Dear mhaze,

Oh boy, here we go again.

You wrote;

“I'm old enough to remember when Reagan lobbed a few bombs into Libya in the mid 80's....Afterward, Libya went from being the main supporter of international terrorism and an enemy of the west to being a docile pussy-cat and, if not exactly respectable, then at least a useful member of the global community”

Rubbish.

1986 Lybia bombing by Regan

1988 Pan Am Flight 103 goes down over Lockerbie

Or perhaps this is one you appear too old to remember.

Hi Steele,

Libya. Reagan. As I recall, probably imperfectly, the US missile attack on one of Ghaddafi's palaces was in response to (?) a series of terrorist attacks in Europe, the murder of an English policewoman earlier and a bombing and shoot-up of the Rome (or Turin?) air terminal. The bombing killed Ghaddafi's step-daughter.

Ghaddafi, Gadafi, Ghadaffi.

The current US genius-statesman is great at knee-jerk, but slightly deficient at thinking through anything. Well, they don't do that in action comics, do they, so why should he ? Perhaps it is necessary because, after all, this is the real world.

Drumpf sends a battle fleet towards the South Korea/North Korea/China coasts. It can get pretty tight up there, not much room for error. So China is in the box-seat: what will it do to deter all-out war ? It would have ships, swarms of aircraft, nests of missile sites along its coast. So it would be no problem, to warn the US not to proceed past a certain point, somewhere south of the 38th Parallel [Wow, 'the 38th Parallel' sets up all sorts of nostalgic memories for us oldies] - and east of China's EEZ, or at least a distance from its territorial waters. A red line, if you like: cross this and there will be consequences.

I wonder if Munchausen/Trump understands the concept of 'consequences': after all, in his mind, it seems, to think something is to complete it, to bring it about, like Baron Munchausen, and to do so without any negative consequences, like Batman. Or Superboy.

Well, we will all share the consequences of this one. KYAG.

Cheers,

Joe

He

DT has also made big mistakes picking his crew, like the one who yesterday stated hitler did not kill children and others with gas.
The mistakes show little if any thought into circumstances and consequences of orders being issued.

Reagan-Libya...

In the real world we recognise that there are rarely perfect outcomes, only better outcomes. Reagan's bombing of Libya was one such. Prior to it, Libya had been a major threat to stability in NorthAfrica with its attempts to absorb Chad and talk of a pan-African Muslim league. It was also actively seeking to become a nuclear power. Apart from sponsoring PLO activities, it was also a major funder of various European terrorist groups such as Red Brigade and the IRA.

Within a relatively short time after the slap-down, the Chad adventurism was over, the nuclear ambitions shelved, the funding to IRA etc stopped (which in no small part led to the demise of those groups) and the cosying up to the Soviets ended. It took longer for Libya's support for the PLO to wind back but that also happened.

So all-in-all, not a perfect outcome but an extremely good outcome and pretty much the best that the US could hope for. In the grown up world, that's a success. In the world that always sees the US as the great satan, the search is always about diminishing the success by pointing out it wasn't perfect.

I prefer the grown-up world.

NK...

So no one's gunna acknowledge they were happily led down the garden path on the 150000 troops. About what you'd expect.

Now we have fantasies about China staring down the US armada. You people have no understanding of realpolitiks.

Just a couple of points to consider:
1. The Syrian strikes occurred right in the middle of Trump's dinner with Xi. Anyone who considers that a coincidence is too naive for words.
2. China is also very unhappy with Kim.
3. There are always troops on the China-NK border.

/cont

/cont

4. China also wants the NK to give up its nuclear ambitions.
5. If Kim has to be forced to give up his insane adventurism, China would prefer to do it rather than have US and SouthKorea do it.
6. There was, apparently, reports in one of the Beijing papers considered to be close to the Politburo that China was considering taking the Kim regime out.

There's every chance that this is all a co-ordinated dance between Xi and Trump to ratchet up the pressure on Kim until he comes to heal.

Re Korea and the US Navy. The fleet was, I read, in Singapore when the
orders were changed.
So a week or more later and not a peep out of China, or the US, about
the US Fleet being in the Sth China Sea.
By far the shortest way to Korea. Likely, this was an arrangement
agreed in Miami with Xi. Just shut up about it.