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Tillerson Says Fire and Fury Not Imminent on Korea

While Donald Trump plays into Kim Jong-Un’s hands by aping the North Korean dictator’s irresponsible war-mongering rhetoric, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks more like an American President capable of rational threat assessment:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm and said Americans should have “no concerns” after North Korea and President Donald Trump traded fiery threats, insisting Wednesday he doesn’t believe there is “any imminent threat.”

“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said.

…Tillerson downplayed any speculation that the alarming developments suggested the U.S. was moving closer to a military option to dealing with the crisis over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours,” Tillerson said [“Tillerson Urges Calm On North Korea, Says No Imminent Threat,” AP via KELO-TV, 2017.08.09].

300-some airmen from Ellsworth Air Force Base have deployed to Guam to fly B-1 sorties over Korea, but that’s not an escalation; Ellsworth is simply spelling B-52 crews from Minot AFB, as they did last year.

There’s a big gap between bombast and action” on both sides. North Korea has yet to demonstrate its ability to hit anything but ocean with its rockets. But Donald Trump’s desire to distract us from his failure so far as President is at least as much a threat to global stability as Kim Kong-Un’s technological and diplomatic gambit.

6 Comments

  1. Donald Pay 2017-08-09 08:23

    Arms crossed. Bluster. Mussolini.

  2. jerry 2017-08-09 08:26

    Wag the dog for sure. I am thinking Pat Robertson has his gnarled evil fingers on his twitter telling the petulant child on vacation from his vacation that North Korea is a long way from Armageddon in the Mid East. Kim Jong-Un is not Jewish (that we know of) and that the Rapture thingy cannot happen there if he keeps spouting drunk talk. trump proves more and more each day what a great president we had with President Obama. President Obama made the job look cool because he had it under control. Diplomacy and calmness are better than bully chatter to another bully. Lets hope the weather clears so doofus can go golf. Meanwhile, Bob Mueller continues to gain steam in tracking the rackets connecting Putin with trump and the loosing of our Democracy.

  3. Dana P 2017-08-09 08:28

    Tillerson is saying that Americans can sleep easy. I wonder if the citizens of Guam, South Korea, and Japan are sleeping easy right now as Trump displays his ignorant bluster.

  4. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-08-09 12:48

    Cool, calm… those were the days!

    NYT reports the “fire and fury” comment was wholly improvised.

    Global political and economic stability at risk, and the President of the United States is winging it. Good grief.

  5. jerry 2017-08-09 12:58

    I think Pence is remeasuring the drapes to get rid of that ugly gold color. Time to dust off the old 25th and get if in place to make the move.

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