There is a positive in many negative situations, and I suppose that Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will be less inclined to misunderstand each other now that they’ve met and developed some kind of rapport. Perhaps Kim will not feel so threatened that he’s tempted to take some rash action that could escalate into a global conflagration. In the short term, the risk of war including an exchange of nuclear weapons should be reduced. Considering the stakes, this is not nothing and it’s why I’m generally in favor of having dialogue with enemies of the United States and problematic world actors.
Having said that, this Summit was ludicrous, morally bankrupt, and potentially harmful to our military readiness and our longterm commitment to the security of both South Korea and Japan. The Joint Statement is a laughable document. It says nothing of any consequence other than that both sides will work diligently to “recovering POW/MIA remains” from the combat phase of the Korean War. The DPRK reaffirmed a commitment to work toward “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The key word is “reaffirmed.” In the agreement, the United States committed to little other than working to establish relations, but this was accompanied by a declaration that we will end “provocative” and “expensive” military exercises with the South Korean armed forces.
Leaving aside what Trump and Kim might have gained politically simply by agreeing to meet, Kim is going home with an enormous victory and Trump is coming home with no tangible prize.
The South Koreans were described as ‘blindsided” by the joint exercises declaration, as well they should be since this isn’t some simple negotiating chip but rather a key element of their military preparedness. The Chinese had been insisting that we cease these exercises in exchange for North Korea ceasing nuclear and rocket testing. In effect, if only informally, that’s the deal that Trump just struck. I would not call that the Art of the Deal.
We’re now best friends with North Korea,
A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) report on human rights in North Korea stated that systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations committed by the government included murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, and other sexual violence, and constituted crimes against humanity.
I found the way Donald Trump ignored this to be highly disturbing and the way he commingled our nations’ flags and talked repeatedly about how honored he was to meet with the North Koreans to be disgusting.
As I said at the top, I’m hopeful that something positive can come out of this Summit, but overall it was a deplorable display.
Why did everyone miss the extremely bad optics? Sentosa Island in Singapore Bay was the very place that General Percival, the commander of the British forces defending Malaysia and Singapore from a Japanese invasion in winter 1941-1942 surrendered to General Yamashita of the Japanese Imperial Army. Percival surrendered a force of close to two hundred thousand men, and Yamashita can be seen on film going bug eyed over the prospect of sheltering, guarding, and feeding that many men. He thought the numbers were far lower. What awaited the prisoners was horrible. And now here we are 76 years later, and Trump is as inept as Percival ever was meeting yet another Asian strongman for a sit-down. How did the media miss out on the significance of that location, Sentosa Island? Amazing.
I lived in Australia several decades ago for about 8 years, and I’m well-versed in the significance of what happened on Sentosa Island. I dare say most USA citizens are clueless about Sentosa, much less all of the hardship, suffering, torture, starvation and deaths that occurred following Gen. Percival’s surrender.
That said, even IF you could penetrate thick Yankee skulls about what happened there during WWII, I daresay the bulk of US citizens would give a collective shrug.
No one here pays any attention to sh*t like that anymore. That’s so 20th C. Get with the program, man (yes: snark).
It’s beginning to really sink in, for me — how truly, utterly, disgustingly stupid Trump supporters are.
They really do have absolutely no idea what’s going on, here or overseas. They think Trudeau is “a pussy.” They think this laughable “summit” was some kind of accomplishment because it pisses off liberals (as has been “reported” on Fox and tweeted over and over this morning as a legitimate primary benefit). They shrug (as BooMan put it) over children pulled from their parents within American borders.
None of these real-world disasters and crimes have any weight for them because they’re literally assessing it all with the sensibility of children. It’s not just that they’re ill-informed or manipulated or victims of sophisticated propaganda (as during the Bush years) — this is much worse. The persuasion they’re falling for isn’t even good any more; it’s not even a feint towards adult discourse (as was still happening around 9/11 and the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions). It’s a bunch of pre-teen idiocy; it’s millions of fat people with red hats and vulgar t-shirts smirking as they open-carry their guns and flip the bird at us. At least Nazis had brains.
I’ve read that all the TVs in all the common rooms on military bases are always tuned to Fox.
