A Brief Plea
I am not writing today about email servers, or locker room talk, or groping women, or the Clinton foundation or the Trump foundation. Or Whitewater or Benghazi or Bill Clinton. Or Gold Star parents or disabled reporters. The only thing on my mind, as the presidential campaign enters its final week, is a simple question: which of the candidates, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, is more likely to lead us into a nuclear holocaust?
Here are some statements made by Mr. Trump over the last few months, as reported by NBC News:
Concerning the “nuclear alternative,” Trump said, “I can't take anything off the table.”
Concerning “the possibility of using nuclear weapons,” Trump stated, "Well, I'm never going to rule anything out."
Concerning the “nuclear card,” he said, “you can never take cards off the table … I'm not going to take cards off the table.” And, asked about whether he, as president, would consider actually using nuclear weapons, he replied, “I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable.”
China and Pakistan are among the dozen or so world powers that have nuclear weapons, but North Korea is the greatest concern. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says, “North Korea's unpredictable behavior and capability continues to threaten allies and potentially the homeland.”
Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose mental state has been described as “uncontrollable,” has stated, “(North Korea’s) nuclear warheads keep … the U.S. mainland, within our striking range.” And, “if the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.”
Is someone as inexperienced as Donald Trump the best person to deal with the likes of Kim Jong Un?
This is what happens to people when nuclear weapons explode:
--Radiation poisoning, including bone marrow death, central nervous system death and gastrointestinal death. Symptoms of central nervous system death include vomiting, diarrhea, delirium, seizures and convulsions, and respiratory failure.
-- Victims’ hair falls out in large clumps, wounds secreting extreme amounts of pus, and gums swelling and bleeding.
-- The blast will knock down buildings, with the radiant heat from the explosions igniting fires and burning and incinerating people.
Take a look around you at your friends, your children, and your grandchildren. Ask yourself whether that is what you want to have happen to them. How likely do you think it would be to happen if Hillary Clinton is elected president, and how likely is it to happen if Donald Trump is elected president? That is the only thing I am asking you to think about.
I am neither a conservative nor a liberal; neither a Republican or Democrat -- just someone worried about those I love. Most things can be fixed if they go wrong, but some cannot.