Tough call.the administration needs to first quantify just how dangerous it might be. Not only do we have our own State Department declaring that the risk of war with North Korea is growing every day, but Kim Jong-un has already called war unavoidable. Sure, that might be written off as the usual rhetoric between hostile adversaries, but to deny the possibility is to defy reality. And let’s just assume for a moment that Kim is actually crazy enough to launch a first strike. We already know he’d love the chance to take out most of Seoul, but when you add in thousands of famous athletes from most of the western nations he despises it’s got to be a tempting target.Keep in mind that Russia has already been booted from the games… sort of. (They may still be sending some competitors, but without their flag.) I have to wonder whether they might believe they’re dodging a bullet (literally) if they don’t show up at all. Back home in America, we already have people suggesting that maybe it’s time to pull the families of U.S. military members out of South Korea. It may be seen as yet another provocative move, but frankly, I think it’s worth considering.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
The tricky question of whether to send athletes to the 2018 Winter Olympics
The games start in a couple of months. The State Department is saying that all precautions will be taken to ensure US teams' safety, but consider:
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Come on baby light my fire (and fury)
ReplyDeleteAll of a sudden, that ole rain's falling down. These are not times for international peace and understanding. They are times for fire and fury. And I blame the mouth that roared.
ReplyDeleteBlame him for what?
ReplyDeleteFor the uncertainty surrounding the Winter Olympics?
ReplyDeleteHe's pissing kerosene on fires all over the globe. Haven't you heard? This is what rich bombastic narcissists do. There is a way, but Trump is clueless. The Olympics are probably on your ilk's trash heap like everything else such as the UN, the Nobel priize, peace talks in various locales, even the uneasy truce in Jerusalem and of course compromise and reasonable gentlemen and ladies. This is venturing into as hominim but I think you'll find your ilk cast out of
ReplyDeletePower like your local mayor found herself last local election. Your brash and forceful ways of freedom and your continual controversy simply do not wash.
Without Trump's fire and fury (of course unlike the world has ever seen before) threats, and his making all this personal between him and his Rocket Man, the Seoul Olympics could have been a showcase for a free Korea and spark friendship and peaceful competition and athletic comeradery throughout the globe. Instead we now cower in fear and foreboding awaiting the next installment of As The Donald Drools.,,
ReplyDeleteYou really think that with some other US president, there would be no security risk for the upcoming Olympics?
ReplyDeleteThe North Korean threat did not start in January of this year.
Oh,well why didn't we think of that 8 years ago and just pull out then, when Seoul was named as the choice. Do you really think Rocket Man would like to end the world as we know it by lobbing a missile over there during the games? But, really, has this been an ongoing issue of concern to a great deal of people for 8 years now?
ReplyDeleteRocket Man has been demonized--typical war propaganda. There is a human face to North Korea an there are many kinfolk within and without. We had to largely relearn the demonization of the entire Asian race after the big war, remnants remain. Why has "the Other" so often been treated so. We don't like being seen as "the Other" but to many others, we are. Coo coo coo chew...
ReplyDeleteYet we must remember civilians have been fair game in war since last century. My observations have been that Americans don't bother much to care about the kill rates of our enemy. But we should _Anyhow, looks like 2018 is shaping up to be a horrid year of fire and fury, far from the Olympic ideal. I blame Trump as Kim. I detest them both.
ReplyDeleteUncle Donnie got a crowd fix last nite in Pennsacola stumping for Judge Roy Moore the fat white bigot who talks funny like Jeff Sessions. In his speech, Zionist Jewboy Stephen Milla cited the stock market boom and the military build-up and jabs jabs jabs. Sure there's gonna be jabs with a military-industrial build-up. Of course it's all defensive. Better be, because the world ain't exactly streaming to Uncle Donnie's corner. You hate him, but he sure is of your ilk.
ReplyDeleteWhat does last night's Trump rally have to do with the topic of this post? Did he even mention the Korean peninsula?
