So this is highly amusing.
First thing this morning (if you’re U.S.-based), these headlines hit:
- NORTH KOREA, SOUTH KOREA AGREE TO HOLD SUMMIT IN APRIL: ENVOY
- NKOREA OPEN TO DENUCLEARIZE IF REGIME SAFETY GUARANTEED: SKOREA
Now, if you’re a whore for Donald Trump, you might be inclined to call that some kind of diplomatic victory.
There are a couple of problems with that assessment, the most obvious one being that one of the conditions for denuclearization is “guaranteed regime security.”
So in other words, Kim will tell you he’s destroyed his nukes (just like Bashar al-Assad will swear he has no chemical weapons) if everyone acquiesces to letting a repressive regime that starves its own people and murders dissenters remain in power.
It’s hard to see how that constitutes a “diplomatic victory” and I’d be willing to go out on a limb here and say two things:
- he’s not going to destroy his nukes
- the oppressed masses of North Korea aren’t going to be particularly thrilled with the notion that the international community would promise to let Kim remain in power (of course they won’t say that because they’ll be literally murdered if the do)
But beyond that, let’s not forget that Kim completed his nuclear arsenal basically with the unwitting assistance of Donald Trump.
After all, it’s a lot easier to justify ongoing provocations (like say, firing ballistic missiles over Japanese territory) when the President of the United States goes to the United Nations and threatens to nuke your country and/or when that same President of the United States is all over Twitter making similar threats. Something like this: “Why do you keep it up with these provocations?” “Well, have you seen Trump’s tweets?”
Additionally, this probably has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Kim has completed his nuclear arsenal and while you can send in “inspectors”, everyone knows oversight of repressive regimes never works and even if it did, you can’t take away their know-how.
Finally – and in the same vein – it’s entirely possible that this was Kim’s plan from the beginning and indeed we’ve been saying as much for the better part of a year. Complete the nuclear arsenal, extend an olive branch to South Korea thus putting Seoul in a position of either securing, well, securing security, or sticking with the hardline stance Trump would undoubtedly prefer, his pretensions to diplomacy notwithstanding.
So keep that in mind – and if you’re inclined to believe that Kim Jong-Un is playing checkers while Donald Trump is playing chess, well then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
And if you’re a Trump whore, make sure Michael Cohen pays you your $130,000.
***********
Can we come up with short-hand monikers for all of the major political persona in the U.S. right now? I’ll take a stab:
– Trump Whore
– Crooked Clinton (or Hillary, your choice)
– Bat Shit Bernie
– Peckerwood Pence
– Pocahontas (AKA E. Warren)
– Mitch “One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest” McConnell (admittedly, not my best work)
– Nancy “Skeletor” Pelosi
– Paul “I think corn flakes are spicy” Ryan
Feel free to use any of these in the future. My gift to you.
So the author is arguing for regime change and going to war? Given what USA did to the North Korean people and to Gaddafi the N. Korean regime would be crazy to give up their nukes. All these brave Americans with the war “over there”.
no, “the author” is not arguing for that. how you got that from this piece is beyond me. the point here is simple: Donald Trump will take credit for this and his surrogates will back up that assessment and it’s absurd.
I don’t think the author was advocating war, by any means. And what do you think you accomplish by demeaning Americans? Are you trying to imply that a sane state would like to wage war on their own front doorstep? Are you that imbecilic to actually believe that, or are you just pandering to your own local interests?
Are you just another one of the Europeans whose fallen into the fallacious trap of believing your own moral superiority even though you’re part of one of the most stratified, rapacious, self-righteous and increasingly irrelevant groups of people on the planet (see reference: missing the entire tech revolution and then trying to legislate away the hilarious ineptitude and failures of an entire continent and dingy island aside the continent)?
Maybe you’re an American who just hates other Americans and wants to believe he was born in the wrong place/time? Who knows. In any event, you’re a moron.
I often wonder whether we really have any idea about what the “average” North-Korean really thinks and/or wants. Look at Russia, the average Russian does support Putin, true this is not necessarily so in the big cities, where people are more exposed to the West, but it is certainly the case for those in the country side. North Korea has no big cities that are exposed to the West, there is no cultural exchange between the two Koreas. It was Willy Brand who instituted the “Ost Politik”, insuring the Germans living in the DDR would be able to know what was happenig behind the iron curtain. I still think that in the end was an essential, and perhaps the essential, part of the Berlin wall and the iron curtain finally getting breached.
I think the West much too often assumes that they know what North Koreans want, no doubt they want to improve their lot, but not necessarily by transforming North Korean society into what South Korea has become over the last 60 years or so.
So, frankly, if it were possible to poll the North Koreans, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that indeed “the oppressed masses of North Korea would be quite happy with the notion that the international community would promise to let Kim remain in power”. For one, it would mean no war and thus peace.
boy, you are pretty damn naive. this is like Wilbur Ross being happy to find that no Saudis were protesting Trump when he came to Riyadh. why do you think Putin’s poll numbers are so high?… here’s a hint: https://twitter.com/heisenbergrpt/status/970352132703621122
if you’ve ever done any polling in an academic setting you know that the chances of Putin’s approval numbers being as high as Russia claims they are is absolutely laughable.
As in: impossible. They are either lying or Russians are too scared to say they don’t approve. Or, more likely, a combination of both.
You have ever been to Eastern Europe in the seventies and talked to people there ?
It was very interesting, I can tell you that.
Go to China today, and even there, there is a large number of people quite happy with their current government (admittedly, they are better of than those ever were in Eastern Europe).
“Go to China today, and even there, there is a large number of people quite happy with their current government”…. ummmm… yeah, that’s a dictatorship too homie.
This just seems like proper politics by NK. If you are trying to buy time to set up the final stages of your nuclear program, and you anticipate that you will have them competed in “X” months, using slow, delayed political meeting and agreements to get you to “X-N” months is a smart play. Add a little show by having your citizens walk in to the Olympics with South Korea to have people claim that, “It is different this time,” to help set the stage for a perceived change in attitudes to help initiate amiable contact with a new SK government, and you are set.
exactly. or at least something close to exactly.