Thread: Bannon calls far right 'clowns,' says enemies are 'wetting themselves,' in rare inter

Bannon calls far right 'clowns,' says enemies are 'wetting themselves,' in rare interview

Published August 16, 2017 Fox News

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon opened up in a rare interview published Wednesday by a left-leaning magazine, dismissing some of his enemies in Washington while calling the far-right elements of the Republican party “a collection of clowns.”

Bannon, the former executive chair of Breitbart, called a reporter with the magazine The American Prospect.

“Ethno-nationalism – it’s losers. It’s a fringe element,” Bannon said. “I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”

He added, “These guys are a collection of clowns.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Bannon also said that his adversaries within the State, Defense and Treasury Departments are “wetting themselves” as he works to push them out of the administration.

Bannon said he called the writer, Robert Kuttner, because the strategist agreed with a recent article explaining how China would benefit from the nuclear threats between the U.S. and North Korea.

Bannon detailed his push to punish China with tougher trade sanctions -- and talked of plans to oust opponents of the move.

"I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State," the strategist said.

Bannon's interview also covered North Korea. Despite Trump's claims of "fire and fury" against the regime, Bannon said "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it."

"Until someone solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us," Bannon said.

Bannon has been the target of speculation across the country about his future in the Trump administration.

The adviser reportedly has become increasingly isolated within the White House as new members join the ranks, and The New York Times reported this week that Bannon had not personally met with President Trump for over a week.

The same report said the president did speak with Bannon over the weekend as he tried to form a response to the violence that took place at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...interview.html

"Until someone solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us," Bannon said.

He's trying to get fired to say something this incredibly inaccurate and stupid.

Originally Posted by Judy

He's trying to get fired to say something this incredibly inaccurate and stupid.

How is that inaccurate? I've heard that scenario was a real possibility several times recently. Honestly, I really don't know but I suppose Bannon is in a position to know more than you and I on the issue.

Obviously, if North Korea makes a move we'll retaliate big. However, I don't see us striking first. Of course my saying that doesn't mean I would necessarily be adversed to dropping a few well placed bombs on their nuclear building, testing, and holding facilities. Although, to ignore Seoul's potential of being a first strike location for North Korea wouldn't be wise or prudent. Just my opinion .....

Pyongyang does not have the capability to kill 10 million people in Seoul in 30 minutes with conventional weapons against the United States.

Originally Posted by Judy

Pyongyang does not have the capability to kill 10 million people in Seoul in 30 minutes with conventional weapons against the United States.

10 million is the total population of Seoul, so, like you, I think Bannon is exaggerating. He is probably only doing so for emphasis. However, I do believe tens of thousands could be killed if North Korea focused a barrage on Seoul.

North Korea's conventional weapons a major factor as tensions rise

By ANNA FIFIELD | The Washington Post | Published: April 21, 2017

TOKYO — If the United States were to strike North Korea, Kim Jong Un's regime would retaliate by unleashing its conventional weaponry lined up on the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas for about seven decades.

And that conventional weaponry is reliable, unlike North Korea's missiles, and could cause major devastation in South Korea, which is a staunch ally of the United States.

"This becomes a very limiting factor for the U.S.," said Carl Baker, a retired Air Force officer with extensive experience in South Korea.

As tensions between North Korea and the outside world have risen over the past month, there has been increasing talk about the United States using military force either to preempt a North Korean provocation or to respond to one.

That talk continues even after it emerged that the Navy had not sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean Peninsula region, as officials, including President Donald Trump, had implied.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said this week that he supported striking North Korea to stop it from developing the capability to reach the United States with a missile — even if that came at a huge cost for the region.

"It would be terrible, but the war would be over [in South Korea], it wouldn't be here," Graham said in an interview with NBC.

Although most of the recent focus has been on North Korea's ambition to be able to strike the continental United States with a missile, the people of South Korea have been living under the constant threat of a conventional North Korean attack for decades.

North Korea has "a tremendous amount of artillery" right opposite Seoul, said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior imagery analyst at 38 North, a website focused on North Korea.

The Second Corps of the Korean People's Army stationed at Kaesong on the northern side of the DMZ has about 500 artillery pieces, Bermudez said. And this is just one army corps; similar corps are on either side of it.

