto one of its missiles, which was reported on Tuesday.

The dear leader promised "fire and fury" against his adversary like the world "has never seen before."

Kim said that?  No, Donald Trump!

Later it was reported that North Korea was considering an attack on Guam.

As dangerous as Kim and his paranoia toward the United States are, Trump's airheaded machismo is exponentially worse.  The only way to deal with North Korea at this point is to try to find a diplomatic solution to avoid a military confrontation that could lead to a full-scale war worse than the one on the Korean peninsula in the early 1950s.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been making one declaration after another that the U.S. has no intention of removing Kim from power and uniting Korea under the government in Seoul, and now Trump has undermined him by answer Kim's nasty rhetoric with even nastier rhetoric.  With North Korea promising to rain fire down on the United States - including the East Coast! - those fallout shelters I used to see as a kid are going to have to be put back into service.  

And the Mormons can be expected to congregate en masse along the banks of the Missouri River for the Second Coming when Moroni blows his horn. :-O  

And remember, South Korea would be annihilated by a North Korean attack and and Japan is under greater threat than we are by virtue of its proximity to Korea.  South Korea's forces are too small to beat back North Korea alone, and Japan doesn't have much of a military to begin with these days.  Guess who's expected to step into the breach.  Guess.

Oh yeah, only 37 percent of voters approve of the way Trump is handling the Korea crisis. Good news, until you realize the 37 percent are the same voters that Steve Bannon wants to keep Trump connected to.

With hopes for a negotiated settlement with North Korea slipping away, we have to pin our hopes on the President . . . of China. Xi Jinping is the last person who can talk Kim Jong Un of the ledge over self-destruction.  Kim is, somewhat ironically, interested in survival, and if Xi can convince his fellow Communist leader that restraint in handling nuclear arms is his best recourse, that will help a lot.  But I don't see how he does that.  I don't even see how anyone keeps Trump restrained.

In the meantime, we have Trump trash-talking a guy who might be able to take out Los Angeles in a few months and take out Guam sooner.  I've never been afraid of nuclear war in my entire life, not even when Reagan was President, but I am now.  Even with Secretary Tillerson saying that Americans can "sleep well at night."  

And deciding to hold three consecutive Olympiads in the Far East has turned out to be a really stupid idea. :-(