By John Dempsey
(CHICAGO) South Suburban Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger is voicing concern about the latest missile launch from North Korea. The Congressman, who is also an Air-Force veteran, told “The Big John and Ramblin’ Ray Show” on WLS that right now, the United States is not at risk.
“There’s no risk right now of the United States being nuked off the face of the earth from North Korea”, said Kinzinger. “We have a great military that has great military options available to it. We have an ICBM missile defense system in it’s infancy, we don’t know if it would work or not, and I think North Korea is rational enough to not nuke the mainland United States.”
However the Congressman also believes that if the United States fails to stop North Korean nuclear weapons development, it could prompt other rogue nations to develop nukes.
“I’m not sitting around saying let’s go to war with North Korea. My concern is again, North Korea is allowed to get a nuclear weapon, there’s no way we can stop Iran, there’s no way we can stop any other regime that wants em because we’ve lost moral authority to enforce it now. I worry about the long term implications. Not to mention the fact that North Korea actually has the technology, once they perfect re-entry, they have the technology for nuclear attacks, and they’ve already verbalized their desire to do it.”
Pyongyang launched a Hwasong-14 missile in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time that flew higher, and demonstrated a longer range, than any of its previous tests.
It was the first missile fired in almost two months, and came despite Trump’s repeated warnings, delivered again during this trip to South Korea earlier this month in a direct message to North Korea: “do not try us.”
The missile launched Wednesday spent around 53 minutes in the air, reaching a height of up to 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles), before splashing down in waters around 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of Japan’s Aomori prefecture, according to authorities in Japan and South Korea.
Hours after the launch, Trump sounded more restrained, telling reporters Tuesday at the White House that the US “will handle” the situation. “We will take care of it,” the President said, adding later that North Korea “is a situation that we will handle.”
@ 2017 WLS-AM News
