United States president Donald Trump said of North Korea: “We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years, decades…” [emphasis added]
Misbehaved? What constitutes this misbehavior by North Korea? Has it attacked any countries since the end of the warring on the Korean Peninsula? What about the US’ behavior since 1953? It has since gone on to attack, among others, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It begs the question: which country is the demonstrable threat to peace around the world? It would be egregiously euphemistic to describe US aggression as misbehaviors. Such acts are war crimes; for example, in 1986, the International Court of Justice found the US guilty of unlawful use of force in Nicaragua. The US rejected the ruling. More recently, a compelling case has been made charging the US with genocide in Iraq.
But North Korea is building nuclear weapons and testing ICBMs. North Korea has an estimated 10 to 60 nukes, although there is still some doubt expressed about North Korean ICBMs being capable of reaching the continental US, of carrying a nuclear payload, or being capable of atmospheric reentry. As for the US, it has 1800 nukes, in Trump’s parlance, “locked and loaded.”
But forget all the puerile huffing and puffing emanating from the United States-North Korea brinksmanship. Why? Because there will be no nuclear launch or missile launch or other military…