Make No Mistake, Kim Got The Better Of Dotard In The Singapore "Deal"

 

Kim Jong -Un and Dotard do their 'Meet and Greet' in Singapore

Fresh off his impudent, childish lambasting of allies at the G7 meeting in Canada, there was Dotard yesterday evening greeting Kim Jong Un in Singapore. As wifey and I briefly watched the proceedings, before going back to the Brewers- Cubs game, she blurted out: "Which of those guys do you think has the biggest gut?"   I replied, "Trump by about a mile! Okay, maybe a foot!"

Picayune?  Petty? Unbecoming of global TV connoisseurs?  Maybe, but vastly more substantive than the vapid media coverage, show summit and absurd speculations about the likely results- one more symptom of our 24/7 cable news fetish.   Perhaps one former CIA specialist put it most aptly: "All empty calories, no substance".

In truth,  the outcome of this "summit" is already known and well defined, as Fareed Zakaria intimated on Bill Maher's Real Time Friday night. The bottom line is there isn't going to be any widespread removal of nuclear weapons, nor any ICBMs.  Certainly not in the immediate future - if ever.  (Talking heads this morning on CBS, Jeff Glor  and Ben Tracy, cited a period of "3 to 15 years" - in other words long after Dotard has likely croaked.)

It could in fact be much longer. As per a NY Times piece on Sunday ('What's Denuclearization, Exactly?, p. 8) we learn:

"The American definition of the term has referred to the demand that North Korea relinquish its nuclear arms capabilities, making the entire peninsular nuclear free.

John R. Bolton's denuclearization would also include much more, applying to ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons, the means to produce them and verifiable ways to ensure North Korea is not hiding anything.

North Korea's use of the term has never explicitly applied to its own weapons. Disarmament experts (say based at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) say North Korea has used denuclearization to refer to what it views as the American military's strategic capability to strike North Korea with nuclear weapons from afar, and to the American protection of South Korea and Japan under a so-called nuclear umbrella."

Commenting on the latter, Evans J.R.  Revere - a former State Dept. official specializing in North Korea - emphasized the term is how North Korea defines it: essentially meaning all parties denuclearizing especially the U.S.  

Anyone with sense can agree there is about as much chance of this happening as extraterrestrials abducting Trump out of Air Force One before he gets back to D.C.  It ain't gonna happen, no matter how many breathless talking heads you hear or see in the next few days.

Revere also notes this has "created a dangerous basis for misunderstanding perpetuated in part by South Korea's President Moon Jae-In, who has been eager for the Trump-Kim summit meeting to succeed..  The mantra is that the North Korean leader has committed himself to denuclearization. There's an element of wishful thinking, an excess of optimism and maybe even misjudgment."

Perhaps too eager.  Also, too damned ambitious given Bolton's desire to include ICBMS, chemical and biological weapons too.  In the words of CBS' correspondent Ben Tracy:

"Dismantling North Korea's vast nuclear arsenal would be one of the most challenging attempts at nuclear disarmament in history. The first step would be finding out what they have and where they have it."

Ahhh, but the devil is in the details, and these are pretty daunting.  As  Fareed Zakaria pointed out, the North has nearly one hundred nuclear testing sites all well hidden and all over the place. There is no way the U.S. is going to be allowed into all of those sites, even assuming they could find them.  To the North, its nuclear weapons are a matter of life and death, and no promises of "prosperity" are going to change that as one N. Korean security official made clear last week.  As for Bolton's idea of including missiles and chemical -bio weapons, that's as big a pipe dream as Elon Musk thinking he can get a manned space ship to Mars in the next few years.

What everyone needs to do then in the wake of this Singapore spectacle which has been blown up into the biggest summit in over 50 years, is to take a chill pill and move away from the tube. Or the favorite streaming device.  What happened in Singapore was just a giant optics show, a PR opera and little more.  Duyeon Kim, a senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum put it thusly (ibid.):

"It's pretty clear there is a strong inclination by both leaders to have a good show, a good PT opportunity, and this is where it gets risky and dangerous. My concern is that the two leaders -especially Trump  - would want to declare peace, just because it sounds good, is historic and unprecedented."

In other words, both dictators could be taken in by the hubbub and believe their own bullshit, as well as firing up preposterous expectations that can never be met.  In addition, both can spin this joke anyway they want given no notes were taken during the meet, and no aides were present to validate anything of what was said. (Oh, an absurd 4 minute PR video - claimed to have been shown to Kim  during the meet- was presented to the press later. In Lawrence O'Donnell's words "This looks like a child's presentation to another child to convince him to come to his party")

This video PR codswallop featured an idealized view of the future North under the new prosperity Trump would deliver if they only gave up their nukes.  Then the future scenes flipped  to a barren, isolated, poverty stricken landscape if they didn't. I had to tell Janice, I bet Kim held in his hysterical howls of laughter until he could trek to his personal toilet.)

