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Kim Jong-un celebrates American Independence Day in style…

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #25 on: July 05, 2017, 07:01:11 pm »


Look at all the screeching HEADLESS CHOOKISM from the Americans who hold the biggest military arsenal in the world, all intended for use on anywhere in the world except against America.

Talk about Pot....Kettle....Black!!
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« Reply #26 on: July 05, 2017, 07:21:39 pm »

Ok..so you are all for North Korea having the freedom to produce long range nuclear missiles.....I hope we don't get to see where that strategy leads us to😉

Is like being diagnosed with cancer and hoping it goes away, without intervention...typical demented lefty approach...if there is a hard decision to be made...just put on the blinkers...what you don't see is not a problem😉
Seems to be the lefty way...if we're ok..who cares about the rest😉

Yup..so again ...no answer....plenty of ridicule...but no answer or solutions....
There has to be a name for people like you....oh that's right...there is..🤡

When you finally decide oN a solution feel free to share

You can avoid the question for as long as you like but it won't go away..
You bring up all the usual lefty propaganda...but the question won't go away..
You can run..but you can't hide..
Just be honest and say what your solution would be if you were in a position to have influence..
Go on..I dare ya😜
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« Reply #27 on: July 05, 2017, 07:32:08 pm »


No country should have nuclear weapons.

But as some countries already have them and can threaten the rest of the world with them, I can understand why other countries want them as a deterrence against American aggression.

The solution is for ALL countries to give up their nuclear weapons and their long-range ballistic missiles.

But until such time as those countries which have those weapons refuse to give them up, then you can hardly blame other countries for obtaining the means to deter the nuclear-armed countries from attacking them.

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Donald
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« Reply #28 on: July 05, 2017, 07:40:01 pm »

Ok, no worries...you don't have a problem with North Korea developing long range nuclear capability based on the fact that other countries already have them😉

Hopefully we don't get to see that particular shit hit the fan🤓

I wonder if your view would be the same if NZ was situated where South Korea happens to be😳
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« Reply #29 on: July 05, 2017, 07:59:36 pm »


I have a worry with America having a shitload of nuclear warheads aimed all over the world.

And don't forget that North Korea doesn't have a history of incinerating tens of thousands of human beings in the blink of an eye using nuclear weapons and thereby commiting war crimes against humanity, unlike the United States of America which does have a history of using nuclear weapons to incinerate human beings, and not just once either.
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Donald
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« Reply #30 on: July 05, 2017, 08:09:54 pm »

Yes...well you probably would have a problem with it if you one of the soldiers who would have died in WW2 by the prolonged continuation of the warif America had not finished it quickly by bombing Japan....but who cares about them eh...having to die saving our arse....stuff them eh😳
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« Reply #31 on: July 05, 2017, 08:15:54 pm »


Do you suppose Iraq would have been invaded by America using non-existant WMD as an excuse if Saddam had been in possession of REAL nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles?

Do you now understand why other countries wish to have a nuclear deterrent against American aggression?

America has a long history of militarily invading other countries.

By way of comparison, North Korea has only ever once invaded another country.

Kinda says it all, except that you are too stupid (and have your tongue too far up Trump's arsehole) to comprehend complex stuff like that.

Go and play in your sandpit....it's more your intellectual level; and leave the serious stuff to the adults.

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« Reply #32 on: July 05, 2017, 08:33:18 pm »

No Saddam would have invaded Kuwait successfully...instead of the US defending Kuwait...and Saddams invasions would not have stopped with Kuwait.... and the people of Kuwait owe America a lot for defending them against Saddam....I guess they are very thankful..unlike a few demented short sighted lefties in NZ😉
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« Reply #33 on: July 05, 2017, 11:09:50 pm »


Not to worry.

The American commander in Chief idiot in chief is mounting a beautiful Twitter defense. It will be awesome. Nuclear weapons melt at his mere words.





