Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Do you hear the sound of war drums, albeit a bit slowly? That somewhat muffled toy drum you hear might be coming from the writer of Tuesday’s Your View letter (“Trump faces dilemma not of his making”) on Sept. 25. As usual that toy drum is being beaten by a toy soldier who is standing behind another toy soldier, Donald Trump. I don’t know the service history of the writer, I would bet he never served in combat if he served at all. But I do know Trump took a total of five deferments so he wouldn’t have to serve. That makes him the smallest Presidential toy soldier of all time.
Everyone knows about Trump’s record of lies, he does it on an almost hourly basis. After the first 100 days in office, the NY Times published an entire page of Trump lies, and that was only up to July 21. He told a bold face lie every day for the first 40 Days of his Presidency. And that’s not counting the countless misrepresentation of facts, this is what the writer, like his toy soldier hero, woefully attempts to do in his letter.
1. The writer claims Clinton “. .  . gave money to North Korea ($4 billion) . .  . North Korea pocketed billions of American tax dollars to expedite the same nuclear program they promised to dismantle.” Actually that was 500,000 tons of oil. In exchange the DPRK stopped operating 5 MWe reactors and abandoned reactors under construction. The oil was for the loss of potential nuclear energy. (The oil delivery was severely delayed and ultimately stopped when the Republican Congress refused to commit to the treaty which was not really a treaty but simply an agreement between the two nations.) The DPRK pulled out of the agreement after the Republican Congressional action. It took several years before the DPRK was able to resume its nuclear program.
2. “. . . the deal made by Clinton is now mirrored by the same deal President Obama made with Iran . . . infusing that tottering economy with much-needed cash..” Wrong again! This was not only Obama’s “deal”, it actually included the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China — plus Germany) and the European Union. The “cash” was actually the freeing up of Iranian assets, monies belonging to Iran and frozen by U.S sanctions. This agreement is still in force and only includes Iran’s Nuclear weapons program, not its participation in any other nefarious activities around the world.
The writer warns of the danger of the DPRK threat of a possible war. He fails to mention one of the reasons for this danger, Trump’s constant belittling of Kim Jong-un, calling him “Rocket Man” in a UN speech, warning of returning “fire and fury”, “Completely destroying North Korea” and just today claiming we have wasted our time pursuing a peaceful approach to the DPRK problem. Yes, wasting our time with a peaceful approach.
Our own little Dr. Strangelove seems to have his own love for “The Bomb” as his little soldier hero, Trump, who once actually said of nuclear weapons, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” Here we have two world leaders with woefully little experience, with enormous egos and extremely thin skin, two spoiled kids facing off with nuclear weapons in their toy box. We certainly don’t need anyone banging the war drum, even if it is just a toy soldier’s drum.

Larry Baca
Manteca