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of this whole charade is how we've since learned that Dotard's blowing up of the G7 meet and attacking Justin Trudeau - was all done to "telegraph" to Kim Jong Un that he (Trump)  was a "tough leader" and the U.S. wouldn't tolerate anything from critical leaders. In other words, done to try to prove the Amerikkan Trumpie team would be tough negotiators. Of course, Kim isn't stupid, and would have seen through all this and interpreted it as weakness, emboldening him to give up even less and provide even fewer details of how the "denuclearization" dog and pony show will proceed.

Sad to say, it won't work. The takeaway - as one observer put it - is that Kim got nearly all he could ask for and more. He's been instantly transformed from global renegade and crazy guy into a shrewd and judicious world leader, almost a statesman.  By his meeting with Trump his country has also attained instant status and respect on the world stage - and he's not given up anything at all of substance - anything concrete.  Another heads up: The ink was barely dry on the statement sheet signed by both when KCNA (North Korean state news) blabbed that Kim had forced Trump to cancel joint military exercises with South Korea.

Trump insists Kim will give up his weapons.  Not a chance in hell.

You can bank on it.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/79630/just-another-great-con


And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/05/as-i-predicted-kim-jong-un-has-no.html

Why Donnie Dotard's North Korea Nukes' Parlay Is Doomed To Fail

"When North Korea talks about  'complete denuclearization,' it typically means that the U.S. ends its alliance with South Korea, and then North Korea will no longer need nuclear weapons to defend itself. But the U.S. won’t give up the South. And North Korea has been pursuing nuclear weapons since the 1950s, and I don’t know any expert who thinks that it will genuinely hand over its arsenal.    On my last visit to North Korea, in September, a Foreign Ministry official told me that Libya had given up its nuclear program — only to have its regime toppled. Likewise, he noted, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq lacked a nuclear deterrent — so Saddam was ousted by America. North Korea would not make the same mistake, he insisted.  It’s even less likely that North Korea will give up its nukes now that it sees Trump poised to tear up the Iran nuclear deal."   - Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, Saturday

First, let's acknowledge the agreement signed between Kim Jung-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, putatively ending the Korean War by a stroke of the pen, is a righteous, major step toward peace on the Korean peninsula.  At the same time, contrary to talking dunderheads it has nada to do with Trump, his threats, bloviations or 'fire and fury' rhetoric. So all the screwballs chanting "NO-bel! NO-bel!" at a Trump rally in Michigan Saturday night, need to come down off their opioid highs.  (Moon Jae-In himself ought to be ashamed for sucking up to Trump's  malignant narcissism to the extent of saying he "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize". There are  more or less disgusting vanity appeals to an autocrat, and then there is out and out groveling,  ass licking, which Moon is guilty of.)

At the same time, it is precisely Trump who has the power to scuttle whatever incipient peace plans may be afoot, mainly by misreading or misinterpreting what Kim Jong -un means when he talks of denuclearization.   To get a clue, read Nicholas Kristoff's take quote in bold blue above, and try to process it word by word.

Trump himself demands "nothing less than complete denuclearization"  and we've since learned over the weekend this ignorant buffoon has claimed a 'W' before the so-called summit has even occurred, e.g.
The Fix: Trump claims wins on North Korea before the game really starts

But his reckless claim is premature given that Kim and the North Koreans have done a neat end run around him and his "denuclearization"  demands by the use of clever semantics.   As Nicholas Kristof has also accurately noted:

"Kim’s game plan seems to be to sign pledges for denuclearization, leaving details to be worked out in follow-up talks, knowing that the pledges won’t be fully implemented and that there will never be intrusive inspections. "

And as the old saw goes, "the devil is in the details" .  Indeed, and it behooves us to get into those "weeds"....errr details, to grasp why - when one cuts thr0ught the media blather - there will be no "denuclearization" such as the Trumpy buffoons envisage.

While the breathless 24/7  cable media continue to babble about Trump probably "making history"  and getting North Korea to "dismantle"  its nukes, they'd do well to bloviate  less and process more. Especially the words quoted from Nicholas Kristof in his Times  article that first appeared on Saturday.  Or, they could read the WSJ editorial in its weekend edition, 'Korea Summit Hype' (p. A12) noting "there has been no tangible sign" of the North giving up its nuclear program.

Let me put this in even starker terms:  The chances of the North "dismantling" its nukes are roughly the same as the Cleveland Browns winning the next two Super Bowls with their latest Boy Wonder QB, Baker Mayfield.  It ain't gonna happen!  You can take that to the bank.

The North and Kim have not invested the past 30 years -  including recruiting rocket scientists from the former Soviet Union - to give it all up now on a whim, baseless media speculations, or Trump's braggadocio and threats. No way in hell. But for those still not convinced, let's look more closely, starting with Kristof's last point that Dotard wants to tear up the Iran nuclear deal.

