Seoul, South Korea city skyline at twilight.
This is Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea. Around 10 million people live in the city proper. The metropolitan area around Seoul has about 25 million people in its environs.
DMZ map showing Seoul’s proximity to North Korea’s border.
Here is a map showing us Seoul and its proximity to the 1953 Armistice Line (also known as the DMZ.) If you click the picture, you will see a legend at the upper right giving you a way to measure distance. What we learn from this map is that the City of Seoul, and those millions of inhabitants, live within 25-30 miles of the DMZ. On the northern side of that DMZ are thousands of artillery pieces, encased in hardened mountain bunkers, pointed at Seoul.
There is no way to give someone an early warning of an artillery attack. You might become aware of what’s happening slightly before the shells start falling, but not in enough time to do anything to protect yourself from the shells. And any attack on North Korea by our idiotic orange fool is going to provoke, first and foremost, a retaliatory attack on Seoul. Whether we were to win or to lose a war there is going to be irrelevant for countless thousands of Seoul residents, who are going to die. The magnificent city they built from the ashes of the Korean War will be laid to waste. This is true if the next war lasts 6 months, 6 days, or 6 hours.
Some people here in the US think that a war with North Korea is a dandy idea. I’d like to ask them to stop and consider how dandy the idea seems to the residents of Seoul, or the US forces in the area, many of who have family there with them. Of course, these tend to be the same people who are more than willing to accept as President a man who colluded with a hostile foreign power to get himself anointed in the White House, so I’m not terribly surprised. The Trump cult is a nihilist cult, and a cult of ignorance. They don’t care how many innocents die as long as their Lord comes to no harm.
I care, however. Do you care? How much pain does there have to be before we decide that enough is enough?