Stephen Lendman

Controlled by Wall Street, war profiteers, other corporate predators, Pentagon hawks and likeminded GOP extremists, businessman Trump transformed himself into a warrior leader - continuing naked aggression begun by Bush/Cheney and Obama, threatening war on North Korea and Iran.

Are Russia and China on his target list per orders from the nation’s deep state? Is nuclear war inevitable?

On the occasion of Sunday’s Oslo, Norway award ceremony, presenting the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), I was invited on India’s WION television yesterday.

I and other guests discussed the cutting edge issue of our time, WION asking “Are nuclear weapons dearer than peace?”

We all agreed on the danger these weapons pose. I disagreed with a view expressed that it’s unlikely they’ll be used.

I stressed how America poses a grave danger - the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, twice gratuitously on Japan after the war in the Pacific was won, its overtures to surrender months earlier turned down by Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Nikki Haley said if Pyongyang threatens America or its allies, “we will have no choice but to totally destroy” the country.

She repeated the threat on Sunday, December 10 talk shows. More on this below. Last October, after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, ICAN said nuclear war may be just “a temper tantrum away.”

Sunday on WION, I stressed the grave danger that America may use these weapons again, North Korea the most likely target.

I explained what founder of Washington’s nuclear navy Admiral Hyman Rickover told Congress in the early 1980s, saying when nations go to war, they’ll use all weapons in their arsenal necessary to win.

If America attacks North Korea, nuclear war is likely, the DPRK using its most effective deterrent on pre-selected targets, the Pentagon likely using these weapons in response.

Here’s a link to Sunday’s program. Unfortunately the audio from Chicago is very choppy - hopefully clear enough to understand the points I made.

I emphasized that today is the most perilous time in world history, a view I’ve expressed before in my articles and other interviews.

Cold War “mutually assured destruction (MAD)” kept these weapons from being used. Soviet Russia never intended to use them preemptively.

As it turned out, neither did US leaders, especially Jack Kennedy, saying in the aftermath of the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis that he never had any intention of using these weapons.

Trump is no Jack Kennedy. Neither were the Clintons, Bush/Cheney and Obama. For the first time in world history, the threat of possible nuclear war is ominously real.

ICAN said it could be just “a temper tantrum away.” I’ve said it could happen by accident or design.

On Fox News Sunday, Nikki Haley came perilously close to suggesting war on North Korea is coming, saying if China doesn’t do more, “we’re going to take (things) into our own hands…”

Will naked aggression on the DPRK follow? Then nuclear war? Then Seoul, Tokyo and US regional bases attacked?

Then China and Russia intervening to protect their threatened security?

Then WW III? Then armageddon, risking the end of life on earth? It’s breath-holding time, wondering whether nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and/or elsewhere is coming.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
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