We learned, for instance from the lead NY Times story on Sunday that::

"Kim Jong-un, had told President Moon Jae-in that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States agreed to formally end the Korean War and promise not to invade his country."

But how the hell could Kim believe a word the U.S. says when it's already reneged on the Iran nuclear deal?  That doesn't make sense. Let's process here that  the Iran nuclear deal -  already signed on to by a number of European nations  - is absolutely the gold standard for reducing Iranian weapons and up to now compliance has been verified, It's also been brilliantly defended by John Oliver, e.g.in this segment from "Last Week Tonight'.

Iran Deal: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube

The very fact the Trumpies would seek to tear it up discloses they can't be trusted with any other strategic nuclear  deals, especially which include any promise not to invade N. Korea and subdue it.  Why should Kim believe anything Trump says when he's already been documented as having made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to the latest WaPo tally?

Pompeo told ABC News in a broadcast on Sunday that the Trump administration’s objective was “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” with North Korea.  But most clear thinkers can tell him right now that is a total pipe dream. Unless he and John "Ripper" Bolton  can also swear (on a stack of bibles) that the U.S will never attack the North.   Meanwhile, Bolton dismissed that demand as another "page from the North's propaganda playbook" and insisted there had to be a complete, verifiable dismantling of nukes within 2 years.  But as the Times noted:

"Even in the additional details released on Sunday by South Korean officials, Mr. Kim appeared to hedge his bets, indicating that denuclearizing his country could be a long process that required multiple rounds of negotiations and steps to build trust."

Most  experts who are familiar with North Korea, like former CIA specialist Sue Mi Terry, estimate that any process if it does get off the ground - would  take 3-5 years, or likely longer (we hope!) than the Trump buffoons will be in power. So why would Kim just give it all up?

And again, Kim knows deep down the U.S. will never promise not to invade or attack because that isn't what's burned into this nation's militant DNA. For those who need reminding,  the American Empire is still guided by National Security Council (NSC) Directive ‘NSC 10/2’,  formalized on June 18, 1948. A key element therein warned that all activities to be conducted against “hostile” foreign states – or in support of “friendly” ones, were to be executed so that “no U.S. Government responsibility would be evident to any unauthorized persons.” The provision also had to be included that if such activities were discovered “the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them."

The scope of activities enumerated under the directive included: “propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action – including sabotage; subversion against hostile states including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerillas and refugee liberation groups and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.”

Ratcheting up the effect, and consolidating the impetus to Empire building,  was the document NSC-68, prepared by Paul Nitze of the National Security Council – completed by 1950. The document essentially contained the blueprint for unending strife and undeclared wars, all of which would be invoked on the basis of a zero tolerance threshold for foreigners’ misbehavior.

Note here that any excuse could be rendered to justify invocation of either document, neither of which has ever been revoked.  The North Koreans have to know this too, which is exactly why they'd demand a "promise" never to be attacked knowing full well the U.S. - especially under John Bolton's adherence to the documents -would never comply.  It is the proverbial "catch 22" which Kim knows can never be resolved, hence he can milk this de-nuking process as long as he wishes knowing he never has to comply because the U.S. won't first promise its non- interference.

Then there is the issue of the North Korean nuclear test site,  Punggye-ri, and Kim promising no further tests from this location.  Well, he can afford to make it because the site has collapsed! As reported in the WSJ ('North Korea Nuclear Test Site Collapse',  April 28, p. A8)  Chinese seismologists in a study published this month "concluded a secondary tremor" after their last test "was caused by the cavity's collapse"  Most experts in the know believe this has made the nuclear test site unusable for further testing. So, in other words, Kim isn't really giving up anything by asserting no further nuclear tests. (More recent reports quote Kim as stating there are still "two undamaged tunnels" at Punggye-ri, but those could well be decoy tunnels designed to mislead any foreign inspectors.)

But again, the so-called Kim-Trump summit and  presumed follow-ups may never manifest. By which I mean come to the point of actual inspection of nuclear test sites, so the issue could well be moot.   As one NBC news source put it this morning, Kim's promise to close Punggye-ri appears to be "mostly symbolic".  If the U.S. makes no promises not to invade then Kim will not make any "tangible" steps to de-nuking, as if he ever had such intentions anyway. 

Having seen first hand what happened to Iraq in 2003 and seeing how the U.S. treats the Iran nuclear treaty, there is simply nothing in it for Kim or the North Koreans. Trump - idiot asshole  that he is - will simply be making a long trek to Mongolia or Singapore (postulated meeting sites) for nothing.  As for Dotard's dreams of getting a Nobel Peace Prize, he'd do well to put that in the same "wish" canister as surviving his foul presidency.

See also: 
Trump’s Bargaining Chips Slip Away as Koreas Talk Peace