More Hard Evidence The Trump Administration Is Batshit Crazy: They're Planning A Strike On North Korea

Michelle Goldberg's column in the New York Times concerning the reasons that Victor Cha backed out of serving as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, ought to scare the Bejeezus out of any sentient person. See e.g.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/opinion/trump-boring-warmongering-sotu.html

Ms. Goldberg picked up the account of Cha's backing out from a piece in The Financial Times.  As reported therein, Mr. Cha backed out after being asked if he could "manage the evacuation of Americans" from Seoul and surroundings after an American preemptive attack to "give Kim Jong un a bloody nose".  The account adding:

"The move comes as the Pentagon prepares for a possible order from Mr. Trump to launch military action at North Korea aimed at convincing Pyongyang dictator Kim Jong Un  to abandon his nuclear weapon program."

Yes, you read that correctly. These deranged imbeciles are actually contemplating a preemptive strike on the North that would literally unleash hell, not just on South Koreans but the entire surrounding region - and possibly expand to a global thermonuclear war.  That is the measure of fucktard  in this misbegotten administration we are now saddled with.  According to the FT the two hard liners itching for the strike are H.R. McMaster (national security adviser ) and Chuck Pompeo, CIA Director.

Even Gen. Jim Mattis, generally known as the cautionary adult was quoted by the FT as saying:

"There is little reason for optimism."

According to Ms. Goldberg in her own piece:

"According to The Washington Post, the nomination of Victor D. Cha, a hawkish veteran of the George W. Bush administration, was very close to being sent to the Senate, but was derailed when Cha privately expressed reservations about a preventive American strike on North Korea.  The Financial Times reported that Cha was asked if he was “prepared to help manage the evacuation of American citizens from South Korea,” which would be necessary in the event of an American bombing. This is terrifying, because it suggests that Trump is serious about starting a war."

Adding:

"Cha himself seems frightened; just before the State of the Union started, he published an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing against a preventive attack. Apparently assuming that some readers would be indifferent to millions of potential Korean deaths, Cha emphasized that many Americans would also die in a military confrontation."

Let's be clear no actual "warhead" ready North Korean ICBM could reach the U.S. presently.  The primary impediment to  N. K. ICBM deployment is the design of a re-entry vehicle capable of withstanding the fall through the atmosphere as the warhead zeroes in on the target.  This is a formidable challenge, make no mistake.  It defines the difference between lobbing a giant missile with no 'boom' across continents, and lobbing one with a nuclear punch. 

By comparison  - and for reference - the warhead of the 1960s' era Atlas D was originally paired to a  re-entry vehicle (RV) with a W49 thermonuclear weapon, for a combined weight 3,700 lb (1,680 kg) and yield of 1.44 megatons (Mt). The W-49 was later placed in a higher ablative RV, for a combined weight 2,420 lb (1,100 kg) The maximum explosive yield delivered with these later designs was 3.75 megatons. The North's capabilities are nowhere near this. 

According to  Physics Today (April issue last year) the North's existing weapons would deliver a yield of roughly 0.08 kt/ kilogram. That is the yield per actual bomb mass.  This means they’d need to be able to launch or carry (via plane) at least 100 kg of bomb mass to get an 8 kiloton A -blast, or 200 kg to get a 16 kt yield.   These magnitudes are roughly on the scale of the Hiroshima blast.

Despite its nuclear limitations - and make no mistake they are not giving them up, after seeing "regime change" with Iraq in 2003 -  the North could wreak havoc on Seoul, South Korea. Even one or two bombers lifting an 8 kt bomb has the potential to obliterate over 20 million people as well as all U.S. troops stationed in S. Korea.   And we aren't even yet considering the 10,000 odd artillery pieces facing the Demilitarized zone. Each of these loaded with chemical and biological weapons.

Interviewed last April,  and asked if Trump would actually attack North Korea, former CIA North Korean analyst Sue Mi Terry responded:

 “I can’t see him following through on this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy. Because you’re putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

 North Korea is not Syria. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s going to have very devastating consequences.  North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the DMZ.  And there’s twenty thousand U.S. military in South Korea and twenty million people in Seoul”

Clearly, despite that, the military know nothings in the Trump White House believe they can get away with a decapitation strike. Which again, proved they are all stark raving mad.  Just like Gen. Curtis LeMay  in the Kennedy era, e.g. with the Cuban Missile crisis,  who really believed a "pre-emptive strike" could be managed with no further risk of conflagration. 

Then we had JFK with the brains and balls to face down these knuckle dragger hawks. Now we have only an overgrown 71 year- old toddler with anger issues and an ego the size of the planet.    If there is a preemptive strike, my bet is that Dotard will launch it when the first charges from special prosecutor Robert Mueller come down.

If he is going to go down he will want to take the whole country, hell - the whole world - with him.

Fire, Fury and Foolishness - How The Psycho Putz Could Get Us Into A Nuclear War

We all mostly suspected Drumpf was insane, but his bombastic, ignorant rhetoric yesterday proved it beyond a doubt and showed why this screwball needs to be put into a straitjacket asap. His blabbering about raining "fire and fury ...the likes of which have never been seen before"  emulated Kim Jong Un himself. As one commentator put it "it was as if Trump looked at himself in the mirror and saw Kim Jong Un""   The problem is that this game is deadly serious and even had former Col.  Lawrence Wilkerson, saying that he's frightened - given our commander-in -chief has no sense, and basically controls the nuclear codes.

