Trump Torpedoes North Korea Talks Before They Start

[FORD]

[FORD]

Can you backpedal a torpedo???

[ZahZoo]

I've read several stories on this from multiple media sources... Clearly some games and complex strategy are being played out. I thought this deal was off... then read the that Kim and Moon met face to face at the border again this morning and things sounded encouraging again.

Hard to say where this all lands... it's possible that the Korean war may finally be formally ended and the 2 countries make peace... or this whole thing blows up literally!! It just seems very odd the progression so far...

[Terry]

I've read several stories on this from multiple media sources... Clearly some games and complex strategy are being played out. I thought this deal was off... then read the that Kim and Moon met face to face at the border again this morning and things sounded encouraging again.

Hard to say where this all lands... it's possible that the Korean war may finally be formally ended and the 2 countries make peace... or this whole thing blows up literally!! It just seems very odd the progression so far...

It's a vivid illustration of Trump's manner that either of those polar opposites you mentioned as possible outcomes could literally happen.

Definitely not normal in terms of what we've been used to over the last 60 + years in terms of our relationship with North Korea. However, while I'd prefer that we had a person of a more stable temper in the Oval Office going into this summit, it also occurs to me that had it not been for Trump's saber rattling such a summit might not be happening to begin with: one doesn't easily picture Hillary Clinton threatening 'fire and fury' on North Korea had she been elected. More likely, she would have continued the previous policy of publicly ignoring the country while persisting in cyber disruption and sanctions, neither of which prevented North Korea from developing the weapons they have today.

Bottom line is Trump comes across as unstable enough to actually unleash the fire and fury, and maybe this realization of "hey, THIS American President might not be kidding" struck Kim Jon Un and prompted him to make moves toward some type of reconciliation, because even though Un is also a wack job I have no doubt he realizes that if North Korea launches missiles at the US, North Korea will be wiped off the face of the Earth. Getting Bolton in the Administration also may have sent a signal to Un that not only is Trump nuts, but now he is getting direct advice from a hawk nut who unabashedly advocates military intervention in North Korea, Iran and ANYWHERE ELSE that threatens America and American interests.


There is a mindset among some of the political class which states even sitting down to the table with North Korea is a mistake because even that simple act provides the legitimacy of nationhood that Un craves. Well, that might have made sense prior to the weapons program. Now, unless one is comfortable with the status quo of not talking with the North Koreans while they continue developing a nuclear arsenal, we've either got to hammer out an agreement with Un or be prepared to invade and destroy. I think we're past the stage where the traditional attitude of containment (sanctions, public avoidance of mentioning their name, burying our heads in the sand hoping it'll come out ok) will be a helpful one long term.


However, with Trump and Un as the principals, who the fuck KNOWS how this will turn out?

[FORD]

I've read several stories on this from multiple media sources... Clearly some games and complex strategy are being played out. I thought this deal was off... then read the that Kim and Moon met face to face at the border again this morning and things sounded encouraging again.

Hard to say where this all lands... it's possible that the Korean war may finally be formally ended and the 2 countries make peace... or this whole thing blows up literally!! It just seems very odd the progression so far...

I definitely think that Lil' Kim's mysterious train trip to Beijing last month had a lot to with it. North Korea stirring up shit ain't good for the Chinese either, and especially if a nuclear war ended up as a result, a big chunk of northeast China would end up damaged in the process. So it's likely that Xi Jingping summoned Lil' Kim to the big city and told him to get his shit together.

[Nitro Express]

Not uncommon to have a party threaten to end negotiations. That's pretty normal if you've done any negotiating. If I'm negotiating a new lease with a tenant and the rent is going up it's not uncommon for them to threaten to move out. They are doing that to see if they can make me give them a better deal. It sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't. It's how the game is played.

[Nitro Express]

Of course Cenk has his show to run and his money to make. Of course he's going to have some fun with Trump because that's what his viewers like. Here's a take on things from a different angle from someone who actually knew Donald Trump growing up.

[Nitro Express]

It's a vivid illustration of Trump's manner that either of those polar opposites you mentioned as possible outcomes could literally happen.

Definitely not normal in terms of what we've been used to over the last 60 + years in terms of our relationship with North Korea. However, while I'd prefer that we had a person of a more stable temper in the Oval Office going into this summit, it also occurs to me that had it not been for Trump's saber rattling such a summit might not be happening to begin with: one doesn't easily picture Hillary Clinton threatening 'fire and fury' on North Korea had she been elected. More likely, she would have continued the previous policy of publicly ignoring the country while persisting in cyber disruption and sanctions, neither of which prevented North Korea from developing the weapons they have today.

