Donald Trump Is Right About North Korea

Caught your attention, didn't I?

Hard to believe but Trump is correct when he says he unherited the North Korea problem.  Obama did not end the state of war between the US and North Korea.  Neither did George Bush 2.  Or Bill Clinton.  Or Bush 1.  Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, or John Kennedy did not end the war either.  Dwight Eisenhower managed to negotiate an armistice to end the shooting but could not pull off an actual treaty to end the hostilities between the US and North Korea.  So now it's Donald Trump's turn.

Being correct about his predecessors' failure to end the Korean War does not imply that Donald Trump is at all suited to deal with the war's 65-year legacy of mistrust and hatred.  Our narcissist-in-chief is wholly unable to look at the war and the cold truce that has existed ever since see the war from the North Korean perspective.  Without that perspective, the US lacks any basis for even beginning to seek the common ground needed to negotiate an end to a war that most Americans thought ended decades ago but now raises the spector of nuclear war.

If Americans have forgotten the the Korean War and its uneasy armistice, the North Koreans have not.  They remember the mass killings and indiscriminate bombing unleashed by US forces between 1950 and 1953.  They watched the US station 35,000 troops in South Korea with another 40,000 in Japan and a long-range bombers in Guam, all aimed at North Korea.  An attack has been expected for decades and  Trump's blustering about "fire and fury" only reinforces that view.

So, yes, Donald Trump is right to say that he inherited the North Korea problem. Since he is a man prone to blame others, that comes naturally.  What doesn't come naturally to Donald trump is the ability to understand his adversary or pursue the difficult task of resolving differences.

Now would be a very good time to contact your Senators and Representatives to ask that they support the Markey-Lieu Bill (S. 220 and H.R. 669) to restrict the President from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress.