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Off the Top of My Head

North and South Korea Making Peace Without US 'Help'

by John Lawrence, September 21, 2018

President Kim of North Korea and President Moon of South Korea have met together 3 times this year. Moon traveled to North Korea just recently for a meeting September 20. Evidently, President Moon is not hung up over a "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" like Washington is. The two Korean Presidents realize that they don't need Washington's OK before they go ahead and normalize relations between the two Koreas. Nevertheless, Kim has asserted that complete denuclearization is the goal. They are going about it in the right way with mutual respect shown by both sides. Washington wants Kim to kowtow before they will agree to anything. That's not the right way to make peace.

If Kim and Moon can work out an amiable relationship and normalize relations between the two Koreas, then the US is the odd man out. South Korea may well at some time tell the US to pack their bags and go home. They're not needed any more. It remains to be seen what the US would do at that point. Would they insist on staying despite South Korea's telling them to get out? Would they impose sanctions on South Korea for "dealing with the enemy"?

The Guardian reported:

The third meeting comes with talks between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme having made little progress since a summit between Donald Trump and Kim in June. Trump cancelled a trip by his top diplomat last month. While North Korea has repeatedly agreed to working towards the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”, experts warn the language is vague and fails to address key US demands that the North give up its nuclear weapon unilaterally and allow weapons inspectors into the country.

Despite the difficulties, Chung said Kim’s “trust in Trump remains unchanged”, and that he had not spoken negatively about Trump to anyone, even his closest advisers. Kim also complained the international community had not appreciated steps already taken by North Korea to end nuclear and missile tests, according to Chung, and revealed he had shut a missile launch facility.

However, experts have warned the North could reopen its only known nuclear tests site at Punggye-ri, which it said it closed in May.

Chung also said Kim hoped to end hostilities between North Korea and the US by the end of Trump’s first term, which ends in January 2021. North Korea has consistently pushed for a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

South Korea’s diplomatic overtures have also highlighted a growing rift between Seoul and Washington, with US officials frustrated by the pace of nuclear negotiations and South Korean authorities focused on improving ties with their unpredictable neighbour.

North Korean state media echoed many of the same statements conveyed by officials in Seoul, with language that emphasised denuclearisation as a shared responsibility, not one for Pyongyang alone.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said: “Noting that it is our fixed stand and his will to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean Peninsula and turn it into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat, he said that the North and the South should further their efforts to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.”

So North and South Korea are making peace while the US sits on the sidelines like an angry bully who will not accept peace between North and South Korea unless they do it on the US' terms. It's the US way or the highway. The final result will probably be a peaceful, reunited Korea, but one which is not aligned with US interests. Will they be the first nation in the world to stand up to the US and tell it to remove its military bases and personnel from a united Korea or will a united Korea remain at war with the US? Or will Trump try to take credit for creating peace in the Koreas? Time will tell.

Off the Top of My Head

Russia's Meddling in OUR Election: How Dare They!

by John Lawrence, July 16, 2018

A question that might be asked is "What dirt did they hope to get on Hillary by hacking into Hillary's personal server and the Democratic National Committee's server?" Why would Hillary have dirt about herself on her own server? Why would the DNC? This phony outrage about Russian meddling in our elections is a tempest in a teapot, a mountain out of a mole hill. The USA has meddled in the results of democratic elections by overthrowing Salvador Allende in Peru and Mossaddegh in Iran and installing brutal dictators in their respective places. Mohammad Mosaddegh was the head of a democratically elected government that was illegally removed in a CIA coup. He held office as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service. I could go on and on about how the US has meddled in other countries' elections, but I won't. Look it up. The complicit American media won't tell you about it.

So as much as I don't want to, I have to agree with Trump again that Hillary and the DNC should have devoted more resources to securing their systems. It's just about time and money to make your server unhackable, but most people and entities don't want to spend the time or money. Instead, they're too busy dunning us for more money. The fact that Mueller has identified 13 Russians who were directly responsible for the "meddling" means nothing. The suggestion that Trump should ask Putin to extradite them to the US is risible. What planet are these politicians and media people living on?

Trump is disrupting the whole US military-industrial complex and media mindset on foreign policy. So far he has not suggested that the defense budget be reduced as Europe pays for a larger share of their own defense. That would be truly disruptive. If not Trump, then the progressives out there like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders should pick up the ball from Trump and demand that the US reduce its defense budget commensurate with the EU countries' increase in theirs. The Democratic party has staked their future on the fact that the American people will rise up and revolt against Trump once the facts of the Mueller investigation are out. I don't think the Mueller investigation will reveal anything earthshaking other than Trump was trying to feather his own nest by cutting business deals with Russia.

Why shouldn't we make friends with out enemies? If we did, we wouldn't have to spend so much on defense. But then the whole edifice of hate built up towards certain countries of the world would come tumbling down and the military-industrial complex' budget along with it. There is too much money at stake. We need enemies in order to justify spending a trillion dollars a year on defense. Trump is challenging the status quo on that. He's challenging the prevailong narrative that Russia is bad. We're good. Russia's allies are bad. Our allies are good. That's bullshit. Our ally, Saudi Arabia, is conducting genocide in Yemen with US assistance.  We could be at peace any time that a US President and the US political establishment decided to do so. But that would cost these guys too much money. Basically, they would just have to stop trying to bully other countries as their MO.

Instead, US foreign policy is all about making other countries do our bidding. After Trump established a cordial relationship with Kim Jong Un, right away the US meme of making it all about him getting rid of all his nuclear weapons before the US would do anything to benefit him got established. This is what Pompeo and the media were all about. They take the same tack with Putin. "Mr. Putin if you'll only give Crimea back to Ukraine and confess your sins, then we might be friends." Trump is absolutely right about the hypocracy of Angela Merkel and Germany in crying wolf over the Russians at the same time they are cooperatively building a pipeline in order for Germany to receive Russian natural gas. If Germany and Russia are such enemies, aren't they afraid that Russia might turn off the gas at a critical moment? No, it's all about the money not the underlying realities.

I thin the Dems better not hang all their hopes on the Mueller investigation revealing something perfidious on Trump's part. They better hang their hopes on Bernie Sanders' economic agenda, and, may I suggest, carrying forward a friendly relationship with our enemies that Trump has at least broken the ice with?

Off the Top of My Head

Denuclearize the Korean Peninsula AND the United States

by John Lawrence, June 22, 2018

With all the talk about denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, has it been forgotten that the US has a thousand more nuclear weapons than Korea has? How about denuking the US. This is especially important now that the US has a loose cannon at the helm. Hypocrisy is the modus operandi of the US which thinks that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. The Bible says, "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye."The Trumpster has sent the US tendency to talk down to the rest of the world into overdrive. Now they all better do as we say or we'll apply sanctions ... or bombs. This whole state of affairs will not end well. The US has gone from being the world's guiding light to being the world's bully.

Bill Maher said this in the Guardian:

I'm just pointing out that in recent years, our foreign policy debates look like the Facebook page of a loner who shot up a McDonald's. We're the only country in the world that muses out loud about who we might bomb next:

Iran, yeah we might bomb you … thinking about it … maybe, depends on my mood.

We did this with Iraq after 9/11, even though they had nothing to do with 9/11. We do it with Iran every day. And now, it's Syria's turn. We're like a schoolyard bully who's got every kid in the class nervous they're going to be next – and I don't know if anyone should have that power. Can you imagine going to work and sitting at the lunch table in front of ten people and saying:

Hey, you think we should … kill Bob? It would send a message to Steve.

Who acts like this?

People in other countries don't talk like this. Probably because, if they did, we'd bomb them. Is there no self-awareness about how arrogant it looks to sit around politely pondering who needs a good bombing?

And,we're the only nation – as we have seen in this Syrian fiasco – who threatens to drop bombs on you while telling you we don't want to get involved!

We're just bombing, please, don't get up – no boots on the ground, just a little light bombing, we'll be out of your hair in a week.

I remember being on the Howard Stern show 12 years ago this week, right after 9/11, and Howard said that, in retaliation for 9/11, America should bomb a Muslim country, any Muslim country, it didn't matter which one. And yet somehow, I was the one on trial for talking crazy.

And I thought to myself, really? Bomb any Muslim country – that's the policy? Get a map of the Middle East and just throw a dart at it?

Well, apparently George W Bush was listening that day because that's exactly what we did.

George W Bush just wanted to be a war time President. Starting any war would do. He unwittingly (unwittingly because he had no wits) opened a can of worms, and US status and moral leadership in the world has sunk lower and lower from that day. It is still going down while we have a nutcase for a President. But who cares? The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. Nobody better mess with us or they might get bombed. Everything is right with the world.

A Victory for Sanity in World Politics

From truthdig, June 12

by Robert Scheer

President Donald Trump walks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore. (Evan Vucci / AP)

President Trump gave peace a chance like few presidents before him, and if his critics cannot respect that fact, shame on them. What he and the hawks around him have done is as profound a shift in U.S. foreign policy as it is unexpected in its departure from an America-centric view of the world.

At the heart of this bold initiative is an openness to the wisdom and concerns of other nations, beginning with the government of South Korea but including most definitely the insights of the leaders of neighboring China, Russia and Japan. It is a break with the demonization of the North Korean enemy in the spirit of Richard Nixon’s opening to Communist China, which effectively ended the Cold War.

That’s the real news here, a profound example of risking peace instead of war, and it should be celebrated in a nonpartisan spirit as a victory for sanity in world politics, whatever one’s prejudice against President Trump.

To nitpick this courageous step while ignoring its enormously positive potential for reducing the risks of nuclear annihilation would be foolhardy in the extreme. Of course, much remains to be negotiated and implemented on the path to eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. But Trump’s willingness to separate regime change from that effort, and to postpone ritualistic war drills, is crucial to diplomatic success and a welcome departure from the militaristic obsessions of recent presidents, both Republican and Democrat.

Trump has pulled off a remarkable achievement, and while that certainly does not absolve him of other truly egregious behavior, it does suggest, as with Nixon in his bold opening to “Red” China, that blustering hawks can be transformed into constructive peacemakers.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Brought North Korea into the Community of Nations

by John Lawrence, June 13, 2018

While Nancy Pelosi disparages the fact that Kim Jong Un has been given legitimacy by Trump's willingness to sit, talk and eat with him without getting any actual results, in fact this meeting was the best thing that could have been accomplished. You don't demand things of your enemies before you'll even be willing to talk to them. You show them some respect and friendship first, and then the details of who gets what and when can flow from that. Jesus said Love Your Neighbor as Yourself and then related the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans hated each other, wouldn't even talk with one another. Then one day a Jew was robbed and badly beaten.

This website tells the story better than I:

"Love your neighbor as yourself" was part of the Old Testament Law (Leviticus 19:18) that was sacred to Jesus' kinfolk, the Jews. But, many people thought a "neighbor" meant only their fellow Jews. One day a lawyer asked Jesus, "And just who is my neighbor?" Jesus told the Parable of The Good Samaritan to answer his question in a way we can never forget:

A Jewish man was taking a trip alone and was attacked by robbers. They beat him, robbed him of everything he had, and left him nearly dead beside the road. After while, a Jewish priest came along and saw the poor man lying beside the road. As a religious man, you would expect him to stop and do what he could to help. But, instead, he kept going and pretended he did not see. Later, a Levite came along. Levites were assistants to the priests, so you would expect him to stop and help, too. But, he did just like the priest and kept on going.
Parable of the Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan bandaged the man's wounds, put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn.
Finally, a Samaritan man came by. Even though they both lived in the land of Palestine and shared a similar religion, the Jews and the Samaritans definitely did not think of each other as "neighbors." In fact, they hated each other. The Samaritans came from a different race of people than the Jews. They had considered each other enemies for hundreds of years and refused to even talk to each other!

You would expect the Samaritan man to be the one who just passed by without helping. Instead, this Samaritan man took pity on the injured Jewish man. He bandaged his wounds. He put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he could be safe and recover. Since the injured man had been robbed of everything he had, the Samaritan man even paid his bill at the inn and paid the innkeeper to take good care of him!

In this case Trump was the good Samaritan no matter how much Nancy Pelosi and the Dems disparage the fact that Trump made concessions (no more war games) and didn't get anything in return. The American political establishment is anal-retentively focused on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Why not also focus on the denuclearization of the US? That doesn't even come into the discussion.

I'm glad Trump just said in effect, "Fuck all this protocol. I think Kim and I can be friends." In doing so he played the role of the Good Samaritan and obeyed Jesus' commandment to "Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself." Giving legitimacy and making friends should be the first step, not the last which is the way Pelosi and the US political establishment do business.

'Better Than Threats of Nuclear War': Trump Vows to End US War Games After Summit With North Korea's Kim Jong-un

Published on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 by Common Dreams

"I believe this is a big prelude to peace," North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told reporters

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

13 Comments

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during their historic U.S.-DPRK summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island on June 12, 2018 in Singapore. (Photo: Kevin Lim/The Straits Times/Handout/Getty Images)

Following four hours of talks behind closed doors with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced during a press conference that America will halt its "provocative" joint war games with South Korea in return for the North's commitment to starting the denuclearization process "right away."

"I believe this is a big prelude to peace," Kim told reporters on Tuesday. "There will also be big challenges ahead but I'm willing to do this."

Watch Trump's announcement:

"Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace" - US President Donald Trump on "honest, direct" meeting with Kim Jong-un #TrumpKimSummit https://t.co/slT5YzZ7IR pic.twitter.com/8amE1a1oZs

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) June 12, 2018

Beatrice Finn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, added:

I'm not a fan of Trump but let's not promote the idea that stopping to practice mass murdering millions of civilians with weapons of mass destruction is weak and bad. https://t.co/7qkbeQz7IQ

— Beatrice Fihn (@BeaFihn) June 12, 2018

Trump's decision to suspend military exercises on the Korean Peninsula—which have long been perceived by the North as a simulation of all-out war—was applauded by independent analysts as a crucial step toward lasting peace in the region.

