Speaking to Congress this week, Defense Secretary James Mattis was asked by Rep. Tim Ryan (D – OH) why the United States doesn’t just launch an immediate war to “take out” North Korea before they have the capability of hitting the United States.
While a lot of Trump Administration officials talk up the idea of a war with North Korea as something they’re eagerly anticipating, Mattis was a lot more realistic, insisting it is a “war that fundamentally we don’t want,” and that it would be the most serious US war with the most serious consequences since 1953.
Mattis went on to warn that a war with North Korea would involve massive shelling of Seoul, South Korea, oneof the most densely packed cities on earth, and that while he believes the US would ultimately win the war, they’d only do so “at great cost.”
At the same time, Mattis didn’t attempt to rule out the possibility of the US attacking North Korea and starting this disastrous war, but rather said that the US was in the process of “exhausting all possible diplomatic efforts” first. This stands in stark contrast to President Trump’s own position on North Korea, as he has been very critical of the concept of diplomacy with the north at all, insisting that diplomacy had already been tried and failed.
Kinda like saying “that’s that one venereal disease I sure don’t want.”???
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People don’t generally admit to ‘wanting’ a war. They’ll pretty much all imagine that ”we’ are ‘forced’ into it in some way. Else they’d have to feel or look like the bloodthirsty critters they’d rather see in the enemy.
So then saying there’s one war you don’t want brings up … questions … e.g., it needn’t mean what it literally says. After all, you never want it: they do. Wink, wink.
Puzzles, puzzles…
I would rather have a war with N korea because if we conquered the country we could control the people . Where as Afganhistan even if we conquered their Army and government we could still not control the people . No one ever has .
Stop posting
Because it’s not for israel’s benefit.
He wants easy wars, partition Syria, blast and start Yemen, and a proxy war against Iran.
And Russia
I’m on the fence about that. Our Generals like easy wars.
They probably think that they can drive Russia into bankruptcy again with an arms race. That’s insane. That would require us to build like 80,000 nuclear weapons and we would likely destroy ourselves first.
Partitioning Syria is proving to be much more difficult than anticipated.
At least there’s one war the corrupt establishment doesn’t want. Too bad they crave war everywhere else.
Where the list of countries he wants to go to war with?
Someone at the CFR keeps a list I am sure.
” he believes the US would ultimately win the war” and what wars have we won with this over BLOATED CORRUPT Military we have? Why are we still in Afghanistan? Why are we in Iraq? Why has no end ever been called to the LAST KOREAN WAR? Americans are so stupid!
Well, we won in Granada, so there!
That was an unprovoked American attack on a British protectorate, wasn’t it?
Check out Mother Jones article, it is right on. Trump and Reagan, seems to be a little surrealistic, but so much alike in the intelligence department, both narcissist.
What did we win? Educate yourself:http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/03/flashback-why-ronald-reagan-invaded-grenada/
I remember it well.
Education from Mother Jones? You’ve got to be kidding! They are some of the worst war-mongers out there, especially that slimey Kevin Drum.
I guess you’re not familiar with sarcasm, so there!
I guess people don’t get sarcasm, even with, “so there!” I guess from now on I should use the /sarc tag.
We don’t want war with Korea, but we do want war with Russia.
We’ve got some politicians who think Russia would be “a splendid little war,” but I believe the military is not so eager. They know they’d lose a lot of good people.
I’m not so sure about the military being wary of war. When i see and hear these talking head generals on TV, it sure seems to me that they are gung ho for wars. General Jack Keane and Lt. Col. Ralph (Barney Fife) Peters come to mind.
I’m speaking relatively. Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs were probably a lot more influential in holding Obama back from war in 2013 than were the American people who also flocked to their Congressional town halls and other public events demanding not to bomb Syria.
Of course the military is not anti-war. If they were, they wouldn’t be in the military. They love wars against defenseless little countries like Grenada, Haiti or Panama. Maybe even Iran. Russia or China, not so much, though there are plenty of retired pundits such as those you mentioned who are paid quite well to be very hawkish.
USA = Nazi Germany