President Donald Trump doesn't like "shitholes." So a North Korea expert thinks he should bomb Kim Jong Un's.
An East Asia scholar suggested in a tongue-in-cheek editorial that Trump should consider targeting Kim's porcelain throne as a way of scaring the crap out of the North Korean dictator who is threatening the U.S.
"We can use a 2,000 pound, satellite-guided bomb to punish [Kim's] porcelain," Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk and the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, wrote in The Daily Beast over the weekend.
"It's perfect. Destroying the port-a-potty will deny Kim Jong Un a highly valued creature comfort, while also demonstrating the incredibly accuracy of U.S. precision munitions to hold Kim and his minions at risk. It will send an unmistakable message: We can kill you while you are dropping a deuce," Lewis added. "At the same time, destroying a port-a-potty is unquestionably hilarious."
Lewis was responding to recent calls to bomb North Korea on top of reports that the Trump administration is considering a so-called "bloody nose" strike that would try to deter the isolated nation's nuclear testing by launching a limited strike that sends a message about the U.S. military superior capabilities
As Lewis pointed out in his op-ed, the big "challenge" with such a strike would be "finding a suitable target that represents Kim Jong Un's nose—a target that will allow our strike to be intimidating and humiliating to Kim, but not the sort of broad assault that might prompt him to retaliate with his growing stockpile of nuclear weapons." This is why the port-a potty Kim reportedly brings with him as he travels across North Korea––including to missile tests––is a most excellent option, Lewis suggested. "This is a tricky balance to strike—and only crushing his crapper will do," he wrote.
Related: What Kind Of Bombs Does North Korea Have? A Guide To Kim Jong Un's Nuclear Weapons
The piece was called "A Modest Proposal for Striking North Korea," referencing Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 essay "A Modest Proposal," which suggested that poor Irish should sell their children to be eaten by rich people.
Lewis's toilet-bombing strategy pokes fun at Trump's recent "shithole" comments as well as the notion that a "bloody nose" strike would go as smoothly as some officials seem to believe. Numerous assessments have shown military action against North Korea, regardless of how limited, would have the potential to get very messy, very quickly. A November 2017 report from the Congressional Research Service, for example, estimated as many as 300,000 people would die in the first few days of a conflict between the U.S. and North Korea––even without the use of nuclear weapons.
With that said, Trump reportedly told South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a phone call last Wednesday the U.S. is not considering a "bloody nose" strike against North Korea. If true, Kim's top shithole is safe––for now.
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