Tim Shorrock, a Korea expert who is in Singapore for the historic summit, called the end of U.S.-South Korea war games a "huge deal."

Interesting press conference - one hour! Trump seemed very enthused about his summit with Kim. HUGE deal that the US is ending the joint US-South Korean military exercises. He even called them "provocative." Probably what Pompeo meant yesterday by "unique' security guarantees.

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) June 12, 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, whose "masterful diplomacy" laid the groundwork for peace talks even as Trump and his advisers continued to hurl threats and insults, applauded signs of significant progress in U.S.-North Korea relations in a statement on Tuesday.

"I join all the people in ardently aspiring for the success of the summit to bring complete denuclearization and peace to us and usher in a new era among the two Koreas and the United States," Moon said.

Talks are better than threats of nuclear war. The #TrumpKimSummit has reduced recent tensions in the region and the agreement for follow on negotiations are the key to any long lasting peace in the region. pic.twitter.com/LIOusYGz0O

— Paul Kawika Martin (@PaulKawika) June 12, 2018

As Tuesday's summit in Singapore came to a close, Trump and Kim signed and released a joint statement affirming their commitment to "the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula."

While acknowledging that the document is vague and "thin," Christine Ahn, founder of the peace group Women Cross DMZ, applauded the joint statement as "bold in reorienting relations between historic adversaries."

"The compass has been set, it's time to ensure that these principles are followed through with concrete action, and this is where it is crucial for civil society, especially women's groups, step in," Ahn concluded.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Makes History With Korea

by John Lawrence, June 12, 2018

I'm not a big Trump fan, but I give him credit for breaking the ice with North Korea. The US penchant for making pariahs out of world leaders and taking a Holier Than Thou attitude towards supposedly "rogue regimes" is over. Thank God for that. It's unconscionable that a country with nukes is 30 some miles away from Seoul, a city with 28 million people. Some pundit has said that, if the North dropped a nuke on Seoul, we might lose 100,000 people. Really? It would be more like 28 million people. It's like having a festering wound that nobody (except Trump) was willing to do anything about.

Trump has broken through all the niceties of diplomacy and shown up the pathetic lack of success by former Presidents due to their sclerotic approach to world affairs. It should be pointed out that the US bureaucratic establishment didn't want Trump to do this. It was all about him. In this case he did the right thing in blowing up the outdated approach to world affairs championed by the US bureaucratic establishment. This is not really about all the details of sanctions versus nukes. It's about accepting an isolated world regime into the community of recognized countries. Pariah, no more, Kim will make further efforts towards bringing peace to the Korean peninsula, and this even has overtones for the whole world.

Peace, diplomacy, talk, sitting down for a meal together - these are all good things. We need to talk to our supposed enemies. We need to think and put our minds towards making friends out of our enemies. The details can be worked out later. This was Trump's genius. Instead of demanding a bunch of details first, make peace first and then work out the details. So this was an historic breakthrough, and we need to give Trump credit where credit is due.

So when will there be a Trump Tower in Pyongyang? Trump has broken through the bullshit. That's what his supporters elected him to do. He said that, if he can save millions of lives by sitting down with Kim, he's willing to do it, even though all kinds of people are terribly, terribly vicariously offended that the leader of the Free World should lower himself to sit down with a persona non grata, an outcast, an undesirable. Well, I think Trump has made an historic breakthrough here. For all his bluster, for all his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change, for all his giving tax breaks to the rich, this one thing that he's done pulls his reputation out of the mud in my mind at least. Trump has broken through the bullshit barrier imposed by bureaucrats whose greatest fear is that there should be peace and friendship in the world among all peoples.

Off the Top of My Head

Kim: We'll Give Up One Nuke for One McDonald's

by John Lawrence

It's hamburger diplomacy with North Korea. Kim Jong Un has hinted he might give up a nuke in return for a hamburger enfranchisement in North Korea. As Marie Antoinette might have said, "Let them eat hamburger!" Trump better study up on his Korean before he goes. The translation of "I want to buy a hamburger" into Korean is "Naneun haembeogeoleul sago sipda". I remember Inspector Clouseau struggling with that phrase when he had to leave France and come to the United States to follow up on a lead.

