Trump and war in Korea

[Starlight]

Seems like things are heating up with regard to North Korea. Is Trump going to bungle things and get South Korea nuked? I would be very worried if I lived in South Korea right now.

The background, of course, is that North Korea got nuclear weapons during the presidency of Bush, when he was asleep on his watch. Since then the US has largely followed the strategy of "let's just leave well enough alone and let the mad dictator take photos of himself in the ruins of his own country, and not in any way provoke him into doing anything precipitous like nuking South Korea."

But now, because Trump is incompetent and isn't just content to leave it alone, he's now sending forces to the region and there's talk about striking North Korea. Apparently the war-mongering cheer-leading from the corporate media that came when he did his symbolic strike against Syria seems to have gone to his head, and he isn't content with simply adding an 8th country to the number of Middle Eastern countries the US is conducting operations in, he now wants to bring war to an entirely new region of the world...



Which part of the mad dictator has nuclear weapons and keeps threatening to use them doesn't Trump understand? After all, that apples to himself too.

I get that Trump is incompetent and senile and wants to look strong... but getting South Korea nuked is not the correct way to do that.

[Darth Executor]

Yes idiot purveyor of fake news, the reason why Bush didn't do anything about NK getting nukes is because he was "asleep" and not because they are allied with china and NK had 50 thousand entrenched guns (as in artillery pieces, not "assault weapons) pointed at Seoul (which is near the border with NK).

I predict this garbage thread will go nowhere, OP already poisoned beyond recognition with Fartlight's gross ignorance and eternal butthurt because neophyte Trump humiliated his pet career politician Hillary Clinton.

[Starlight]

because neophyte Trump humiliated his pet career politician Hillary Clinton.

Um, yeah, that huge love for Clinton that I have always had...

I agree Clinton is terrible. I could never vote for her. I just couldn't. The more I see from her in this campaign the more I come to simply loathe her.

I loathe the Clintons. I hate how they took the democratic party to the right in the 90s. I hate how corrupt they are. I hate how much they flip-flop. I hate how they pretend to be progressive while being to the right of center. I would genuinely love to see Hillary Clinton go to jail.

Clinton is going to really struggle against Trump.

...Hillary Robot everyone-in-the-world-bribes-me Clinton as president. Progressives and independent-minded people have been leaving the democratic party, and Clinton's going to worsen that trend.

I don't like Hillary, or agree with her center-right politics, and think her foreign policy positions (e.g. that the US should have rigged the 2006 Palestinian elections) are downright atrociously despicable cold-war stuff

The fact Hillary is not left-wing in her policies enough for me is the smallest reason I disapprove of her. The main reason I loathe her is her corruption. Everything about her views, the people she surrounds herself with, and the entire way her campaign has been run is so corrupt through and through that it's just sickening. She's every bit as bad as the Republican candidates at selling out to the nearest wealthy donors, and doing their bidding in exchange for cash.

Clinton supporters are just ignorant of politics and don't really know how corrupt she is because they don't follow politics much...

Part of the reason I loathe Clinton is that I think having someone with her level of corruption in what is supposed to be the party of the people is unacceptable.

I loathe Clinton... she's far too corrupt, too right-wing economically, too much of a liar, too much of a war-hawk, and her campaign and the DNC cheated in the primary. I would prefer almost anyone else over Clinton, so for a while I preferred a Trump victory.

However, over time Trump has been revealed to be absolutely full of it. He's dangerously incompetent both in politics and business, not particularly rich, in bed with Russia, has sold-out to Wall St, and seems to have a pathological disorder of not being able to take an insult gracefully. He simply can't run the country. Clinton would run the country wrongly, but Trump can't even rise to that standard - he's simply not competent.

I personally critiqued Clinton during the primaries for her limited acceptance of abortion.

I think in some ways Hillary's biggest problem is this: I've followed the politics closely and I'm honestly not sure what she actually believes on almost any issue. About the one thing I feel safe in saying is that she generally seems fairly consistently in favor of wars and for America to pursue a more active and interventionist foreign policy. On almost everything else she's done either huge flip-flops (eg consistently opposing gay marriage until a couple of months ago), or been double-faced (eg claiming she supports strong regulation of Wall St, while taking huge amounts of money from Wall St and giving them speeches about how they are very misunderstood). As a result, I feel I have no ability to predict what she'll actually do once she gets into office: I don't trust her to carry through on any of what she claims she wants to do, because I have zero trust that she actually does want any of it. And this manifests itself in the fact that a huge proportion of Democrat voters say they don't trust Hillary.

The issue Hillary is flip-flopping on today: The TPP.

Overall, from the point of view of progressives/liberals, I judge Clinton to have relatively small advantages over Trump in the short term, but very serious strategic disadvantages in the long term, so I would probably have a slight preference for a Trump victory.

... if Clinton (as much as I hate her) hadn't actually won the popular vote

Yes, the Clintons have probably set new records in US politics for power-brokering of favors, and yes the Clinton Foundation extending that to international donors probably breaks previous records for corruption. Yes, they have a tendency to operate on the fine line between legal and illegal when doing this, bolstered by expensive lawyers who help them find ways to make their actions legal. Yes, they have well-established tendency to surround themselves with yes-men, who cater to their every whim and help them do that power-brokering and those favors. Yes, they have a tendency to clam-up tight and do their best to obstruct investigations into their activities.

