TRUMP TELLS CHINA – GET RID OF KIM OR WE WILL

North Korea threatens to attack Guam with nuclear weapons. So Democrats and the Lying Swine attack… President Trump.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president said Tuesday (8/8). “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

That was “bombast,” a “rhetorical grenade,” said the Washington Post in an editorial.

The president “went rogue” with his “bellicose language,” said ABC News.

Trump’s “reckless rhetoric” increases tensions, said Senate Democrat leader  Chuck Schumer.

Yet President Clinton used starker language in 1993 to describe what would happen if North Korea used a nuclear weapon.

“It would mean the end of their country as they know it,” Clinton said.

The difference between what Clinton said then and what Trump said this week is this president really means it.

Here’s what Donald Trump said about North Korea in 1999.

We cannot permit the most evil regime in the world, headed by a dictator who may not be entirely sane, to acquire both nuclear weapons and the means to attack the continental United States with them. President Trump won’t.

And neither will Secretary of Defense Mattis.  On Wednesday, he said essentially the same thing as the President said the day before.  Funny, isn’t it, that the Lying Swine didn’t freak out about Mad Dog:

“The DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”

North Korea may already have the ability to “miniaturize” an atomic bomb, and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the west coast. If not yet (I suspect Nork threats about Guam indicate that’s as far as their missiles can reach), they’re likely to acquire both within months.

President Clinton gave North Korea a massive bribe to keep them from building nukes. It didn’t work.

Presidents Bush and, especially, Obama did nothing about the rising threat.

This can can’t be kicked down the road any longer. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in March the “policy of strategic patience has ended.”  As Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday (8/10) in support of President Trump and his rhetoric:

“President Trump’s rhetoric yesterday (8/09), I think, is a change that is probably necessary. Everybody who spoke before him failed. Every smart person on TV who talks about what Trump should do when it was their turn to deal with North Korea, they failed miserably. There’s no place for him to kick the can down the road.”

Only China has enough economic leverage to force the Norks to disarm without war. The administration is employing every carrot and stick imaginable to induce the Chinese to use it.

With some success. The remarkable thing about the UN resolution to impose economic sanctions on North Korea was that China and Russia voted for it. This wasn’t just because UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is a silver-tongued devil (though she is).

There are ten Chinese companies which, if they cut off all trade with North Korea, could starve the Norks into submission. The Chinese government says it will comply with the UN resolution. But that remains to be seen.

The Chinese aren’t thrilled at the prospect of North Korea becoming a nuclear power either. But the Chicoms still regard the U.S. as their foremost enemy, thus like having the Norks poke us in the eye with a stick every now and then.

The optimal realistic solution would be if the Chinese found some Nork generals who’d be content to be Chinese vassals in a denuclearized North Korea, have them off Kim Jong Un and his clique.

I suspect Trump’s warning Tuesday was meant as much for China as for North Korea. If you don’t want all hell to break loose in your backyard, rein in fat little Kim ASAP.

But time is running out. I think if North Korea actually does shoot missiles at/near Guam, the president will act.

You can never know for certain what will happen when you loose the Dogs of War, which is why military force should always be a last resort.

But if the Korean War resumes, it’s likely to be over soon, result in the complete destruction of the regime.

The known unknown is how many South Koreans and American soldiers would die before North Korea is destroyed.

The northern suburbs of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, where half the population lives, are just 30 miles from the DMZ. The Norks have thousands of artillery pieces in tunnels on their side of the border.

Nork artillery could pretty much wipe out Seoul, the Washington Post said in this scaremongering article from April.

BS, says former Army officer Streiff in this must read analysis.

The Post and the “experts” it quotes assume:

*That all Nork artillery can reach the entire city. (Only the rocket systems can.)

*That all Nork artillery is lined up along the DMZ. (Much of it isn’t.)

*That the Norks would shoot at civilians rather than at South Korean and American troops. (Can’t think of a faster way to lose the war.)

*That the Norks have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. (They don’t.)

*That the South Koreans and Americans won’t shoot back. (Counterbattery fire will swiftly and substantially degrade the effectiveness of Nork artillery.)

There’s basically zero probability North Korea could take and hold much ground in South Korea.

North Korea’s armed forces are very large, but they’re museum pieces. The Nork army still uses T-55 and T-62 tanks, obsolete for half a century. The Nork air force still uses Korean War vintage MiGs.

Because of the mountainous terrain, the Norks would have only a few, clearly defined, avenues of approach, which would be very vulnerable to air interdiction.

Nork logistics systems are so poor they couldn’t keep combat units supplied with gas and ammo for more than a couple of days, even if we weren’t bombing them. And rest assured, we’d be bombing them.

By far the most dangerous Nork conventional forces are their roughly 100,000 special forces troops who could wreak havoc behind our lines. But their effectiveness depends chiefly on North Korea’s ability to infiltrate them before hostilities start.

Which is an excellent argument for pre-emption.

It isn’t the only one. Whether the Nork air force and navy last days, or just hours, depends on who shoots first.

Our THAAD and Aegis systems almost certainly can handle any Nork missiles launched at South Korea, Japan, or Guam. But you never can be sure an ABM system will be leakproof. Better to destroy the missiles before they can be launched.

We don’t know exactly what it was President Trump meant by “fire and fury like the world has ever seen.” I doubt he was talking about us using nukes.

If push comes to shove, I hope this weapons system is on line.

I’m confident President Trump will do everything he can to end the North Korean threat without war. I’m more confident he’ll end the threat, one way or another.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.