If Kim wants to win Trump over and get him to sell the ranch, all he has to do is to import a cheeseburger and treat Trump to that feast at their first meeting. Trump will agree to peace without Kim having to give up anything. A gesture of good will though would be to bring an executive from McDonald's who could get all starry eyed about the first McDonald's in Pyongyang. Bolton would be furious. He wants Kim to give up all his nukes before he would let Trump even talk to him. But Trump wouldn't hesitate to deal in a little hamburger diplomacy. You give up one nuke for a MacDonald's, two nukes and you get yourself a McDonald's and a Starbucks. Three nukes and we'll throw in a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Pretty soon there will be more than one fat North Korean. When Trump gets done dealing fast food chains for nukes, the Koreans will start dying off from all the diseases Americans are dying from. Probably all kinds of cancer from the glyphosate infused fast foods. Of course Kim will have to let Monsanto into North Korea, and before long all kinds of exotic cancers will be showing up that they never had before. Kim better think twice before he allows these addictive fast foods into North Korea. What's next: Pyongyang schoolchildren singing "I'd like to buy the world a coke and bring peace to the world. It's the real thing."

I think Kim has already surrendered to the US Empire if he lets American fast food chains into North Korea whether or not he trades them for nukes. After all he likes Dennis Rodman a lot. Perhaps Rodman should get some credit for the Americanizing of the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un is a secret American basketball fan, but I guess he's also enamored of American fast food.

America’s Megalomaniac

by Robert Reich

Monday, May 28, 2018

I spent last week at a conference in South Korea, during which time Trump went from seeking a meeting with Kim Jong Un to cancelling it, then suggesting it might be back on. 

“What does Trump want?” South Korean officials at the conference kept asking me. Notably, no one asked what the United States wants. They knew it was all about Trump. 

Trump’s goal has nothing to do with peace on the Korean peninsula, or even with making America great again. It’s all about making Trump feel great.

“They are respecting us again,” Trump exulted to graduating cadets at the Naval Academy last Friday. “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Nothing like winning. You got to win.”

In truth, the United States hasn’t won anything, in Korea or anywhere else. After fifteen months of Trump at the helm, America is far less respected around the world than it was before.

The only thing that’s happened is Trump is now making foreign policy on his own – without America’s allies, without Congress, even without the State Department. Trump may consider this a personal win but it hardly makes America safer.

Some earnest foreign policy experts are seeking to discover some bargaining strategy behind Trump’s moves on North Korea. Hint: There’s no strategy. Only a thin-skinned narcissist needing flattery and fearing ridicule.

Trump got excited about a summit with Kim when he thought it might win him praise, even possibly a Nobel Peace Prize. He got cold feet when he feared Kim might be setting Trump up for humiliating failure. Now he’s back to dreaming about the Prize.

The delicate balance in Trump’s brain between glorification and mortification can tip either way at any moment, depending on his hunches. All international relations become contests of personal dominance.  

He rejected the 2015 Iran treaty for no apparent reason other than Obama had entered into it. Trump couldn’t care less that by doing so he has harmed relations with our traditional allies, who pleaded with him to stay in. And he’s undermined America’s future credibility. Why would any nation (including North Korea) enter into a treaty with the United States if it can break it on the whim of a president who wants to one-up his predecessor?

Ditto with the Paris climate accord. Obama got credit for it, so Trump wants credit for unilaterally sinking it.

Trump has demanded that America’s nuclear arsenal be upgraded. Why? Since 1970, the United States has been committed to nuclear nonproliferation. What changed? Trump. A more powerful arsenal makes him feel more powerful – “respected again.”

It’s not about American interests in the world. It’s about Trump’s interests.

Wonder why Trump promised to lift trade sanctions on ZTE, China’s giant telecom company? ZTE has been trading with North Korea and Iran, in violation of American policy. Everyone around Trump advised against lifting the sanctions.  

Look no further than Trump’s personal needs. ZTE is important to China, and China recently pledged a half-billion-dollar loan to a project connected with Trump’s family business.

While we’re on the subject of high tech, why has Trump pushed the Postal Service to double the shipping rate it charges Amazon? I mean, isn’t Amazon important to America’s high-tech race with the rest of the world?

The most likely explanation is that the CEO of Amazon is Jeff Bezos, who’s also far richer than Trump. Bezos also owns The Washington Post, and the Post has been critical of Trump.

As you may have noticed, the man doesn’t like to be criticized. As Trump explained to Leslie Stahl of “60 Minutes” during his campaign, his aim is “to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

Any halfway responsible president of the United States would be worried about Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Protecting American democracy is just about the most important thing a president does.

But Trump has turned the inquiry about the Russians into a “dark state” conspiracy against him. And he’s demanded that the Justice Department investigate the people who are investigating him. 

With Trump, there’s no longer American foreign policy. There’s only Trump’s ego.

If peace is truly advanced on the Korean peninsula, the Prize shouldn’t go to Trump. It should go to South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who has tirelessly courted the world’s two most dangerous megalomaniacs.

