Opinion: Trump’s aircraft carrier flub was a dangerous provocation

To the editor: That the president does not want to give an enemy advance notice of what he is going to do is understandable. But to telegraph a threat (a carrier group is heading to the Sea of Japan) that he is unable to make good on (because the carrier group is actually sailing away from the Sea of Japan) with the effect of raising tension in an already difficult situation on the Korean peninsula demonstrates more than the recurrent lack of fact-based thinking in this administration. (“Trump said Navy ships were headed toward North Korea. They were going the other way,” April 18)

The Trump White House isn’t just a poorly oiled machine. It lacks a rational approach to deterrence and demonstrates reckless incompetence, all the while not knowing where its war machines are located.

John A. Meyers, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Another brilliant strategy by the Trump administration: provoke and threaten North Korea.

Two nations with nuclear weapons programs and narcissistic, inexperienced, unstable leaders — what could possibly go wrong?

Arlen Grossman, Monterey

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To the editor: The administration’s bluster about North Korea is not the answer. North Korea’s bluster is far louder.

What is needed is not bluster, but military action — secret, swift and decisive. There was no bluster when Israel secretly planned to take out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactors.

We are threatened by the nightmare of a nuclear-armed dictator. The United States must disarm him.

Philip Springer, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: Now we know the Trump doctrine: “Let’s not and say we did.” It’s quotable enough to rival Teddy Roosevelt.

Tony Castañares, Hollywood

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To the editor: The assurance by President Trump that his “armada” was going to North Korea while it was actually heading in the opposite direction has given new meaning to “anchors away.”

Ken Goldman, Beverly Hills

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