After President Trump’s very public weekend rebuke of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on talking with North Korea, the White House on Monday reiterated that they are ruling out any direct talks with North Korea on its nuclear program.
“We’ve been clear that now is not the time to talk,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee-Sanders said, saying that the only thing the US would even conceivably talk to North Korea about is the release of Americans who have been detained within North Korea.
This adds to the public embarrassment of Tillerson, who had indicated over the weekend that US talks were ongoing, and was being praised by other nations for having a positive attitude toward dialogue.
A positive attitude toward dialogue is not a position that the Trump Administration wants to take, however, as Trump has, throughout his time in office, repeatedly reiterated his opposition to diplomacy. The White House seems only too eager to make sure everyone understands how much they’re not interested in direct talks as a way of resolving problems, and how committed they are to threatening war every couple of days as a go-to strategy.
This is clearly a rebuke of Tillerson who made statements which were not supported by the White House.
This is a buffet. Pick what you like, as there are several centers of power in US that need to be pleased.
By refusing to engage in difect talks, US is already in violation of UN SC resolution it just pushed for. So, I am expecting any day now to hear how N. Kotea is in
violation of this resolution, citing a condition that does not exist in the Resolution. In which case N. Kirea will — as in all previus cases — fling a missile iver Japan. And make everyone scramble. Looking at the problem from North Korean perspective, all they want is to finally end Korean war. No peace treaty was ever signed, leaving them in the limbo. This is not just the pressure on US, but probably more in China. While China is happily trading with US and getting rich, it has done nothing to persuade US to normalize relations and end Korean war. N. Korea trusted Bill Clinton, fullfilled all conditions, but naturally, no promises US made were fullfilled. Then came Bush, and South Korea had it enough opening dialogue with North, opening industrial zine, and tested the reconnected Trans-Korean railway across DMZ. This relic of Cold War needs to be consigned to history, not revived. US is behaving like a lady who looks fondly on a period when she was happy. And still wears the style of clothes and hairdo from the era. US elites lived the Cold War era. US was the sensible force, consevative and against revolutions and social and economic experimentation. And ss such, it had it easy in this complicated world. Not that imperial urges did not exist, but they eere written off because we were “at war”. South Korean initiative was scuttled, and Bush treated South Korean president badly, until “Sunshine” polucyvwas scuttled. From North Korean perspective, nobidy cared enough to end the Korean War. And thus, a new approach. Make everyone uncomfortable, make everyone forcibly involved. The threats of force against them have zero value. Population of North Korea is mistly sekf sufficient subsistence farmers, and the stories about hunger is a typical neocon demonization choreography. North Korea cannot be militarily defeated without destroying South Korea. If — a huge if — we can get rid of neocon mind control, and stop caring about N. Korea economy, store supplies, their hereditary presidency, or the weight problem of their president,, we can address the issue at hand. Otherwise, we are just exposing our inability to show our missile defence at work, and have our allies questioning our ability to defend them. Time to rnd Kkrean war. Quietly.
Thank you for reminding everyone about Bill Clinton’s crappy dealings with North Korea – he talked North Korea into a deal and then, as usual, decided not to fulfill his end of the deal (supplying them with the promised fuel oil). As awful as Trump is, our Presidential line has been nothing but crooked for 50 years – liar/crook Nixon; dumbass Ford; nice guy/sold out fool Carter; horseshit cowboy Reagan; dotard Bush; Slick Willie Clinton; idiot Bush; phony Obama; and now the pick of the litter, Trump. Good thing that we started with a great country, as what we have blown is about everything we started with
And we about to blow away the only thing that kept us at peace at home — American identity. For cheap political gains Democratic party resorted to identity politics. Having us divided into groups, focuising only on our perceived or real grievances, and decidedly forcing us to get out of running the country. No individual group cares about real dangers of polutants in our food, about scientific integrity in testing — from pharma to GMO. No group cares about endless wars, about our shrinking middle class, and debt burdened population and economy. So, who will actually remain an American first, and sll other identities second — in order to have a consensus on how the country is to be run. This is ehy it is easy to sell to population concepts like “global warming” , or rebranded as “climate change”. Concepts that have just one purpose — to establish first ever global tax. And with it, automatically come bodies for collection, funds distribution, compliance with the terms of funding, dispute judiciary, regulations change and enforcement. Yet, due to the utterly diluted concept of an American citizen, all boils down to some soppy Facebook-level of understanding of what exactly are we talking about. We have become juvenile, an outcome of wanting to stay young — to the point of not even wanting to understand the issue, its implications, costs. Politics is becoming more and more the ownership of elites, the ones who profit. This is a direct consequence of years of social engineering that created mirriad of identities and diversions. But the ptoblem is, those leading us are just as immature. There are few adults to be found, and our fate is in their hands. This is the reason why Chinese economy will be by the end od the year 115% of US economy, and in only a decade will be three times US economy. All the neocon predictions of Chinese banks getting in trouble, or their state owned compsnies getting in trouble, or their stock market getting in trouble — were wrong. And it is time to look hard at what are we doing to ruin our economy, not just looking for faults elsewhere.
Vietnam war lesson has not been learned at all. Poor intelligence, poor knowledge about the world, poor military decisions, stupidity and arrogance combined to produce a predictable result. And it is repeating now on many more fronts. But with pooulace inward looking, seeking to demonize not to understand, it is mushrooming out of control.
I thought that Bolton left the White House but it looks like he is running things.
1. Bolton’s desire to leave the JCPOA is right on track.
2. Bolton is insistent that we not talk to N. Korea claiming that we’ve tried diplomacy for 25yrs. Really? There was the Bill Clinton deal that got us a freeze in their plutonium production for 8yrs but after that we just slapped on sanctions for the next 20.
To preserve his honor and dignity, Tillerson should resign. He was trying to do his job, but the WH and its neocon handlers evidently prefer war, nuclear first strike, nuclear winter, and death of billions.
Victory for the military/security/industrial complex and the oligarchs that survive.