President Trump’s UN General Assembly speech opened up with a familiar series of claims about how well the US is doing, bragging that the US stock markets are hitting record highs while parts of the world “are going to hell.”
The real meat of the speech, of course, came in a series of threats to take more hostile action against his many, many enemies. None among them was emphasized quite so much as North Korea, who President Trump said he may “have no choice but totally destroy.”
Having referred to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” on Twitter once, President Trump did so again, declaring “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing, and able.”
Trump demanded that the UN Security Council come together and make more moves against North Korea, adding it “is an outrage” that any nations are trading with North Korea at all because of their “reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
In the course of criticizing North Korea, however, nuclear weapons were scarcely mentioned, beyond demands for denuclearization. Instead, he focused on the death of Otto Warmbier, and said of North Korea that “we know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea’s spies.”
If that last part doesn’t sound familiar,it’s because it happened literally 40 years ago. Yokota Megumi was kidnapped from a beach in Nagata in 1977, one of 17 Japanese citizens taken around that time. Megumi was something of a cause celebre within Japan. North Korea reported she had taken her own life in 1994 and was suffering from mental illness at the time.
While an interesting historical story, President Trump suggested the kidnapping proved how “twisted” North Korea is, even though it happened years before Kim Jong-un was even born, back when his grandfather was still in power.
Trump’s comments, however, appeared less aimed at threatening North Korea than at threatening the UN with the total destruction of North Korea if they refuse US demands for ever more sanctions and blockades. Trump had already gone on record as saying he believed the recent UN sanctions were “nothing compared to what has to happen,” even though he praised Russia and China today for accepting them. It’s clear, however, he wants more.
This was a very hypocritical and disturbing speech on many levels.
Most disturbing was the rhetoric against Iran, Eastern Ukraine
and Venezuela.
Trump shifted from an early opening of buttered platitudes straight
to unfettered fascist threats. Kim Jong-Un has no option but suicide
or de-nuclearization. A large contingent of Americans are eager to
watch the bombs drop on tv. Trump is glowing with the prospect of
becoming a War President for the history books.
I couldn’t agree more, it certainly was a very hypocritical and disturbing speech on a whole lot of levels, and it disturbed a lot of UN officials. How could Trump even add Iran, Venezuela and Eastern Ukraine in his speech, making it even more disturbing? He may be glowing with the prospect of becoming a War President for the history books, but it will be very short lived. WWIII will be the result if he orders the destruction of the DPRK (S. Korea will be destroyed simultaneously), and he himself won’t live to glow in his narcissistic ego, as the USSA will be destroyed in a dual Chinese-Russian counterstrike.
I can just imagine what the other leaders seated in the General Assembly are thinking .. “This man’s an absolute lunatic. He’s out to destroy the entire planet, and he’s suicidal”. Doesn’t he realize that a USSA first strike on the DPRK will bring an immediate response in kind from China and Russia? He just about destroyed his Presidency with that idiotic, hubris-filled speech.
I think there are factions of hawks who are convinced Russia and China will choke – in effect they are counting on the other side to make a responsible decision to not turn the world into a nuclear wasteland.
An unnecessary horrible antagonistic speech. If the shlump does not zip his lip his words can set in motion a devastating, to all, war. It’s amazing that the people in the audience did not get up turn their backs on him and walk out of the room. If he wants to act like and speak/threaten like Lady McDeath he should get a makeover and wear her ugly pants suits.
Every senator who voted for the defense [sic] authorization yesterday should resign. The vote was another enabler for this bombastic psychotic pro war turd and a threat to the peace and safety of all life on the planet. All members of the executive and legislative branches are war criminals. Some to a greater or somewhat lesser degree than others but are criminals just the same.
Forty five rotten presidents and countless congresspeople one after another, regardless of party affiliation. Time has long since passed for those of you who vote for dems/reps to stop voting for members of the corporate pro expansionist/war dem/rep duopoly. End the madness.
What a despicable country the US has become. Or i should say the US government. A gallup poll says most Americans would support waging war on N. Korea. No, i go back to my first statement.
Most are also fine with war against Iran and Venezuela. Only in face of their own personal destruction (Russia) do they hesitate. Just today, I’ve come across multiple people I know who thought the speech was fantastic. They don’t want to listen to us. Such is democracy.