DHS too. Wall monitors FOX all day. When I worked there Obama was in and you had to listen to the president attacked and slandered all day.
If I had the time, I’d spend all day re-tweeting everything these same reprogrammable meatbags and their media enablers said about President Obama when he announced the normalization of relations with Cuba.
Meatbags? So, which robot are you channeling, Bender from Futurama?
Or HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic?
This is true, but it didn’t just happen all by itself. It’s a product of US educational and media policies that put put financial profit before building an intelligent citizenry. Not to mention economic policies that sunk the American middle class and working class.
Coming out of WW2, McCarthy and the Dulles brothers represent two sides of the dark side of America. McCarthy’s lawyer, Roy Cohn, was Trump’s mentor.
The year 1963 was pivotal. JFK was taking the country in the right direction, with the support of the great majority of Americans. Since then we’ve been going in the wrong direction. Now we’re way up shit’s creek. Do we have a paddle?
Pre-teen idiocy: Bingo!
I range between emotions of disgust, dismay, depression, anger, indifference, anxiety and enuui every single day.
That these peoples’ whole lives revolve around giving so-called “Libtards” a big ole EFF YOU is beyond depressing.
I think we’re already IN a Civil War. And it’s by design.
How do we get it to stop? I have no clue.
Yeah. Real shame that over half the country will hear that it was a Nobel Prize worthy summit.
It’s ridiculous.
Since all of Trump’s foreign-policy moves turn out to be to Putin’s benefit, I wonder why more attention has not been paid to the Russian angle of Trump’s excellent Korean adventure.
What’s really going on here is that Putin is helping to assemble a new international bloc starting with Russia, the USA, North Korea, and a bunch of other countries — to oppose the G7 and anybody else that doesn’t recognize Russia’s takeover of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. It’s called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
This is great for China, which is the key to the whole business.
Trump is just a tool, and like any tinpot dictator is out for his own benefit and that of his family and assorted sycophants. People have been comparing Trump to Hitler, but a more accurate comparison would be to a garden-variety puppet or quisling. Except that the USA is the world’s greatest super power, or so I’ve heard.
The chickens are certainly coming home to roost, aren’t they.
It seems clear to me that what Trump wants to do is create an alterative to the G7, which would be an alignment with the most dictatorial regimes around the globe, including: NK, China, Russia, Turkey, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.
Trump is clearly wanting to disengage the USA from our traditional allies in favor of dictators. It’s because he wants to be the dictator here.
His slavishly devoted fans will gleefully go along with this bc it makes Libtards mad.
I feel like Alice through the Looking Glass every single day.
Actually China is the third largest economy behind the Us and Eurozone. Canada is just ahead of Russia. If size is what matters why wouldn’t they want China in the G8? Plus China is in process of building out a new silk road to the West.
Charles I is the example that keeps coming up
How so? – I would be curious to know who had suggested that. I consider it an extreme Protestant view.
It’s true that Charles was executed on the charge of “high treason”, but in my view the only thing this has in common with Trump is that it was “TRUMPed up” charge.
There are many, many things one could legitimately criticize Charles I for, but treason is not one of them.
Once the Parliamentarians had captured King Charles, Cromwell had to get rid of him, or Cromwell would be liable to the charge of high treason if the royalists should ever win back control. And if they had to get rid of him they had to have an extremely serious charge.
I don’t see any similarity to Trump at all.
I do think the view of extreme Protestants today (namely the religious right) towards Clinton and Obama is similar to their view of Charles I, just as their view of women like Hillary Clinton and or Nancy Pelosii is similar to their view of Queen Henrietta Maria (Charles’s wife). The narrative is so deeply embedded in English and Scots-Irish Protestant culture, they keep replaying it, just like they are permanently looking for Communists (that is, Catholics) under their beds, and permanently on the verge of the millennium.
Again, there are many things one can criticize Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, Communists, etc., for, but the RWNJ criticisms have a heady mythical content that largely bypasses reality.
The silver lining that we are hoping for is entirely of the President’s own making! We put on this display to satisfy his own ego and in the hopes he won’t start a nuclear war because of it.
