PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

IMMEDIATE USE 20 SEPT 2017

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT

TRUMP UN REMARKS IRRESPONSIBLE, DESTABILISING, DANGEROUS

Donald Trumps almost offhand remark at the UN General Assembly High Level Meeting, delivered before foreign ministers, prime ministers and heads of state from every country in the world hasn't merely taken the US-DPRK conflict to a new level: It has made it much much less easy to bring that conflict to a peaceful resolution, and much much more likely that there will indeed BE conflict between the US and the DPRK, and that such a conflict would become nuclear very quickly.

His remarks also make it more probable that the DPRK, feeling itself more and more backed into a corner, will take pre (or pre-pre-emptive) action against the US. While the DPRK 'regime' is certainly not suicidal, Kim Jong UN may after this speech feel he has no alternative but to attack the US before the US attacks him, doing as much real damage as he can.

It's unlikely, though just possible, that the DPRK will in fact back down, and much more probable that he will do as he has done up to this point: Do precisely that which his interlocutor has forbidden him to do. The US having established a red line, the DPRK has always immediately crossed it. Asking the DPRK NOT to do something, and threatening dire consequences if they do it has thus far always guaranteed that they will do it. Will this time be different? Who knows?

In the medium term, the S has always the firepower to 'make the rubble bounce' in the DPRK. However, aside from making it more probable that the DPRK will undertake a pre-emptive, or pre-pre-emptive, strike of its own before it is comprehensively incinerated, it will be all but impossible to ensure that a US first (or second) strike against the DPRK will actually put out of action every DPRK nuclear launch point. Its most likely that at least one or two DPRK nuclear missiles will be left able to launch. And if they do launch amidst the devastation, their likely targets will be:

--Seoul, with a possible body count of up to 10 million

--Tokyo, with a similar body count depending on how many warheads and how big they are

--US bases at Okinawa and Guam.

Slightly less likely targets include US west coast cities and possibly Sydney.

Trumps comments at the UN go far to make a mini-apocalypse more likely.

John Hallam

0411-854-612

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