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« Reply #34 on: July 05, 2017, 11:43:40 pm »

It has certainly slowed down the chemical weapons use by the Syrians and Russians in Syria 😉
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« Reply #35 on: July 06, 2017, 12:30:37 am »


Did I just hear a flea farting? 
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« Reply #36 on: July 06, 2017, 02:44:53 am »

No..I think that is your brain grinding to a halt..just the type of employee kiwirail needs in its effort to suck hundreds of millions of hard earned tax dollars from our generous taxpayers...year after year after year ...ad infinitum ☹️
..how much is it now...must be a few billion.....enough for a trillion hip replacements😒
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« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2017, 11:14:37 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Trump has never had a plan for dealing with North Korea

Trump's only plan was to make China solve the problem.

By PHILIP BUMP | 10:34AM EDT - Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Since his inauguration, President Trump’s tone on Twitter has oscillated between blaming China for North Korea and dismissing China as unnecessary in containing the problem. — Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
Since his inauguration, President Trump’s tone on Twitter has oscillated between blaming China for North Korea and dismissing
China as unnecessary in containing the problem. — Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


WE forget sometimes that President Trump's political rhetoric was forged not over years of policymaking or in discussions with experts on foreign policy and domestic issues, but in weekly phone interviews with “Fox and Friends”. Before he declared his candidacy, the real estate developer and TV personality would appear on the program every Monday morning, weighing in on the issues of the day as the hosts offered their now-familiar lack of criticism of his musings.

On April 8th, 2013, for example, Trump called in to discuss a variety of subjects: his show, “Celebrity Apprentice”, WrestleMania — oh, and North Korea.

Host Steve Doocy broached that subject by noting that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might soon test a nuclear weapon “or do something dopey like that” — but that China might actually be starting to put pressure on the rogue nation.

“Well, I think China has total control over the situation,” Trump responded. North Korea “wouldn't exist for a month without China. And I think China, frankly, as you know — and I've been saying it for a long time, and people are starting to see that I'm right — China is not our friend.”

He had been saying this for a while, in fact. He tweeted about it in March of that year, saying that, “China could solve this problem easily if they wanted to, but they have no respect for our leaders.” A few weeks later, another tweet: “North Korea can't survive, or even eat, without the help of China. China could solve this problem with one phone call — they love taunting us!”




How did “Fox and Friends” reply to Trump's argument? Well, the conversation quickly transitioned to Trump having been inaugurated into the pro wrestling Hall of Fame.

To be fair, Trump wasn't a politician then, so there was much less of a reason to demand a hard answer. Of course, there was also little reason to ask his opinion. But this is the crucible in which Trump's policy on North Korea was formed — and over the course of the presidential campaign, it didn't evolve much.

During the Republican primary debates last year, Trump's argument was consistent: North Korea was China's problem, and China wasn't dealing with it because they didn't respect President Barack Obama since Obama wouldn't strong-arm them. In a January 2016 debate, Trump argued that China was “ripping us on trade” and that the country was “devaluing their currency,” implying that he might use tariffs and a crackdown on that manipulation to bring China to heel on the North Korea issue.

The following month, Trump put the whole issue in China's lap:

I deal with them. They tell me. They have total, absolute control, practically, of North Korea. They are sucking trillions of dollars out of our country — they're rebuilding China with the money they take out of our country. I would get on with China, let China solve that problem. They can do it quickly and surgically. That's what we should do with North Korea.

In a debate the following March, Trump criticized how Obama and other presidents had handled tensions, saying that “every time this maniac from North Korea does anything, we immediately send our ships. We get virtually nothing.” (In April of this year, Trump's administration said it was sending an armada to North Korea in response to Kim’s saber-rattling, but no ships were actually en route.)

To The New York Times at that time, Trump was explicit in his charge that Obama was impotent on the issue.

China says well we'll try. I can see them saying, “We'll try, we'll try.” And I can see them laughing in the room next door when they're together. So China should be talking to North Korea. But China's tweaking us. China's toying with us. They are when they're building in the South China Sea. They should not be doing that but they have no respect for our country and they have no respect for our president.

