Meanwhile, in Donald Trump news…
You might recall that buried in the “highly technical” details of Trump’s “comprehensive” agreement with Kim Jong-Un was the following “commitment”:
The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
That’s nice.
What prompted that, you ask? Well, here’s a brief history of this effort, courtesy of CNN:
Details of the recovery and repatriation project have yet to be announced by the Department of Defense, but the agency estimates that there are 7,697 American personnel who are unaccounted for in that war.
The US has previously engaged in efforts to identify and retrieve American POW/MIA remains in North Korea. According to the National Committee on North Korea, US military personnel engaged in missions to retrieve remains in North Korea from 1993 through 2005. The missions were suspended because of safety concerns, military officials said. During a 2007 visit by then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the remains of six US military personnel were repatriated.
US efforts to recover remains were halted during the George W. Bush administration and failed to restart during the Leap Day talks of the Obama administration.
North Koreans continued to collect remains on their own, but were asked to stop because the US considered their methods of collection, which included the co-mingling of remains, as unscientific.
Ok, so that’s the real story and here is Donald Trump explaining why this is important to him:
Got that? When Trump was on the campaign trail, parents of soldiers who fought and died in the Korean war asked him to go and retrieve the remains of their loved ones.
Specifically, one unidentified (read: imaginary) parent told then-candidate Trump the following:
When you can, we’d love our son to be brought back home — you know, the remains.
Do you see a problem with that? If not, let me give you a hint: the Korean war ended in 1953.
So how old would these hypothetical parents be? Probably at least 100.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1007084958954016769
I guess the only thing left to do now is recruit Frederick Douglass to lead the effort to retrieve the remains.
In the course of his efforts, Douglass will report to Andrew Jackson who, as many people know, “was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Korean War.” He said, for instance, “there’s no reason for this.”
Finally, here is Trump saluting a North Korean general – just as “forgotten Americans” would have wanted.
This is what the coal miners wanted.™ pic.twitter.com/vZsk9Hl6x5
— David Waldman – @KagroX.bsky.social (@KagroX) June 14, 2018
Stupid comment regarding the salute. The US President is Commader-in-Chief and he is interacting with a high-ranking military officer. Please go read up on history as well as military protocol, a salute is not a sign of hierarchy but indicates to the other person that this particular interaction is not one where opponents will fight and is purely an acknowledgement of each others’ military position. It is completely appropiate and standard practice between two high-ranking military officers of different, even opposing, militaries.
Hey Lance, the guy on the left in that picture is a lying cowardly draft dodger. The only military he saw was the military school where he was sent due to his bad behavior issues at home and in school and I am not sure he even completed that.
His saluting is an insult to all of our people who honorably served this country. He is disgusting.
lol. it’s a North Korean military officer, Lance.
and do you know who released that image? KCNA. i.e., North Korea’s propaganda arm.
any guesses as to why they would have released that? and also a 42-minute propaganda video about the Singapore summit?
hint: it’s to make Trump look like the weak hand.
also, NO. there is nothing “appropriate” about saluting a North Korean military officer.
that’s absurd for obvious reasons.
speaking of absurd — this war was not even fought on our land in our country – how would their remains be here? This bullshit request was made a couple years before assface met with kim hung lo? He is a complete disgrace — all those videos and comments are worldwide – how embarrassing for him to be our president.
Yo Lance, speaking as someone whose family left a number of body parts and organs that we wished we still had during that little episode in the 50’s I am not impressed. If it was an army man, maybe, but the president should just walk on when engaging in a tin pot dictator. I did a calc on my grandmother with the kids serving in NK, came out she would have to be 126 now.
Trump is bareheaded, not in uniform and saluting a lower rank (general) who is holding out his hand.
well, at first I also thought he was just holding out his hand as to shake with assface BUT I think it was a snapshot caught in motion of him completing his salute and you can see assface’s hand is slightly blurred also…so caught in motion was my final decision. You think?
Regardless, under no circumstances should he be saluting anyone, including the Marines that stand in wait as he boards his helicopter — just say thank you as he walks past them!
Delusional prick.
i mean honestly, I don’t give a shit who he salutes anymore than i gave a shit about those ridiculous memes of Obama “bowing”.
the overarching point of this post is that he’s a moron who lies.
i don’t think he was actually deferring to a North Korean general. he was just confused and saw a guy in a military uniform and thought that meant he was supposed to salute him.
again: point is he’s a moron.
Monkey see, Monkey do.
Murphy, that is an insult to any self-respecting monkey on the planet.
my apologies, I wasn’t in my right mind.