Peace in Korea Is Still Possible — Just Without America

Published on Friday, May 25, 2018 by The Week

If some or all of these nations even make hesitant moves toward such a thing, it will demonstrate how Trump's flailing, herky-jerky incompetence is dissolving America's entire post-WWII foreign policy framework.

by Ryan Cooper

 

8 Comments

"On the North Korean side, they can get some relief from devastating sanctions, a partial return to ordinary nation status, and perhaps most importantly, get to appear magnanimous and statesmanlike." (Photo: Richard Engel/Twitter)

President Trump has abruptly canceled his much-hyped June 12 summit with North Korea in a baffling letter to Kim Jong Un in which he cited the latter's supposed "tremendous anger and open hostility." Given Trump's record of pervasive dishonesty and addle-brained rambling, it's anybody's guess what his actual thinking was.

Our allies seemed to have been caught off guard by Trump's missive. ("We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means," said South Korean government spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.) But once they've had a chance to gather themselves, there's no reason why South Korea, North Korea, and China shouldn't go ahead with their own diplomatic agreement to officially end the Korean War and sketch out some kind of live-and-let-live agreement in the region. Indeed, under the Trump administration, the United States is a hindrance to peace, or indeed any sort of functioning diplomacy at all. If Trump had gone ahead with this North Korea summit, it's a virtual certainty that either he or his team would have botched it somehow. Cut America out of the loop, and you might actually get something done.

All parties can still benefit powerfully. On the South Korean side, they can resolve the terrifying decades-long standoff with their northern neighbor, restore a semblance of diplomatic relations, and reduce the military threat aimed at their nation. A total dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is likely out of the question (and probably always was), but ballistic missile limitations and taking down the artillery emplacements aimed at Seoul is a reasonable ask.

On the North Korean side, they can get some relief from devastating sanctions, a partial return to ordinary nation status, and perhaps most importantly, get to appear magnanimous and statesmanlike. For an international pariah like Kim — and watching his performance at a recent visit to China — that latter possibility is surely an appealing one.

China (which would surely need to be involved as it is has by far the most leverage over North Korea) would get to resolve an obnoxious and destabilizing thorn in its side, gain prestige as the regional powerbroker while making the U.S. look foolish and incompetent, and even the juicy possibility of peeling off a close U.S. ally that is probably furious beyond words at Trump's betrayal. South Korean President Moon Jae-In has wagered enormous political capital on the possibility of some kind of rapprochement with North Korea, and is probably wondering just what the point of the American alliance is if he is going to be jerked around like this on his number one security priority.

Heck, Japan might want to get involved as well. They are only somewhat less threatened by North Korean saber-rattling, and may be figuring it's time to move towards a more neutral posture.

Obviously there is a lot of guesswork (and perhaps excessive optimism) involved in this argument, and even the leaders of these countries probably aren't sure themselves what they want to do yet. And after all, China and North Korea are ruthless dictatorships, and may not view peace as such a positive goal.

But even so, the logic is clear enough. And if some or all of these nations even make hesitant moves toward such a thing, it will demonstrate how Trump's flailing, herky-jerky incompetence is dissolving America's entire post-WWII foreign policy framework. As nations realize the United States cannot be trusted, a new day in international relations will dawn.

© 2018 The Week

Off the Top of My Head

The Cuckoo Foreign Policy

by John Lawrence, May 25, 2018

First you say you will. Then you won't. First you say you do. Then you don't. You're undecided now so what are ya gonna do?  Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. We'll see what happens. The bromance between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Il started off with a bang, Trump calling him Little Rocket Man and Kim calling Trump a dotard. Then they decided to get together and have a summit meeting. Then Trump called it off fearing that Kim might do it first. That's it. If you think your lover might end it, then you end it first so you don't have to suffer the humiliation.

Seriously, is this any way to conduct foreign policy? In short, heck no. These are serious matters with millions of human lives at stake and billions of dollars at stake. It's no way to conduct a relationship between two people let alone a relationship that affects the whole world. If Kim is smart, he'll form a bond with President Moon and President Xi and leave Trump out of the deal. Just humor him a little. Let him think he'll get the Nobel Prize. He's like Chief Inspector Dreyfuss lusting after the Medal of Honor, but his bungling of foreign policy is reminiscent of Gendarmes Third Class Closeau. Oh President Trump, you deserve the Nobel. You're so wonderful.

CNN reported:

With the summit now off, US allies and other stakeholders in the region were left scrambling to figure out their next steps. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who acted as a middleman between Trump and Kim, called an emergency meeting in the middle of the night after the White House went public with the cancellation.
Moon's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha spoke with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo early Friday about President Trump's sudden decision and the next steps for Washington and Seoul, two longtime allies. According to a South Korean statement, they said both sides should "devote effort to save the dialogue opportunity."

China has always been key to that strategy, as it accounts for nearly 90% of North Korea's imports, at least on the record. China's Foreign Ministry said Friday it hoped the United States and North Korea would "maintain patience, release good will and move in the same direction" to push the denuclearization process forward. "The Chinese government's position on this issue is consistent and clear. We think, as the two directly involved parties, North Korea and the US holding a summit plays a key role in promoting denuclearization on the peninsula," said ministry spokesman Lu Kang.

