And we know that based on the compelling evidence of “SHE JUST WOULD HAVE NEENER NEENER BENGHAZI EMAILS VINCE FOSTER”, despite her relatively busy but otherwise unremarkable tenure as Secretary of State. Morgenstern is right - Clinton wouldn’t have done anything to upset the status quo, and certainly nothing so chaotic as a war. That’s more the Republicans’ style.
My own theory is that if Donald Trump has facilitated the peace process between the Koreas at all it has been due to the application of his own particular version of the Madman Theory, except that - unlike Nixon - Trump isn’t feigning being “irrational and volatile”; he genuinely is. Kim had been attempting something similar but was smart enough to realize he was being out-crazied by someone who was perfectly willing to start a nuclear war for stupid reasons, supported by advice from other irrational warhawks.
Which would also explain why Moon is so keen to give Trump the credit - he’s probably scared not to. Only half-joking there
There was a Republican congressman calling for a new Marshall Plan – maybe the Trump Plan as he said – to offer tons of development aid to North Korea as part of the upcoming talks.
WTF is going on with the Republican Party? Have they completely lost their collective minds? (Oh yeah, yes. Yes they did.) Clinton offered some oil and a nuclear reactor that couldn’t make weapons-grade fissile material, the vast majority of which was to be paid for by Japan and South Korea, and Republicans totally lost their shit over that plan.
Trump goes apoplectic when he talks about this right-wing conspiracy theory of secret airplane flights that illegally delivered tons of cash to Iran, in exchange for them ending their nuclear program.
And now some dude in that same party wants to commit the U.S. taxpayer to rebuilding North Korea on the basis of a deal that isn’t even on the table yet? Talk about crazy.
Moon, like anyone else who has to deal with our president and isn’t a complete fool, has ascertained that a flattered Trump is a pacified Trump. So, sure, give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Give him four or five of them. Give him toys to play with and trophies to wave around— whatever it takes to keep him distracted so other people can try to get things accomplished without him fucking it up.
That’s it. In addition, he *is *the President and he does have all the power of the United States at his command. If being on the good side of that power means a little self-humiliation at times, well, that’s what you signed up for when you went into politics, right?
I dunno. Labor rates in China are getting pretty high these days. Did you see the latest episode of Silicon Valley on HBO? Chinese workers are begin coddled to the point where they are no longer jumping out of buildings! We need a new pool of dirt cheap labor, and NK might just be the ticket.
Meh, you’re right. If the way Hillary ran her campaign is any indication of how she would run the White House, she wouldn’t have the energy to start a war what with all the briefings and such.
She had pretty much the same number of rallies that Trump did, about 300. You’re starting to sound like you’re adopting the sexist argument about “when a man talks loud, he’s assertive; when a woman talks loud, she’s screeching” to the campaign stump: “when a man holds 300 rallies, he’s a real go-getter; when a woman holds 300 rallies, she’s low energy.”
Wow, you’re right! I looked up Hillary’s rallies and they were roughly equal to Trump’s. It just goes to show that even a zombie can be wrong.
But let me assure you that sexism had nothing to do with my assumption. My mother is an executive in high-tech. Sort of like Sarah Palin in your IT Department.
And let me be clear, I’m not saying you are sexist. I was just pointing out that when women act similar to men, some consider the man’s behavior normal and the woman’s to be a character flaw.
In both cases, the 1990s and now, it’s pure, naked politics. Shit, as far as Republicans are concerned, the game of foreign policy was ‘game on’ the moment Reagan “won” the Cold War all by himself, as though Russia (USSR) was an economic machine until Reagan bankrupted it with star wars.:rolleyes: Since Reagan, Republicans have been committed to undermining Democrats on foreign policy, but everything they oppose is good when they do it.
We may end up spending 6 to7 trillion dollars on Middle East wars after everything is said and done. That doesn’t account for the lost lives either. Just as a general rule, I would rather buy peace than fight for it. Reuniting the Koreas seems far more possible than bringing Iraq into civility. In a purely pragmatic sense, rebuilding North Korea may be best for everyone.
Of course, it could be a political nightmare for Republicans as Democrats will ask why we’re spending so much money rebuilding a foreign country while cities run by Democrats need rebuilding.
Right, but context is everything. Iran got NOTHING from the American taxpayer, but it is portrayed as a rip-off. Rebuilding North Korea – something that South Korea has really been planning for for a long time if reunification happens – would potentially put U.S. taxpayer on the hook for real money.
Plus, the idea of providing billions in aid to North Korea in the absence of reunification just seems… stupid. Providing sanctions relief in exchange for an end of their nuclear program? Of course! But for cold, hard cash? Terrible deal.
It’s pretty clear that Trump is the worst negotiator who has ever been in DC. He couldn’t close the healthcare repeal and replace deal with his own party, he got the tax bill my the measure of a gnat’s ass, and has lost two straight budget negotiations to the minority party. He is terrible at this. Which means that we should be worried about what a Trump-KJU negotiation will mean. Frankly, I’d be far more optimistic if Pompeo or even Tillerson was leading the talks.
North Korea reportedly hands Trump another big win by releasing US prisoners
"North Korea has released three US citizens detained there, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing a South Korean activist who campaigns for the release of detainees.
The releases would meet some of the US’s demands for North Korea to demonstrate sincerity before a historic meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — something that John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, reiterated during an interview on Fox News on Sunday."
My money is on Donald bringing them back with him with whatever additional intestinal parasite the accumulate between now and then. I wonder if he will sit next to them on the plane.