In a speech in April 2016, Trump said that “President Obama watches helplessly as North Korea increases its aggression and expands even further with its nuclear reach. Our president has allowed China to continue its economic assault on American jobs and wealth, refusing to enforce trade rules — or apply the leverage on China necessary to rein in North Korea.”

Once he won the GOP presidential nomination, Trump repeatedly hammered Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on her failure to curtail the North Korea problem when she was the secretary of state. His campaign created a lengthy list of ways in which Clinton had failed, citing news reports of successful nuclear tests and rocket launches a few months into Clinton's State Department tenure. Despite that, his campaign's national defense platform included only one mention of North Korea, arguing that the United States should bolster its missile defenses.

During the general-election debates, Trump stuck to the same theme. “China should solve that problem for us,” he said in September 2016. “China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.”

When Trump met with Obama during the presidential transition, Obama reportedly warned Trump that North Korea would be the most urgent problem he would face. Trump, during that period, continued to argue that China must address the North Korea threat and that, under his watch, no North Korean weapon could strike the United States.




Once he became president, though, Trump's tone shifted.

In April of this year, with the 100-day mark of his presidency looming, Trump told Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo that getting China to fix the problem was not that simple. Describing a conversation with President Xi Jinping of China, Trump said that North Korea was the first thing he brought up. However, Xi “then explain[ed] thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy.”

“In other words,” Trump said, “not as simple as people would think.”

Since his inauguration, his tone on Twitter has oscillated between blaming China for North Korea and dismissing China as unnecessary in containing the problem.

March:




April:



(He made this point that same month in an interview with the Financial Times, saying that “if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”)



May:



June:



July:



China can fix this and needs to. Maybe China can fix this. If China doesn't fix this, we will. China isn’t fixing this, but can.

The reason for this back-and-forth is obvious: Trump promised that he could put pressure on the Chinese to cut off North Korea, forcing that nation to end its nuclear ambitions. But once Trump took office, that policy proved to be much harder than he'd presented. So, lacking an obvious solution (since none exists), he continues to try to blame China's policy while explaining why the Chinese haven't been moved to action.

As he's done so, he's been put in the uncomfortable position of having to wave away his past promises. On labeling China a currency manipulator, for example, he told “Fox and Friends” in April that he wouldn't press that issue as long as China was working with the United States on North Korea.

“[W]hat am I going to do, start a trade war with China in the middle of him working on a bigger problem — frankly — with North Korea?” Trump said to host Ainsley Earhardt. “So I'm dealing with China with great respect. I have great respect for him. We'll see what he can do. Now maybe he won't be able to help. That’s possible. I think he's trying, but maybe he won't be able to help. And that's a whole different story. So we'll see what happens.”

He said as much on Twitter.




To Earhardt, Trump also praised China's rejection of coal ships from North Korea as evidence that the country was trying to pressure the North Koreans. On Wednesday morning, though, he seemed to claim defeat.



The implication, then, is that Trump will now take the economic actions against China that he once promised.

But, then, he's already given himself an out on talking about what he intends to do. During a news conference in February, Trump insisted to reporters that, in essence, his plans for North Korea were none of their business.

“I don't have to tell you. I don't want to be one of these guys that say, ‘Yes, here's what we're going to do’. I don't have to do that. I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do in North Korea,” he said. “I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do in North Korea. And I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do with Iran. You know why? Because they shouldn't know. And eventually, you guys are going to get tired of asking that question.”

The president's current conundrum is twofold. First, there's no easy solution. Second, Trump promised that there was one.

Had his policy been crafted by a team other than Fox's early-morning talk show hosts, that second problem might not exist.


• Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York City.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Trump’s naive approach to North Korea

 • As U.S. and South Korea conduct military exercises, North Korea's leader taunts Trump over ICBM


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/05/trump-has-never-had-a-plan-for-dealing-with-north-korea
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« Reply #38 on: July 06, 2017, 11:14:56 pm »


The Orange Goblin (Donald J. Trump) is clearly waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of his depth when it comes to dealing with the likes of Kim Jong-in.

