The Trump-Kim show begins…
Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump accepted Kim Jong-un’s invitation for a one-on-one summit meeting ”” a meeting scheduled to take place within 12 hours of this article being published ”” Korea-watchers had been quick to point out the dangers that lie embedded in that all important word “denuclearization.” The term, taken alone, means very different things to North Korea and the United States.
With just hours to go, there’s little evidence that U.S. negotiators have managed to extract a commitment from North Korea to anything but an ambiguous commitment to denuclearization. Indeed, the necessity of a last-minute meeting between the U.S. and North Korean summit negotiating teams led by Sung Kim, a former U.S. special representative on North Korea policy and an experienced negotiator, and Choe Son-hui, North Korea’s top diplomat for dealing with the United States, suggested that the agenda has yet to be fixed up.
The article goes on to state that “Trump has said that the summit will be the start of a process.” That’s pretty ambiguous, but I think it just about covers it. The whole thing seems like a surreal development to me, and there are enormous pitfalls possible, one of which is giving Kim the prestige he yearns for. But I think the talks are the most hopeful things that have occurred regarding North Korea in many a long year.
That isn’t saying all that much; there have been no hopeful things that have occurred regarding North Korea in many a long year.
This is a through the glass strangely affair. No POTUS has managed to bring the NORKS to a sit down. That is a YUGE event. While no one should expect a miracle, perhaps a beginning to normal relationships can occur via baby steps.
We’ll see.
Those of us in nearly the same time zone & certainly within missile range are hoping for something substantive…if not now then at least a foundation for something substantive in the near future.
The pussy-footing of the last several administrations has proved grossly inadequate.
I will be happily shocked if anything positive comes out of this meeting. I find reassuring Trump’s assertion that he’ll know within minute(s) if Kim is serious. That tells me he’s not going into this wearing rose colored glasses.
I think there a lot of moving pieces in all this. Perhaps attempting to thaw relations with North Korea, a hell hole that deserves no respect, is a play to diminish China’s influence as part of an effort to curb China’s ability to intimidate its way across Asia and beyond.
Well, smart people have pointed out that “Trump is damned if he engages, and damned if he doesn’t” So, give engagement a chance.
I will be glad when it is over, and maybe the Punditry will then talk about what actually happened, instead of endlessly speculating about what might. I assume, of course, that the “leaks” will be reasonably accurate, and that the media will try to report the truth. I mean, seriously.
We have all expressed our opinions of Trump, the man, the candidate, and now, the President. As I have said, my own opinion has evolved to an extent. There is still room for more.
One thing I do like about him is that he does not feel constrained by the “conventions” of diplomacy. Throughout history, and certainly within my life time, those who obsequiously adhere to those conventions, have stumbled from disaster to disaster. So, shake it up a bit, and let’s see what you got, Mr President.
One of my uncle’s fought in Korea at Chosin. My grandparents got him pulled out of Korea since they had already lost one son in WW 2.
My uncle never, ever, spoke of the war but one day when I was young and fooling around in his garage I discovered an envelope full of black and white snapshots that he had taken and brought home with him.
In black and white photos I remember that the blood around mounds of NORK bodies was the color of dark shadows on the snow and one picture showed a pair of boots with human feet still inside and bones showing at the top.
That was 68 years ago. This war needs to be over.
Oldflyer Says:
June 11th, 2018 at 7:28 pm
I will be glad when it is over, and maybe the Punditry will then talk about what actually happened, instead of endlessly speculating about what might. I assume, of course, that the “leaks” will be reasonably accurate, and that the media will try to report the truth. I mean, seriously.
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You forgot the /sarc tag.