The US is on a rampage, or Trump's team is, going after every country that isn't part of the US hegemony while the vassal states of Europe cheer on.
General Douglas McArthur had this to say about the Korean War (from the Washington Post):
Having just been fired as commander of allied forces in Korea, a defiant Douglas MacArthur appeared before Congress and spoke of human suffering so horrifying that his parting glimpse of it caused him to vomit.
“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million.
“I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added, “and it just curdled my stomach.”
It was a remarkable statement. At that time, the general was not yet six years removed from having presided over the atomic bomb strikes that compelled Japan’s surrender in World War II.
I shrink with a horror that I cannot express in words, at this continuous slaughter of men in Korea. The battle casualties in Korea today probably have passed the million-man mark: Our own casualties, American casualties, have passed 65,000. The Koreans have lost about 140,000. Our losses, on our side, are a quarter of a million men.
I am not talking of the civilian populations who must have lost many, many, many times that. The enemy probably has lost 750,000 casualties. There are 145,000 of them that are now in our prison bullpens, prisoners, so they might be excepted from that figure because they live; but a million men in less than 11 months of fighting, in less than 11 months of this conflict, have already gone, and it grows more savage every day.
I just cannot brush that off as a Korean skirmish. I believe that is something of such tremendous importance that it must be solved, and it cannot be solved by the nebulous process of saying ‘give us time, and we will be prepared; or we will be in better shape two years from now,’ which is argumentative. I don’t know whether we will or not; and neither do you. …
But I say there is no chance in Korea, because it is a fact — you have lost a million men now. You will lose more than a million if you go on another year; if you go on until 1953, you will lose another million. What are you trying to protect? The war in Korea has already almost destroyed the nation of 20,000,000 people.The Korean War ended more than two years later. An estimated 2.9 million people were left dead, wounded or missing.
Heres Mattis from this week right behind Trump statement:
ReplyDelete"The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people," Mattis said."
Looks like the NK civilian population is in extreme jeopardy....
In the first year of the war the US under MacArthur swept the country right up to the Yalu river (Chinese border) and even bombed Russia. The entire country was burned to the ground, there were no viable targets left.
ReplyDeleteReference: The Hidden History of the Korean War, I.F. Stone, 1952.
Seems like the focus is on Guam...
ReplyDeleteIf they shoot something at Guam will Trump as counter puncher consider that a punch?
If he does then it's on....
NK has explained that they are planning a long-range missile test that will pass over Japan and splash down in the vicinity of Guam. They are not threatening Guam with a strike. This is US media propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThe objective is to show that Guam, the base of the B-1 that would be used too strike NK, is vulnerable. The secondary objective is to reveal whether the US is able to use its ABM defense to shoot down the missile(s). NK could use multiple missiles and weapons experts say that it is unlike that the US missile defense could stop them all. If the US tried to down the missile(s), and failed it would further demonstrate the vulnerability of the US.
This is actually a good strategy, and the US doesn't have good options other than attacking NK. Military estimates up the wealth total at over a million in NK and SK, wiping out Seoul and the US military in the vicinity.
Military strategist see NK have the advantage strategically from the POV of game theory. Of course, the US has superior power, but the cost of using it is very high.
This is the strategy that smaller nations should be using against a superpower. They have no other choice, and their chances increase greatly with nukes. Which is a bi reason that existing nuclear powers are against non-proliferation.
This is scary.
ReplyDeleteThe Jonathon Freedland of the Guardian calls for the impeachment of Trump and I'm beginning to agree. But will it make any difference as his team are probably just as hawkish. Jonathon Freedland said about the so called 'Deep State conspiracy' and then went on to say but only the deep state may be able to stop trump. The guy has become a raving loon. We were all conned. What kind of democracy is it when you vote in a government and it goes and does the opposite of what it said it would do? When Trump got in he said we are now entering an era of peace. Wow! I thought.
I spoke my friend once about the US controlling the world and he said, 'Let them have it'. Well, it might be best if every country in the world was a vassal state of the US, but would many of these countries do as well out of it as Europe does, I fear Russia and China would be stripped of its wealth and peoples pensions and life savings could be at risk, and it will be called 'free markets' and 'democracy'.
