No doubt you've seen the headlines by now, or heard the news that Trump boasted North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," and North Korea's threat to nuke Guam. The usual anonymous sources are claiming that North Korea has far more sophisticated nukes then we used to believe. Well to those crisis mongers, all I can say is Chill the Fu#k Out.

North Korea has a history of failed nuclear and missile tests. They have had only two or three successful ballistics missile tests depending on who one talks to. Yet now out of the blue we are told they have an arsenal of 60 nukes and also the technology to put one on a ballistic missile accurate enough to strike US territories. Does anyone feel as if we're being lied to about all this, because I certainly do.

North Korea has only conducted five nuclear weapons tests in total since 2006. None of these tests demonstrated that they have the capability to put a nuclear device of any kind on a ballistic missile capable of accurately hitting a target such as Guam. Yet just yesterday CIA mouthpiece, The Washington Post, disclosed that US intelligence, specifically the Defense Intelligence Agency, now believes the Koreans are capable of producing intercontinental missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads on them.

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment. The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller. The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.

Note that last sentence in the second paragraph above: "Some independent experts think the number is much smaller." That's a classic propaganda tactic. Make a brief disclaimer that a small number of other "experts" disagree with you, but do not name them. After the harrowing info that the DIA supposedly revealed in its analysis, it makes these experts seem insignificant and likely ill informed. After all, how could they know everything that the DIA knows, right? And that is the only information included in the article that presents any opinion opposing US intelligence. So we have the appearance of "fair and balanced" reporting, when in fact this is a completely one-sided psy-ops piece designed to scare the shit out of people.

The Post reveals later on in its report that the reporters have not seen the DIA analysis, only had an excerpt of it read to them. However, this analysis was "verified" by two anonymous "US Officials." Later on we're told North Korea is conducting it's own "Manhattan Project" that is outpacing past expectations of their technical abilities. The Post report even quotes a guy who is pushing a book on the North Korean nuclear threat, a "think tank" scholar and former Clinton official named Robert Litwak. A few other people who all agree we have underestimated the North Korean threat until now are also named and cited. No one is quoted directly who disagrees with these speculations about the Korean nuclear program. Only individuals who have stated that North Korea is on the verge of blowing the USA sky high with the nukes are named and quoted by the reporters.

I lived through the Cuban Missile crisis. Do you know why we had a Cuban missile crisis? Because the US intelligence services had inflated the threat of Russia's ICBM program. Indeed, at the time, Russia had no missiles that could reach America, which was why they put intermediate range missiles in Cuba in the first place, as a means to gain leverage over the US, which had a far more advanced and sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile force, as well as better bombers and submarine delivery systems. JFK, who ran for President on the position that there was a "missile gap" in favor of the Soviet Union was shocked when he assumed office to discover that all the intelligence leaked to the public about Russia's nuclear capabilities was flat out wrong.

So don't get too excited or concerned about this ginned up crisis. I don't know what the US intelligence community has been telling Trump, but I can only assume they have exaggerated North Korea's capabilities to bring about a military confrontation with this small little nation. And of course the mainstream media is running with it because "fear sells" and that goes double when the fear is one of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Or has anyone forgot how we were all duped by the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq war? I haven't and that's why I am highly skeptical of the claims being anonymously leaked to the press once again about another highly dangerous WMD threat posed by another economically disadvantaged third world country.