That this cockeyed numskull already (yesterday morning)  leaked classified satellite information (to do with spotting N. Korean patrol boats)  in a retweet on 'Fox 'n Friends' was bad enough. It confirmed his unreliability as a leader as well as his lack of judgment and instability.  He is, basically, not a man to be trusted and certainly not in a major crisis such as we are facing now. Indeed, 61 percent in a recent poll expressed unease in "Dump's" ability to deal with North Korea. In most other nations such a vote of no confidence would see him replaced.

Sadly, not even his new "minder"-  Gen. Kelly - was able to stop this crazy fool from engaging his Twitter account and - as noted on 'Morning Joe' - jeopardizing U.S. assets and methods.

Then, ensconced at his vacation getaway club at Bedminster, NJ Trump told journalists

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States, They will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen.”

In other words, this certifiable maniac is vowing nuclear retribution against the North Koreans merely for making threats.   Try to process that, and the level of mental derangement and lack of judgment to make such a remark, broadcast worldwide.  In the wake of this monkey's performance John McCain told an Arizona radio station:

"I don’t know what he’s saying and I’ve long ago given up trying to interpret what he says. That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.”

Well, that's the point! It doesn't help, only further fuels the crisis and ramps up the temperature.

As I posted earlier, this hotheaded maggot doesn't possess the skill, background historical knowledge or intelligence to steer clear of a conflagration with a nuclear state that would unleash a pitiless assault not on the U.S. (which is currently too far away to strike with a functioning ICBM) but on its South Korean ally. Specifically, the 25 million citizens of Seoul, the "most densely populated city on Earth."

When asked in an MSNBC interview back in April  if Trump would actually attack North Korea, former CIA North Korea specialist Sue Mi Terry responded:

 “I can’t see him following through on this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy. Because you’re putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

 North Korea is not Syria. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s going to have very devastating consequences.  North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the DMZ.  And there’s twenty thousand U.S. military in South Korea and twenty million people in Seoul”

Other experts on North Korea have also warned that this aggressive rhetoric could backfire on Trump, convincing Kim Jong-Un that his regime is in imminent jeopardy and triggering what he sees as a pre-emptive attack.  This is the biggest danger. Given the North is all about survival, anything perceived as an imminent threat to that survival would unleash all their weapons in a last ditch preemptive attack. If the U.S. then responded with a full scale nuclear response to obliterate the totalitarian state it could also draw in the Chinese and even the Russians. At the end we could be looking at a full, all- out thermonuclear war with more than 9,500 hydrogen weapons exchanged.

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said - in response to Trump's reckless rhetoric:

“It is dangerous and reckless and counterproductive for Donald Trump to threaten the annihilation of North Korea. What we need is a dialogue to reduce tension and avoid catastrophic miscalculation. We are currently on the road to a conflict and we have to get to the off-ramp.”

The North Korean regime quickly responded, matching Trump’s bellicosity by saying it was “carefully examining” a plan for a missile strike on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. In a separate statement, a military official was quoted as saying Pyongyang could carry out a "pre-emptive operation if the US showed signs of provocation”.

And there we have the linchpin to massive nuclear war, if one side misjudges the intentions of the other.

National security advisor H.R. McMaster has said that the administration is weighing all options, including a “preventative war”.

 

North Korean ICBM test. The Defense Intelligence Agency now confirms the North has miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit atop the missile.

 

East Asia nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis argues it is already too late for that, quoted in the UK Guardian as saying:
“The pre- in preventative means ‘before’,If you start the preventative war after they have the nuclear ICBM’s, it’s just a regular old nuclear war.”

Lest people not take this seriously, the Pentagon - as reported last night - is already trying to prepare military options for Trump. All of this is under the rubric of "preventative war"  Three days ago in the WSJ John Bolton actually presented these "options".   It is as if the military is prepared to back Trump at the expense of the 25 million in Seoul and environs. Presumably they will be "collateral damage" if the lunatic gets his way.  Where is the sanity? Let's recall also that last year the same military minds were appalled when Trump asked: "If we have nuclear weapons why can't we use them?"   Gen. Michael Hayden actually responded that the current U.S. nuclear response system is no longer constructed for deliberation but "rapid and effective" action. In other words, once a decision to launch is made, it's all over.

The last time we came this close  to nuclear catastrophe was in October, 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 27, 1962 U2 pilot Rudolph Andersen Jr. conducted a reconnaissance flight over Cuba when he was targeted and shot down by two Soviet SA2 surface to air missiles. The Cubans and Russians had fired the first shot in the drawn out Missile crisis (now in its 12th day) and the Joint Chiefs pressured JFK to strike back - with air strikes.  Kennedy, however, correctly suspected that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had not authorized the downing of unarmed reconnaissance planes, and he didn’t want to abandon diplomacy. He resisted the Joint Chiefs - especially Gen. Curtis Lemay (who actually had the temerity to compare him to Neville Chamberlain) which is why we can discuss the events today.

It is not at all clear that Trump possesses anywhere near the sobriety and sense of JFK. Which also means it is not at all evident that he can avoid getting us into a nuclear war.  Maybe in this case, one of Trump's generals (Kelly?) will pull the nuclear football out of his hands before he can do final disastrous damage.

Or at least we can hope

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/lawrence-wittner/74496/playing-nuclear-chicken-with-our-lives

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stanton/74499/trump-s-psychopathy-threatens-the-internal-stability-of-the-united-states-and-the-world

And:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345961-ex-gop-senator-trump-is-sick-of-mind-should-be-removed-from-office

For Donald Trump The 25 Million Souls Of Seoul Are Expendable In A North Korea Conflict

"There's gonna be a major, major conflict! And I'm sorry about Seoul! Tough luck there! But their sacrifice'll make me look more presidential!"

