Donald J Trump has made history. No U. S. President has met the leader of North Korea until now.
Here is President Trump with a warm welcome for his counterpart Kim Jong Un.
Trump said he and Kim have forged “a special bond” and Trump said Kim is “very talented” as demonstrated by the fact “he took over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and run it, run it tough.”
Yes, having your Uncle publicly executed by machine gun fire, your half brother poisoned to death at the Kuala Lumpur airport, your own people regularly murdered and tortured, all that and more is running it fairly “tough.”
After several hours of talk the summit ended with, well, with what?
Once upon a time not so long ago or far way, Donald J Trump said that the de-nuclearization of North Korea must take place immediately, without delay, or, said Trump, he would walk away from a summit with Kim.
But that was yesteryear.
In the summit’s closing statement agreed to by both sides the nuclear issue is dealt with thusly: “…the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclerization of the Korean Peninsula.”
To put it bluntly, in agreeing to “work toward” Kim is saying not now, perhaps someday in stages and in putting it in the form of “denuclarization of the Korean Peninsula” Kim is saying he wants U S military presence gone as part of any deal.
Donald J Trump achieved the same promise that North Korea has given four times since 1992, only to break its word each time about “denuclearization.”
Trump got nothing substantive, nothing specific as to actions necessary to achieve the goal of “denuclearization,” in fact he even gave ground in the iece of paper he grandiosely waved to reporters.
Just consider what Kim got from the Great Dealmaker.
-Elevation on the world stage to a place alongside the President of the United States. Moreover, gushing praise poured on him, a murderous dictator, by said president.
-The promise of a visit to the White House in Washington and more summits whenever necessary (as PR props).
-Perhaps most important and most dangerous, a public statement from Trump that the U S will no longer participate in military exercises with South Korea. These routine exercises meant to ensure preparedness if the North strikes are “very provocative” according to Trump. Why those are the very words the North has used for years in protesting those exercises.
For Kim Jong Un, this summit was a wild success.
However, Trump wants the World to believe he has achieved a “breakthrough’ of unprecedented importance. As usual, his self-congratulatory rhetoric is over the top. You would think he is proclaiming “Peace for our time.”
That is an eerie phrase from yesteryear which was accompanied by another picture of warm friendship.
Hit this link and take a look (then return to the page using the back arrow button at the top):
The smiling man with the mustache on the left is Neville Chamberlain who was then the Prime Minister of Britain. The man on the right with the swastika on his arm band, well who doesn’t know who he is.
Chamberlain returned home from a summit meeting in Munich asserting the signed paper in his hand meant “peace for our time.” Actually, peace was not ensured until some sixty million people world wide had died.
But let us not end on a note of suspicion and pessimism on the subject of peace as a result of the Singapore summit. Let the last word come from its architect Donald J Trump, who tweeted from Singapore:
“The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle (sic) launches have stoped (sic), and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!”
Let us hope so.