ReplyDeleteAnd re: North Korea having a human face: you bet it does. Its citizens are living, breathing fellow human citizens, whose entire families get sent off to concentration camps if one person is heard saying anything that could be construed as disrespectful of Kim. In outlying areas, people sometimes get so hungry they eat tree bark.
ReplyDelete"Has been demonized" What shit. Give us some reason to deem him a decent human being. Anyone with a shred of humanity can see he's a monster.
And the idea that "demonization of the entire Asian race" has ever been part of actual US foreign policy is God-damn lie.
The idea that - well, two ideas: one, that America has a bigotry problem, and two, that bigotry has anything to do with US policy toward North Korea - is so disgusting it's vomit-inducing.
ReplyDeleteNot only is the demonization-of-Asians meme disgusting, it shows a willful ignorance of facts on the ground. The US cooperates closely with South Korea and Japan, and has cordial relations with each.
ReplyDeleteThat's OK bloggie, many of your thoughts and ideas disgust me too.
ReplyDeleteI heard part of Trump's speech last nite on a radio station I listen to in the car. He was invoking cheers from the largely military crowd about his build-up which you cheer too. We're gonna need it with him popping off about Rocket Man. You know he thinks he is the most courageous president ever. And don't tell me there was not an anti-Asian bias in this country after the Big One, continuing on during the Korean conflict, then the Vietnamese conflict and, still with Chynnnna.
ReplyDeletethe history of ethnic Chinese in the United States relates to the three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States with the first beginning in the 19th century. Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked as laborers, particularly on the transcontinental railroad, such as the Central Pacific Railroad. They also worked as laborers in the mining industry, and suffered racial discrimination at every level of society. While industrial employers were eager to get this new and cheap labor, the ordinary white public was stirred to anger by the presence of this "yellow peril". Despite the provisions for equal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty, political and labor organizations rallied against the immigration of what they regarded as a degraded race and "cheap Chinese labor". Newspapers condemned the policies of employers, and even church leaders denounced the entrance of these aliens into what was regarded as a land for whites only. So hostile was the opposition that in 1882 the United States Congress eventually passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited immigration from China for the next ten years. This law was then extended by the Geary Act in 1892. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only U.S. law ever to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race. These laws not only prevented new immigration but also brought additional suffering as they prevented the reunion of the families of thousands of Chinese men already living in the United States (that is, men who had left China without their wives and children); anti-miscegenation laws in many states prohibited Chinese men from marrying white women.
ReplyDeleteread more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans
Get that? "Suffered racial discrimination at every level of society"
ReplyDeleteThese laws were enacted in the nineteenth century. Are any of them still on the books?
ReplyDeleteThis is the same kind of garbage view that would tell modern Americans that America is hopelessly morally rotten because of slvery and the Trail of Tears.
Also, please explain how these laws translate into Kim being a fine human being and statesman and how the world should just overlook the increasing momentum of North Korea's missile tests and nuclear-bomb tests and welcome NK into the community of nations and how the US and South Korea should immediately stop all their joint preparedness drills.
I wrote only that we had to largely relearn our demonizatiom of the Asian race after Worls War Ii and it's true. You then said something like it was disgusting and mentioned puke. That's all.
ReplyDeleteLook, you know that Trump is the most disgusting president in at least our lifetimes (though he thugishly espouses your high ideals). Though he continually places himself (thru Stephen Milla) as the best president eva, he's done more for war than any president in our lifetimes too. Ike would tear in to this man so badly...
ReplyDeleteWhich is only tangentially related to the North Korean threat.
ReplyDeleteWar has always been the North Korean threat since we engaged them in it 60 years ago, what are you thinking?
ReplyDeleteHarry Truman argued against the establishment of the Zionist state. He was wise enough to see what was coming. Let's see you hate on James Earl Carter III now. I can come up with so many quotes from so many individuals that are respected by multi millions of people all over the globe who are against Trump's actin which you call a no brainer. I will blame your ilk if this ignites war.
ReplyDelete