Friday, February 1, 2019

When an actual emergency isn’t one, but one that really isn’t is

Let me see if I’ve got this straight:

It’s a national emergency that threatens our safety and security when a supposed “caravan” of homeless women and children from Guatemala and Honduras walk hundreds of miles across Mexico carrying their earthly possessions on their backs to legally seek political asylum in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, but backing out of a nuclear arms treaty with our greatest and most dangerous geopolitical enemy is not considered a threat in the Land of Trump.

Can someone please explain to me in what universe and under what bizarre circumstances this illogical paradox makes sense?

In case you missed it, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just announced that the United States plans to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that was a cornerstone of the agreement that helped to end the cold war with the former Soviet Union, currently known as Russia or, more specifically, One Who Holds America on a String.

Donald J. Trump, the 72-year-old con man crime boss POTUS with the mentality of a 12-year-old boy and the foreign policy knowledge of a door knob, wants to terminate the agreement on the grounds that Russia has repeatedly violated its terms. I’m sure it’s a mere coincidence that Trump’s best bro’ – Russian President Vladimir Putin – has wanted out of the treaty since at least 2007.

People who actually understand global dynamics say the demise of the INF Treaty raises fears of a new nuclear arms race, the prospect of which threatens not only the U.S. and Russia but essentially every other nation on the planet.

Pompeo said the United States would “suspend participation in the agreement,” setting in motion a six-month countdown to final U.S. withdrawal. It was noted that Russia could end all of those missile programs which Trump sees as violations and thus salvage the IMF Treaty, but that’s as likely as Russia admitting that it hacked the 2016 presidential election and apologizing for helping to install Putin’s favorite puppet into the highest office in the United States.

Right.

According to The Washington Post, arms control specialists said that without the IMF Treaty, “the United States may move to position missile systems in Europe or Asia, while Russia could use the opportunity to base missile systems elsewhere. In Asia, the United States could deploy conventional mid-range missiles near Chinese ships and militarized artificial islands during a conflict to defend parts of the East China Sea or South China Sea.”

So two nuclear powers would be free to place more missiles in Europe and Asia and park some of them around Chinese ships and territories. What could possibly go wrong?

The newspaper also noted that “the death of the INF Treaty also raises questions about the future of other arms control agreements,” including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START, which reduces by half the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers deployed by the U.S. and Russia. If the White House and the Kremlin don’t agree to extend New START beyond its scheduled expiration date in 2021, such a decision “would turn the clock back to an era where Washington and Moscow possess nuclear arms with practically no agreed restrictions and risk the return of a full Cold War-style arms race.”

Meanwhile, following his State of the Union address next week, Trump is expected to declare a national emergency so he can bypass Congress and try to secure the funds he needs to build a wall on the southern border, which he claims is necessary to protect us from all of those homeless women and children coming north to seek a better life in our fine country.

Well, I have some advice for the people in that caravan: Go back! You don’t want to come here right now. Trust me. When our president takes the shackles off the world’s cache of nuclear weapons and plays "chicken" with the rest of the world, this is not the place you really want to be.

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