The Goat Pen

The US has announced “drills” of evacuation of US dependents from South Korea.

That is a major sign that the Korean War II is becoming a very real possibility. This thing is getting scary.

So much for the conventional wisdom that the Chinese would take out Crazy Fatboy rather than risk Armageddon in their own neighborhood.

Who thought that? Taking out Crazy Fatboy militarily would be as problematic for the Chinese as it would be for us.

As much as I would love to barbecue that adolescent dumpling, the idea of starting a war that would likely result in the annihilation of Seoul and Tokyo, and the millions of casualties that would go along with that, is too horrible to contemplate. We had plenty of chances over the past 20 years, under presidents of both parties, to prevent this situation. But we squandered them all.

The best idea I've heard is for us to begin negotiations with the South Koreans, the Japanese, and maybe the Taiwanese, to give them all nuclear weapons unless the Chinese enforce a 100% total embargo of ALL trade with North Korea. Not a make-believe one, like the one they've got going now, but a REAL one. Something like that would make the NORK economy collapse in a matter of weeks, and probably take down the Fatboy regime along with it, with minimal loss of life.

We would essentially tell the Chinese that, if we are going to have to live with your client state's ICBM's aimed at us, then you will have to live with our client states' ICBM's aimed at you. That would be too horrible for THEM to contemplate. They are the only player who can snap Fatboy like a twig short of Armageddon. We need to provide them some motivation to do so.

Just found out about this today. We have an enormously accelerated first strike capacity compared to a decade or two ago. This is not good news if you like stability in your global politics. We're either going to take over the world completely over the next period of time or a lot of people are going to die.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comment ... lanyi.html

Tree wrote:We're either going to take over the world completely over the next period of time or a lot of people are going to die.

You say that like it was a bad thing.

jk

Professor Tiger wrote:

Tree wrote:We're either going to take over the world completely over the next period of time or a lot of people are going to die.

You say that like it was a bad thing.

jk

Least now we know why half the country is in poverty. The MIC needed all that money to figure out how to blow stuff up better than everyone else.

What’s the “MIC”?

One of the most cherished illusions of conservatives is that you can have a massive military but a small government...

Military industrial complex

hedge wrote:One of the most cherished illusions of conservatives is that you can have a massive military but a small government...

Not sure that's even in the top 5 with other sacred precepts like trickle down, free market worship, never ending tax cuts for the rich ("can't tax the job creators or we won't have jobs, teee heee"), and of course the all time favorite of blaming the downtrodden because they just don't have enough personal responsibility

Tree wrote:Not sure that's even in the top 5 with other sacred precepts like trickle down, free market worship, never ending tax cuts for the rich ("can't tax the job creators or we won't have jobs, teee heee"), and of course the all time favorite of blaming the downtrodden because they just don't have enough personal responsibility

Those are hot button issues for Thurston Howell III-type conservatives. I'm a Libertarian-type of conservative, and I am very suspicious of all those things.

But you definitely support a huge military while simultaneously giving lip service to a creed of small government. Can't have it both ways...

Incorrect.

I am probably as hostile to the Military Industrial Complex as you. The whole defense acquisitions process is likely the greatest single source of fraud, waste and abuse in the whole federal budget. The Pentagon, Congress, and the defense contractors have a truly incestuous relationship. The Pentagon buys a LOT of stuff they really don't need, that is way overpriced, and yet woefully underperforms. Look at the current glaring examples of the Navy's USS Gerald Ford, the Littoral Combat ships, the Air Force's refueling planes, etc. The whole thing is driven more by pork barrel spending in congressional districts, and good old fashioned bribery, than by countering the threats, which are very real.

If we could spend Defense dollars ONLY on things we REALLY need for defense, without all the corruption, then I would be in favor of big defense cuts. But I know that premise is impossible.

The MIC is the most dangerous institution in the world. They're doing what these forces always do in late empires which is to expand beyond what is sustainable with imperialism and military exploits. Officially we spend over half of our discretionary spending on military but there is all sorts of other spending and black budgets (think intelligence) we aren't allowed to see. And all in the name of for-profit corporate run wars, none of which are legal via international law and many of which serve the dual purpose of making war on social movements that threaten our empire of crony corporate capitalism.

As I read your post, the Internationale started playing from my speakers...

Example of a Bernie Sanders, wonderboy, model that goes widely unreported, uncommented on.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... are-unpaid


The state sold $4.5 billion of bonds on Wednesday to help pay down the estimated $16.6 billion it owes to contractors, health care providers and others who waited to get paid during Illinois’s record-long fight over the budget. But Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, says her office doesn’t know the size of that backlog for sure, and she wants that to change.

Manafort bail $10mil, Gates $5mil - Government asks that they be placed under house arrest - AP

Witch hunt!

Yeah... Feds wearing stocking masks kicked in Manafort’s door, swarmed the bedrooms where his wife and children were sleeping in the wee hours of the morning, screaming “GET DOWN! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS! STOP RESISTING ME!” The kind of thing Seal Team 6 when they took down Bin Ladin, SWAT teams do when they arrest hardened violent criminals considered armed and dangerous.

All this for Manafort, a probable international financial crook. Probably the biggest mismatch of use of force since the Elian Gonzales vaudeville act. For all those theatrics, all the goon squad did is take his computer and leave. At least they didn’t shoot his dog and his wife while she was holding a baby. For that we can all be grateful.

Too bad the Whitefish Energy scandal got buried. Ah well.

At Papadopoulos' plea hearing earlier this month, one of Mueller's prosecutors, Aaron Zelinsky, hinted at the possibility of more to come. The Mueller probe is "a large-scale ongoing investigation of which this case is a small part," Zelinsky said, according to a transcript unsealed Monday.

Iceburg. Tip.