As The Financial Times reported yesterday, the bellicose Trump bunch wants Jimmy Carter to stay out of any peace -making deals with North Korea. This despite the war rhetoric reaching new heights. In a Reuters interview yesterday, the egomaniacal baboon- in- chief grunted, then growled: "We're heading for a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely!'

And as I posted earlier, this hotheaded maggot doesn't possess the skill, background historical knowledge or intelligence to steer clear of a conflagration with a nuclear state that would unleash a pitiless assault not on the U.S. (which is too far away to strike) but on its South Korean ally. Specifically, the 25 million citizens of Seoul, the "most densely populated city on Earth" according to one general reporting to the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

Does Trump care one whit about any of those innocent civilians when Kim Jung-Un unleashes a barrage of tens of thousands of shells from 4,000 artillery pieces? Of course not! For him, they are in part or all at once expendable pawns on the grand "chessboard" on which he's playing the mighty "sheriff" of the world. Having been stoked to the brim with his Syria cruise missile strike, he now believes he can unleash a more devastating one on North Korea. But he's a damned fool and idiot because it is the millions of Seoul who will pay.

Yes, the U.S. would ultimately come out ahead but it would be a Pyrrhic victory. Meaning the costs would exceed the brief moment of victory, mainly for the South Koreans who'd have to body bag the dead (what body parts they could find) and rebuild their devastated city. And I'm assuming here no nuclear weapons would be used which might be pie in the freaking sky.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the same group that operates the ‘doomsday clock’ and has now moved it two and a half minutes to midnight) estimates the North possesses twenty weapons in the 10 – 20 kiloton range or roughly the same magnitude of yield as the atomic bomb that reduced Hiroshima to ashes in 1945.

 Would they actually use it? 12 days ago in an interview with CBS’ Ben Stacy, the North Korean Defense minister when asked about any response if the U.S. made a pre-emptive strike didn’t bandy words: he said there would be a total nuclear retaliatory strike.  How serious should he be taken?

 First, they are estimated to be at the most primitive, early stages of A-bomb development. According to the most recent Physics Today (April issue) their existing weapons would deliver a yield of roughly 0.08 kt/ kilogram. That is yield per actual bomb mass.  This means they’d need to be able to launch or carry (via plane) at least 100 kg of bomb mass to get an 8 kiloton A -blast, or 200 kg to get a 16 kt yield.   This is feasible with their existing bombers and might also be with their most advanced (solid fuel) missile. However, none of these weapons could reach the U.S. presently – though they could wreak havoc on Seoul, South Korea – with the potential to obliterate over 20 million people as well as all U.S. troops stationed in S. Korea.

Clearly, this is a cost and risk no sane leader would visit on a vulnerable ally. And yet Trump, who fancies himself Dictator of the world, has no qualms about doing so - from his rhetoric- nor any sympathy for the South Koreans who will be caught in the line of fire as a possible mini nuclear holocaust plays out.

 Second, that they would make such a retaliatory strike is beyond question. As numerous commentators have pointed out – e.g. Sue Mi Terry - former CIA North Korean analyst, they’d regard it as a matter of survival. Much like Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962 who told former Kennedy Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1992 (during a 30 yr. reunion) he’d have launched 93 nuclear-armed IRBMs had the U.S. invaded. (JFK was being pushed at the time to bomb and invade Cuba by his Joint Chiefs of Staff).

 When asked in an MSNBC interview 2 weeks ago if Trump would actually attack North Korea, Sue Terry responded:

 “I can’t see him following through on this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy. Because you’re putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

 North Korea is not Syria. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s going to have very devastating consequences.  North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the DMZ.  And there’s twenty thousand U.S. military in South Korea and twenty million people in Seoul”

 But if his words yesterday are taken seriously, and there's no reason to believe this insane maggot is bluffing - given his ego-- then the South can expect ferocious blowback and devastation. Trump then is not  a rational actor like JFK was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He’s an imperious,  impetuous braggart and clueless numbskull narcissist not even aware of recent history. He operates according to an unstable  “high conflict” personality which one psychologist (Bill Eddy) has said makes him a “more dangerous politician  than Adolf Hitler”.  In other words, unlike with JFK, we can only assume Trump will make exactly the opposite decision in a nuclear game of high stakes poker.

The sad and sorry Truth is that Donald Trump cares no more about the lives of those millions living in Seoul, than he did about the gassed kids in Syria prompting his cruise missile attack. Those kids were  merely transient blips on his cable TV screen arousing a transient emotion then a brief brain "rupture"  which saw that if he made a bold response he might profit. And profit he did! The media backed off its close scrutiny and criticism and suddenly saw this POS as "presidential" .

Expect him to play "double or nothing" with the Korean standoff, but we know already who the real losers of this charlatan's  game will be.
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To understand the full background, read this handy collection of some of the world's leading experts published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Feel free to forward links to others:

North Korea in the news again: a time to reflect, edited by Dan Drollette

Will South Korea go nuclear? Robert Einhorn, Duyeon Kim

North Korea's nuclear weapons: What now? Roundtable with Shen Dingli, Chung-in Moon, Andrei Lankov

Hecker assesses North Korean hydrogen bomb claims, Siegfried Hecker

The North Korea that can say no, Bruce Cumings

Getting North Korea wrong, Bruce Cumings

Does Trump Have The Brains To Avoid A Nuclear Confrontation? NO!