He said China was playing a "positive and constructive role" regarding the resolution of the nuclear issue. "We don't have any ulterior motives," he added.
Some experts say that China may be less willing to enforce tough measures if it believes that Washington isn't committed to pursuing diplomacy alongside sanctions.

No ulterior motives? China must be laughing up their sleeve at the dotard in the White House and his political dummy beside him. Cuckoo. Cuckoo!

 

Warning Against 'Return to Rhetoric of Nuclear Annihilation,' Koreans and Anti-War Voices Demand Trump Resume Peace Talks

Published on Friday, May 25, 2018 by Common Dreams

"You can't imagine rooting for peace for so long and then see it being taken away."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

1 Comments

"The people of both North and South Korea, and especially women, have worked too long and have come too close to reaching the first steps towards the signing of a Peace treaty to see the talks collapse," Christine Ahn, Korea expert and founder of Women Cross DMZ, said in a statement." (Photo: OhMyNews)

Refusing to let a chance to achieve lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula slip away and warning against "return to a rhetoric of nuclear annihilation," a group of peace activists, foreign policy experts, and ordinary Koreans gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Friday to call on President Donald Trump to reverse his cancellation of the June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and immediately return to the negotiating table.

"I do worry that Mr. Trump has made things more dangerous for us in Korea and I just hope that no-one pushes the button."
—Anonymous North Korean woman

 

"The people of both North and South Korea, and especially women, have worked too long and have come too close to reaching the first steps towards the signing of a Peace treaty to see the talks collapse," Christine Ahn, Korea expert and founder of Women Cross DMZ, said in a statement on Thursday. "We know that a diplomacy can be difficult. However, peace in the Korean Peninsula cannot have any more setbacks. It's been too long. It has been overdue more than 70 years."

Trump's announcement that the scheduled summit will not take place was met with dismay by both North and South Koreans.

"You can't imagine rooting for peace for so long and then see it being taken away," a woman who fled North Korea in 2006 said in an interview with the BBC on Friday.

Another North Korean, whose name was not revealed to protect her identity, told the BBC "we can't give up on the idea of peace in Korea yet."

"I do worry that Mr. Trump has made things more dangerous for us in Korea and I just hope that no-one pushes the button," she added.

Responding to Trump's abrupt decision cancel to the planned meeting with Kim on Thursday—which many experts blamed on the White House national security adviser and top warmonger John Bolton—North Korean officials signaled once again a willingness to negotiate with the U.S. and said their "commitment to doing our best for the sake of peace and stability for the world and the Korean Peninsula remains unchanged."

In an appearance on Democracy Now! on Friday, Ahn of Women Cross DMZ said "80 million hearts are broken across the Korean Peninsula" after Trump scrapped the planned summit. As Ahn spoke, Koreans gathered for a candlelight vigil to mourn the faltering peace talks and urge both the U.S. and North Korea to resume diplomatic discussions.

At candlelight vigil in Seoul, #koreans express anger at @realDonaldTrump for cancelling summit and destroying momentum for peace @WomenCrossDMZ @NobelWomen #WomenPeaceKorea pic.twitter.com/bbaiN7QxNM

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) May 25, 2018

"I say to President Trump and Chairman Kim: be courageous and sit down and work for peace and reunification for Korean families and the Korean peninsula," said peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire in a statement on Thursday. "Every day you hesitate, someone dies and will not get a chance to be reunited and to see their families."

Watch the peace rally that took place outside the U.S. Embassy in South Korea on Friday:

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Off the Top of My Head

The US Doesn't Know How to Make Peace. Only War

by John Lawrence

Trump had an impulse off the top of his head to get together with Kim Jong Un and talk peace. But then cooler heads and Trump's baser instincts prevailed. Instead of establishing a friendly rapport first, it became all about making Kim kowtow to the US and give them everything they wanted first and then maybe they would talk about peace. This is exactly what a bully does: extract concessions first and then maybe he will be your friend. And besides that, how will the US justify spending all that money on 35,000 troops it has stationed in South Korea. If peace broke out on the Korean peninsula, it would be a financial and economic shipwreck for the US.

The US is an empire, a war machine. It does not want peace in the world. It wants other nations to remain subservient to it. The whole US economy is dependent on war. Trump wants to take it a step further and make himself as US President the richest man in the world. That's what Ayn Rand's solipsistic philosophy suggests. Why do anything, including being US President, unless it profits you financially? That's what Trump's Russia ties are all about, the perquisites of Empire. Except Democrats are trying to tie him up in a knot over his Russian contretemps. However, Trump will probably get his Trump Tower in Moscow after everything is said and done.