There is definitely a segment of the population which deserves your contempt. But a good portion of that poling is massaged and manipulated in ways to favor desired outcomes, for example selective sample quotas that increase the chances of a certain response, the final summary omitting certain prejudicial preambles which were read to the respondent (or other, unpublished questions asked before hand for the purpose of creating a context in which respondents were more willing to give the desired agreement with the question which would be published). There are methods and processes out there designed to produce the appearance of greater consent.
Trump’s speech will be remembered (if anyone is still alive) as being a pivotal moment in the 4th Turning.
Threatening to annihilate 28 million people…and that’s just North Korea…is pretty gruesome. How those that will retaliate will separate the peace-mongers from the war-mongers is beyond me.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Trump threatens to commit war crimes. MSM (mostly) silent. Jason Ditz, where are you?
Lawrence McDonnell said exactly the same.
McCain talked extinction previously. When Kim says these types of things we demand more sanctions.
I wonder if you can still smell the sulfur where Trump was standing?
I am wondering when and if somebody will mention that US has already violated the latest resolution — but wants more resolutions!!! This is now a dangerous game of chicken with nukes. Russia and China cannot go on passing resolutions — if US signs up, and breaks them instantly. The last round obligated US to engage in direct negotiations. If there are still any men (meant adults) left in US government, they would have drawn up a list of demands — specific and detailed. And see what DORK brings to the table. But instead, there is frothing at the mouth along with the juvenile bombast.
South Korea would not like to be a collateral victim in the process. But until South Korea and Japan start acting like adults, they will have to pay ghe price of a power that does not know how to back off from the brink.
If anything starts in earnest, Russia and China will have to trot out all they have got, and we have no clue what it is — as they are not likely to be transparent in the kind of world we live in. Trump also may be crazy as a fox. We will find out.
He has satisfied even the most insane neocon vultures. But he will prove to them that they are losing allies. One way or another — if some REAL damage is not done to US, neocons will be pushing for more and more. They just do nit have a measure of reality, for as long as nothing hits them iver the head. And sooner or later — they will make us wave those flags and support our troups.
But it is the troups thst are most unhappy, and most disappointed with the flaming globalism radiating from Trump. Is this how military rebellions and coups start in real life? Something will have to give.
Too strange for words.
If Tramp is so hot for war, he could do what Bush 2 did, lie about weapons of Mass destruction and invade, it work well in the middle east, did it not???
The US has already “totally destroyed” North Korea once before. That also worked out really well in the end, did it not?
Justin, are you asleep?
He remains hypnotized by Candidate Trump’s lies.
Trump believes that he is God’s gift to the world. The God of the Old Testament.
A lot of religious fundy Trump-backers yearn for Armageddon, and Trump is their hope to bring it on.
The effects of decades of Armageddon & Revelationist conditioning among tens of millions of people should not be overlooked or underestimated. It is a mathematical inevitability that some indoctorinated zealots have found their way into defense, intelligence and foreign policy careers and formed networks.
Not just real meat… red meat, laced with cyanide. Not quite what his base ordered, but they’ll probably eat it up. Somehow the leaders of the world must unite to stop this unhinged aggression. Somehow we must make it easier for them to do so, and for saner voices to come to power here.
Except that a decent size proportion of ‘his base’ was supportive of ending the wars and bringing the troops home. Or at least they responded to the bits of Trumps campaign shill about the Iraq War being wrong, the regime change wars all being mistakes, and that America was getting ripped off paying for Europe’s defense. Thus, I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘his base’? Sounds more like you are thinking of Jeb Bush’s base?
The other part of the base, who are willing to cheer for anything which can be packaged as America kicking someone’s ass. Especially if they figure that any retaliation & collateral damage will be paid for in South Korean lives and property while every US resident experiences the war only as a flatscreen visual.
Yeah, he’s not currently treating antiwar conservatives as his base, so I don’t think of it that way. Neocons I guess is closer to what I meant.
If Steve Bannon’s website is any judge of his base, then they are staying far away from it. The only mentioned is buried deep in the page, and to me it sounded rather forced and weak. It didn’t really say much about any of this headline stuff, but somehow made a weird case that trying to end nationism caused a whole bunch of tribal conflicts.
