Today, seventy two years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, another nuclear conflict is staring us in the face menacingly.
In apocalyptic reminiscence, the Japanese in particular and mankind in general constantly remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, the United States military jets dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities (first on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki) killing thousands, maiming thousands more and causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem. The major aim and objective of the atomic onslaught was to force Japan to capitulate during the Second World War. Indeed the objective was met as it forced the intransigent Japanese authorities to surrender on stated conditions leading to the end of hostilities.
Japan, wittingly or unwittingly, had provoked the nuclear fire and fury of Uncle Sam when on December 7, 1941, when Japanese warplanes attacked the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii Territory. The deadly bombing killed more than two thousand Americans and destroyed completely the U.S.S. Arizona battleship stationed there capsizing the U.S.S Oklahoma. The raid sank about twelve ships and damaged nine others. Over a hundred aircraft were destroyed and 160 others damaged! After the shocking attack the US Army were forced to join the World War II, making it thus a global conflict of immense proportion. The then President Franklin Roosevelt had described December 7, 1941 as a "date which will live in infamy."
The Japanese armed aggression shook America and brought out her nuke beast in retaliation. In the end recriminations abound post-World War II over who did what and why. Today, however, both the victor and the vanquished are strong allies! Japan and America have since understood each other better becoming strategic allies both militarily and diplomatically.
Today, seventy two years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, another nuclear conflict is staring us in the face menacingly. North Korea is poised to establish herself in the comity of nations as a nuclear-armed nation to be taken seriously. Pyongyang has tested some nuke bombs and the rest of the world is terrified about the prospect of another rogue state possessing a nuclear capability which could allow her to ignite a global conflict.
Since he assumed office as the president of the US, Donald Trump has made it clear that North Korea and its unstable young leader pose a serious danger to global security. There has been a war of words as Trump continued to use his famous Twitter handle to deliver dreadful messages of what to expect in the event of a nuclear confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang.
At the recently-concluded 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, President Trump was blunt in his diplomatic offensive against Pyongyang. In his speech before more than a hundred heads of state and governments, he described Kim Jong-Un, the reclusive North Korean leader, as a "Rocket Man on a suicide mission for himself and his country." He solemnly declared his determination to "completely destroy" North Korea in the event of any military provocation or attack against America or her allies.
Kim Jong-Un, days later, issued a statement from his capital city fraught with invectives. He called Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and described his speech to the UN General Assembly as “unprecedented rude nonsense.” He said his country and himself had been "insulted" by Trump in his speech. He even threatened to "make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the US pay dearly for his speech." No one knows for sure what propels Kim to the extreme, but he believes that with enough nuclear capacity he could be given his dues and become respected by all and sundry across the Atlantic.
From all indications, Kim appears set for war, but the consequences of courting war on a global scale or nuclear terms could be as devastating as any imagination could ever fathom. Kim is ambitious, no doubt, but ambitions have certain limit. From the nuclear armament point of view he is indeed ambitious. He desperately seeks to position and/or reposition his country as a nuclear power worth taking seriously in the global scheme of things. He sees it differently from the rest of us -- especially the pro-Americans. His lunatic determination to possess nuclear weapons beats the rational imagination of observers. He had said that arming his country with nuclear capability remains the only way to obtain the crucial respect of the Americans, but the latter are not impressed.
At a point the North Koreans had threatened to launch a nuke attack on the US island of Guam! If that eventually had happened then another nuclear war could have been triggered. Russia and China (the two principal allies of Pyongyang) have failed to rein in the 'Rocket Man'. They always sued for peace and advocated diplomacy and negotiations but from the look of things a lasting solution could only be military in nature and outlook. Sanctions upon sanctions have thus far failed to deter or dissuade Kim from pursuing the disastrous path he is headed.
Kim Jung-Un reminds one of a certain Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi strongman. The "Sadman" in Baghdad was almost omnipotent fighting wars with his neighbors and antagonizing nations and leaders. As his dictatorial madness reached an extreme height an inordinate ambition of territorial expansionism seized the bloody tyrant as he envied and targeted the neighboring oil-rich Kuwait. So one fateful day he ordered his troops to move into Kuwait City in an elaborate invasion which upon attainment of a rapid victory declared it one of Iraqi provinces! With little or no resistance the 'Saddamned' heavily-armed battalion seized Kuwait and sacked the sovereign government there with relative ease.
The then US President, George Bush Senior, wasted no time in declaring the invasion illegal and unacceptable, warning Saddam Hussein of grievous consequences. He had famously declared then that: "No longer will an aggressor exploit the differences in power to foster his political ambition." The bloody tyrant in Baghdad refused every diplomatic intervention led by the UN. He boasted that any attempt by the Americans to undo what he violently did would amount to a suicide mission warning that "American troops would swim in their own blood if they try to launch any operation." In the end "Operation Desert Storm" was launched and within days the Iraqi army were routed. Saddam was caught hiding in a hole and after keeping a date with Iraqi justice, he was found guilty and hanged!
But the little difference between the late Hussein and Kim is that while the former was alleged to have stockpiled nuclear arsenal, it was found to be false, as the US and her allies invaded Iraq ousting the rogue regime headed by the 'Sadman.' Kim, on the other hand, is not hiding his desire to be a nuclear power in the world. But they share something in common though: anti-imperialism.
The major problem with the North Korean infantile dictator is that he lives happily in a fools' paradise! Paranoid and psychopathic Kim Jung-Un is a study in leadership lunacy. Here is a 'boy' whose ascension to the 'throne' was made possible (not through any dint of political hard work or horse-trading or democratic tradition) but by hereditary imposition in a strikingly closed society reduced to a family estate of the Kims. History, in its evolutionary cycle, has not taught him any lesson, yet he seems headed to doom, supremely determined to take his country and countrymen down with him. Here is an arrogant power-drunk crude dictator whose nation is struggling to cope with some developmental challenges only for him to concentrate all his energy towards nuclear armament. And the establishment of a cult of personality unrivaled in the entire world.