The Koreans, both South and North, were under the illusion that the US would actually like to create peace in the Korean peninsula. No, they want a perpetual state of war. If they wanted peace, they would have laid the groundwork of friendship first and then worked out the details of denuclearization later. Now it's China's turn to step forward and broker a peace deal between North and South Korea. After Trump's embarrassment of the South's President Moon, the two Koreas should forget about the US and come to terms with China as the guarantor and with full backing from the United Nations. Then a united Korea could ask the US politely to leave. They wouldn't need the US' military umbrella protecting them any longer as if it ever was. Whether or not US troops stay in South Korea should be up to South Korea. Otherwise, it constitutes an occupation.

As Trump and his henchmen are making clear, the US wants the rest of the world to bow down to them as the world's reigning empire. The US is not interested in creating peace in the world. It's only interest, as Trump has made clear, is putting the USA first based upon its overwhelming military and its control of the world's banking industry with the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Now it's time for the rest of the world, which does seem to be interested in creating peace and prosperity for all people, to find ways to work around US control and militarism.

Trump Cancels North Korea Summit, Citing 'Open Hostility'

Published on Thursday, May 24, 2018 by Common Dreams

"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

11 Comments

U.S. President Donald Trump canceled the planned summit with North Korea on Thursday, citing "open hostility." (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

This is a developing story... check back for updates...

Citing what he calls the "tremendous anger" and "open hostility" in Pyongyang's most recent public statement, President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled the planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that was set to take place next month.

"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used," Trump wrote in a letter to Kim.

Read the full letter:

 Reacting to Trump's letter on Twitter, independent journalist and Korea expert Tim Shorrock noted that the statement on Thursday by North Korea vice-minister of foreign affairs Choe Son Hui—in which she referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a "political dummy"—appears to be "what set Trump off."

But, Shorrock added, Trump has no grounds to complain about "open hostility" given "the hatred and military threats spewing from his vice president and national security adviser" John Bolton.

Trump complains about North Korea's "open hostility." Does he even listen to the hatred and military threats spewing from his vice president and national security adviser? Did he know the Pentagon was deploying B-52s in US-SK air drills? All this happened BEFORE NK's outbursts.

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) May 24, 2018

"North Korea always said the US must end its hostile policy for it to negotiate on nukes," Shorrock notes. "But there's no sign of that."

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Off the Top of My Head

Why the Trump Kim Jong Un Meeting Will Never Take Place

by John Lawrence, May 17, 2018

As originally conceived, the Trump-Kim meeting was just a chance to get together and perhaps strike up a mutually respectful relationship that could then lead to more fruitful discussions down the line. But once Trump's men got ahold of it, they turned it into something far different. Basically, they made sure that it would be Trump talking down to Kim and making him kowtow in return. Thus the US is incapable of making friends first and then conducting business later. They want to set up the relationship first putting Kim in a subservient position because after all we are the United States and he's, well, he's just some two bit dictator albeit one with nuclear weapons.

The US has become the world's bully and the Trump-Kim meeting was to be no exception despite Trump's initial willingness to just have at it with no preconditions. His national security advisor, John Bolton, was having none of it. So Kim, knowing this, will probably not go along with the meeting because, after all, he is not going to take any shit from the President of the United States or anybody else. Peace between North and South Korea does not require US approval. What is the US going to do - sanction South Korea if they make peace? No, President Moon, you can't make peace without out approval!

What if North and South Korea made peace forming one country. It's like Barack Obama said, to paraphrase, "There is not one North Korea and one South Korea, there is only the UNITED State of Korea." What would or could the US do if they were left totally out of the peace process? Nothing. The US could be told to take their soldiers and get the heck unceremoniously out of Korea period. And Kim would keep his friggin' nuclear weapons or give them to China adding to China's nuclear stockpile, in return for China taking Korea under its umbrella. It could happen.

The US fighting communism by stopping the communist Chinese at the 38th parallel has become a joke, an anachronism. Who even believes that any more? It's like the European war that was fought over a pail of water and then many years later they couldn't even remember what they were fighting about. Anyway as Nietsche famously said, "A good war halloweth any cause." I'm sure Hitler agreed with those sentiments.

Seriously, what if Kim came out and said, "Forget the US. I want to make peace with President Moon, and we will take up the nuclear issue at a later date. We want China, not the US, to broker the deal." The US is not all up in arms about China's nuclear weapons so why doesn't Kim give his to China while still maintaining some control over them. I'm sure the situation is finessable, and the Korean situation is normalizable.  Trump already envisioned being able to reduce costs by getting the US military out of Korea. He could reduce them a lot more by getting the roughly 1000 US military bases out of other parts of the world as well.