That was speedy. He got from California to Maine in just a few paragraphs.
"Trump has said he will never allow the North to reach that point."
This, some may recall, was the case for attacking Iraq. It has weapons! It has weapons! It has weapons! Or anyway it could get weapons if not attacked, so we must defensively attack it!
Only, even Bush Junior and his quail-hunting sidekick picked Iraq over North Korea, as North Korea had nuclear weapons. It still does.
"In Seoul, Mattis will attend annual meetings Saturday with senior South Korean government officials and assess plans for countering the North's threats."
Even after quoting Trump's threats to North Korea, the AP is proposing that the U.S. engage in some counter-threatening activities, rather than halt its threatening. Substitute "terrorism" for "threatening" and this is a familiar journalistic practice.
"He'll also reaffirm America's promise to defend the South against any attack, and possibly discuss the outlook for giving the South wartime operational control of its own forces. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, including at Osan air base where the Air Force maintains fighter aircraft. More than a decade ago, the U.S. was prepared to give Seoul operational control of South Korean forces in the event of war with the North, but the U.S. ally has repeatedly asked that the transition be delayed. In 2014, the sides agreed to drop any timetable and hand off control only when both decide conditions are right. Thus, U.S. Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, who commands all U.S. troops in Korea, also would be in charge of South Korean troops if war broke out tomorrow. The North's Kim has vowed to complete his country's development of a nuclear arsenal, a project begun by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in defiance of international condemnations and United Nations economic sanctions. Even China, the North's traditional benefactor, has taken stronger economic measures to pressure the North to return to negotiations. None of the pressure has worked as the North insists a nuclear arsenal with global reach protects it from what it sees as U.S. efforts to overthrow the government."
But doesn't that admission of how North Korea views things create problems for the rest of this article that came before it? Didn't the North in fact find U.S. plans to overthrow its government on South Korean computers? Didn't it then begin building the missiles that the AP now foresees being able to reach the United States? Isn't a way out, then, a lot less mysterious than we're being led to believe? Wouldn't merely committing not to overthrow another government, something Trump campaigned on, go a long way?
"Choe Son-hui, a senior Foreign Ministry official, told a conference in Moscow last week that his country will develop nuclear weapons and missiles until achieving a 'balance of power' with the United States. Conference participants recounted her saying the nukes were non-negotiable unless Washington ended its 'hostile policy.'"
A pretty reasonable demand.
"The U.S. has stepped up the tempo of military exercises with allies, including periodic flights by strategic bombers over the peninsula and naval drills with South Korea last week. The activity has raised questions about whether Washington is showing force to deter Pyongyang or readying for a conflict."
Either way, it readies both sides for a conflict and does not one damn thing in the way of "deterrence." So what's the question?
"After North Korea conducted a series of ballistic missile tests and an underground nuclear test in September that the North said was a hydrogen bomb, it has kept the world guessing on what it will do next. If it again launches a missile through Japanese airspace, will Japan or the U.S. attempt to shoot it down? Will the North detonate a nuclear bomb over the Pacific, as Kim's foreign minister recently suggested? And could that presage war?"
How could anything not presage war once you've written yourself out of all possible avenues for peace?
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