President DUMB probably thinks being Prez of the USA is like playing “you're fired” on reality television.

He is a total idiot and Kim Jong-un is playing him for the clown & buffoon he is.

As is Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Good job that everything is turning to shit around him.....he's an idiot who deserves it.... 
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« Reply #39 on: July 07, 2017, 12:43:14 am »


I'm sure China and Russia are quaking in their boots....SNIGGER!!



from The Washington Post....

U.S. diplomat blasts China and Russia for ‘holding the hands’ of North Korean leader

Haley's pointed remarks at the U.N. came in reaction to a successful ballistic missile test by Pyongyang.

By DAVID NAKAMURA and EMILY RAUHALA | 7:42PM EDT - Wednesday, July 05, 2017

North Korea's Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday released this photo it says shows the successful test-fire of an intercontinental ballistic missile. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/KNS/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
North Korea's Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday released this photo it says shows the successful test-fire of an
intercontinental ballistic missile. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/KNS/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


THE top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations blasted Russia and China on Wednesday for “holding the hands” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as the Trump administration struggled to respond to Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile test.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley chided Moscow and Beijing over their opposition to a Security Council resolution condemning North Korea and imposing greater economic sanctions for what she called its “sharp military escalation.”

She also said Pyongyang was “quickly closing off the possibility of a diplomatic solution” and suggested the United States would continue to consider military action if necessary.

“One of our capabilities lies with our considerable military forces,” Haley said during a Security Council meeting in New York. “We will use them if we must, but we prefer not to have to go in that direction.”

Haley's pointed speech marked the latest effort by the Trump administration to rally allies and rivals around a common agenda to blunt North Korea's progress, days after Kim's regime tested an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range that experts said would put it within reach of Alaska.

But her remarks also illustrated the limits of the White House's options and lacked specifics about what concrete steps the administration is considering. The missile test marks a new level of advancement in Kim's pursuit of a nuclear weapon that could strike the continental United States. Analysts said a military confrontation could escalate quickly into a mass-casualty war across the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where the United States has stationed tens of thousands of troops.

The standoff cast a shadow as President Trump prepared for his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his second with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, which opens Friday in Hamburg. Trump also will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the heads of U.S. allies Britain and Germany.

“We've been pretty consistent that we are never going to broadcast next steps,” deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president traveled during Wednesday to a short stop in Warsaw.

Before leaving Washington, Trump revealed more frustration with Xi, whom he has personally lobbied to enact sanctions on Chinese banks that do business with North Korean companies. The U.S. Treasury Department announced last week that it would block the Bank of Dandong, along the border region between China and North Korea, from accessing U.S. markets. Officials said this was the first of potentially greater sanctions by the United States.

On Twitter, Trump wrote: “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try!”

Chinese data released in April showed that China's trade with North Korea grew 37.4 percent during the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2016. China said then that overall trade grew even as it complied with U.N. sanctions and stopped buying North Korean coal.

Russian and Chinese diplomats used the U.N. Security Council meeting to push their joint proposal for a suspension of North Korean nuclear and missile testing in exchange for a suspension of U.S. and South Korean military exercises. Both countries also condemned the U.S. anti­missile system being deployed in South Korea and called for it to be removed.

Early on Wednesday in Asia, U.S. and South Korean forces fired missiles in joint military exercises that the U.S. Pacific Command cast as a show of “ironclad” resolve.


South Korean army howitzers are shown Wednesday during military exercises in Paju, near the border with North Korea. — Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press.
South Korean army howitzers are shown Wednesday during military exercises in Paju, near the border with North Korea.
 — Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press.


Daniel Pinkston, a lecturer in international relations at Troy University in Seoul, said he saw no chance that Washington and Seoul would agree to halt joint exercises, calling it “a non-starter”.

During the U.N. meeting, a Russian official questioned whether North Korea’s missile was an ICBM, suggesting it was an intermediate-range weapon.

That prompted Haley to request a second turn at the microphone, during which she said: “If you see this as a threat, if you see this for what it is, which is North Korea showing its muscle, then you need to stand strong…. If you choose not to, we will go our own path.”