"They gotta be taught a BIGLY lesson! That punk Kim Jong Un can't get away with threatening me! I'm gonna bomb 'em back to the stone age!'


The question for the CNN panel yesterday evening was how best to respond to the continuing North Korean threats, including taking out the Carl Vinson and its strike group, while also holding an American hostage. Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson offered the most serious warning: "We can't treat  Kim like a normal guy. It would be a huge mistake".

These echoed the words of Denver Post columnist Gregg Dobbs two days earlier who wrote that he didn't believe Trump had the patience, intelligence or emotional equilibrium to deal with the rapidly escalating situation on the Korean Peninsula.   The basic reasons have been echoed many times from the date Trump "won" the farcical 2016 general election, by the likes of David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Charles Blow, Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen and others.  Cohen early on even recommended Trump be removed under the little known 25th amendment - by virtue of his inability to rein in his egoistic petulance, along with his reckless bombast and narcissism. I agreed, and in a subsequent blog post asserted the Donald is barely able to run a dog kennel, far less an administration or the whole nation.

All these concerns have acquired enormous gravitas as the North Korean standoff has now reached the phase it could instantly turn into a blood bath.  With Trump now deploying the Carl Vinson carrier  strike group close to the peninsula along with the U.S.S. Michigan - a nuclear sub outfitted with nuclear missiles - we're now in a situation close the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. We got through that crisis because we had a man of temperance, intelligence and historical understanding at the helm : John Fitzgerald Kennedy..  Now, we have a "former" failed businessman who actually rode his sleazy real estate empire -  based largely on bankruptcies - to fame and fortune. Oh, after he already got 'nuff millions from daddy via inheritance.


So now we're saddled with a clown:  a bombastic pseudo-business tycoon and former reality TV personality who still thinks he's playing a role on 'The Apprentice' and believes any time he barks he can make lowly staff jump.  But we're in the real world now, not Trump's fantasy world of ego, entitlement and arrogance. And despite multiple warnings from even former military - generals and admirals - Trump can't seem to back off the bellicose rhetoric. This even as the North Koreans have vowed to take down the Vinson using one of their missiles. Rather than pause and reflect, Trump continues to think he's playing 'chicken' or high stakes poker - not that he's playing with the lives of tens of thousands.


As Gregg Dobbs put it, Kim Jong-un is not intimidated by threats, especially hollow ones - and also any pre-emptive strike would be about the worst move  possible. It would ensure the slaughter of tens of thousands of South Koreans as well as U.S. troops stationed there.   There is even the possibility the North Koreans could be spurred to employ one or more of their nuclear weapons, again most likely against South Korea - namely Seoul.

Things might not have reached this malignant stage had the media (most) not done back flips with wet dreams after Trump launched his 59 cruise missiles on a Syrian base. Since then, this deformed mental mutant has been putatively granted the "keys to the kingdom" (read: "respect" from media) by a stupid pack of slobbering suckers and goofballs who'd held their breath for any sign of Trump being "presidential".   Since these sycophantic imbeciles conflate use of force with "being presidential"  it was inevitable we'd now see a guy acting like he's been given his first hit of smack or crack cocaine.

As I wrote before, unless the same media pulls him back to reality - mainly by halting the cheerleading- we may now be in for the "most serious military confrontation since the Korean War" - in the words of one pundit last night.

Except this confrontation may be nuclear and we have a psychotic in charge of the country without the brains, knowledge, forbearance or basic human skills to deal with the situation.

Have Americans Lost Their Consciousness Of Nuclear Armageddon?

'Duck and cover' scene above similar to what I had to endure with classmates in 1952.

Trump issuing reckless threats of action against North Korea which have about as much use as teeth on a hen.

Asked by an interviewer from WTMJ - Wisconsin yesterday whether Americans should be concerned about thermonuclear war - with the rising tensions with North Korea- Trump responded:

"Look, you always have to be concerned. You don't know exactly who you're dealing with."

In fact, anyone with an IQ over room temperature  (especially a leader),  would  know  the consequences if WHO he is dealing with is the head of a nuclear-armed state. Thus,  making one wrong move would surely lead to the total obliteration of civilization and its reduction to radioactive ash.  Trump's absurd response shows he has no business with the nuclear codes given his answer conflated the way he's currently dealing with North Korea (arrogant brinksmanship), and the way a tense situation with a nuclear -armed state can quickly get out of control with one wrong move.  Alas, to our great detriment, Trump is no JFK - who had to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But Trump's off the cuff,  dumbo answer elicits a question that has surfaced with some left pundits (e.g. Lawrence O'Donnell): Do most Americans have any consciousness of what it means to be exterminated in a nuclear war? Do they have a sensible reaction of trepidation when tensions rise between nuclear-armed nations? Given that 90% of Americans alive today never lived in a nuclear standoff era the answer is most Americans don't and hence are likely to reflect Trump's blasé  attitude.

Back in 1952 such nuclear war consciousness was an abiding feature of our lives as first graders at St. Leo's Parochial School in Milwaukee. Then, almost every afternoon we had to be ready for a 'duck and cover' exercise.  Nobody told the nuns - or anyone else evidently - that ducking under a desk and trying to cover with one's hands would be next to useless if an actual A-bomb dropped on your city. As for an H-bomb, you'd be incinerated within microseconds of any air blast. But never mind, these exercises created a kind of "nuclear consciousness" that you didn't want your country recklessly starting a war it wouldn't be able to win.

