Did you see video of that big military parade in North Korea last week? Those huge missile carriers, designed to hold an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S.? Did it ever occur to you that those carriers might be empty, that the parade was a huge bluff, that the North Koreans have never tested an ICBM, that their most recent test of an intermediate-range missile was a complete failure, that’s there’s no evidence that the North Koreans can fit a nuclear weapon inside a missile, that there’s no evidence that the North Koreans know how to keep a nuclear warhead functional through the hazardous “re-entry” process, when the warhead might be destroyed by heat, vibration, etc., or that they could direct the warhead anywhere near its target?
Empty or full, “it hardly mattered” “explained” New York Times news dude Max Fisher (aka “the Interpreter”), citing Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, CA, ranked by Foreign Policy magazine as the 21st best graduate school in its field.1 “This was a signal.”
Yes, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter that North Korea lacks a missile that can reach the U.S. It doesn’t matter that North Korea lacks a nuclear weapon that can fit inside a missile. It doesn’t matter that North Korea lacks the technology to guide an ICBM to its target and ensure the viability of the nuclear warhead that it doesn’t have through re-entry. It only matters that North Korea wishes it had all these things.
Jeff also quotes another Middlebury genius, “Melissa R. Hanham”—who must be a seriously high muckety-muck to rate a middle initial2—who tells us that back in 2013, when North Korea released a “war plan” that targeted nuclear attacks on major American cities, “we all fell out of our chairs laughing.” But now, “The more they roll out, the more it looks like that is their actual plan.”
Huh. Well, back in 2011, when then-SecDef Robert Gates said that North Korea would be able to “target” the U.S. with nuclear-tipped ICBMs within the next five years and that the country “is becoming a direct threat to the United States,” ole Melissa must have really busted a gut. “Hey, Bob,” she probably said, “you’re so full of shit your eyes are brown.” Well, something along those lines. I mean, she sounds like a risible chick.
Want to know the name of someone else who has a bad memory? Charles Krauthammer. Charlie has a column up at the WashPost in which he avers the following:
“Given that Pyongyang has had nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for more than a decade , why the panic now? Because North Korea is headed for a nuclear breakout. The regime has openly declared that it is racing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States — and thus destroy an American city at a Kim Jong Un push of a button.”
Well, once again, huh. First of all, the K-Man, like Melissa, seems not to have been listening when SecDef “Am I invisible?” Gates made his “the North Koreans are coming” pitch six years ago. Even more to the point, Charlie appears not to have been listening to himself 20 long years ago, during the Clinton Administration, when he was making the same exact pitch that Bob was making in 2011.
So what is Charles really upset about now? Well, for one thing, North Korea definitely is in the news. So there’s that. And the other thing is that, somehow, we seem to be running out of enemies. It’s true that Donald Trump has not been able to embrace his main man Vladimir the way it seems he really wants to, but somehow it seems that no one really gives a damn about Ukraine now. Syria looked big—really big!—for about five seconds, but now that Bashar al-Assad has gone back to killing kids with bullets and barrel bombs, no one seems to give a damn about that either. And, serious bummer, the Trump isn’t hassling Iran about its compliance with that awful, awful nuclear weapons deal. Damn it!
So Charlie needs to find a threat somewhere. Sportingly, he fields the sissy-liberal objection to the “Be very afraid!” meme that, even if he were to have ICBMs, well, so did (and do) Russia and China, and that’s worked out okay. Naturally, Charlie “explains” that Kim Jong Un is a “madman”—like, you know, madman Saddam “weapons of mass destruction up the ass” Hussein.
It must be said, few heads of state fit the “madman” profile as well as Kim Jong Un, because he looks strange and likes to threaten people, using that old-fashioned “heroic” communist boilerplate that no one else uses any more. But, if you think about it, why wouldn’t he want to be able to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear weapon? Right now, South Korea, which of course is a far more powerful country than North Korea, has essentially the unlimited military support of the U.S. Wouldn’t it be nice to create a little daylight there? Of course, Kim Jong Un wouldn’t ever use a nuke on the U.S. That would be the end of him. Actually, Kim Jong Un sounds rather smart. Obnoxious, but smart. Sometimes, it’s smart to be obnoxious. Just ask Donald Trump!
Afterwords
My head probably should have been “The New York Times, furiously beating the drums of war. And Charles Krauthammer is an Asshole!” since I’ve spent so much time beatin’ on Charlie. But I expect Charlie to speak duplicitous and disingenuous nonsense, though sometimes he does not—sometimes, in fact, he even displays a sense of honor. But I don’t expect the New York Times to speak duplicitous and disingenuous nonsense, no matter how many goddamn times I am disappointed.
Afterwords II
The headline for Charlie’s column reads “With North Korea, we do have cards to play” although in fact the only “card” he can come up with is the hope that China might feel like cooperating with us this time around. Oh, and “We might, however, try to shoot down a North Korean missile in mid-flight to demonstrate both our capacity to defend ourselves and the futility of a North Korean missile force that can be neutralized technologically.” But, of course, Charlie’s not saying we should do that, only that, you know, we could. Hey, it’s only a suggestion! Hey, yourself, Charlie! What happened to Mr. Firmness?
Throughout his column, Charlie pretends he can’t remember that Donald “Where’s my great big kick-ass armada now?” Trump is president of the United States. I can’t blame him, because I find it depressing too. Because who’s the unstable one, Kim Jong Un or Donnie?
