2017 Apr 18^th

As all sentient people know by now Premier Kim, the North Korean despot, was embarrassed recently by a missile failure. This was particularly embarrassing because it came at the end of a military parade flaunting an impressive array of military hardware, missiles, tanks and perfectly synchronized goose-stepping troops. The parade was in honor of Kim’s grandfather’s birthday and was meant to show everyone the military might of North Korea. (Of course some doubters questioned whether those enormous missiles might have been just empty tubes. Even so, it was a powerful parade and successfully scared the hell out of everybody, particularly the residents of Seoul, just an easy missile shot across the border.)

The ability of North Korea to do any damage to any country not on their border depends entirely on their ability to successfully launch missiles. When his bellicose parade was over it was launch time. They did successfully launch a missile; unfortunately, only the launch was successful, about 5 seconds after launch the thing blew up. Given Kim’s predilection to execute any underling who displeases him, I’m sure there are some very nervous North Korean rocket scientists.

What about the rest of us? Kim will surely try again…and again. His technology is imported from China and eventually he will be able to put the pieces together the right way. At this point we have sent Vice President Pence to South Korea and to the infamous DMZ to looks very sternly at North Korea and to tell them that we are through talking. But we aren’t through talking because Pence is standing there in the DMZ…talking.

Military help is on the way. Our president now has more credibility as a warrior; he has allowed the use of an enormous bomb, reported to weigh 15 tons, on a cave complex housing evildoers in Afghanistan. This bomb did go off and reportedly killed about 100 bad guys, or, if you believe the other side, it killed nobody. I’ll buy our side’s estimate although I remember the exaggerated ‘Nam body counts; but that was then, maybe now it’s different.

Trump also launched a bunch of missiles at Syria. They didn’t even put the Syrian airfield out of commission for 24 hours but it did enhance Trump’s reputation for bellicosity and his willingness to use military force.

Trump tells us he has sent an “armada” to the Korean peninsula just in case we need major military force there. The carrier Carl Vincent, two rocket throwing destroyers and a cruiser we are told were on their way to Korea. Unfortunately they’ll be a while getting there. Just now they are about 3,000 mile from the Korean peninsula on their way to Australia for some war games. There will be no time for sailors to explore the Australian ports of call but this mighty armada is taking its time getting to Korea; maybe it will get there by the end of the month.

Much was made of Trump’s dandy meeting with China’s General Secretary XI. China is seen as the key to a successful settlement with North Korea. China provides North Koreans with oil and buys their coal; it sends them armaments and can shut down Kim’s bellicosity whenever it wishes. At this date the major accomplishment for Donald Trump’s visit with General Secretary Xi is three new exclusive patents for Ivanka Trump’s jewelry. Hey, that can mean a lot of money. What dad wouldn’t want to help out his daughter?