Posted On: Tuesday - April 4th 2017 6:42AM MST
In Topics: Trump Pundits US Feral Government The Neocons
Pat Buchanan writes a lot about US foreign relations and military adventures and is very libertarian about it ("not our business - leave these places alone"). He has pretty good knowledge of history too, but will delve into speculation once in a while. His latest column, Why Is Kim Jong Un Our Problem?, seen here on VDare and here on Unz with comments is about why Trump should not be promising US involvement with North Korea should Mr. Kim go completely nuts.
Why then is this our problem to “solve”? And why is North Korea building a rocket that can cross the Pacific and strike Seattle or Los Angeles?Now, I have a problem with the line "Is Kim Jong Un mad? Mr. Buchanan means "mad" in the British sense, as in crazy, not the American sense, as in pissed off. I believe that whole damn country of North Korea is mad really. Whether we have 28,500 soldiers on the DMZ or not (BTW, I was pretty close with my round number of 25,000 in this post I'm good with round numbers) Mr. Kim would make his threats about the US anyway to show his powerful status to his country full of sad, oppressed peons. It makes him the big man to show that he is taking on the (so far) still biggest military power in the world, seriously or not seriously.
Is Kim Jong Un mad?
No. He is targeting us because we have 28,500 troops on his border. If U.S. air, naval, missile and ground forces were not in and around Korea, and if we were not treaty-bound to fight alongside South Korea, there would be no reason for Kim to build rockets to threaten a distant superpower that could reduce his hermit kingdom to ashes.
While immensely beneficial to Seoul, is this U.S. guarantee to fight Korean War II, 64 years after the first wise? Russia, China and Japan retain the freedom to decide whether and how to react, should war break out. Why do we not?
However, the rest of the column is right on. Trump needs to get his priorities straight - he may indeed have the Deep State on his ass causing him to follow in the neocon ways of the last 4 US presidents.
What Buchanan wrote needs to be said but he left out the other half of the picture that Ron Paul could have told us (and has): This country is BEYOND BROKE - get it? As related here on this blog, we will be requesting a cease fire as we wait for parts for our offensive weapons during any prolonged, serious war. Our military, in terms of personnel, has become a sick social experiment as opposed to the "armed forces".
I hope Trump can avoid listening to the neocons, but that hope usually goes away after 6 months of any new president being in office.
Comments:
Buck Turgidson
Saturday - April 8th 2017 5:09AM MST
"...a sick social experiment...." That is well stated. Our military has gone way, way beyond its original mandate and what is should be reasonably doing today. Our military is extremely overextended and this global military empire is tremendously expensive and a big reason we are $20T in debt. The net result, other than the debt, is heartache, failed expectations, and a huge friggin mess. Unfortunately, the military seems led by people who cannot learn a damned thing from this experience and, unfortunately, receive way too damned much money from our US Congress. I know several military officers. Good guys and friends, all that. At the same time, they have an entitlement mentality regarding the US Treasury and my tax dollars, and do not think there is any place on Earth that they should be stationed and keeping an eye on things. They believe that they are entitled to a bottomless pit of money to play global geopolitical engineers and strategists, and blow up things, kill people, take out leaders, and so on, as they see fit. No doubts. The opinion of a taxpayer such as myself, who foots the bill for this insanity? Not worth considering, as it's coming from an outsider who does not really know how the world works, like they do. I am from a military family, but our military needs to be reigned in, and we need to start living within our means. We also need to keep our nose out of other nations' business. We can't fix every damned problem in the world. We also should not be saddling our future generations with a mountain of debt b/c we have neocons who think they are in charge of policing the world. Sorry kind of a rant, we have bad leadership in this country and the military sees bad guys around every corner. and we're broke.