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DemocratSinceBirth

(99,708 posts)
Fri May 25, 2018, 10:02 AM May 2018

This is chilling

When President Donald Trump canceled his June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he told him in a letter that the past few days of “tremendous anger and open hostility” had made it “inappropriate” for the two to meet and discuss denuclearization. “You talk about your nuclear capabilities,” Trump wrote, “but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.” The language echoed a January tweet in which the president wrote, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

The North issued a statement in short order emphasizing a willingness to “sit down with the United States any time, in any format, to resolve the problems.” Yet it’s getting harder to see how Trump and Kim can make the mutual accommodations necessary for diplomacy to succeed. In fact, beneath the surface, the current situation resembles the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which historical research continues to show was much more dangerous than anyone knew at the time. If the Trump-Kim summit stays canceled, and saber-rattling returns as the dominant mode of communication, the odds of military crisis will rise dramatically. And, as the Cuba experience shows, once begun, a military crisis involving nuclear weapons will almost inevitably bring lots of surprises—ones that could make the shocking twists and turns of the summit buildup look pedestrian by comparison.

...

What about the U.S. and its leadership? Ellsberg noted the widely reported concerns about Trump’s mental and temperamental fitness, and his predilection for making fiery threats. “The question is, will the military hold the president back from his impulsiveness?” he asked. “My own guess is they can’t, they won’t. They can be replaced in an instant. Someone else will step in. They can’t hold him back. Who has ever told the president ‘you can’t do this’?”


https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/trump-north-korea-cuban-missile-crisis/554318/

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This is chilling (Original Post) DemocratSinceBirth May 2018 OP
As we watch a dictatorship try to take hold and the GOP congress sits on their asses, silent. n/t RKP5637 May 2018 #1
Ok Cary May 2018 #2
That's exactly his problem -- and ours: RandomAccess May 2018 #3
I don't want to become what I condemn and that's a fantasist. DemocratSinceBirth May 2018 #6
Like anyone needs to be reminded of how many nukes we have. Canoe52 May 2018 #4
Here's how they will stop him FakeNoose May 2018 #5

Cary

(11,746 posts)
2. Ok
Fri May 25, 2018, 10:19 AM
May 2018

So.what has constrained him so far? I know nothing but I hope the Republicans do have a line drawn somewhere.

DemocratSinceBirth

(99,708 posts)
6. I don't want to become what I condemn and that's a fantasist.
Fri May 25, 2018, 12:48 PM
May 2018

But I am not convinced Trump isn't capable of unfathomable things.

FakeNoose

(32,599 posts)
5. Here's how they will stop him
Fri May 25, 2018, 12:47 PM
May 2018
What about the U.S. and its leadership? Ellsberg noted the widely reported concerns about Trump’s mental and temperamental fitness, and his predilection for making fiery threats. “The question is, will the military hold the president back from his impulsiveness?” he asked. “My own guess is they can’t, they won’t. They can be replaced in an instant. Someone else will step in. They can’t hold him back. Who has ever told the president ‘you can’t do this’?”


One of the generals will take out his gun and shoot him. Maybe even General Kelly would do it. I'm not advocating violence. But I mean come on, this is obvious.

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