I knew that Trump negotiating with Kim was like bringing a knife to a gunfight, and here we have proof that the great con man was himself conned by someone much smarter than he is.
Next up for Trump will be destroying international trade and tanking the economy while killing the safety net for vulnerable Americans.
I hope the country does not get a whole lot greater than it currently is, because that could finally kill it once and for all.
6
For Mr. Trump such meetings are moments of showmanship. He gets attention, gets petted by the dictator, and comes away claiming great victory regardless of the superficiality of the actual content. Kim, like Putin, plays Trump like a kiddie uke. For Kim the hope is that Trump will give things up without balance in his drive to be liked and to make something happen. So far, N. Korea has done nothing of substance. When you're done testing, closing the testing site is hardly a sacrifice.
Trump ought to refuse to meet with Kim until there is movement of substance in lower level talks. Sadly, Trump is incapable of waiting and needs a new "success" to tout for his cheering throngs.
1
Tell DJT that the missile site sits on the proposed location of his planned N. Korea resort, so he'll first take the site out. Isn't all US foreign policy now predicated on Trump financial interests?
4
In the meantime, ROK & DPRK are in full steam ahead towards detente and possibly reunification. There are two models of reality.
One model of reality is explained in this article. I could see only one ROK responder (Jung MyungHyun) objecting to it. The rest were US responders supporting the article. ROK responder rightly said that the info is 20 years stale news and also rightly stated that “elites” are against a thaw.
In the other model of reality, lies ROK & DPRK. They are moving towards detente with possible reunification. They are experimenting on repairing the transit railway tracks to connect Busan to the trans-siberian mainline. They have a joint military commission. They had a joint team in the 2018 Asian Games. About 53% of ROK university students believe that unification is necessary.
Pompeo murmured that the train of detente is running faster than progress of peace and nuclear disarmament. They woke up and now want to play catch up with a US-DPRK summit.
2
Your reaction Mr. President?
1
ANOTHER big WIN!
More good jobs in N. Korea.
Trump will say its fake news with doctored photos and Hilary is responsible for it and should be locked up
5
trump says he “fell in love” with Kim. Obviously love is blind.
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I am so very tired of all of this winning.
11
Well...bummer...
...and I had such high hopes after we presented that cool video at the summit in Singapore a while back...
I mean, it even had horses galloping through water, a basketball slam-dunk, and speed boats. Now you're telling me that didn't work? That didn't shut-down the nuclear program and usher-in a period of peace and prosperity just before the holidays? That can't possibly be right.
Fake news...
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It appears as if ICBMs launched from this site against the lower 48 US states would overfly parts of China and Russia . I wonder if China and Russia are cool with that.
2
Either that or they finally got enough material to put roofs on the buildings.
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The bases mentioned in this report have been perceived by U.S and South Korean intelligence since 1999. Nothing new. Same as the last NYT report that misleadingly argued North Korea has been found to have ‘unknown’ missile bases.
I too think Trump is petty and self-serving, but the Washington elites who are skeptical if not hostile to any kind of thaw between the US and North Korea are no way less pathetic than him.
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@Jung MyungHyun
Trump can trust Kim all he wants, we need the people in intelligence, state, and the military to remain as skeptical as possible. The North Koreans have proven themselves over the decades to not be believable.
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Not sure why this is not getting more play, as it is certainly a potential existential threat. As for Trump "dealing" with any foreign leader, this is the arena in which his baseline incompetence is least likely to glossed over by tweets, slogans and red hats. At some point in life you have to know some real things and you have to know how to get some real things done. Mr. Trump has never had to reach that point and it seems unlikely he will do so now.
2
South Korea’s President wants a harmonious coexistence with North Korea, and is willing to challenge the U.S. heavy handed approach.
The centrist Democrats, the US foreign policy elite and its media want not so much as another summit until “the Kim regime takes concrete, tangible actions to halt and roll back its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs”, said Sen. Edward Markey, the Democrats’ ranking member of the East Asia Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The allies dropped more bombs on Korea than on the Pacific theater in WW ll, including 32,357 tons of napalm. In 1951 Gen. MacArthur testified to Congress that the war in Korea has already almost destroyed the country of 20 million people and that he had never seen such devastation. By fall 1952 all towns and cities were scorched earth, and then the dams were bombed. The fighting ended July 1953, when an armistice was signed, but with no peace treaty, the two Koreas are technically still at war.
A peace treaty that recognizes the North Korean regime and normalizes relations between the U.S. and North Korea would be a good start.
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@Lucy Cooke
Right, and that peace treaty will be signed while Kim keeps his fingers crossed behind his back.
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Trump - the most rational genius and artist of the deal.
A walking joke carrying destruction everywhere.
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You're right.
If Hillary were president, it would already be a smoking hole in the ground.
1
North Korea expanding its missile base is not a real threat, especially when you look at the way that nuclear weapons are managed in nations who actually have powerful missiles. For example, in the United States, there is no direct chain of command regarding who launches a nuclear strike. Both the Unites States and Russia have automatic "doomsday" retaliation responses. Once a nuclear missile is launched, it is impossible to stop it. The existence of nucelar weapons ANYWHERE puts is in constant risk, regardless of what the geopolitical climate of the time is. Sensationalizing North Korea expanding one of its bases does not accomplish anything other than further exacerbate international tensions and misguide the public about the way that nuclear missiles actually work.
