Friday, March 17, 2017

This Is Not Your Fathers Diplomat

In the history of bad appointees to the Secretary of State office the current one will likely go down as the worst of the worst. Unlike many others who have held the position, Rex Tillerson has no qualifications that a rational person would have looked for in someone who was going to fill the slot of America's top diplomat. He showed this to all and sundry during his trip to South Korea, a longtime American ally in Asia and the country that stands to lose the most should a conflict break out again, between North and South Korea. He, as a representative of Trump and the US, (but mostly Trump, as his potential policy decisions show) actively threatened to start a war with North Korea, if they don't toe his imaginary line. Never, in the history of diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula, has a Secretary of State uttered words that the diminutive and insane tyrant in the North could take as a direct threat to him and his rule. Needless to say, Mr. Tillerson would be nice and safe back in his office in Foggy Bottom, while missiles rained down on the citizens of Seoul, and elements of the Norths million man army poured across the border and rampaged through the countryside. The US's paltry military presence would last about as long as it did in the first Korean war.
   Add in the fact that the North Korean regime has nuclear weapons and you have a whole new ballgame. One the supremely unqualified Mr. Tillerson would seemingly like to see played out, from the safety of his D.C. office. Such is always the way with fools who are content to see others blood and treasure wasted for their rhetoric. Republicans should be truly ashamed that they put in place a man who would appoint fools such as this to represent America as its top diplomat. As someone who is intimately familiar with the workings of the diplomatic corps, I can assure you that war, and threats of war, are always the farthest thing from their minds, as it should be. Diplomacy is our first line of defence. War the last. Maybe someone should let Mr. Tillerson know this.