Flash forward to October, 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis when that nuclear extermination consciousness was embedded in the brains of millions for real.  At that time I was a junior at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in North Miami when the Principal, Brother Leo, arrived in our classroom at about noon, notifying us of suspension of classes:

“Boys, we are dismissing school right now. Please go home and make whatever preparations you need to with your families. Let us hope and pray we have a world to come back to when this is all over.”

On arriving home, my parents got their  five offspring together and had us praying the rosary in front of a grotto to the Virgin Mary in the living room. It was serious stuff, and though I later grew into atheism, I understood that at that time this was the only response possible. Shelters were no use, not for long anyway, and besides in Florida - barely above sea level - they were a lost cause.

We all knew the reality of the nuclear threat as well, because we'd been following it on one of three major stations: ABC, CBS or NBC. There was not a plethora of alternative cable news stations back then, nor the capacity to create fake news like now. So when tens of millions of our fellow citizens tuned into one of the stations they all left with the same consciousness of the threat posed by Russian ships heading for Cuba with a U.S. blockade in their way.  No subset of citizen consciousness diverged from the whole as is the case with our balkanized media now.

None of this is hype or bull, but LIVED history, as opposed to merely read or contrived history. Living in Miami as the 13 days of the crisis unfolded my brothers and I saw the Nike missile carriers being drawn through the streets of Miami. Even the strip joints and peep flicks on NW 79th St had been shuttered.

Subsequent release of the tapes made during that time confirmed the gravity.  For those that want all the details of what went down day by day, get hold of: ‘The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis’, by Ernest R. May and Philip K. Zelikow (1997, President and Fellows of Harvard College). Therein, on p. 347, for ’10:00 A.M. Oct. 24” the diligent reader will read:

“At the same time the quarantine became effective, the Strategic Air Command moved from the general Defense Condition 3 to Defense Condition 2, the level just below general war. In addition to ICBMs and submarine-based ballistic missiles, every available bomber – more than 1,400 aircraft- went on alert. Scores of bombers, each loaded with several nuclear weapons and carrying folders for pre-assigned targets in the Soviet Union, were kept continuously in the air around the clock with shifts- refueled by aerial tankers, taking turns hovering over Northern Canada and the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviet government was presumed to be aware of these developments.”

How close did we come to perdition? Very! But the degree of proximity to nuclear holocaust was mostly learned only decades later with FOIA released files. For example, we learned Kennedy was under enormous pressure from the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen, Curtis Lemay to launch a bomber strike against Castro and an invasion.

On p. 183 of the 'Kennedy Tapes' book, one sees Lemay saying that "we have got to do more than take out the missiles" and he demands a massive air strike as well. By Oct. 1992, when Robert McNamara was interviewed on 'Today' he observed that only ex post facto did the Kennedy situation room and Pentagon learn that all 93 odd IRBMs in Cuba were already armed with single megaton warheads, and had JFK followed Lemay's directives all hell would have broken loose.

McNamara learned of this while on a conference visit to Havana in 1992, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the crisis. McNamara had asked Fidel what he would have done had the U.S. invaded Cuba. Castro didn't hesitate, informing him that over 100 armed (with single megaton warhead) missiles would have been sent flying.

Flabbergasted, McNamara pressed him: "You really would have destroyed your country?" and Fidel replied, "Yes, and you would have too in a similar situation!"

Here's how that would have played out: At the first hint of U.S. attack planes picked up on Cuban radar most or all of the 93 IRBMs would have been launched. The targets would mainly have been U.S. east coast cities: Miami, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, but a number of the missiles would have struck interior cities including Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Chicago and possibly Milwaukee.

Even as those missiles were in flight, the Kennedy White House would have been forced to go to Defcon 1, or full war condition, even as the Soviets - also now acknowledging what was happening (realizing Cuba's missile launch would make them a target), launched their own missiles. In the space of about 30 minutes, as McNamara pointed out, some 500-odd missiles would have been in the air headed for targets in the USA and USSR. 

Since most warheads at that time were in the 5-10 megaton range, the full nuclear exchange - lasting maybe an hour would have resulted in possibly 300 million dead and massive clouds of radiation polluting the rest of the planet via the trades and other winds. Within a year, plausibly most humans would be dead or dying - if not of radiation sickness then from lack of food crops due to nuclear winter - with billions of tons of dust in the atmosphere blotting out sunlight.

Those of us who lived those days retain the consciousness of how a nuclear holocaust can and might occur on a hair trigger decision, or lack of one. Fortunately for us all, we had JFK at the helm then and his abundant intelligence, excelling comprehension of facts and history enabled him to surmount the pressures of his generals. However, many of us are uncertain the hollow shadow of a man at the helm now also has those properties. By all recent evidence he doesn't, he lacks the fundaments of sound judgement and is the very type of incandescent idiot who might well trigger the incident that gets us into a thermonuclear war.

The fact this nitwit didn't even know where his naval attack "armada"  (the Carl Vinson carrier strike  group)  was when he blurted it was "on its way" to the Korean peninsula  shows he is a clueless buffoon with no accountability or leadership mettle. Worse, his illustrious staff (including NSC honcho H.R. McMaster and defense secretary James Mattis), supposedly the "adults in the room",  echoed the same nonsense. So either they were outright lying when they claimed the Carl Vinson carrier group was "approaching the Korean peninsula" - when it was three thousand miles south near Australia  - or they didn't know. Either one is cause for alarm, almost as much as the brinksmanship with North Korea.

