@gungasnake,
Not that long ago what the North Koreans did to Warmbier would have been considered an Act of War, however when a murderer nation has a 1 million man army, chemical and biological weapons up the wazoo, and a half dozen or more nukes, the US can't respond with the same righteous fury it might once have.
Seizing and torturing to death American citizens is the least of the acts of war this state is prepared to engage in, and it's not as if any of their crimes could not have been predicted decades ago when we had the means to keep them from developing into their current level of threat. Each time an American president got cold feet and kicked the can down the road for the next guy, the regime got bolder and it's capabilities to
really hurt us grew. If one of those presidents had had the foresight and guts to castrate the Kim Dynasty when there was a chance to do so, Warmbier and a great many South Koreans would be alive today, scores of Japanese citizens would have lived out their lives in their homeland, and we wouldn't have to worry if the dough-boy maniac with the bad haircut will soon be able to nuke an American city. There's a good chance millions of North Korean would be alive today as well.
If prior presidents were afraid to act before NK achieved it's current destructive capabilities, it's very unlikely that any president, including Trump, will going forward and now that's probably for the best. There just isn't doesn't seem to be a scenario where the Kim Dynasty can be ended, the NK tiger defanged and declawed, without millions of deaths and not all on the Korean Peninsula. We had our chance and we let it pass so now we are pretty much stuck with more saber rattling and crossing our fingers. There will be meager solace in turning Pyongyang into a sheet of glass and, Fat Boy Kim and his homicidal goons into bubbling pools of melted lard, if in the process, millions of innocent North and South Koreans are killed either by the direct effects of nuclear explosions or the aftermath of radiation poisoning, and complete social upheaval, including civil violence and famine. To get to the point where a US president has no choice but to destroy a nation to destroy a regime, we will also be faced with the devastating effects of mushroom clouds having risen over Seoul, Tokyo or Seattle or San Francisco.
The latest issue of Atlantic Monthly contains a cover story about North Korea and the options the US has to deal with it's threat and the author makes a pretty compelling case that they are all very, very lousy. Not surprisingly, given his background, the author arrives at the conclusion that the only option we have (if we don't want to see millions of people die, the world's economy go into a tailspin, and the vulnerability of the US actually increase) is to accept a NK armed with the means to deliver nukes to American cities and count on AS (Assured Destruction) and the self-preservation instincts of the criminally insane Kim. Like I said, lousy options. Fortunately Gen. Mattis is Secretary of Defense and Trump seems to worship him, if not just trusting him completely. If there is a mind that can cut through both the timid whimpering and the bombastic roaring, it's Mattis. If there is a way to militarily take out the NK threat, I'm more confident in him than anyone else currently in the Pentagon or broader US government to develop it, and if he can't and agrees that we're pretty much stuck with knocking wood and hoping for the best, then that's what we need to do. No matter how you look at it, it sucks and it's impossible not to come to the conclusion that prior presidents retreated from the tough decisions they're paid to make.
