Cowboys

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And the politicos and pundits were beside themselves.

"This cowboy's gonna start World War Three!" they wailed. And the beat goes on. You know the rest of that story.

And now, 30 years later, in response to Kim J. U. threatening to shoot a missile at Guam, President Trump told him to expect fire and fury.

And the press went apoplectic. (Was that word coined for this instance?) "Oh no! He's gonna start World Wars Three through Eight!" And the beat goes on.

But our friends in Kim-la-land had a change of heart. It may be that they knew a little more than the average American does. Just a guess, but we can surmise that every missile launch that the N. Koreans made was a "aiming exercise" for the US and its allies to zero in on the projectile.

Remember the repeated failures to launch a while back? Was that just poor planning and execution, or were some unknown "missile defense" systems being perfected. When they were shown to operate satisfactorily, the interdictors then shifted to tracking and destroying the "birds" in flight.

The tin-pot despot is facing a bleak future. He cannot exist without help from his ally, China, so how could he expect to prevail in a showdown with the most powerful nation on earth? He knows that, and so does President Trump. You can't bluff a wheeler dealer. Kenny Rogers, in the "Gambler" and the sequels, taught us that.

Just calm down and watch the lack of fireworks. Mutual assured destruction is not in play, as it may have been in 1987 Berlin. But an "assured destruction" certainly awaits any foolish act by TPD.

We may need to rethink the old song, "Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." Sometimes we need a "cowboy" to keep the peace. Cowboy Kim seems appropriately cowed.