These are the goobers now in charge of managing a real, ongoing nuclear crisis with North Korea, who don't even know where their carrier strike group is.  Conversely, JFK - unlike this Trump clown car- always insisted during the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis that he know where every ship and plane was as well as troop movements. Under no circumstance did he want to send an accidental message to the Russians causing them to believe the U.S. was planning a first strike.

Ask me why I am as worried now as I was during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and I will ask that you re-read this post again, and then get hold of the Kennedy Tapes book. As long as Trump is fouling the White House no one should "breathe easier", or sleep the sleep of the just.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/mike-whitney/72261/the-u-s-pushed-north-korea-to-build-nukes-yes-or-no

Excerpt:

"we have to understand that situation has changed in a fundamental way. North Korea now has nuclear weapons, which means that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state. US policy-makers need to repeat that to themselves and let it sink in. It changes the calculus entirely. When one realizes that the North now has the power to reduce Osaka, Tokyo or Seoul to smoldering rubble with one flip of the switch, that has to be taken seriously. In practical terms, it means the so called “military option” is off the table, "

Trump's Power Gone To His Head As He Squares Off Against A Nuclear North Korea

"The press loves me again! If I blow up the world with all the bad guys in it  I'll be the biggest, baddest president ever! And the most popular!"

Believe it or not I have really tried to be relatively patient with Trump, to allow him to try to settle in without making a total ass or imbecile of himself every other day. Hell, even over most of the last week I have posted on a number of decidedly "off-Trump" topics to take the spot light off him while also giving him a chance to at least appear to have a grain of sense. But it's to no avail, especially after a series of halfwit pundits and poltroons (like Chuck Schumer and Pelosi) have gone and applauded his cruise missile stunt - inflating his pseudo president ego to gigantic proportions.

Now this fool actually believes he can take on the whole world, at least the world of "bad guys"  he sees through the prism of endless phantasmagorias erupting within assorted psychotic embolisms within his amygdala.

So having blown a few dozen Isis rats to bits with his "mother of all bombs" he now is considering facing off against North Korea. Can we all agree right now, given the total lack of any intelligence of this fool - plus his lack of discernment and temperance - this is a god-awful idea?

For those who need to be filled in, in the past several days North Korea has held a vast military parade to celebrate the birth of its founding father, Kim Il-sung, and  has warned that it is prepared to take the “toughest” action unless the US ended its “military hysteria”, as speculation grows that the regime is preparing to conduct a nuclear test.

Interviewed two days ago, the North Korean Defense Minister, when asked by CBS' Ben Stacy what would happen if the U.S. attacked the hermit state, replied "nuclear war".  He meant that there's be immediate nuclear retaliation and serious people (not Trump) should take him at his word.  Now, to be sure, that doesn't meant the North Koreans can hit the U.S. No, not yet. But they do have the ability to deliver nuclear bombs on Seoul, South Korea as well as Japan - also, annihilate the U.S. base in South Korea. The U.S., of course, would launch a full on decapitation and annihilation strike on North Korea, but then China as a key ally would enter with its own retaliation - and over 200 H-bombs - that can reach the U.S.

Is this a scenario the Trumpites really want? It appears they do given the level of saber rattling rhetoric, Trump's bellicose tweets and even dispatching an aircraft carrier attack group to be within 900 miles of North Korea have ramped up the brinksmanship to new levels..   The drunkenness of power and brinkmanship has also been fed by a Beltway media besotted with the spectacle of military attack (with the Tomahawk strike and now MOAB) - whose critiques of Trump have now been revealed as paper thin.  All of which is extremely concerning or should be to every sentient being on the planet.

A senior North Korean official ( Choe Ryong-hae) used the parade to accuse the US of “creating a war situation” with the recent dispatch of warships to the region. After Trump's latest fulminations he barked:

“We will respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and a nuclear war with our style of a nuclear attack,” .

Even as I write this, military vehicles and tens of thousands of soldiers have filled Kim Il-sung square and  taken oaths of loyalty to the country’s leader, Kim Jong-in.  Experts agree the array of military hardware on parade  includes what appeared to be a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) being carried along the streets on a huge truck.  South Korean military officials have been quoted as saying they had not seen the missile before and that it appeared to be a new type of ICBM.

North Korean state television showed what appeared to be several KN-08 and KN-14 missiles. Although they have yet to be tested, analysts say the missiles could one day be capable of hitting targets as far away as the continental United States.  Michael Morrell, former deputy director of the CIA interviewed yesterday on CBS, affirmed that this capability is a lot closer in time than many believe - probably 1 or 2 years.

Is this worrisome? Yes, but a preemptive attack is not the way to respond as  Morrell agreed. He acknowledged one could not count on Kim Jong -in to back off, or portray a submissive stance to the U.S. So, any military action at all, including firing ordnance from fighter jets on the aircraft carrier -will likely incept a small scale nuclear attack on the North's neighbors that could escalate. So it is not without basis that many have compared our current condition to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962.

As the USS aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its strike group sailed towards the peninsula in a show of force, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, citing a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, warned of “merciless” retaliation against any US provocation.  Trump’s decision to send an “armada” of warships to waters off the tense peninsula, coupled with recent US strikes in Syria and Afghanistan, were proof that Washington had chosen the path of “open threat and blackmail”, KCNA said.

“Our toughest counteraction against the US and its vassal forces will be taken in such a merciless manner as not to allow the aggressors to survive,” it added.

It said the Trump administration’s “serious military hysteria” had reached a “dangerous phase that can no longer be overlooked”.