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@Sonya I think you should double check both your facts and your reasoning here. "Dr. Strangelove" is not considered a valid source. The United States has the USSC, Norad, a concrete chain of command, and a launch code system in place.
North Korea poses a threat because it constitutes another party with access to nuclear weapons now. More parties with access to nuclear weapons means that there's a greater likelihood that one party would misuse them.
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@Kevin I would recommend you read "The Doomsday Machine" by Daniel Ellsberg or "Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. Both of these are written by experts on the topic who rely on primary sources in addition to their first-hand experiences. These are my main sources, not "Dr Stangelove," which, by the way, was co-written by someone who worked at the RAF.
I am not denying that more countries having nuclear weapons increases risk of their misuse. However, behaving as though North Korea expanding its nuclear base presents some sort of brand new danger or completely destabilizes international security is incorrect.
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@Kevin I recollect a "NYT picks" comment on the recent Afghanistan article where the commenter recommended the US nuclear weapons as a last resort, if the Taliban could not be subdued.
I was uneasy that the NYT selected that comment, among others, as a "NYT pick".
Too bad wisdom doesn't proliferate like nuclear weapons.
1
Wait I thought Trump said N. Korea was no longer a nuclear threat???? What happened.
I thought the trade war with China was at a truce?
I thought Mexico was going to pay for the wall?
What is going on???
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@aaron Promises made.........
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@aaron
And the “base” still believe him
1
I am sure that Trump and his crew will find a way to spin this to avoid facing reality: the North Korean regime will not give up it's nuclear arsenal without strong incentives to do so, and is continuously working to increase it's ability to threaten the US, as well as it's neighbors in Asia. Trump's victory lap was just like Bush 2's "mission accomplished" - wishful thinking and propaganda. Dealing with brutal dictators running rogue, nuclear armed nations doesn't work like reality TV - it's much harder and messier.
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@Pete in Downtown How do you deal with rogue regimes like the US who have bases and their "special forces" all over the world, using military force to support the huge wealth/income inequality represented by the current "world order"?
Keep in mind that without its weaponry production the US economy would likely collapse.
The problem represented by North Korea is a small part of securing a future for homo sapiens on this planet.
My guess is that China is wiser than the US in regards to North Korea.
Why doesn't the US have wise foreign policy leadership?
Is much of Congress bought by the military industrial complex.
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@Lucy Cooke A key difference is that here, in the US, you and I can write comments like we do here, and we don't end up in a labor camp or being shot, unlike dissidents in North Korea. As for China's dealing with North Korea, that is strongly influenced by them trying to avoid a refugee nightmare coming across their border, plus they are mindful that radioactive fallout won't stop there (border) either, should Kim decide to go out in a bang.
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No one should vote for a Republican ever again. The Republican Party’s disastrous “leadership” has done nothing to stop Kim Jung Un, and may have accelerated his efforts towards having a nuclear bomb and missiles capable of reaching the US continent.
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@Margaret
Is that the only reason you can think of?
1
Somehow it seems paying reparations for the Korean War to NK would be a bargain compared to an all out war on the peninsula with the North Koreans spoiling for revenge.
What would it take to take away that pain?
But Trump said he made a deal with Kim in Singapore. And deal-making to him is an art. Surely Tariff Man can constrain Rocket Man, can't he? Maybe with a tweetstorm? Because Xi won't help him now that we're in a trade war and Canada has just arrested the daughter of a Chinese telecoms giant at Washington's request.
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What this means is that the US cannot expect to control North Korean behavior by the threat of our nuclear weapons. This, of course, is exactly the same as our inability to control the behavior of Russia or China with the threat of our nuclear weapons. They have the power to retaliate. Welcome to the 21st century!
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One way or another, we all knew North Korea would continue being a dangerous rogue nation. And, I suppose, the lies from our own leader related to this should have been just as inevitable. And yet, somehow the latter still surprised me.
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But I had been feeling so much safer since Mr Trump announced that his talks with Little Rocket Man had yielded a new era. He even told me that I could sleep better that night.
Does this mean that I need to renew my Ambien prescription?
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Maybe Trump will wake up if he learns that the NK targeting is only for Mar a Largo.
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@Ed Marth
Selfishly, say I:
Just hope that if trump is eventually 'stood up' in the most extreme sense by the duplicitous Kim (trump's 'lover' only as 'bait'), the latter's North Korean ICBMs don't target "Trump Tower" or CPW's "Trump Int'l Hotel."
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Missile bases located near the Chinese border. To prevent preemptive strikes by the U.S. uh, is this ok with China? Quite the gamble. Frankly, I’m really tired of decades of fear as to what Russia, China might do if we don’t give in, ignore, sit down for talks- whenever they decide to take over another country, back another country’s power grab, block international waters, build fake islands in disputed waters......lie about autonomy for claimed territory...
China needs to decide. Be a forward-acting global citizen, or continue to hold the puppet strings, encourage, North Korea to accidentally or intentionally, provoke nuclear war. And if China wants to threaten us, the U.S., with nukes- have the guts to do it directly. Cowardice doesn’t become such an ancient culture.
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@Jo Williams China needs to be a forward-acting global citizen like who, this administration under THIS president? Surely you gist.
Laughable if it weren't so true.
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Perhaps, like we...used to be? Or better yet, like we aspire to be. China and Russia seem in search of some idyllic past glory...that never was. We all need to work- towards betterment.