I don’t care as much about the “stature” arguments. There’s some merit but it’s pretty low in grand scheme. I think the focus really should be on South Korea. Their PM has been at this stuff for a long time and knows what he’s doing, but he will be thrown under the bus to satisfy the ego which forced this summit’s existence in the first place. Moon Jae-In is a progressive and pro-peace, but would he have been so eager if he wasn’t afraid of his madman “partner”?
I found another silver lining:
Gotta frame that one.
From the very first minute of the summit, when Trump started spouting about how “honored” he was to meet Kim and “we’re going to have a great relationship”, it was obvious that he was desperate to have something to call a success, and that he would give away anything of value to get that. Nevertheless, I am still shocked that he agreed to end joint military exercises with South Korea (not just one exercise, but all of them, indefinitely). Another 70 year alliance down the drain. For what? For a few words that the North Koreans had already said before. For nothing.
Eh? The positive to this is that those War Games have been conducted, as you say for decades, right during the harvest season in NK. This has, in no small measure, led to the mal-nourishment of the DPNK people.
I, for one, am mostly glad that these VERY EXPENSIVE war games are coming to halt. I don’t think they’re worth it, and they’ve been very inhumane.
JMHO, of course.
However, blindsiding South Korea with this major change in policy isn’t acceptable.
Agree on that point.
. . . concession, conceded for nothing in return. Booman’s “Art of the Deal” mockery is spot-on.
You write:
Unfortunately, rae…not “for nothing.”
At least 2 “positive” results …in Trumpian terms, anyway…will surely come from this charade:
#1-It will appeal to, solidify…and perhaps even grow…his political base. That base is a large part of the Republican base, thus casting further fears into sitting congrressional Republicans regarding their political safety if they support any of the many possibilities arising from the Mueller investigation
and…
2-It will allow him more room to discourage South Korean competition in the supposed free market of the U.S.
For example, the South Koreans have been kicking everybody’s butt in the automobile sector. Hyundai and Kia are now building fine, long-lived automobiles with a great deal of style and 100,000 mile warranties!!! And they are doing it at lower cost than their American and Japanese competitors. Are they “overbuilding,” to use the term applied to the Japanese countries when they built high quality cars and purposely took a loss on them for a number of years in order to gain a strong foothold in the the U.S. market? Or do they just have a more efficient industrial organization? Damned if I know, and it makes very little difference in Trumpian terms anyway. He ran on “equalizing” trade. This is another nail in that structure.
More red meat for his base.
So it goes…
AG
I’ve been more concerned about the media coverage of the Summit. I want to know under whose orders every bit of broadcast coverage has to start with a breathless “HISTORIC!!” in front of the word Summit. It’s been Brain William fawning over “our rockets” bad…and yet everyone is doing it. Why this time? Another breaker being build again a Blue Wave is may guess.
I’m old enough to remember the media turning over the microphones, cameras, and column space for a month to conservative wingnuts slanders and doomsayers before the ink was even dry on the Iran Nuclear Deal. And they STILL lead/print with the cooked “intelligence” about the deal.
As for the Kabuki Theater of a Summit itself, Kim won, and won big. Tacitly, President Stupid committed Republicans to protect and support Kim’s regime or lose the foreign policy image/political battle on the home front.
I agree with you. I stay as far away from radio and tv coverage as I can these day. Yet bits and pieces filter through to me now and then.
Over the weekend, I caught a few seconds worth of Very Important People intoning in Very Important Ways the so-called “significance” of this “Historic Summit.” Nary a peep given to how ridiculously unprepared Trump was, although they SLAVISHLY repeated Trump’s complete and utter nonsensical CRAP about he’d “know within one minute how things would go with Kim” due to his “superior negotiation skills” or some such.
This was on ever-so-serious and amazingly Librul NPR. I wanted to just vomit.
There was hardly ANY conversation about Trump’s egregious behavior at the G7, other than to SLAVISHLY repeat the Fox line about how Trudeau knifed Trump in the back in some weird way.
ALL of the M$M has been co-opted. ALL. OF. IT.
It’s sheer Trump propaganda 24/7/365. The WaPo, as propagandistic as it can be, is one of the only sources that doesn’t slavishly tout the Trump line constantly. That’s because Bezos hates Trump. Woe betide us if Bezos ever changes his mind.
