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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

A Few Things To Keep In Mind

The Fake News epidemic is back.  It is being fueled by morons in the media who ought to know better, but seem incapable of being objective.  Let's look at a few nuggets of nonsense making a splash today.

1.  There is an American aircraft carrier heading back to the Sea of Japan off the coast of the Korean peninsula.  The media portrays this as preparation for a US strike on the North Koreans.  After all, President Trump tweeted that America would deal with the NKs by itself if China did not help.  The media sees this as an imminent threat of war with a nuclear armed North Korea led by a crazy man.

Are they kidding or are they just so ignorant that they don't know any better?  Let's start with the obvious.  There is nothing to indicate that America is about to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.  The NKs have an enormous army.  It is well armed.  Any strike on the North which did not cripple it immediately would lead, at a minimum, to the North attacking South Korea.  An artillery barrage from weapons already in position near the border could kill literally hundreds of thousands of South Koreans along with thousands of US troops stationed near the border.  Death on that scale could be achieved by the NKs in a matter of days.  Short of using nuclear weapons against the NKs, there is no way to prevent such artillery attacks.  In addition, the North Korean nuclear bombs are already spread across that country.  There is no way that the USA could be sure that it had destroyed all of them, even if it thought it might be able to do so.  It is a good thing to remember that the NKs don't need missiles to hit the USA with nukes.  A bomb hidden in a shipping container sent by freighter to the port of Los Angeles or elsewhere would serve the purpose quite well.  And let's not forget the final bit of key information:  one aircraft carrier may be formidable, but it is not even close to enough to stop the NK armed forces.

2.  Russia and Iran have said that they will not accept American attacks in Syria.  A big part of the media portrays this as a prelude to a military confrontation.  Once again, this is bogus.

If Russia wants an armed conflict with the USA, there is nothing to indicate it.  As for Iran, there is also no appetite for a direct confrontation with America.  It is not surprising that the principal backers of Assad are making threatening noises.  Remember, however, that in the days just prior to the American missile strike in Syria, the Russians said that their support for Assad was not unlimited.  It was Russia's way of saying that it understood that punishment might be visited on Assad for the chemical attack and that they were ok with that.  The media hardly reported it; most likely, it was too subtle for the media morons.  Meanwhile, the Russians cut off the communications channel between US and Russian forces in Syria, except as of this morning it is still up and running.  It was just another one of those thing that the Russians say but don't do. 

There's so much more, but these paint the picture sufficiently. 

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