Remember When Trump Boasted He Was Sending an Aircraft Carrier to Deter North Korea? Well, He Didn’t.
You may recall that last week, our so-called president Donald Trump bragged that he was sending a big deterrent signal to North Korea by commanding an aircraft carrier to sail to the Sea of Japan. Numerous pundits and cable news talking heads hailed this move as a sign of a new muscle-bound “Trump Doctrine.”
Well. Today the New York Times reports that even though this “big deterrent signal” was reported all over Asia and greatly increased tensions between the US and lots of other nations (not just North Korea), in the real world the carrier Carl Vinson was actually sailing in the opposite direction — to the Indian Ocean, for scheduled exercises with the Australian Navy.
WASHINGTON — As worries deepened last week about whether North Korea would conduct a missile test, the White House declared that ordering an American aircraft carrier into the Sea of Japan would send a powerful deterrent signal and give President Trump more options in responding to the North’s provocative behavior.
The problem was, the carrier, the Carl Vinson, and the four other warships in its strike force were at that very moment sailing in the opposite direction, to take part in joint exercises with the Australian Navy in the Indian Ocean, 3,500 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula.
Just one more episode in the never-ending parade of fraudulent posturing from this gang of malevolent clowns in the White House.