It added: “Under the prevailing grave situation, the United States has to come to its senses and make a proper option for the solution of the problem.”

Meanwhile, China’s state-run media warned that the US president was mistaken if he believed that piling military pressure on North Korea would resolve the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The Global Times said Trump’s decision to drop the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan was clearly “a new gimmick in US military deterrence” designed to intimidate Kim Jong-un.   “North Korea must have felt the shock wave travelling all the way from Afghanistan,” the Communist party-controlled newspaper said in an editorial.

However, the Global Times, which sometimes reflects government views, said the use of such a “vicious weapon” was in fact likely to make Pyongyang even more determined to upgrade its own arsenal.

On Friday, China again called for talks to defuse the crisis. “We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each other, whether in words or actions, and not let the situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage,” the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told reporters in Beijing.

Speaking to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Friday night, Wang said steps were needed to prevent “war and chaos” on the Korean peninsula.

As for any Trump military actions being touted currently against North Korea, former CIA North Korea analyst Sue Mi Terry made it clear last night these would not work. She cited one of the possible options as striking a nuclear test site, maybe with a MOAB,  but warned:

"I can't see him following through with this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy.Because you're putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

North Korea is not Syria, it's not Afghanistan. It's going to have devastating consequences. North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within one hundred kilometers from the DMZ. That's sixty miles....and there's twenty thousand U.S. military in Korea and twenty million people in Seoul"

She added that this is why she doesn't think Trump will take any precipitous action which would be a "gross miscalculation".  She also pointed out the North is unlikely to launch any missiles - or test any bombs - now with the whole world watching. "They will do it on their own time", she stated, "and besides, they want to be the ones with the surprises."

What about her words of advice against brinksmanship and aggressive actions by the U.S.?

The trouble is this is Trump, the man-boy who lives the delusions of absolute power from a brain addled by egomaniacal self-regard and narcissism. And hence who feeds off the adulation such as he's now getting from the Beltway press in the wake of his cruise missile and MOAB attacks. Ironically then, we may have to depend on that media - which originally criticized him - to back off from its jingoistic gushing and hold him to account once more but in the military response sphere.

Millions of lives may depend on such a sober, rational re-assessment of Trump's recent actions. What we don't need is more brainless media pandering to this psycho every time he unleashes a bomb or new cruise missile - on whatever pretext or excuse. That blind media adulation is like crack cocaine to him and renders his 'trigger' finger even itchier.

See also:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2017/03/07/north-koreas-peculiar-brand-of-rationality/#6b915f9b5021

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/medea-benjamin/72189/the-mother-of-all-bombs-is-big-deadly-and-wont-lead-to-peace

Trump Is Insane And Needs To Be Removed From Office ASAP

"In whatever spider hole in hell they've placed bin Laden, along with all the other petty tyrants of history, all of them must now be laughing. For in the days following 9/11 we grew to despise a thug terrorist who wished to destroy what it meant to be an American.

Now, in the days after Inauguration Day, 2017, we find ourselves led by a thug president bent on finishing the job."  - Chuck Plunkett, Editor of The Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 1D

With Trump's latest outbursts, the national security state needs to do its due diligence to the nation and remove this "defcon 1"  threat pronto. This is also in the wake of the fact that Russian intervention in our election remains unexplained, uninvestigated and unpunished. Which also leaves open the extent of penetration into the Trump campaign, and now the Trump administration. Indeed, we may  not only have a Russian stooge occupying the highest office, but a crazy man prepared to do their bidding - given they have a compromising video on him.

 It doesn't matter one damn what the cause of Trump's explosive, unstable behavior might be  - even his overuse of Propecia (see last post)) - this lunatic needs to be removed from office for the good of the country. Let's even leave out his whacko pre- SuperBowl remarks to Billo O'Reilly that the U.S. is as bad as Russia in terms of killing political opponents (which Gen. Barry McCaffrey said he never thought he'd hear an American President say).

Put this in perspective! An alleged "America First" president makes brash statements before 50 million viewers that the country he allegedly governs (we've seen little evidence so far other than photo ops) is no different from so many others where political opponents can be offed in the dead of the night. No wonder Gen. McCaffrey had to fight to sustain his composure when discussing it.

Then there are his rabid attacks on an independent judiciary - namely the highly respected judge James Robart - who issued a ruling Trump didn't like. Then there have been his nutso outbursts at Malcolm Turnbull of Australia (which Sen. John McCain had to apologize for) and the other attacks on Mexico's President, apart from bringing us to the brink of  war with Iran.

This is a crazy person, who as Rep. Ted Lieu noted last night (MSNBC, 'All In') , desperately needs to have a thorough mental evaluation. Quoting Rep. Lieu:

"We have a problem here in America: Our president lies pathologically, He has a staff lie pathologically.  He attacks the free press, he attacks the judiciary. Donald Trump is a danger to the Republic and we need to wake up in America to the harm he is causing our country..."

Rep. Lieu went on to reference Trump's Twitter feed and how it shows lots of "mental issues" which he says people can see for themselves/ (I have, and it does! I rate this feed at 'defcon 1' in terms of possibly provoking other nations to retaliate just based on his unhinged garbage. This we cannot afford, not with Trump controlling 6,500 nuclear weapons.)

If Trump had no unilateral control over our nuclear arsenal, I personally wouldn't hit the 'Defcon 1' button and say he needs to be removed with utmost urgency. I'd say let it all play out in the courts, in congress,  like with Nixon. But we don't have that luxury of time, especially now with the Doomsday Clock at two and a half minutes to midnight. As Rep. Ted Lieu went on to say:

"He has a disconnection from the truth which is highly disturbing and we can't have that person making decisions on things like nuclear weapons. ..."

