In a move that appears to be based more or less entirely on allegations they were behind the February assassination of Kim Jong-nam, President Trump has indicated that the US will be putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded the move was “very symbolic.” This will add North Korea to a list of nations that can officially be blamed for terrorism, including Sudan, Syria, and Iran. North Korea had been on the list in the past, but was removed in 2008.
While Trump played up the move as mostly about imposing a bunch of new sanctions on North Korea, Tillerson also appeared to downplay that, saying that the practical effects would be very limited, given all the sanctions already n place.
This has been a recurring problem for the US, which is always desperate to “do more” with North Korea sanctions, but has already banned everything meaningful long ago, meaning each new round of sanctions is increasingly petty and trivial, banning things like ski equipment that weren’t exactly flying off the shelves in the first place.
Trump to declare that North Korea has cooties. Also, Kim Jong-un double dips his chips. He has overdue library books and unpaid parking tickets.
North Korea is on double secret probation.
“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded the move was “very symbolic.” But adding North Korea to a list of nations that can officially be blamed for terrorism, including Sudan, Syria, and Iran is anything but symbolic, it is the fig leaf used to justify deployment of troops, drones, airstrikes and anything else under the rubric of “fighting terrorism.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s Armed Forces, has been on the list of “terrorist organizations” for years, a sword of Damocles waiting to fall and impale us in yet another undeclared war, at any time. Is this really what Americans want?
Well what did you expect, Kim Jong Un terrorized Trump by referring to him has “old”.
I was just watching the movie “American Made”, where even though the CIA and Ronnie’s boys like Ollie North all knew that it was the Contras who were involved in the drug trade …. Ronnie still went on TV and announced he had ‘proof’ that it was the Sandinistas who were involved in Coke shipments to the US.
My brain wonders if this is the same thing. We know for a fact that when the Taliban ruled the country, that poppy and opium production plummeted. But now we are told by more of the President’s men and the US military that its the Taliban that’s running drugs.
From this distance, I simply don’t know. I just spot the inconsistencies, the places where the Matrix doesn’t quite match up and there are these little jumps. Yes, war does make strange bedfellows, and perhaps the Taliban has decided they needed the money to try to get the Americans finally out of their country. But, we do still know as facts from international reports that during the brief time the Taliban controlled the government that they reduced opium production. Now we are told by the US military that they are behind it. Maybe is all I can say. Perhaps the US military with their extensive contacts to drug runners can say this is true. But it doesn’t match the earlier fact that we know is true.
Just because the President labels North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism it doesn’t actually mean they are. It is more perception than reality. If one were to objectively look at state sponsor of terrorism, sorry, but it would be our own government, especially under Obama. He and his CIA factually sponsored, funded and armed terrorists and terrorist organizations in Syria. They (and now under Trump) assassinate thousands of people (they call them terrorists) with explosives and shrapnel via hell fire missiles. They overthrow govts directly and work with proxies to destabilize govts. Maybe one day all this belligerence and arrogance of labeling everyone a terrorist will boomerang and they will have nobody to blame but themselves.
The US drops 26000 bombs on the ME in 2016 – https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-many-bombs-did-united-states-drop-2016 – and labels NK a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’.
Right out of Orwell.