That reflects well on you. Good. I'm glad that you actually care a little bit.

Which of my posts in the past few weeks do you think indicate that I'm "quite hurt that Trump has been so harshly criticized"? There is zero chance that's a reasonable interpretation of my posting.

I found one.

Ok but we should question the alternative - Hilary "China hawk" Clinton.

https://www.ft.com/content/92b23c8e-...8-b372cdb1043a

fixed

Not if you're talking about last November. If you want to kick someone for voting for China hawk in the primaries I won't get in your way.

At least if we did get in a war we would not have a banana republic pres and leadership for it.

I believe even Sanders stopped at questioning US foreign policy, correct me if I'm wrong.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.w...icy-seriously/

Actually sounds quite good. Don't know where I heard the contrary

He introduced a bill to cut nuclear weapons development and proposed cutting the war (defense) budget in half. Imo the budget is the key, policy flows suit either because of philosophy or necessity.

Here is the obvious GTO type equilibrium point:

The point where North Korea has just enough bombs and missiles where they can honestly proclaim "Of course we can't beat the US in a war. But if they attack us we can probably kill a few million Americans before we all die." We should reluctantly agree to let them get to that point. But since there is no good reason for them to go further than that (because they would never get to the point of having a chance if winning), we have to seriously consider an attack if they do.

North Korea is already there. An expert shows what a war today would be like:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...1ef_story.html

Probably cut and paste this here before but pepe escobar always worth a re read

For all the intractable problems affecting the Korean peninsula, independent analysts have also been considering how the Washington-Pyongyang drama is only a small part of a much larger Big Picture; the American subjugation of international relations based on their dependence of what is extracted from the rest of the world in the form of dollar debt.
Washington uses the usual tools — sanctions and bombs — to enforce dollar-denominated global trade and energy trade. China has counter-attacked with everything from the biggest "win-win" trade/ infrastructure project of the 21st century — the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — to buying energy in yuan; call it a mighty counterpunch against the infernal US debt machine. Russia for its part has fully re-emerged as a prime geopolitical/military power.

The Brzezinski doctrine — to prevent the emergence of any peer competitor, not to mention an alliance of peer competitors such as the Russia-China strategic partnership — is collapsing all over. Nuclear North Korea is just the latest visible sign of the collapse. It's as if with voting in favor of the latest sanctions package at the UNSC, Russia-China have allowed a double dare (and they sure knew in advance the rhetorical war would escalate).

The cumulative effect, for all the world to see, is Washington regime change obsession (Iran, Venezuela, etc.) and illegal trade sanctions (Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc.) run amok, while Russia-China subtly keep undermining both Washington's supply chain — as in dollar debt — and military enforcement (bomb North Korea if you dare). So it's no wonder Russia-China, as far as the North Korea drama is concerned, are all for diplomacy, while the exceptionalist US deep state craves war.

This is unfortunately behind a paywall for me but in the same vein: Pentagons predictions for a conflict with DPRK in 1994 got declassified

Cliffs: 542k of South Koreas and US military personnel would die or get wounded within three months of the conflict. For comparison, in the Iraq conflict 4,809 people have died in the ranks of the coalition. Some eight times that have been wounded, some hundred times that have been casualties from the other side plus civilians.

we've (both US and NK) had enough advances in military technology since 1994 that certainly that projected deathtoll would have to be revised wayyyyy upwards, no?

Perceived civilian death toll seems like a lock to be a lot higher.

With the military, I'm not sure. There have been advances in body armor and medicine that has increased the number of wounded-to-killed ratios. A lot of people end up surviving in Iraq and Afganistan what would have killed them in Korea and Vietnam*. Though I'm not sure whether there's efficient enough armor that will protect you from an artillery strike or nuke to the face.

*Some of this number is probably fighting against homemade IEDs from invisible opponents.

Re death toll, the bombing of north korea from 1950 -1953 killed more than any other campaign. Anything between 1 and 2 million seems likely

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12...isis-in-korea/

These were conventional bombs (including napalm) and killed 10-20% of the population. Cant think why they fear and loathe the US and want nukes.

The ****ed up part is this is on the conservative side. It's assuming only 1 big hit on NYC while having 5-6 targets in the US.

Who started that war again?

Japan?

Oh, come on...

Who do you think started it?

Korea had a long history as a single country. Pretty bizarre for the US to occupy half of it and install a dictator. Russian involvement also bizarre. And bizarre to say any Korean, north or south, started that war. So, Japan?

North Korea by invading the southern part of the peninsula.

Russia and the US bear equal responsibility for carving up Korea and creating a hard border. Without both US and Russia neither puppet regime would a) exist, or b) have the capacity to invade the other half. In terms of who kicked things off, apparently the north Korean government with the support of the Russians, but generally these things are more complex than 'he started it'. Eg. Today if war breaks out Kim will get the blame, but we know there was much more going on in terms of US aggression stoking up tensions, today it is much more clearly US responsibility as the only genuine superpower, with the Chinese in 2017 much less influential than the Russians in 1950 in North Korea.

Did the US need to bomb every single possible target in NK including small villages to the point where bombers were grounded since there was nothing left to bomb? Was this the price of stopping "communism"/securing American interests in Asia?

A country with a 2000 year history/culture/language is occupied by Japan from 1910-1945 and then split in half by the US and USSR, each controlling puppet governments. I don't think 5 years later is long enough to act like it's entirely on any Koreans. Everyone can have some blame sure, but "who do you think started it? " is about Trumpian level analysis.

In 1942 France was divided and part was governed by a puppet state. How long until a Free French attack on Vichy could have been called starting a war?