Danny Russel, who served as senior Asia director at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, said Trump has a “rare blue moon” opportunity this week to meet with and rally the major players — China and Russia on one side and Japan and South Korea on the other — toward some sort of unified display of condemnation of North Korea.

“What the administration needs to do is get China and Russia around an approach, even if it is not as testosterone-rich and muscular as the U.S. would like, so that the basic geometry is five on one, not three on three,” said Russel, now a diplomat in residence at the Asia Society in New York. “There is no formula, no path forward, other than war, that isn't built on some degree of common cause between Washington and Beijing.”

Victor Cha, who served as senior Asia director at the NSC under President George W. Bush, said the U.S. sanctions on the Dandong bank were “a shot across the bow at the Chinese that what is happening is not working for us. It arguably gives [Trump] a stronger position going in” to the meeting with Xi.

The missile the Kim regime launched had been in the works for years. It flew higher and remained in the air longer than previous attempts, in what experts called a milestone for North Korea.

South Korean authorities described North Korea's test as a two-stage missile with a range of about 4,300 to 5,000 miles — enough to reach Alaska and other parts of North America.

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo said there is a high probability that Pyongyang will stage another nuclear test and noted gains in its efforts to miniaturize a warhead — steps toward developing nuclear-tipped weapons capable of hitting the mainland United States.

Pyongyang's test appeared to catch the United States by surprise. The Pentagon initially mislabeled the activity as a test of an intermediate-range missile before reclassifying it on Wednesday as an ICBM with a range of at least 5,500 kilometers.

Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the missile “is not one we have seen before” and that it was launched from a site — the Panghyon airfield about 90 miles north of Pyongyang — that has not been used to test missiles before.

He emphasized that North Korea still has a number of steps to meet before a threat to North America is imminent, noting that Pyongyang has not yet demonstrated the ability to mount a nuclear warhead on an ICBM or show the lateral range necessary.

“But clearly, they are working on it,” he said.


Emily Rauhala reported from Beijing. Anne Gearan and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.

• David Nakamura covers the White House for The Washington Post. He has previously covered sports, education and city government and reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan.

• Emily Rauhala is a China Correspondent for The Washington Post. She was previously a Beijing-based correspondent for TIME, and an editor at the magazine's Hong Kong of.

__________________________________________________________________________

More on this topic:

 • VIDEO: U.S. threatens military force against North Korea

 • U.N. Ambassador Haley's complaint: ‘Spending my 4th in meetings’


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-diplomat-blasts-china-and-russia-for-holding-the-hand-of-north-korean-leader/2017/07/05/605de900-61b3-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html
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« Reply #40 on: July 07, 2017, 12:46:33 am »


from The Washington Post....

EDITORIAL: What Trump can do about North Korea

Kim Jong Un launched an ICBM. Trump has options on how to respond.

By EDITORIAL BOARD | 7:57PM EDT - Wednesday, July 05, 2017

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un reportedly celebrating the successful test-fire of an intercontinental ballistic missile. — Photograph: STR/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un reportedly celebrating the successful test-fire of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
 — Photograph: STR/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


IT WOULD be difficult to overstate the danger posed by North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching U.S. territory. The exercise brought this country, and the world, that much closer to the moment — perhaps only a couple of years away — when the Pyongyang regime may be able to arm such a missile with a nuclear warhead and threaten not only Alaska and Hawaii but also Washington, Oregon and California. Against that deeply destabilizing threat, the Trump administration must now rally not only Republicans and Democrats within this badly polarized country but also the widest possible range of like-minded countries around the world.

Is President Trump capable of doing that? He deserves credit for restoring urgency about North Korea's weapons programs, having openly disavowed his predecessor's ineffectual stance of “strategic patience”, before the latest missile test. Mr. Trump was also well-advised to seek help from China, Pyongyang’s sponsor, in reining in the North, even if that is not exactly a new idea. Less admirable, alas, was the manner of his outreach to Beijing — a series of tweets about President Xi Jinping that ranged from embarrassingly fawning to prematurely frustrated. This is no way to conduct diplomacy, but then again, Mr. Trump has not yet even nominated anyone to fill key State Department positions for East Asia, international security and nuclear proliferation issues.