Bottom line is Trump comes across as unstable enough to actually unleash the fire and fury, and maybe this realization of "hey, THIS American President might not be kidding" struck Kim Jon Un and prompted him to make moves toward some type of reconciliation, because even though Un is also a wack job I have no doubt he realizes that if North Korea launches missiles at the US, North Korea will be wiped off the face of the Earth. Getting Bolton in the Administration also may have sent a signal to Un that not only is Trump nuts, but now he is getting direct advice from a hawk nut who unabashedly advocates military intervention in North Korea, Iran and ANYWHERE ELSE that threatens America and American interests.


There is a mindset among some of the political class which states even sitting down to the table with North Korea is a mistake because even that simple act provides the legitimacy of nationhood that Un craves. Well, that might have made sense prior to the weapons program. Now, unless one is comfortable with the status quo of not talking with the North Koreans while they continue developing a nuclear arsenal, we've either got to hammer out an agreement with Un or be prepared to invade and destroy. I think we're past the stage where the traditional attitude of containment (sanctions, public avoidance of mentioning their name, burying our heads in the sand hoping it'll come out ok) will be a helpful one long term.


However, with Trump and Un as the principals, who the fuck KNOWS how this will turn out?

Trump consults Henry Kissinger and you can tell. Trump is running right from his own book and the Kissinger playbook. It's the madman strategy where you make your opponent think you are crazy enough to wipe them out. It at least has opened North Korea for discussions. The reality is North Korea's missles aren't very good and they have learned from past presidents all they have to do every now and then is throw a tantrum and they get what they want. Kim started to act up and Trump goes ok Rocket Man fill your hands! It shocked the shit out of Kim. He thought he would get more payoffs but I do think he wants to open his country up to trade but he also fears being taken out. He looks at places like Singapore which is ran by a dictator but it's economy is doing great. Kim probably dreams of North Korea being a Singapore with him running it but he doesn't want to end up like Omar Quadaffi or Saddam Hussain. I wouldn't trust the US either. I can't blame him for wanting a nuke. I would want one as well.

[FORD]

Are the hookers who pee on Trump the same ones who get their toes sucked by Dick Morris?

[Nickdfresh]

[Terry]

Trump consults Henry Kissinger and you can tell. Trump is running right from his own book and the Kissinger playbook. It's the madman strategy where you make your opponent think you are crazy enough to wipe them out. It at least has opened North Korea for discussions. The reality is North Korea's missles aren't very good and they have learned from past presidents all they have to do every now and then is throw a tantrum and they get what they want. Kim started to act up and Trump goes ok Rocket Man fill your hands! It shocked the shit out of Kim. He thought he would get more payoffs but I do think he wants to open his country up to trade but he also fears being taken out. He looks at places like Singapore which is ran by a dictator but it's economy is doing great. Kim probably dreams of North Korea being a Singapore with him running it but he doesn't want to end up like Omar Quadaffi or Saddam Hussain. I wouldn't trust the US either. I can't blame him for wanting a nuke. I would want one as well.

Yeah, for reasons that escape me, plenty of conservatives who have hawkish military inclinations (I include Hillary Clinton among them) have continued to seek advice from that aged, rumpled raisin of a man that Kissinger represents. Even when one discounts or avoids following into a Kissinger evisceration in the style of the late Christopher Hitchens, it is still fairly easy when removing and studying Kissinger's actual record of deeds from the amount of hyped media kudos surrounding the man to conclude that Kissinger in practice wasn't particularly successful. Far from an Oracle. Yet, Kissinger remains a go-to consultant on foreign affairs to this day.

I also thought at one point that Trump might be affecting a Madman Theory stance for the Supreme Leader of North Korea. Unlike Nixon, though, Trump is more of an impulsive or instinctual person. Whatever one may say about Nixon, he certainly had done his homework in terms of being somewhat informed. I tend to doubt that Trump even knows much about North Korea even in limited terms of the history of the country, the ruling family and the like. Nor does Trump strike me as the type of person who would rethink his emotional responses to dealing with North Korea - or any other problem, for that matter - in the face of learning information that ran counter to what his uninformed gut instincts told him the solution was.

Thus, with Trump, it isn't so much the Madman Bomber Theory as it is the Willfully Ignorant Man Who Thinks He Knows It All Anyway Theory.


