by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Among the many insane things happening today is the news that John Bolton was seen at the White House. This is very bad news for anyone who hopes we will take a serious look at the good news going on between the two Koreas and take a step back from war.
I have said, and continue to believe, that if you look at what we know about what’s going on politically with Trump right now that it would make sense that we would go to war with the DPRK around August of this year. I say that because August is perfect because if it starts then, the war would probably be wrapped up by early November — at the cost of a million dead, natch — and old Lee Greenwood will be belting out that Iraq War classic “God Bless The USA.”
I say this because Trump lacks any human empathy and wouldn’t care about the massive lost of human life, Trump knows he will be impeached — if not convicted — if he loses Congress to a Blue Wave, and he’s so desperate to improve is poll ratings that a quick, bloody war would be perfect.
John Bolton has a history of being a warmonger and if he has the president’s ear on a regular basis, it makes sense that my prediction is more accurate than ever. It hasn’t happened yet, but as the Mueller investigation continues its march across Trumplandia, it seems all but inevitable that Trump, in a panic, will start a war with the DPRK to make it all go away.
A war with the DPRK would give Trump an enormous reboot. It’s his political failsafe. It’s the thing he has in his back pocket no matter what. Of course, war is a pretty crazy thing. Any number of pretty catastrophic things could happen if a war with the DPRK starts. There might be North Korean sleeper cells in the United States that would be activated. That alone could be the cause of a few hundred thousand civilian dead if they release chemical or biological weapons on the American homeland. That doesn’t even begin to address the threat from a fully functional ICBM or an attack on Japan.
I think Japan is the place we’re not giving enough thought about. While the DPRK has a love-hate relationship with South Korea, it has a hate-hate relationship with Japan. If it looks like the DPRK is finished, they will be sure to take as much of Japan down with them. That could be another million dead under the proper circumstances.
Regardless, John Bolton as National Security Adviser would mean this worst case scenario is one giant leap towards becoming a reality. We have to start taking the possibility of a war with the DPRK done for cold, crass white-knuckled political reasons as a real possibility.