Jimmy Kimmel was more important, judging by the order of the stories on the front page.
So Trump is going to “destroy” North Korea because some 13 year old Japanese girl was kidnapped. Where is the Japanese government in all this? Isn’t that its concern? And how many people remain in USA prisons that shouldn’t be there? Isn’t that a form of kidnapping? Amazing how a US President can stand before the world and accuse other nations of doing what the USA and its supported dictatorships have been doing a thousand times over for so many years! The USA will die of hypocrisy at this rate and if someone doesn’t get the Israeli monkey off of the American President’s back and take back the power for the TRUE constituents of the USG, the American people, we will ALL be doomed because of a criminal regime in Tel Aviv that apparently has most of the Congress and executive branches in its pocket!
OK — here we are. Where are the liberals, the progressives, the antiwar intellectuals, the brilliant analysts of military industrial complex, the non- interventionists, the human rughrs advicates, anti-nuckear crowd. Where us PETA, or a life of Korean people means less then a life of a hunted fox? A fox has a better chance to escape death and traumatic injury then humans against nuclear extermination.
We do not hear them, they “just report”. They have been curiously silent on the ever raising of machismo between neicons and Trump. It is because their presumably humanitarian patrons are in neocon pocket — some by curcumstances, some by conviction. They dare not criticize the absurd belicosity, making it appear that the BASIC cause, the threat from North Korea is LEGITIMATE. New version of weapons of mass destruction. And no enlightened liberal will mention the ibvious — US has just violated UN Resolution passed on its request! The resolution calls fir sanctions AND for US to engage in direct negotiation. To put its demnds in the rable, and to hear what Pyongyang has to say. All they are asking for is signing of peace treaty to end Korean war from the fifies. US does not want to end Korean war, and does not want to talk.
So, the entire human rights crowd so eloquent itherwise, is tounge tied. There are a lots of fake antiwar prople around. Being “antiwar” but NOT anti interventionist, even risking nuclear war to get their way. Whatever this is — but the silence of whores is deafening.
I’m here. LOL. Often enough to say that I like your comments. 🙂
And I can’t really say you’re wrong on this one either. I’m a member of the “Anti-Nuke, Anti-War, Greens Who Voted for Trump To Stop a War” club. We don’t have t-shirts because as far as I can tell, I’m the only member and thus the club doesn’t get any volume discounts! 🙂
But yes, the anti-war movement with which I marched with against Dubya revealed themselves as a Dem party operation in 2008 when they disappeared and never protested Obama’s wars. To me, I find it laughable when groups like MoveOn now object to Trump’s UN speech after saying nothing except support for Obama for years.
Trump is only different in style and degree. Trump seems willing to kill lots of people, while Obama pretended he did like it when he had to kill people (the more traditional American president response). But both kill a lot of people. Although, to be fair, I don’t think that Obama cleared the million mark like his predecessors Clinton and Dubya before him. So, maybe I should have been happier the last eight years?
Life is very surreal …… by following my antiwar principles, I have to follow the actual antiwar movement from left to right. Definitely been a long strange trip, now that the Left is out protesting an election where the Iraq War Neocons were firmly and finally defeated. For someone who started this back during Vietnam and Nixon, the notion that the Left would be protesting in the streets because a candidate aligned with Henry Kissinger was defeated is at least bizarre . Or at least defeated at the polls, but we’ve gotten a clearer view of where the real power resides.
Oh I think Obama supported the Arab spring which probably beat both Clinton and Bush in the number killed indirectly
The hypocritical Orange Demon continues the plan revealed a decade ago:
The hate campaign against Iran is vile. https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166
And the North Koreans respond “Again?” with a sigh.
They say insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome. The US has already “totally destroyed” North Korea once, and it can be said that this was the beginning of the story that leads to today.
I think we better pull Trump back a little bit . Lets cut military spending enough to balance the budget right now . No more increasing the debts . stop our part in most of these wars tomorrow I can’t see how any of our last few wars has help us or anybody else
Cutting formal/acknowledged military spending by 100% wouldn’t be enough to balance the budget. But maybe it would if the stuff that’s hidden in other line items is cut too.