Weeks of speculation that the US is about to attack North Korea are again accelerating, with the White House announcing that they intend to play host to the entire Senate on Wednesday for an official briefing on the situation, with virtually the entire cabinet.
Such a briefing for the full Senate is extremely unusual, especially in the White House, which means this must be a very important meeting, which is once again adding fuel to the idea that the US is going to do something big, potentially a military attack.
This comes amid a new round of speculation that North Korea might be planning to carry out another nuclear test, with a holiday coming up this week and a round of intramural volleyball at the test facility having concluded, meaning they’re no longer too busy to do the test.
The USS Carl Vinson and its carrier strike group are also expected to arrive at the Korean Peninsula in the next few days, which now not only comes amid speculation about a test, but also the Senate meeting. This could point to this week being the time that the Trump Administration intends to “solve” North Korea, as they’ve long threatened.
Doing so, of course, comes with a huge price, as while the US has downplayed North Korea’s ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons, they have a substantial conventional weapons program developed for decades specifically to respond to just such an incident. This would quickly do massive damage to South Korea, and inflict large numbers of casualties on US forces in the region.
Jason, there’s a military factor that isn’t mentioned in any of the coverage, and I’m not sure what the implications are, good or bad, but here it is: North Korea currently has fission bombs. They don’t have fusion bombs.
People don’t pay much attention to this fact, but it’s significant.
Atomic, or fission bombs, are the firecrackers of the atomic age. They make a pretty big bang, sure, but they are tiny compared to fusion bombs- that actually incorporate a fission bomb as a trigger.
Hydrogen bombs are 1000 times the power of atomic bombs.
Those maps that people have seen showing the vaporization of all of Manhattan, for example, in a nuclear strike, assume not an atomic (fission) bomb, but a fusion (hydrogen) bomb.
So if an atomic bomb was to go off over Seattle, or Portland, for example, it would be an awful mess- but the casualties would number in the thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, not the millions that a hydrogen bomb would cause.
The concern would be this: that the military have advised Trump that now is a good time to deal with North Korea- before they have hydrogen bombs. If North Korea does manage to put a weapon on an American target, the argument would go, the damage would be bad but not civilization-ending.
Waiting until the North Koreans can build a hydrogen bomb- which is just a matter of time, they would say- is the thing we can’t afford to do.
The United States, Japan, and South Korea, they might be saying, can deal with a handful of atomic bombs going off.
So now’s the time.
I can’t say that it would be a very good outcome for the 50,000 or so people that even this “not worst” scenario would kill.
But that may be the logic.
It is not a linear scale, with a bigger blast being that much worse.
Any nuclear blast is quite bad enough. Once you are setting off many thousands of tons of TNT equivalent (one kiloton), it is bad enough.
True, Mark, but what I am trying to get at is actually not what these things are, but instead what the Generals might be telling Trump they are. Are the Generals telling him that attacking NK is okay because the return fire would “only” be atomic bombs?
What on earth are they telling him, that makes him think there’s a military option?
I’m speculating about what on earth they are telling him, because whatever it is, it’s got him saying breathtakingly dangerous things. Like “if China won’t fix it, we will! USA!”
Maybe they don’t have to tell him anything.All you have to do is listen to what North Korea’s leader is saying.He wants to build a missile capable of hitting America and it’s allies with a nuke.I don’t understand why that’s so hard for you to hear.I mean you believe everything else he says.Didn’t you just spew out all that hydrogen bomb capability propaganda the North is threatening us with now but,for some reason when he says he wants to annihilate the U.S. it’s hard for you to believe.I guess people hear what they want…USA …O..and I posted this same response earlier but,I guess the un-biased moderators on this site erased it because it doesn’t fit they’re anti-American standards…
So you will agree with the military, then? I’m not saying they’re wrong. I’m saying that this is what they might be arguing.
And here’s the deal: they can already hit the United states. Just not with a hydrogen bomb. Are you ready to see what happens when a 15 kiloton explosion strikes Seattle, Portland, or Los Angeles?
The point I’m making is that the military argument is very likely that the bang will not be that big, and that only ten thousand or so Americans will be killed.
Which is really quite good news, wouldn’t you say? Compared to the millions North Korea says they can kill?
Of course, North Korea will be gone. The US will win, and the threat will be removed.
Only a handful of thousand dead Americans? Say, four times the number who died at Pearl Harbor? That will be okay with you, I’m assuming?
No, the unbiased but imperfect spam filter caught it for some reason and I restored it when I found it. Being a barely literate moron is not against the rules here.
maybe stop threatening Regime Change and Kim will pipe down… as usual this one is on the US aggressors
“What on earth are they telling him, that makes him think there’s a military option?”
THAT is a good question. Also, who is telling him that.
I doubt that anyone is telling him that “only” an atomic bomb is okay. Whatever specious reasoning they are offering, that isn’t likely from anyone remotely informed. We “dial down” our own variable bombs to less than the size they’ve got, and consider them quite big enough for purpose.
Are actually going to end up getting a formal Congressional declaration of war?
probably so, after the obligatory false flag.
How can the white house brief the senate with fake intelligence ?
There is global NWO intelligence and there is old fashion USA intelligence and they do not have the same intellligence or the same agenda the people that voted for Trump had .
Only Congress can declare war. It looks like Trump is setting up congress to declare war. There is no good in Trump briefing congress in anything. Trump has proven himself to be a born again liar in every thing that comes out of his mouth.
Is congress going to impeach Trump or not. Lying to congress is a crime, right? He is and always will be the spoiled child of a gift realtor and nothing more.
He is dangerous to America as well as to the rest of the world. Someone said Trump is insane. Congress knows this why don’t they put Trump somewhere he can’t harm others?
Trump appears to be a trigger happy nut. It appears he lied and cheated to become president. It is pass the time to impeach him.
You know the Congress doesn’t declare war anymore. That is so 20th century. Besides, when nobody goes on record, they can all deny their culpability when the bodies start piling up. Its all part of American Exceptionalism and the two-party oligarchy’s way of destroying our world.
Is another USS Maine/USS Cole type incident being planned ?
“as while the US has downplayed North Korea’s ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons,”
So why is the US planning on an attack?
Does SK have any say in this, ’cause the will take the brunt of precipitous action that’s entirely unnecessary.. What about – China- Russia?
No doubt Trump will be bringing stories of Yellowcake Uranium, Mushroom Clouds, and other WMDs for the gullible to consume.
North Korea is really no threat. They want nuclear capability and the ability to strike the U.S. only for deterrent reasons. The real story behind this story is a financial one. Russia and China along with many other countries like North Korea who formed the Shanghi cooperation no longer use the dollar for trade, etc. This is the real reason Washington DC is making such a haste for war. they know the house of cards is coming down and they will go out with a bang.