But China would never surrender as it's on a course to take technology into the right into the future and create a Brave New World, so this century could be theirs. Let's hope they don't turn out to be imperialists too. America tells the world of its 'good intentions' and China does too.
Keven, Trump is not an aberration. He is the product of longstanding GOP strategy since Richard Nixon.
ReplyDeleteIt was inevitable, one might say, that someday the base that the GOP was courting and relying on to win elections would one day elected their guy. Trump is that guy.
The base thinks he is making too many compromises with the establishment and is being cowed by the deep state. There is a good chance that Trump will fire Steven Bannon, who Gen. Kelly has already sidelined. The base is not happy about this.
Until this is all resolved, and it has been going on pretty much since the inception of the US, there is the possibility that someone far more problematic than Trump might accede to power.
This is not too difficult to understand. The lower 80% of the US population economically has experienced their income and wealth stagnating or declining over the past several decades to the point that many are now joining the precariat.
ReplyDeleteNot being astute economically they look for scapegoats. The obvious scapegoats for most Americans in this boot are the underclass and foreigners.
American democraphics have also been changing with whites faced with becoming a minority. This leads to scapegoating non-whites.
America has also avoided inflation through importing inexpensive goods from abroad, which many people equate with China, although many other countries are involved, too. This leads to scapegoating foreigners.
This provides a base for politicians to draw on. Trump was skillful and bold enough to exploit this. Their problem with him is that they not more forceful in doing what they elected him to do. "Draining the swamp" means getting rid of the establishment and installing their representatives, the lame stream press and political correctness be damned.
Trump is not in a position to deliver since he is forcefully opposed by the establishment and establishment-controlled media. The base is willing to cut him some slack on because of this, but he has to show that he is fighting for them and delivering on at some of his promises.
He'll have to interpret the Gaum targeting as sparring (test) rather than a punch that missed... it's his call... Mattis sounds like he's ready to do small tactical nukes (with heavy civilian casualties) if ordered ... maybe small nukes while the Guam missile is still in the air...
ReplyDeleteThe US spokespeople are now saying that war is not imminent and especially nuclear war.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope not, Tom, and I'm glad you posted that. Russia seems to be cowering down now, as the US has become criminally insane. The US Right scare me, they can be completely unreasonable but actually don't care they are being unreasonable. I don't get their viewpoint and I yet try to fit into other people's point of view to understand how they they think. I watched a few alt right videos - I think Matt put them out here - and I found them nauseous. They were complaining about how hard done by white people are. They lacked so much consciousness they could not see 'white privilege'. I'm white by the way.
ReplyDeleteCivil war has begun in the US.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope the whole "white identity " thing (maybe identity politics in general) is just a millennial thing... GenZ might have to bail us out as the millennials are pathetic...
ReplyDelete"White privilege" is bullshit, Kaivey. Invented by a white female professor at Princeton in 1988 as a dominus vobiscum to anoint herself a latter-day saint Joan of Arc for slavery she had no part in creating and showed a remarkable lack of understanding of.
ReplyDeleteIt’s called liberal guilt on steroids and it’s appalling.
Blacks did not come to this country as slaves. They came as free men who were enslaved and brought here in chains in cahoots with African chiefs, who wanted the young bucks an ocean away from their harems, by greedy Dutch (initially) flesh traders anxious to supply cheap labor in the New World.
These traders were mainly Jews who had been kicked out of Spain and Portugal after 1492, and landed in Amsterdam. They started their business in Curacao and moved north. Touro (who is still lionized to this day in the south and up the eastern seaboard) was the greatest slave trader of all.
Slaves, those born as slaves, are like the Untouchables in India who never ever rose, or rise (because I’m sure it still exists in the Indian countryside today), above their station.
The Dutch were the #1 slave traders until it fell into disfavor with the Europeans shortly before the US Civil War. Lincoln didn't end slavery with the Emancipation Act for moral reasons. It was for business. The Europeans had begun to find it repellent and it was affecting commerce.
ReplyDelete"Precariat." Great word.
ReplyDeleteSteve D, who are you quoting this from: “'Chained and crowded with no room to move, Africans were forced to make the journey…’?” And fuck off for what?
ReplyDelete