Congress and North Korea

To my mind, striking North Korea has to be authorized by Congress. Such a war could unleash a Pandora’s box of disasters, and so requires the assent by both law and common sense of a sizeable chunk of our elected leaders.

At the same time, the more warning we give Kim, the worse it gets. This is obvious.

I have proposed before and will propose again that Trump get the verbal assent of enough leaders to pass muster, plus perhaps a few more in case. A highly secure app can be assigned to each of these people, and if and when he decides it’s time he can broadcast a go/no go to substitute for the substance of an actual vote. Self evidently, not every member of Congress need be consulted. Many of them would betray us and the interests of civilization instantly and with considerable self satisfaction.

The problem with sanctions, which are really the only means of diplomacy, short of China kicking Kim in the balls and telling to straighten up and fly right, is that they only cause suffering and pain for ordinary people. They don’t affect Kim. They don’t affect most of the military or Party leaders. They never worked on Cuba. Given sufficient ruthlessness and amorality, no amount of pain and suffering can have the least effect.

Conversely, the only military way to limit damages to South Korea, Japan, and here, is to dictate the rules of the engagement as fully as possible by choosing the times and places.

I don’t want war with North Korea. It will be horrible. But I also don’t want to have nuclear weapon we could have prevented detonating anywhere in this country.