It is literally frightening to behold.
If they held the election tomorrow, I guarantee that Trump would Win and Win “bigly.” UGH.
It won’t be hyperbolic to conclude the Orange Shit Gibbon’s “foreign policy” moves are equivalent to Reagan deciding in 1982 to switch the U.S. from NATO to the Warsaw Pact.
and a third of our nation immediately falling into line with it all the while yelling “SEE! NO COLLUSION!!!!”
Considering what we are doing on our own border and within our own communities, human rights issues are no longer relevant, here or abroad.
Thank you, Heart of the Rockies!!!
Precisely.
(See my comment below for more,)
AG
This is bullshit.
It makes this crap even more important. When the U.S. slips on human rights, the whole global movement and infrastructure for human rights suffers.
Yep:
I really have no time for this shit in the present moment. They’ll be telling us how many people Obama drowned as people are shuffled off into the camps.
Booman, I should let Heart of the Rockies speak for him/herself, but my takeaway from that comment was anger and/or despair that what’s going on is indeed sabotaging the respect and safeguarding of human rights that this country should aspire to. The erosion of human rights as a concern is something we shouldn’t become indifferent to, but goddamit it’s happening right before our eyes and the barbarians within the gates, gleefully yanking on the levers of power, are doing their best to make human rights irrelevant, aided, abetted, and cheered on by far too many of our fellow citizens. It’s not both-siderism to bemoan that.
I’m daily infuriated by what’s being done to destroy this country, but also daily cast into despair at the juggernaut advance of the process.
Part of the joint exercises’ goal is to keep the shipping lanes free and operating. Without the US participation it’s not hard to imagine the Chinese taking the upper hand of the international lanes.
There is that, as well. A compromise might be to hold the War Games but NOT during the NK harvest period.
I read something recently – not accurate due to failing memory – along the lines that China had been doing something vis the submarines in that area, plus the Chinese also hacked the Navy’s computer system:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/china-hacked-a-navy-contractor-and-secured-a-
trove-of-highly-sensitive-data-on-submarine-warfare/2018/06/08/6cc396fa-68e6-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_
story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eda4eb308e3a
But whyever should Trump, you know, prepare for a meeting like this? He’s the BEST… at being a dangerous asshole.
In the nineties, the War Games were held in the fall, but since 2001, I believe they’ve been held in the spring, no?
They’re not war games, that’s Trump’s wording that he borrowed from NK & China. And they’re scheduled for the Fall.
Booman links:
All those accusations are quite possibly true. Since I do not particularly trust the United Nations bureaucracy in general to be anything other than biased towards the demands of its major funders (see below), I will take that information with a grain of salt. his observation will undoubtedly be countered by people saying things like “But…but…that fat little madman Kim Jong Un executes people using anti-aircraft missiles!!!” I have no quarrel with that observation, be it true or false. Not very classy, but what the hell…dead is dead and he certainly got the attention of his 25 million population. Bet on it. The U.S. executes its supposed domestic enemies by massive incarceration rates, slow death by poverty plus all of its nasty consequences, and the more than occasional police bullet. So it goes. Our masses…all 325 million…get the point too. Most of them, anyway. Bet on that as well.
The point towards which I am traveling here is quite simple. The systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations committed by the Permanent Government of the United States…both domestically and internationally…have also included “murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, other sexual violence, and constituted crimes against humanity” since at least the end of WWII if not well before.
My point?
Especially with Trump in power…about as classy as Kim Jong Un if not worse…
The U.S. and North Korea are natural allies!!!
We are finally getting exactly what we have asked for by supporting a bipartisan, PermaWar government for 50+ years.
Eisenhower tried to warn us in his farewell speech. Listen to it and weep.
We…most of us…didn’t listen.
Now we stand threatened with the distinct possibility of reaping that mistaken whirlwind.
Are we ready to listen now?
Let us pray that it is so.
Or will we once again fall for the habitual…and very effective…line of our military/political “pragmatists?”
Yeah.
Right.
