North Korea and South Korea, together again
Well, the optics are certainly good.
The reality is probably something quite different, although I couldn’t tell you what it is. But there is no reason to trust anything that Kim does.
However, I can tell you one thing: if this had happened under Obama’s watch, it would be lauded to the skies and attributed to his wonderful genius.
But since Trump’s president, that’s SOOOOOOOOOOO
not happnin”.
There couldn’t be a more stark example of MSM bias that the lack of coverage of and approbation for what Trump’s tough actions towards North Korea have led to so far, vs. the MSM’s fawning wall to wall coverage of every illusory or negligible Obama foreign policy initiative and supposed “triumph,” the disastrous “Iran deal” chief among them.
Far Left Democrat Obama does it, it’s golden, masterful, and bound to be a great success.
Republican/America First Trump does it, it’s shit, a huge mistake, and bound to be a failure.
Mr. Kim got pressure from all sides:
1) His test mountain is cratering
2) Beijing is freaked out about (1)
3) Those economic sanctions are really getting painful
4) The regime depends upon largesse to the faithful, see (3)
5) Nork’s cyber spies hacked South Korea
6) The hack was huge, revealed that the US had way too much info, and had multiple plans// options for taking down Mr. Kim
7) The Syrian missile strike was really aimed at Pyongyang
8) USAF B-1 bombers demonstrated they can’t be stopped by SAMs.
blert,
I think another factor is that Kim really wants to be seen as cool. He would probably love to be seen as the Kim who turned the country in a different direction where tree bark was not on the menu.
Thanks to blert for a good summary of North Korea’s problems. They could continue on as they have, running a closed-off “gangster-state” dependent on hard currency from quasi-criminal activities. But it’s also possible that the North Korean leadership may believe that such a model is no longer viable for the long run.
Kim Jong-Un and his associates may think that the writing is on the wall, and that they have to change while they can still control things. South Korea is a lot more developed than it used to be just a few decades ago, and they may fear being left too far behind. If future prospects are bleak, then gracious statesmanship is the better option.
It’s also important not to under-estimate the emotional and psychological desire for reunification, as seen most recently in the Winter Olympics.
Has anyone noticed the *copy* optics? The 2 Koreans planting a tree ala Trump Marcon & wives. then a shot of Kim holding hands with his counter part.while they traversed a small stairway. Trump must have got on the phone & barked at Kim unless you do this Optic I wont be coming to N Korea. Kim took it to the next level by channeling the Donalds,
*this is how it’s done * behaviors.
We’ll see.
I’m not buying it. At least not yet and, I pray that I’m being too cynical and that the Norks will abandon a 50+ years pursuit of nuclear ICBM capability. But I must ask; if the Norks have been sincere that their pursuit of nuclear ICBM capability has been motivated by fear of a US invasion… then what’s changed that removed that fear? And, if all along it was just a plausible cover and excuse, what mortal threat convinced them to change course?
As there’s no way they feared a nuclear first strike by Trump since that would provide his enemies on both sides of the isle the perfect rationale for impeachment… Given that the Norks have to know how much anti-Trump hysteria resides on the Left and among establishment RINOs. We can be certain that they’re familiar with Sun Tzu’s admonition to “know thy enemy” too…
Snow on Pine, 3:30 pm — “There couldn’t be a more stark example of MSM bias that the lack of coverage of and approbation for what Trump’s tough actions towards North Korea have led to so far . . . . Republican/America First Trump does it, it’s shit, a huge mistake, and bound to be a failure.”
M J R offers,
No kiddin’. Dat Donald Trump is a joik. He don’t know sh#t ’bout diplomissy. All dat Rocket Man crappe — what did it get us, HUH?? Everyt’ing da joik does is a g#dd#m skrew up. F#ck him.
I wrote earlier this year that China and Russia put their armies on the North Korean border.
I also predicted that North Korea was under severe pressure as a result.
Thus it isn’t surprising to me that months later now, that they are caving and trying to do “diplomacy”.
The N Korean threat of using nukes is not as great as people believe it is. If N K ever graduated to air burst testing form their underground bunker testing, China and Russia will race each other to see who will take over NK first, for violating the test ban treaty. The test ban treaty is not something the Deep State wants to ignore.
No one should be placing their trust in someone who would kill his brother to get rid of anyone who could be a threat to his throne. It is appalling that people can forgive what unspeakable thing that monster did to Otto so quickly. In this fu*k up political correct world even a monster who has committed so much hideous crimes like kim could be treated with admiration and respect by the msm as long as he put on a smile and speak politely in front of a camera. give me a break, he fed his uncle to a pack straved hunting dogs, stop giving him respect and treating him like pope john paul ii or mother teresa, are the media all suffering from stockholm syndrome or something？
Leftists treat rapists, child molestors at Hollywood, and murderers like Ted Kennedy as heroes. So long as you are a Demoncrat, the demons will love you.
People are already discrediting Trump for any involvement. As one celeb put it, “Trump didn’t build that.”
Blert,
I suspect it’s mostly #2, but certainly also #1, since that would be the major cause of #2.
(Not too pleasant living downwind from a potential radiation leak that makes— Chernobyl look like a walk in the park especially if you’ve been supporting and funding the cause of the leak, though I don’t know if the CHICOMS “do” irony…though perhaps it’s more like “payback”.)
Despite is the word the left uses, the relationship between nk and sk improved despite of trump.
They blame every bad thing that happened during Obama’s presidency on bush and they credit every good thing that is happening in trump’s presidency on obama. The left is the embodiment of every human emotion deficiency and logical fallacies there is.
The left embraces the bad ways of thinking that parents used to teach their kids not to do. Remember when parents used to teach children not to prejudge people or jump to conclusion whenever they were triggered by someone because it was very likely to be an misunderstanding or an honest advice, not today. Left teach black people to prejudge everything as racism whenever they get triggered in the most trivial way and deny the suspect any opportunities to explain themselves. the left has also covered all ends that a person can explain themselves out of a racism accusation by claiming that any explanation is just a way to cover up and explain away their racism.
The left is so great at circular reasonings that they have mastered the art of successfully accusing anyone of any mental crime they want. You are racist if you treat minorities badly but you are also racist if you treat them especially well because it is an act of pretend to cover up your racism.
The problem with the Leftist alliance is that the more people fight them, the more they will become like the Left. It’s part of the trap.
The Deep State doesn’t need the Leftist alliance to survive. It’s just a pawn. Discard it when needed.
Bush II was really President during Hussein’s regime, so that’s why all the bad stuff that happened was Bush’s fault. Trum will be President when HRC is in jail.