Just days after saying that he doesn’t believe the US is ever out of diplomatic options, Defense Secretary James Mattis took on a more militaristic tone today, saying that the US may not be looking toward the “total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” but that the US has many options to do that.
Mattis made the comments after a White House meeting, which he said was called because President Trump wanted to be briefed on his “many military options” for attacking North Korea. He added that the US will use a “massive military response” to any North Korean threat.
The US has been talking up the possibility of a preemptive attack on North Korea for months. President Trump continued to play up the idea of such a conflict today, when asked about a preemptive attack smiling and declaring “we’ll see.”
Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been talking about diplomacy as a possibility, but Trump has increasingly denounced the idea of that, criticizing South Korea’s call for talks as “appeasement” and saying North Korea only understands one thing.
The administration’s interest in not only setting out war as the go-to option, but admitting that the war we’ll be a massive one, meant to annihilate North Korea, a country of some 25 million people. While this has them moving away from the myth of a limited war, the fact that they’re still seemingly selling that war as the primary option is concerning, to say the least.
Why not bring our troops home from S Korea and let the 2 Koreas be united again as one country like we let east and West Germany go together again .
even that solution has it’s problems though, there’s bound to be some resistance on both sides to a reunification after all these decades. Would Kim Jong UN walk off into the sunset and relinquish power ? would his all of his devoted brainwashed people want to reunify ? … new divisions have been opened since the 50s, it would be very difficult now to bring them back together under a democratically elected government.
It is not up to “us” to do it.
Killing millions of people is a thing about as evil as one can plan.
This needs to be kept in context. Killing millions.
The Trump administration has now arrived at exactly the same policy vs. NK as the much demonized Obama administration. It is known as containment except with a lot more needless and potentially dangerous drama attached than Obama used.
KJU is aping our own policy: negotiate only from a position of strength. Guess from whom he learned it?
“North Korea only understands one thing.”
You mean “The USA only believes in one thing ie threats/invasions”.
I agree with eric, below. The “exercises” with S Korea are provocative in the extreme. Most Koreans prefer to stay alive, and many want closer links North/South, while the leader of alleged ally of S Korea ( bombastic, destructive USA) pretends violence is the only response and disdains any form of communication.
Let’s remember who Mattis is: in addition to his command of both Fallujah operations where thousands of civilians died, Mattis in May2004 personally authorized an attack on a wedding party near the Syrian border. The Iraqi government said the strike left 42 civilians dead, including at least 13 children.
The killings roiled Iraq, coming so soon after the carnage of Fallujah – but Mattis stood by his action, arguing the dead were insurgents.
“How many people go to the middle of the desert … to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?” he told The Guardian. “These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let’s not be naive.”
This is guy would have no compunction in genocide of North Korea. Look what he did in Iraq.