Somebody lights a match to try to survive and gets blown away by…by the equivalent of an anti-aircraft missile if not worse.
Kim Un Jong was…and remains…a big fan of American culture. Basketball, styles of music…highly devolved styles, I might add…that owe a great deal to U.S. pop, etc.
He’s learned his lessons well.
Later…
AG
P.S. From Wikipedia:
To save you, dear readers, the trouble of adding up those percentages, that means that at least 62% of the UN’s funding comes from the U.S. and its major allies. More, if you consider Australia., Canada etc. Add to that the plain fact that the U.N….and most of its functioning supervisory bureaucracy…resides quite well in the heart of one of the most expensive and luxurious cities in the world, and you have good reason to leaven your belief in the relative accuracy of its reporting regarding U.S. friends and foes.
Just sayin’…
May as well just call it the United Statesions!!!
Amazing. All I had to do was read the first ridiculous sentence, and I knew it was you!
Saved me some time, though.
In so far as Trump/Bolton didn’t goad Kim into bombing Seoul/Tokyo/Los Angeles, and Kim didn’t con Trump into ceding the entire Korean peninsula to Pyongyang, I’d call the summit a qualified success.
Also to: wasn’t it a wingnut creed that the US shouldn’t negotiate with bad guys, because by simply talking to them we give them prestige and power? Is there any “principle” wingnuts won’t abandon/reverse in support of one of their own?
“Is there any “principle” wingnuts won’t abandon/reverse in support of one of their own??
I assume your question is rhetorical. After all, Trump said he could murder people in broad daylight on 5th Avenue, and his fanatical fans would clap and cheer and continue to vote for him. Trump, in this case, is entirely correct.
Just take a walk down memory lane:
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/09/after-repeatedly-attacking-obama-possibility-meeting-no
rth-korea-hannity-gushes-over-trump-doing/219598
When the KenyanNaziCommieDictatorHater suggested talking to Kim, Fox/Trump went full metal jacket nuts about how dastardly despicable and unpatriotic the Blah in the “their” White House was. Now they can contain their unbridled joy at this Nobel Peace Prize Winning Summit.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
IF ONLY Libtards would JUST reach out to these people, why then, World Peace would be moments away!!11!
Via my son’s mom in Quebec: “Canadian news is reporting that South Korea is upset over the nk negotiations as being unilateral and without teeth.”
So there’s that.
As with the G6 meeting,Trump did exactly as Putin wished.
Yes, and perhaps it’s time to say after this round with NK that he did just what China wanted him to as well.
Yes, and that was the point I was trying to make on this thread. In fact, it goes beyond that — it’s also what China wants.
You might say that the fact that Putin got Trump to do this wins Putin major brownie points from China.
Everything Trump does has to be measured through the prism on a six year old, which is his educational and emotional level.
So…..what did Trump `learn’ from this episode?
He learned that bellicose and threatening tweets will `bring them to the table’, where Trump can use the occasion to highjack the world media and draw complete attention to himself. Really, the content of that media coverage is irrelevant, because Trump and his followers will only believe what they want to believe. Trump has also surrounded himself with like minded aides, Bolton, Kelly, etc, and Trumps informal advisers, Hannity, Bannon, etc, will all re-enforce Trumps immaturity, because they all get their sexual gratification from being bullies. They are there to exploit Trump’s second grade level relationships. And Fox will do as they are told.
That is why this meeting, and the media coverage is incredibly dangerous. And why Trump is incredibly dangerous. He has always believed his immoral business practices will work for international relationships, now everyone he listens to will tell him he is right, and none of the people saying he is wrong are people he listens to. To Trump and his followers, the last week has been a massive success.
Not to mention how these types of international meetings are the shiny objects the media adores. Doing stories on how immigrant children are being locked in cages is hard work, flying to Singapore and repeating what they are told is easy.
We are all going to pay the price for this `success’.
.
You are something of a downer, but it sounds right. Trump has been hijacking media coverage ever since he rode down that escalator. The media seem to love him. He brings coverage and they can put on pundits to report on his misdeeds, which multiply each day, which the listeners all love. Ugh!!
