US President Donald Trump received a briefing on Tuesday from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on military options concerning North Korea, Korea JoongAng Daily reported, citing a White House statement.
“The briefing and discussion focused on a range of options to respond to any form of North Korean aggression,” the White House said in the statement after the meeting, “or, if necessary, to prevent North Korea from threatening the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons.”
JoongAng said the statement implied military options, which could include a preventative war plan or pre-emptive strike.
Trump also had a luncheon with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis on Tuesday, amid a continuing backlash from US legislators for making statements that contradicted diplomatic efforts to resolve the Korea crisis by his cabinet.
Kissinger meeting
The President, in another Tuesday meeting, sat down with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office to get his advice on the crisis.
“I’m here at a moment when the opportunity to build a constructive, peaceful world order is very great,” said Kissinger, who served under the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, at the beginning of his meeting with Trump. “And the president is leaving on a trip to Asia, which I think will make a big contribution to progress and peace and prosperity.”
No details emerged on what Kissinger told Trump. But Kissinger has publicly proposed that the US withdraw its troops from South Korea in exchange for a complete resolution of the nuclear issue with the North and in order to allay China’s fears.
Kissinger stressed in an August Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal that understanding between Washington and Beijing is a “prerequisite,” also stressing Japan and South Korea’s critical roles in resolving the North Korea issue.
Who started the Korean War in 1950? Did not the North
invade the South with the blessings and the material of
China and the USSR? Did not Rusian and Chinese forces, Russian in
the air, aid that aggression materially?
So what is this cant about the North’s arming itself with nuclear
missiles to defend ltself?
Even loludmouth Trump said niothing until Kom Jong Un begat threatening the US and US allies.
But Trump only took to office in January. Remember this NKvsUS thing has been runnin for some decades….yes Trumps approach may have ignited the spark…but if my memory serves me well Trump threatened to attach with fire and fury IF the US or its allies are attacked.