Mr. Trump is an unlikely orchestrator of a multilateral approach, given both his erratic conduct and his off-putting rhetoric about “America first”. Still, other countries might yet be induced to follow his lead if he can convince them both that he has a credible plan and that the alternative might be far worse — war in Northeast Asia. The third way between more fruitless talks and a catastrophically risky preemptive war would be to impose on the North, for the first time, truly stringent economic sanctions, comparable to the ones that brought Iran to the nuclear bargaining table.

To be sure, that could be a recipe for short-term tension with China, because it's Chinese banks that help North Korea trade in U.S. dollars and Chinese companies that continue to supply North Korea with food, energy and “dual-use” materiel that helps its nuclear program. And China might not be the only nation inconvenienced if there were a serious effort to choke off the North's supply of hard currency; North Korean workers have been contracted out in Russia, Qatar and, until last year, even democratic Poland. Early indications were not auspicious for such an effort; on Tuesday, Russia and China jointly called on the United States and South Korea to abandon military exercises in return for a suspension by North Korea of missile testing.

Washington and Seoul rejected the false equivalence of that approach, demonstrating that their essential solidarity is intact despite recent disagreements between the new presidents in each capital — and Pyongyang's obvious efforts to shake it. From this, Mr. Trump must construct a widening circle of co-operation against the North, a long-term effort that will require overcoming the resistance of skeptical governments — and his own most impulsive tendencies.


__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Josh Rogin: American hostages could be key to talks with North Korea

 • Paul Waldman: President Trump may be about to face his first full-blown international crisis

 • Jake Sullivan and Victor Cha: The right way to play the China card on North Korea


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-can-trump-do-about-the-spiking-danger-from-north-korea/2017/07/05/31f8c5a2-61b4-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html
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« Reply #41 on: July 07, 2017, 12:52:38 am »


Donald Trump: “I'll huff and I'll puff … and I'll … I'll … I'll …     



from The Washington Post....

Trump warns of ‘severe’ consequences for North Korea
as Russia, China balk at tough U.S. talk


The president didn’t go into detail on any specifics but said that he’s considering
“some pretty severe things” in response to North Korea's test-firing of an
intercontinental ballistic missile. However, the administration's plans
to counter the regime appear increasingly at odds with what
Russia and China have in mind.


By EMILY RAUHALA | 7:00AM EDT - Thursday, July 06, 2017

Donald Trump during a visit to Poland before attending the G-20 meeting.
Donald Trump during a visit to Poland before attending the G-20 meeting.

BEIJING — President Trump warned on Thursday that North Korea could face “some pretty severe” consequences after its defiant test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but Washington also confronted firm opposition from Russia and China over any possible response.

Trump did not specify potential U.S.-directed punishment for North Korea, which on Tuesday launched a missile that experts say had a range capable of reaching Alaska. Yet efforts to find consensus among world powers appeared to hit a wall — sharply limiting Trump's options.

New sanctions would have little effect unless backed by China, which is the North's financial lifeline. Russia also has rejected further economic pressures on the regime of Kim Jung Un.

With key players at odds, Trump must now find a way forward as he heads into Group of 20 meetings in Germany later on Thursday. In Germany, Trump is expected to have his second meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his first with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.

In Warsaw, Trump said the United States was considering “some pretty severe things” in response to what he called “very, very bad behavior” from the North, though he did not mention any specific plans.

“Something will have to be done about it,” he said.

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley accused China and Russia of “holding the hands” of the North Korean leader Kim.

Haley chided Beijing and Moscow for not supporting a resolution that would tighten sanctions and hinted that the United States would consider the use of force.

“One of our capabilities lies with our considerable military forces,” she said. “We will use them if we must, but we prefer not to have to go in that direction.”