• 

All the artillery pieces in the Second Corps can reach the northern outskirts of Seoul, just 30 miles from the DMZ, but the largest projectiles could fly to the south of the capital. About 25 million people — or half of the South Korean population — live in the greater Seoul metropolitan area.

"It's the tyranny of proximity," said David Maxwell, who served in South Korea during his 30 years in the Army and now teaches at Georgetown University. "It's like the distance between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Imagine a million man army just outside the Beltway with artillery they could use to terrorize Washington."

About half of North Korea's artillery pieces are multiple rocket launchers, including 18 to 36 of the huge 300 mm launchers that Pyongyang has bragged about.

State media last year published photos of the system during a test firing that Kim attended.

The 300 mm guns could probably fire eight rounds every 15 minutes, Bermudez said, and have a range of about 44 miles.

"This could do a lot of damage," he said. "If they hit a high-rise building with a couple of rounds of artillery, people get into their cars, causing huge traffic jams, so North Korea could target highways and bridges in cascades."

If North Korea were to start unleashing its artillery on the South, it would be able to fire about 4,000 rounds an hour, Roger Cavazos of the Nautilus Institute estimated in a 2012 study. There would be 2,811 fatalities in the initial volley and 64,000 people could be killed that first day, the majority of them in first three hours, he wrote.

Some of the victims would be American, because the United States military has about 28,000 troops in South Korea. The higher estimates for the 300 mm rocket launcher's range — up to 65 miles — would put the U.S. Air Force base at Osan and the new military garrison at Pyeongtaek, the replacement for the massive base in Seoul, within reach.

This prospect of massive damage and casualties has restrained successive American administrations, however provocative North Korea has been.

"Every U.S. administration, as they have looked at this problem, has said that all options are available. But that's not really true," said Baker, who is now at the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We really don't have a military option."


Vice President Mike Pence, speaking in Seoul this week, said that all options are on the table for dealing with North Korea, echoing statements that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made in Seoul last month.

There was a similar discussion in 1994, when North Korea threatened to go nuclear, sparking talk of surgical strikes.

"People in Washington were saying, 'We have the capability to do this,' but those of us who were sitting in Seoul said, 'You can't do that,' " Baker said.

It's not just South Korea that would suffer. Such action would be devastating for North Korea, too, because the U.S. and South Korean militaries have spent decades developing their counter-battery capability, as well as developing plans for airstrikes to take out North Korea's facilities.

"Defending Seoul against such a threat is the top priority for the alliance," said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general in the South Korean army who served as commander of South Korea's Special Warfare Command.

"The U.S. and South Korean response would be immediate. We have assets along the DMZ dedicated for doing this job and counter-battery units trained to conduct these missions," Chun said.

Although the White House has doubled down on its statements on the USS Carl Vinson heading to the Korean Peninsula — "It's happening," spokesman Sean Spicer said this week — former military officers on both sides of the alliance say they are sure that Trump will not put South Korean lives at risk.

"I believe that General [Jim] Mattis and General [H.R.] McMaster are well aware of this," Maxwell said, referring to the defense secretary and the national security adviser.

"Of course it concerns me," Chun said of the recent talk about strikes, "but I've always believed that, with good common sense and engagement, cooler heads will prevail."

https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific...5#.WZUMqFWGPIU

Originally Posted by MW

10 million is the total population of Seoul, so, like you, I think Bannon is exaggerating. He is probably only doing so for emphasis. However, I do believe tens of thousands could be killed if North Korea focused a barrage on Seoul.

Oh yes, there would be thousands killed over a period of time, but not 10 million in 30 minutes. Also, he's saying there is "no military option", and "they got us". That should get him fired right there. You never broadcast such a stupid statement to the enemy.

North Korea has a DEVASTATING arsenal of chemical weapons that threaten US allies

There is no 'good' military solution.

Wouldn't bombing nuclear facilities be dangerous - to those countries around there?

Originally Posted by nntrixie

There is no 'good' military solution.

Wouldn't bombing nuclear facilities be dangerous - to those countries around there?

No, not really. Not from the facilities themselves. There has to be a chain reaction from a specific type of detonation and circumstance which as I understand it would not be caused by a conventional weapon. If you struck it with a nuclear bomb then of course our bombs would endanger surrounding countries, but we are not considering nuclear attacks, only conventional weapons attacks.