The fact of the matter is while North Korea's missiles might not be very effective at the moment, they have nowhere to go but up as long as they keep developing their program. As long as they keep developing their program, American options for dealing with that will possibly whittle down to a sharp, binary set of choices:


1. We're going to accept that North Korea has a nuclear capability and recognize that we can't control that, because North Korea has been ostracized for decades thus the conditions that led to the Iranian Nuclear deal simply aren't there.


2. We're going to have to go in and use military force to either neuter or totally destroy the weapons program, along with possibly North Korea in the process.


And even if we accept the first option, we're still going to have to simultaneously be prepared to enact the second option if events unravel.


And, I must add, I agree with you that were I in Kim's shoes, I wouldn't trust the United States, either. I wouldn't disarm my nuclear capability strictly based on the promise from the US not to invade or attempt regime change.

[Nitro Express]

Hillary Clinton wasn't a true liberal. She is basically a power and money addict. I think she actually loathed her voting base and her not being able to hide that fact is why she alienated the working class voters.

[Nitro Express]

If a deal is made this will be the reality of it. Kim will stay in as a dictator but more like a dictator of a place like Singapore. He's not going to give his lifestyle up but he seems to want to do capitalistic styled business. He wants western things. He knows his country is backwards and he wants to modernize it. North Korea will still be highly regulated but if you are a go getter with the right contacts you can make a nice nest egg for yourself but the reality is many in the country will remain poor. Much like Putin's Russia.

[Terry]

Hillary Clinton wasn't a true liberal. She is basically a power and money addict. I think she actually loathed her voting base and her not being able to hide that fact is why she alienated the working class voters.

True, but working class voters have been feeling more and more alienated from the Democratic Party for decades, particularly white working class voters who resent identity politics being assigned a higher priority within the party than their own concerns (plenty of white working class voters - and not just a few who had previously voted democratic - voted for Reagan...twice). The Democratic Party has basically thrown their hands up in the face of technology and globalization, and had little to offer the white working class other than in essence saying to them as a demographic they are fucked.


And, it may well be true that as a demographic going forward the American white working class aren't going to have it as good as their parents did. The problem is, the Democratic Party is offering little other than to show the American white working class how to kneel. Trump (as opposed to the Establishment Republicans) offered a chance to stand tall and give a middle finger while doing so. In the end, Trump won't cure the conditions that will undermine the influence the shite working class in this country had. However, if death is inevitable, given the choice would you rather go out on your feet fighting, or on your knees crying? Not everyone asked that question would pick the same option. Trump gave the whites he was appealing to a valve to release the frustrations that had been building for decades. Before people had even heard of Trump OR the Clintons.


When Sanders spoke of HIS ambitions for the working class, working class people knew he was sincere. When Hillary did, working class people knew she was full of shit: you can't take $400k from Goldman for a speech you gave to them - and afterward fail to release the content of that speech - and be forced to consider a minimum wage higher than $11 only because your primary opponent was advocating for $15 and have any credibility with people making less than $100k a year. Particularly when you stack that on top of her husbands support of NAFTA, rescinding welfare benefits, and all the rest. The Democratic Party under the Clintons by and large sold out the working class years ago. Long before she ran for President the first time around in 2008.

[Nitro Express]

What probably hurt the Democratic Party more than anything was using superdelegates to throw Bernie under the bus and give the nomination to Hillary. Notice Hillary won't go away either. It just proved the Democratic Party isn't so Democratic. The Republican Party doesn't have superdelegates and if they did they would have thrown Donald Trump under the bus and gave us their stuffed suit. As far as Trump being involved with the Russians the Mueller investigation hasn't proved anything nor will it ever prove anything. It's laughable. Trump like Bernie was an independent candidate who rode on a major party to win the presidency. Bernie could have beat Trump. It would have been close but the Democrat Party self-destructed pulling the Hillary trick. The Republican establishment sure as hell didn't want Trump or any non-establishment candidate to win. Why? All the corruption they all are involved in. As long as you get someone like Hillary or George W Bush in nobody goes to jail. This is the real issue. Let's say Bernie was a true outsider. He would be putting up with the same shit. Especially if he was about cleaning up the Department of Justice and the FBI. Oh man they would be pointing to his honeymoon in the Soviet Union and calling him a Russian double agent and all that shit. It's not who's president as much as who the president works for. If he works for the American people the establishment in Washington are really going to hate them. Lefty or Righty.