The Donald: A diplomatic rogue

I wrote this for the Long Prairie Leader some months back. The recent actions by The Former Reality TV Star known as The Donald as regards Iran and North Korea got me thinking about it again. Perhaps you'll find it interesting. - Tim

While Donald Trump was in Asia last week he called North Korea a Rogue Regime. 

“The world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens with nuclear devastation,” The Donald announced to the members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea.

That may be so but, as we used to say on the playground in third grade, it takes one to know one. While Trump’s uncreative name calling was still being measured and weighed by diplomats, politicians, and pundits, Rogue State Syria became a bit less of a rogue. It signed the Paris Climate Agreement.

Since Nicaragua signed on to the deal earlier this year, every nation on this small blue planet is now a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement. 

The U.S. is still a signatory to the agreement but The Donald, the Denier-in-Chief and his team of millionaire and billionaire Cabinet Trolls, have said they want out of the deal as soon as possible. That would be the year 2020.

So, the United States was a signatory to an agreement to contol the ravages of global climate chaos but in the near future will no longer be a signatory. We will no longer be a signatory because a group of rogues, namely a president with a memory the size of a tweet, an Envirmental Protection Agency leader that believes diesel fumes are good for kids with asthma, and a Secretary of the Interior that wants smaller national parks that will be available only to rich people, have unsigned us.

It’s not so much that the United States of America is a Rogue State but that the United States of Donald (USD) has unhinged our great country and sent it lumbering across this beautiful planet to cause ruination and pain. The shocking news is that these rogues, these renegades and bad apples, took control of the country even though they lost the election by two or three million votes.

Let’s be honest though. We recognize this gallery of rapscallions. They are the worst of us. But, like a skeleton rattling in the dim and dusty attic of the old family house, they are us.

For example, the U.S.A. is the second worst carbon dioxide polluter on the planet and in 2015, the year we and 194 other nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, the US of A emitted more carbon dioxide then all of the twenty-eight nations in the European Union combined. Signing the Paris agreement was a first step toward mending our bad actor ways.

So, Team Trump did not make America a Bad Apple State. Trump, Pruitt, Zinke, etc. are simply unhappy that we are only planet Earth’s second worst carbon dioxide polluter. They want to be the Number One Baddest. The One and Only Worst. The Roguest Rogue.

What then is a Rogue State or regime? The generally accepted short definition is that a Rogue State is a nation that is considered threatening to world peace. North Korea and Syria certainly fit that definition. Does aspiring to be the World’s Worst Polluter put Donald’s America in the category of a nation that is threatening to world peace?

Although climate change is a term that can no longer be uttered at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, planners at the U.S. Department of Defense are thinking and talking about it a lot. DOD is worried about climate change and is planning how to respond to more extreme climate events caused by it.

“Climate change will exacerbate regional and local tension in ‘hot’ zones around the world. In these regions the impacts of a changing climate will act as an accelerant of instability by multiplying problems like  water scarcity, food shortages, and over population,” writes the American Security Project, a conservative think tank led by former generals and admirals, that analyzes American military readiness. 

For generals and admirals, hot zones are war zones, in case you were wondering.

According to the American Security Project and Department of Defense documents linking the article, the U.S. military is making plans to respond to an increased level of drought, flooding, wildfire, and hurricanes brought on by climate change.  While DOD is making plans to use ever increasing amounts of our nation’s wealth to respond to climate change and chaos, our Commander in Chief is tweeting out messages on how to increase our contribution to the devastation.

So if a Rogue State is a nation that is considered threatening to world peace and The Donald is trying to make us the world’s biggest climate changer, I guess we’re pretty rogue-ish. It’s not a distinction that I care for.