Trump
© Yahoo
Following a successful ICBM test by the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK, also referred to as North Korea), United States president Donald Trump behaved in what he considers an unpresidential fashion and took to twitter:
North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea...
...and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!
"[T]his guy" is obviously a reference to the supreme leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un. One also draws the conclusion from the tweets that the tweeter engages in better things to do with his life.

So what are the better things president Trump does with his life?

  • Could it be that being commander-in-chief of a US special forces unit that launched an attack in Yemen killing scores of civilians, including an women and children, is a better way of spending one's life?
  • Is invading Syria (since the US was uninvited, the US troops are "invaders" according to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad), bombing Syrian troops, and shooting down a Syrian plane in Syrian airspace is a better way?
  • Is ordering the dropping of the so-called mother-of-all-bombs in Afghanistan a fruitful way to spend one's life?
  • Is agitating against Iran, a country that has never attacked the US nor is a military threat to the US, a better use of time?
  • Is the US allying with the head-chopping, hand-chopping, misogynistic Saud clan (who are among the bankrollers of ISIS that the US is purportedly fighting in Iraq and Syria) a wise choice of friends? The Sauds are currently carrying out a war crimes extravaganza in Yemen, where children are dying of cholera due to the siege. Is devoting a part of one's life to maintain such an alliance the best way?
  • Is provoking China by sending US warships into Chinese claimed territorial waters a better way to spend time — especially when Trump is calling upon China to exert pressure on the DPRK?
  • Is installing the THAAD missile system in South Korea to the consternation of China, Russia, DPRK, and the host state, South Korea a profitable (outside of military industries) endeavor? To any sane observer, the mere contemplation of an offensive missile attack by the DPRK on any country is unfathomable; such an attack would be sheer lunacy. It would, assuredly, augur the end of the Kim clan in the DPRK.
  • Finally, how does anyone expect the DPRK to respond to massive war maneuvers in its nearby sea by an implacable foe who refuses to sign a non-aggression pact or peace treaty? The US is a foe who, after World War II scrapped a united Korean people's government, divided the country, and engaged in a war against the north of Korea that claimed the lives of up to 10 million Koreans.
Trump has spent 166 days of his life in office (at time of this writing) "doing" (more accurately having others do at his direction, and the same distinction would hold for Kim Jong-un) these supposedly better things that others might not deign to do.

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter.