Ditch the glasses.. they don’t help.
Ed.: 030918 – Words: 804 – Audio: N/A
Never a dull moment in America these days. So.. Rocketman Kim Jung Un has opened up the opportunity to begin some level of talks with his letter presented to Trump by representatives of South Korea. In it he has stated that he will cease testing of his (alleged) nuke missiles, acknowledge the scheduled military maneuvers in the South without objection, all to show his desire to meet with Trump. Trump, in turn, has agreed to meet with Kim by May this year. As is sometimes mumbled in private these days… “Jesus f***ing Christ!”. There’s just so many levels to all of this.
Now, I know that to Trump supporters.. his base… this is an amazing display of Trump’s leadership; celebrating their guy’s impulsive demonstration to the world of his business prowess and genius in world affairs… and justifying to the world (and all the “libtards”) that Trump is great and we are all on the road toward making America great again. Yeah.. well… I encourage all his supporters to continue to celebrate his genius and leave the real world to the adults in the room.
Oh dear.. there I go bashing Trump again… and giving him no credit. Ok.. let’s start with the credit I will give him.
- All the current events unfolding with North Korea and meeting up with Little Kim has indeed happened on his watch.
- At least on the surface it looks as if all Trump’s sanctions have gotten Kim to blink… and come to the negotiating table.
Hail to the Chief.
Now for the reality. One thing is for sure… Kim has just gotten his first recognition in meeting a world leader as an equal. He’s been trying since he’s come to power to get America.. and the world.. to give him the respect he feels he’s due as a world leader. In fact… this is the first time he is meeting with ANY foreign head of state… other than South Korea, which really doesn’t count anyhow since it’s all one Korea in theory anyway.
So.. simply by giving Kim an audience, Trump has already played into his hand. It also makes Kim appear to be sincere about negotiating. Which means right at the get-go Trump is surly going to demand Kim dump the nukes before any sanctions are lifted. .. thus making America appear the bad guy by being uncompromising. After all, the U.S. has a history of toppling leaders after they stop nuke building. Kim wants security assurances in having those nukes… which, to the world, will look reasonable.
But lets get right to the point here. Trump and his administration are not ready for diplomatic negotiations of any kind. There’s absolutely no one able to negotiate properly given the many unfilled State Department vacancies and people leaving. No ambassador to the South. There is absolutely no foreign policy to build upon that represents American interests… other than “no nukes on the Korean Peninsula” nonsense, just to make people in Guam and Hawaii sleep at night. Where’s the foreign policy (or strategy) that carries some solutions for a future Korean unification.. or establishing some trade and maybe formal diplomatic recognition with the North? Those nukes are not going anywhere… and in the end we will just go down that familiar road of sending in verification teams until such time Kim kicks them out. Negotiating with the North on any “good” day will be a huge project and painfully slow. There is NO way that Trump will wrap up the North Korean threat in a single handshake photo op.
Without a doubt Trump is seeing this meeting as a great photo op and TV show production to make him appear as The Great Negotiator that brought North Korea to its knees. Kim has already won the first round of negotiation by being acknowledged by a U.S. president as being a legit leader on the world stage.
In typical Trump idiocy, he agreed to the meet without telling anyone in the administration, the White House, the Pentagon, State; this is nothing but Trump’s ego and arrogance at play at the expense of our national security and needs of the country.
Just add this to the growing list of infuriating actions by this president. Hurry up. Mueller… this putz President is taking his show international.
PS – Why the hell is a representative of South Korea announcing to the American people, in front of the White House, the President’s intentions??? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THE DAMN WHITE HOUSE!?
***
[When making any button selection below, just click your RETURN (<–) to come back here.]
***
That is the biggest obstacle….no experienced diplomats…..I think you are right a photo op and a continuation of his Reality Show to feed his ego……there is a lot of “reality” between now and “some time in May”…..chuq
It could all go to pot before May of course, but some progress is better than swapping threats. You are right to say that Kim was just agitating for recognition, and now he has it. Probably never had any nukes in the first place. So far, it seems to be a draw, but the DPRK will hail it as ‘Trump agreeing to talks because he is afraid’.
Best wishes, Pete.
LOL Trump has met with no world leaders… well, except all of these and more. Britain, France, Germany, Saudi, Israel, China, Japan, Australia.
Wait.. you (maybe) read my entire post and walked away actually thinking I might have suggested that Trump has never met with other world leaders?? Methinks you missed the “real” point.. Little Kim, nor any of his ancestors, have met with world leaders simply because the leaders of their day refused to give those regimes acknowledgment. Trump has done it because he thinks he’s some messiah.
“So.. simply by giving Kim an audience, Trump has already played into his hand.
It also makes Kim appear to be sincere about negotiating.
Which means right at the get-go Trump is surly going to demand Kim dump the nukes before any sanctions are lifted. .. thus making America appear the bad guy by being uncompromising.”