As such, they are everything I hate about corrupt politicians, and I would never vote for them.

Good to see you on the ball as always D.E. and good to see that you're so fully informed about the love I've expressed for Clinton over and over again in the past year and a half.

[Darth Executor]

It's not about loving or hating her, it's about her being the leader of the left in the US and being utterly humiliated (and thus the rest of the left being utterly humiliated) by some guy you thought you could easily remove from the competition. Bernie Sanders was sacrificed so the "electable" lich could get rolled by a short fingered vulgarian.

And pretty much all your pretend hate for Hillary Clinton went out the window when you backed her team's strategy of pushing Russia conspiracy theories to distract from the fact that she cheated an actual leftist (Sanders) out of the nomination and then faceplanted. Like with all liberals the words that come out of your mouth aren't worth anything, the actions speak for themselves.

[Terraceth]

I always did think we should've gone after Kim Jong instead of Saddam, considering the former was actually working on weapons of mass destruction.

[Tassman]

It's not about loving or hating her, it's about her being the leader of the left in the US and being utterly humiliated (and thus the rest of the left being utterly humiliated) by some guy you thought you could easily remove from the competition. Bernie Sanders was sacrificed so the "electable" lich could get rolled by a short fingered vulgarian.

And pretty much all your pretend hate for Hillary Clinton went out the window when you backed her team's strategy of pushing Russia conspiracy theories to distract from the fact that she cheated an actual leftist (Sanders) out of the nomination and then faceplanted. Like with all liberals the words that come out of your mouth aren't worth anything, the actions speak for themselves.

Regardless of one’s view of Hillary, it is Comey and the FBI, NOT Hillary et al, conducting the serious investigation into the Russian/Trump collusion. It is truly boring that whatever occurs to threaten your favourite bully is automatically attributed to Hillary or Obama.

[Meh Gerbil]

I'm not sure it is our duty to police North Korea.
Why are we the ones that have to address every idiot with a death wish?

[Sparko]

Seems like things are heating up with regard to North Korea. Is Trump going to bungle things and get South Korea nuked? I would be very worried if I lived in South Korea right now.

The background, of course, is that North Korea got nuclear weapons during the presidency of Bush, when he was asleep on his watch. Since then the US has largely followed the strategy of "let's just leave well enough alone and let the mad dictator take photos of himself in the ruins of his own country, and not in any way provoke him into doing anything precipitous like nuking South Korea."

well they had been developing nukes since Clinton, and they announced they had Nukes under Obama, so why are you blaming just Bush? And I thought you keep arguing that the USA should mind their own business and not interfere with other countries? Now you are complaining because it was "asleep on its watch?" You are not very consistent, Starlight.

But now, because Trump is incompetent and isn't just content to leave it alone, he's now sending forces to the region and there's talk about striking North Korea. Apparently the war-mongering cheer-leading from the corporate media that came when he did his symbolic strike against Syria seems to have gone to his head, and he isn't content with simply adding an 8th country to the number of Middle Eastern countries the US is conducting operations in, he now wants to bring war to an entirely new region of the world...

Anyone with a lick of sense would know that part of the strike against syria was to send a message to NK and the world that Trump is not going to be pushed around like Obama. I think he wants people to think he is crazy because most people don't want to mess around with crazy. I don't think he acutally IS crazy.

Which part of the mad dictator has nuclear weapons and keeps threatening to use them doesn't Trump understand? After all, that apples to himself too.

NK has been using the "we are crazy so don't provoke us" strategy for some time now. I think Trump is giving them a taste of their own medicine.

I get that Trump is incompetent and senile and wants to look strong... but getting South Korea nuked is not the correct way to do that.

So wait, you think the USA should NOT get involved now? I thought you were just complaining because the USA did not get involved previously and let them develop nukes? Make up your mind.

[Sparko]

I'm not sure it is our duty to police North Korea.
Why are we the ones that have to address every idiot with a death wish?

Because we are allies with South Korea and helped them become an independent nation. We are their "big brother" and have been since they were created. Because the USA CAN police North Korea and are the only country who WILL. Because it is the right thing to do. Because we promised SK we would defend them. Because allowing NK to expand will lead to another war in Asia and embolden other dictatorships to push around other free countries, like Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, and so on.

[Meh Gerbil]

Because we are allies with South Korea and helped them become an independent nation. We are their "big brother" and have been since they were created. Because the USA CAN police North Korea and are the only country who WILL. Because it is the right thing to do. Because we promised SK we would defend them. Because allowing NK to expand will lead to another war in Asia and embolden other dictatorships to push around other free countries, like Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, and so on.

China can't handle this one?
For me it would be like Russia being concerned with our Mexican border issues.

[seer]

I think we should appease North Korea and give them New Zealand!

[Meh Gerbil]

I think we should appease North Korea and give them New Zealand!

WWIII and the near extinction of the human race all started over a North Korea/New Zealand kerfuffle.
If we all have to die I really do hope this is the reason.

[Sparko]

China can't handle this one?
For me it would be like Russia being concerned with our Mexican border issues.

China is on NK's side. They would love to see South Korea "annexed"