Public opinion and the courts may eventually prevent President Donald Trump and Congress from destroying our nation domestically.
However, the paramount threat today is that we may be unable to prevent the president from starting a war with North Korea.
This war would likely get out of U.S. control very quickly.
Other world leaders, including U.S. allies, are already alarmed by the U.S.’s reckless belligerence.
This U.S. war fever is fueled by our political leaders and the media, which fabricate fears that North Korea wants nuclear weapons to attack the U.S. for no reason.
In truth, North Korean threats against the U.S. are in direct response to U.S. threats, aggression and provocations against North Korea for over six decades.
North Korean retaliation for U.S. pre-emptive strikes could kill a million people in South Korea and Japan and millions more if that retaliation is nuclear.
Department of Defense officials correctly refer to this as a bloodbath.
The U.S. would deny North Korea nuclear weapons by having a policy in which “nothing has been taken off the table,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Fox News earlier this year.
By definition, this threat includes the use of nuclear weapons.
North Korea reasonably fears U.S. aggression and that the threat of nuclear retaliation may be their only protection against U.S. regime-change ambitions.
Therefore, the price of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament must be a negotiated and enforceable nonaggression pact with the U.S.
It is urgent to initiate international negotiations to avoid this wanton bloodbath and possibly pull the U.S. back from the brink of its own destruction.
Malcolm D. McPhee,
Sequim