I’m lost with the above.
So…when Carter went over to Pyongyang as an ambassador this wasn’t “giving Kim (Jong Il back then) an audience”?
The reason we’ve (prior presidents, specifically) never accepted talks with the DPRK is…they’ve never agreed to go to Pyongyang, knowing this would be a propaganda coup for the DPRK. And the DPRK has refused to go anywhere else.
Per the rest….if you believe “America will look like the bad guy” for “demanding Kim dump the nukes before sanctions are lifted”…Well…God Almighty, I don’t know what to say to that. Do you have dementia?
What don’t you get? Politically Kim is making himself looking like a conciliatory good guy in order to begin the talks… and then Trump will enter the talks with nothing but the demand for Kim to remove his nukes.. thus creating an impasse from Kim’s seemingly good intentions.
1) No one on the planet earth except the most absurd ideologically blind lunatic believes that Kim “looks like the good guy”. If you believe this, I have to question your sanity. Do you understand the situation in the DPRK at all?
2) “Then Trump will enter the talks with nothing but the demand for Kim to remove his nukes”
Well, I’d say if he enters the talks with “nothing but the demand to remove nukes” that’s a pretty good start. I’m not sure what makes you think this would be the only demand. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I’d say this security concern supercedes his internal human rights issues, which are a secondary concern at present. The main concern is his waving his nuke capabilities around like a toddler with a rattle. He has already said he considers us to be at war (many many times). He’s a true nutter.
I have to ask….what exactly do you think they should talk about? Or do you believe they shouldn’t talk at all and what is your better alternative?
Here’s a thought. Trump might be holding talks to prove he “tried”.
Can’t really launch a strike without trying to negotiate first.
I suspect KJU knows this.
I also suspect (and I’ve lived in South Korea, have many friends in South Korea and currently know commanders who are sitting in South Korea), everyone in the know, also understands this.
Interesting times.
Interesting you’ve been to the peninsula; your takeaway from that should be a bit more tuned than mine… especially if you’ve rubbed elbows with the military. But you know.. the true unknown here is Trump.. and less about Kim.
While I appreciate your visiting my blog and providing input you might want to scroll back (from the home page) to get a broader feel for my various topics. Not everything is about my dislike for Trump.
Having said that.. to your remarks above… let me point you to two previous posts I made to answer your question.
This first one below was written last year… but is still relative to what you’ve just asekd me.
https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/if-i-were-president-north-korea/
This next post was more recent that kinda recaps.
https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/more-north-korea-my-optimism-is-with-kim/
I’ll read it (I’ve read about half of the first link so far).
From your link:
“To meet the first goal… immediate diffusing of the nuclear threat using diplomacy.”
Um…isn’t that exactly what you’re now arguing AGAINST here?
“What will make North Korea be more civil? Economics… trade… exchange diplomatic missions for starters (under the idea of keeping your enemies closer). RESPECT.”
*cough*…again…above you’ve indicated any way of making him relevant or respected is playing into his hands making “him look like the good guy”.
Pretty confusing, overall (so far…but I’ll keep reading).
Per economics, the ROK built an entire factory over in the DPRK which employed DPRK workers. They built a big railroad too, in the interest of uniting the Koreas. The real problem and reason China and the ROK have been treating KJU with kid gloves is, no one can afford to have millions of refugees descending on to their borders. That threat is its own biological weapon, it would be disastrous to both economies.
Per the rest…The ROK thought constructing a manufacturing industry with joint ownership in the DPRK would stimulate the DPRK economy (and, btw, lots of us unwittingly bought DPRK manufactured items like Nike during this time) would help to ease tensions….but it all went into Kim Jong Il (and Un’s) nuke program. It was a disaster. The name for the industrial area was “Kaesong”
Your writeup also left out the fact we don’t have 30,000 military members in the south anymore. We’ve been cutting down and retreating very publicly. I don’t know the number now….as of about ten years ago it was around 24,000 but my memory might be off.
”What’s our assurance that he won’t continue being belligerent? Maybe we should step back here and define belligerence. What’s Kim done actually? North Korea is a small country and I am sure we have enough satellite and electronic technology to monitor most of his moves… especially with the help of the Chinese (who don’t want a fighting conflict either). By opening trade we can determine the kinds of items entering the country to determine their potential threat.”
Sanctions on the DPRK are very very new considering their history of behavior. This is because China and Russia are both members of the UNSC and vetoed any attempts to sanction them.
”What if he launches a missile? We use our due diligence to attach all our goodies to him under the condition he not launch missiles of any kind. For him that’s easy.. no foreign power sending in inspectors. The missiles are the threat regardless of the payload. If he launches, we preferably jam their signals and make them fall into the sea… or shoot them down as a last resort.”
You believe we have the technology to make them fall into the sea? Well then…you know more than I. Why haven’t we done so?