US President Donald Trump's August 8 statement that any threats from North Korea would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” should have made us all very worried. But it has grown worse since then.
Two days later, this crazed president of a country with a giant nuclear arsenal capable of wiping out all life on Earth, said that threat “wasn't tough enough”. Trump went on to refuse to rule out a pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea.
“If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about an attack on anybody that we love, or we represent, or our allies, or us, they should be very, very nervous,” he said.
If Trump thinks he has mind-reading powers he clearly does not have the slightest grip on reality. His own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he did not believe there was an imminent threat from North Korea and "Americans should sleep well at night".
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis boasted that the US has the most "robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth" and that North Korea's military capacity was "grossly overmatched by ours".
According to Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris of the Federation of American Scientists, the US has 1800 nuclear weapons deployed and a further 4000 stockpiled. It also has the capacity to deliver these warheads to anywhere in the world.
So far, the only threat from North Korea to use its limited nuclear capacity is to defend itself. North Korea has yet to invade any other country while the US has invaded or occupied more than 40. The US is also the only state that has used nuclear weapons in war.
By any objective measurement, the greatest threat of nuclear war is coming from the US. That's a fact, a real fact.
Truth is said to be the first casualty of war. And make no mistake, the world is spiralling dangerously towards nuclear war. Green Left Weekly is committed to telling the truth and we will continue to challenge the war propaganda of the rich and the powerful. But we need your help to do this.
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