Fox News is preparing us for war with North Korea. No matter how many times these people say they hope to avoid a war, it’s clear the Trump TV network is already working on selling it.

This Tuesday morning, Fox host Rick Leventhal interviewed “Strategic Analyst” Lt. Col. Ralph Peters to discuss North Korea calling new sanctions an “act of war” and saying that it’s a “pipe dream” to think the country will give up its nuclear weapons.

Peters described North Korea as suffering from a “degenerative disease of state” that has bet everything on their “nuclear and strategic missile programs.” The country will cling to them, Peters said, because “it’s all they’ve got.” According to Peters, that is how North Korea thinks it can “blackmail the world.”

“Sanctions, hard sanctions, are the only chance left but I’m skeptical,” Peters said. Then he repeated one of his many claims to “want a peaceful solution.”

Leventhal interjected this obviously pre-prepared comment: “We’re hearing whispers, some warnings from military leaders, that conflict could be on the horizon.”

Peters said he has heard the same thing. Then he all but gave his seal of approval to war:

PETERS: It is not because the United States wants war with North Korea. It’s simply because – it’s straightforward, Rick – straightforward. We cannot allow that regime to have the capability to destroy American cities because even if there’s only one chance in a hundred that they would use it, it’s too much to take with this particular crazed, if not crazy, regime.

This just sounds way too much like the run-up to the Iraq war for my comfort. Remember when then-President George W. Bush said, on October 16, 2002, “I hope the use of force will not become necessary?” And “War is not my first choice. It’s my last choice,” on November 7, 2002? Yet Bush had already made up his mind. In March, 2002, he said to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators, “Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.”

We’ve got the rosy predictions, too, now.

LEVENTHAL: But this isn’t a war that anyone wants, especially South Korea. The toll could be devastating.

PETERS: Yeah, it could be but we also have to be wary of talking ourselves into being afraid. There’s assumptions out there that Seoul would immediately be destroyed. I’m just not convinced, and we have to take it into account, that the North Korean military is rotting away. We don’t know how much loyalty is left and we have the military capacity to devastate it very quickly.

Look, what we don’t want, war. If we must strike North Korea, it’s critical to do it all out with everything we’ve got because if you try to do it part way, then you put Seoul and South Korea at risk.

Leventhal’s next comment further suggested that the goal of the segment was to promote a coming “showdown.” Because Leventhal prodded such talk by ostensibly summarizing Peters’ position with a more hawkish stance than Peters had taken. Which Peters did not deny.

LEVENTHAL: And because North Korea is clinging to those nukes and won’t give them up, and because the U.S. is insisting that they do, you believe that a showdown is on the horizon.

PETERS: I hope I’m wrong. Again, we want peace, a peaceful solution and China is the key. China is toughening sanctions but still not enough. You’ve got to just bring the regime to a cold halt. And if China won’t do that, then I’m afraid that as early as 2018, we may see bloody, violent conflict on the Korean peninsula and not because we want it. We don’t.

Watch this horrifying discussion above, from the December 26, 2017 America’s Newsroom.

Crossposted at News Hounds.
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