To reinforce this, Rep. Lieu and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey have actually introduced a bill to curb Trump's ability to launch a nuclear strike.   The congressman clarified this bill when asked by Joy Reid about it:

"We introduced this bill last year, and believe it should apply to any American President. But certainly the rants by Donald Trump do make this issue more urgent. The issue is that right now one person can destroy the whole world, the President.  He can launch four thousand nuclear weapons with no checks or balances from the judiciary or the congress.  We think the framers of the Constitution never would have allowed that.

That's why our bill, which has now been endorsed by the New York Times, says that the President first has to get a Declaration of War from Congress for a nuclear first strike."


First, let's grasp that in many ways this bill is unrealistic. For one thing, the Republicans will never allow passage to shackle their personal looneytune whose coattails they're riding to push their agenda.  Second, an enemy first strike could come at any instant, and the time needed to get a declaration of war from congress may only ensure we have no retaliatory response.

But this is why it is essential to have a person of sound mind, a rational person, in charge of the nuclear arsenal - not some crackpot who lacks even impulse control for his tweets. This ought to be a no brainer. The question that occurs for many of us is: Why, when the CIA and NSA (under the Staff D operation) took out JFK for what they believed to be 'traitorous' actions (e.g. failing to go all out to attack Cuba in the Cuban Missile Crisis)  would they allow a serious threat and unhinged Russian stooge like Trump to remain?   It makes no sense, none.  They removed one president from power for his sober actions and restraint, but allow an unhinged maniac with his finger on 20 times more weapons to remain? What's wrong with this picture? Well, everything!

This isn't just blowing smoke or an expression of "bitterness" as the Reeptards claim, but  deep concern the nuclear codes are accessible to a likely paranoid schizophrenic with borderline personality disorder as well.  Add in the lack of any impulse control - who combusts and reacts to virtually everything (as Charles Krauthammer observed in a recent WaPo piece) in the media-sphere, and you have a volatile situation. I'd say one that's thousands of times more serious than transpired with the Missile Crisis in '62.

Consider you are evaluating a candidate for a high profile job with top security clearance and access to more than 6,500 nuclear weapons (the actual number) which could reduce the planet to smoldering, radioactive ash. Would you just assume any bozo would be able to handle this responsibility, OR would you insist on a battery of psychological tests first? Obviously, a sane and rational person would demand the latter,.

In lieu of such tests, which would include the ability to restrain emotions, control impulses and especially to manage them in critical situations, one would also demand attention to detail- including reading each of the daily briefs he's given by intelligence agencies. Thus, as media commentator April Ryan put it last night ('All In') Trump's very avoidance of reading creates its own degrees of harm, alarm and incompetence. While most presidents, including JFK and Obama, typically read documents, papers for up to nine hours a day  - to help make decisions, Trump reads none. Let me rephrase that: he will read a one page dilution of a PDB from Michael G. Flynn, but it must be put in more or less 'fake news' format.

An equally alarming aspect  - reported in the NY Times yesterday- concerns Trump not knowing or understanding what he was doing when he signed an executive order putting Steve Bannon on the National Security Council.  As the Times put it:

"he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council".

I mean, process this - as Gen.  McCaffrey also did in sober terms. What's worse, putting this proto-Nazi on the National Security Council or not knowing that he did? What we may have is not only a Russian stooge in the White House but a semi-conscious zombot. People are putting things in front of him to sign and he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's signing! Because he doesn't read!  Basically, we are all passengers in a 'vehicle' with an insane guy at the wheel, careening toward perdition.

My point here is that if he doesn't read  the exec "orders" he's signing and can't read the PDBs directly but must have an aide (Flynn) reduce them to cartoon form, then he must be replaced!  He is risking the nation's security as well as the world's by his manifest incompetence.  Coupled with his arrogance and recklessness this is an A- bomb ready to blow.

If he also shows symptoms of paranoid ideation, imagining whole groups out to get him or undermine him,  where there is no evidence, the case is even stronger. Hence, when Trump yesterday went to Ft. MacDill outside  Tampa and rambled on about the media deliberately hiding "phantom terror attacks".  We thus have prima facie evidence that this man belongs locked up in a psych ward at Bellevue, at the very least. He certainly doesn't belong in any place or job where he can gain unilateral access to the nuclear football, enter the codes on a whim -  or belief an "enemy" is about to attack- and reduce the world to rubble. The justifications for getting him out multiply by orders of magnitude when we see he believes he is above any law, or any constraint.

If the national security state isn't convinced we've reached the 'Defcon 1'  alarm yet with this nut, then what is the alternative for removal?  The only solution for now, short of a violent intel agency intervention, would appear to be the 25th amendment - assuming enough Republicans can find their spines (which some have, after the O'Reilly interview).  As Richard Cohen put it:

He thinks he is infallible, a kind of secular pope. Things will go from bad to worse...  One remote remedy is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate...There is, however, another way. Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” can remove the president for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”


It is clear to most sober and sentient citizens that Trump is way past the stage of being able to discharge the duties of the office. We simply cannot afford to have a paranoid sociopath (likely controlled by a foreign power)  with the impulse control of a dyspeptic 4 year old in charge of our nuclear arsenal - and who may launch all those weapons because the Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans might suddenly piss him off.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/todd-gitlin/71065/government-by-outburst