The table, not nuclear war

Put peace on

After President Donald Trump’s recent tirade against North Korea at the United Nations, likely the first to threaten genocide from that rostrum, he is continuing his provocations, threatening the life of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, asserting that his days are numbered. North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, told the U.N. that this was tantamount to a “declaration of war” and thus it had the right to shoot down U.S. planes skirting its borders, even if the U.S. didn’t cross them. The White House quickly said the U.S. had not declared war. Now Mr. Trump is undermining Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as too soft. Who knows what will be said in the days that follow?

But here’s a big problem. The U.S. has never officially ended the last war in Korea in the 1950s. There is only an armistice, not a peace treaty. This has kept everything in the region on a hair trigger, up to this day.

I’m of the opinion that Mr. Trump, unfortunately, is in over his head on all of this. He would do well to shut up in this insulting game of “the dozens” with Mr. Kim. Fortunately, there are a few people in our country who might deal rationally in this crisis, such as Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, who has been to North Korea a number of times and understands a few things about the country. He knows the North Koreans remember when U.S. bombs and napalm leveled every building in North Korea, using more tonnage than in all of the Pacific in World War II. Our pilots complained of being sent where there was nothing left to bomb. We may have forgotten it, but the North Koreans haven’t.

Mr. Trump says “everything is on the table” here, implying a threat. But I’ll challenge him to live up to it. He should go to Pyongyang and take Mr. Richardson with him. Once there, he should first work to end the 1950s war with a peace treaty, which would ease the hair trigger. Then he should make an effort to normalize relations on the basis of mutual respect, including getting rid of sanctions and opening trade. Then, finally, work long term to get all nuclear weapons, including ours, out of the North Asia region.

Some might find this unrealistic. I don’t think so, especially when you consider all of the alternatives, which include 50 million dead. In the meantime, we have to prepare to take to the streets and the halls of Congress to block this madness before it goes further. CARL DAVIDSON Aliquippa