Well, right now I see nothing, absolutely nothing, to `lift’ me. He won’t be impeached, he won’t be indicted, and he will be 50/50 to win re election. The Supreme Court is gone, for at least a generation. Americans have decided it’s acceptable to lock kids in cages.
And Trump is leading the media around by the nose, so no help there.
.
About the only international agreement Trump has been able to come up with anyone is with Kim Jong Un – a narcissistic dictator very much in the same mould as Trump himself. It is hardly surprising that the only positive chemistry Trump has with anyone is either with sycophantic underlings or sybaritic demented dictators. International relations dictated by personality disorders: a lethal combination.
At least from a dictator’s (that part’s certainly accurate) Realpolitik perspective (preserve my regime and my power; act in our “national interest” as seen through that prism) Kim looks increasingly like an immensely rational actor manipulating Trump masterfully. He learned very well the Saddam/Gaddafi/”Libya model” lessons “taught” by the U.S., and acted on them accordingly.
But certainly, wrt Trump,
is spot-on.
But when the Iraq War was committed, there was no weapons of mass destruction. Gaddafi’s “program” was hardly a program, and what ended his regime was the people who revolted against him. One would think we’d intervene much more quickly to recover materials if Gaddafi had an actual program when the people revolted.
How We All Learned To Accept Bush’s Lies About Libya
. . . you begin with “but”, but then quote stuff supporting my point, as far as I can see.
Perhaps I need to clarify what I consider ‘the Saddam/Gaddafi/”Libya model” lessons “taught” by the U.S.’ to have been (again, from the perspective of a dictator with an instinct for self-preservation): Proceed with all possible haste to 1) attain; then 2) maintain a nuclear deterrent.
The Trump maladmin is now doing everything possible to focus Iran’s attention — with sharp, intense clarity — on these lessons.
India and Pakistan are at least arguably counter-examples teaching the same lesson.
You think if Gaddafi had nukes and people rose up against him that we wouldn’t have intervened? I don’t think that’s true necessarily, especially if the state ends up collapsing and the materials need to be recovered.
My main point being Gaddafi had no real program to “give up”, giving up an esssntially non-existent program had nothing to do with him being ousted from power since it was the people on the ground who did it.
. . . We’ll never know.
But there’s no question in my mind that the U.S. calculation as to whether and/or how to intervene in Libya during the Arab Spring (or in any similar circumstances) is very different if Gaddafi is known to possess nukes than if he’s known not to — as it must be, and rightly so. Possible exception being under an insane, ignorant, addled, deluded, narcissistic, egomaniacal idiot who has surrounded himself with sycophantic, racist, war-mongering “advisers” (no, not Kim, silly). Then a presumption of rationality entering into any such calculation would be foolish.
Qaddafi’s Libya wasn’t even close to being a break-out state.
Nukes played no factor in the decision to intervene in 2011 or not.
One reason Qaddafi was willing to bargain his capability away was how far from anything useful it was.
. . . I think this summary sentence understated . . . by a lot . . . what a Trump failure this was:
Seems far worse than that: as you noted, Kim made no new concessions — agreed to nothing he hadn’t already agreed to. Trump made the surprise major concession of ending joint exercises with SK, blindsiding them and Japan in the process.
IOW, a many could have predicted (and did), looks like Kim played Trump like a fiddle. Art of the Deal indeed. Just with Kim, not Trump, the “artist”.
Duh.
Kim and Trump, working together to disassemble US imperialist hegemony.
What’s not to like.
I found the way Donald Trump ignored this to be highly disturbing and the way he commingled our nations’ flags and talked repeatedly about how honored he was to meet with the North Koreans to be disgusting.
“Human Rights” are for wimps amd Libs in this sociopath’s calculus. He’s never met a dictator or human rights violator he didn’t like.
“The poors, the persecuted, the oppressed?”
Fuck ’em.
Rachel made a great catch tonight. Russia is the 3rd country that shares a border with NK and Russia has been aggressively pushing for the annual military exercises to cease.
That Trump just leapt over all common sense protocols and didn’t inform SK or even the Pentagon when he made the announcement that he wanted to end the military exercises should be questioned on the basis of what the Russia connection is.
. . . connection is“!
We knew it wouldn’t take long, didn’t we?