Here Today, Guam Tomorrow

The imminent disappearance of the island of Guam beneath a rain of North Korean missiles prompted me to investigate this little known jewel of the Pacific.

Of course the term "little known jewel of the Pacific" is a trifle inaccurate.  Guam is thoroughly well known to those who live there, the military based there, the thousands of Japanese tourists who visit there each year and its existence is acknowledged at least in a theoretical sense by the government of the United States itself.  As for "jewel of the Pacific" well I'm sure Guam is terribly nice (all those tourists can't be wrong) but let's face it the Pacific Ocean is absolutely littered with photogenic islands shamelessly flaunting their translucent waters, abundant fish and white sand to a jaded public.  No doubt Guam is up there with the rest but the Pacific sets the benchmark pretty high.

So when I said my term was a trifle inaccurate I was being a trifle inaccurate.  It would be more accurate to say, "totally inaccurate".  If anybody can work their way through the preceding couple of sentences and tell me what I was talking about I would be eternally grateful.  And by eternally grateful I mean mildly appreciative right now.

Now Guam who's greatest threat to date was a small brown snake (twelve bird species extinct and counting) is apparently in danger of being the subject of North Korea's dreadful retribution for the nasty things that Donald Trump said about them or something.  President Trump apparently threatened fire and fury (as opposed to smoke and sarcasm) in response to statements made by North Korea which (and I'm paraphrasing here) threatened fire and fury.

The problem with getting your foreign news from the Guardian (as I do) is that everything is always Donald Trump's fault.  I'm not saying this is wrong necessarily but it does mean an ill informed reader could come away with the impression that Trump created North Korea so he could say inflammatory things about it.  North Korea threatened "physical retaliation" in response to the latest sanctions slapped on their country and Trump responded with the fire and fury line which at least rolls of the tongue a little better.  The various Guardian contributors were united in agreeing how terribly dreadful, destabilising and war mongering it was of Trump to respond to a threat of violence with a threat of violence.  What came next from North Korea was to my mind deeply disturbing.

The North Koreans threatened to drop missiles into the waters around Guam.  Some idiot at the Guardian thought this represented close calculation by the North Koreans (as opposed to that crazed war mongering idiot in the White House).  The Guardian column went to point out that this indicated a lesser target and a more restrained action.  True, however it didn't seem to draw the obvious conclusion.  In the past the North Koreans have threatened nuclear annihilation on the United States, the bringing down a rain of, oh what's the term?, oh yes, fire and fury on Washington and blah blah blah.  It was all crazy rhetoric and nobody took it seriously if only because the North Koreans physically couldn't do what they were threatening.  Now they've stopped the crazy, generic threats nobody believes and have come up with a highly specific, closely targeted threat against a reachable objective.

If you think that sounds like moderation then consider this.  If someone you met in the street threatened to drop an atomic bomb on your house you would know he was crazy and ignore him.  If he threatened to hit you around the head with a baseball bat you might take him a lot more seriously because that is something he can probably do.  I don't think that the North Koreans making rational threats rather than irrational ones is a hopeful sign.  I think its actually a threat.