ARE WE STILL HERE AMID ‘FIRE AND FURY’?
Are we still here this morning? Will we be here tomorrow? Or will there just be the slow clearing of “fire and fury, the likes of which the world has never seen”?
Those words rolled off Donald Trump’s lips like words always do — mockingly, foolishly, and likely with little more thought or preparation than what he gave to the words he used on the Access Hollywood bus when he bragged of grabbing women inappropriately, or when he imitated a handicapped reporter, or shamed and admonished Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “get back to work” on Obamacare repeal and replace.
An American president has said something like “fire and fury” before, but that president was actually in the act of waging a war — and ending it.
Harry Truman said of the Japanese after Hiroshima, that “they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth” if they did not agree to end the war on U.S. terms.
Trump, on the other hand, borrowed the words — without his generals’ input. And the result has been a tit for tat escalation of bully-boy taunts with Kim Jong-un, the 33-year-old man-boy leader of North Korea who has orchestrated the assassinations of some of his own family members.
Kim promptly answered Trump’s vague, fiery threats with his own very specific ones. He would examine a plan for an enveloping strike at Guam with four intermediate-range strategic ballistic rockets. What’s more, the plan would be complete by mid-August.
“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him,” Kim’s top general said in apparent reference to Trump. And the general called Trump’s ultimatum a “load of nonsense.”
To which, Trump upped the ante again: “North Korea better get their act together or they’re going to be in trouble …” and “perhaps that statement [fire and fury] wasn’t tough enough.”
Stop this madness, children! And did we mention that Trump is still vacationing?
Foreign policy and military experts one after another have cautioned that a preemptive raid against North Korea, even a limited one, could easily spin into something much broader — something that could cause more than a million casualties. One would hope this would need Congressional authorization. But with Trump, all bets are off for that sort of advisement.
For years now, people have been frightened that a madman in North Korea or the Middle East would push the button and throw us into a nuclear war.
Now we and the world are frightened that a madman in Washington, D.C., will beat the North Korea madman to it.
We sincerely hope we’re all still here this morning to reflect on this.