Her words were met with criticism from Vladimir Safronkov, Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, who called stricter sanctions “not acceptable” and military action “inadmissible”.

At a daily briefing in Beijing on Thursday, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry backed him up, calling for calm in response to U.S. remarks.

After his first meeting with Xi in April, Trump came out confident that China was on his side and would pressure Pyongyang to stop building weapons. That plan, as he recently tweeted, “has not worked out.”

In recent weeks, Trump has stepped up his criticism of China. “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40 percent in the first quarter,” he tweeted on Wednesday, without noting the source of the statistic. “So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try!”

But U.S. tough talk seems unlikely to bring Beijing on side, experts said.

The U.S. response to the ICBM test so far has encompassed joint military exercises with the South Koreans, calls for stricter sanctions on those doing business with North Korea and high-level warnings of military action — all of which are at odds with Chinese plans.

It's not that China does not care about the North Korean threat — it does — but that it sees it differently, analysts said.

Beijing and Pyongyang were once communist brothers-in-arms at war with American forces. Those days are long gone, but the memory of the 1950-1953 Korean War looms large.

The fact that thousands of U.S. soldiers are still stationed in South Korea is a sore point for Beijing, which would rather not have the American military at their doorstep. The Chinese side often sees U.S. moves in South Korea, from joint exercises to missile defense as maneuvers designed to counter Chinese military might.

Indeed, the “double suspension” plan pitched by China and Russia in the wake of the ICBM test calls for the United States and South Korea to suspend joint military exercises and for North Korea to freeze its weapons programs.

Over the years, Trump has said again and again that China is the key to squeezing the regime into submission. However, China does not appear willing to topple Kim.

“It's not very likely that China will follow the will of the U.S. and put a ‘heavy move’ on North Korea, like what President Trump has called for,” said Deng Yuwen, a Beijing-based expert on North Korea.

“It would expand sanctions, but there is a bottom line and the bottom line is that it won't sanction North Korea such that it causes chaos in the North,” he added.

Lastly, Beijing does not have the same sense of urgency when it comes to the North Korea. China has always been in reach of North Korea's military, so the development of an ICBM is not as much of a game-changer.

Plus, China's leadership remains focused on domestic issues, namely key political meetings set for the fall, said Michael Kovrig, a Beijing-based senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, and officials are unlikely to make any move that could threaten their bases of support.

“Chinese analysts continue to argue that no amount of pressure, short of what might cause a collapse, will bring North Korea to denuclearize,” Kovrig said.

“Beijing's prescription is still to coax rather than to pressure. Unlike the U.S., it's not in a hurry and hopes that economic incentives can gradually induce Pyongyang to moderate its behavior.”


Luna Lin and Shirley Feng reported from Beijing.

• Emily Rauhala is a China Correspondent for The Washington Post. She was previously a Beijing-based correspondent for TIME, and an editor at the magazine's Hong Kong office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trump-warns-of-severe-consequences-for-north-korea-as-russia-china-balk-at-tough-us-talk/2017/07/06/f176634c-61ca-11e7-80a2-8c226031ac3f_story.html
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« Reply #42 on: July 07, 2017, 01:01:50 am »

     ........   “Beijing's prescription is still to coax rather than to pressure"

...really...and how do ya think that's working out for them so far😟
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« Reply #43 on: July 07, 2017, 12:16:36 pm »


from The Washington Post....

We think North Korea is crazy. What if we're wrong?

Washington believes the regime is irrational and can't be negotiated with.
But look at the situation from North Korea's perspective.


By FAREED ZAKARIA | 6:25PM EDT - Thursday, July 06, 2017

Soldiers gather in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. — Photograph: Jon Chol Jin/Associated Press.
Soldiers gather in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. — Photograph: Jon Chol Jin/Associated Press.

IN WASHINGTON there is a conventional wisdom on North Korea that spans both parties and much of elite opinion. It goes roughly like this: North Korea is the world's most bizarre country, run by a crackpot dictator with a strange haircut. He is unpredictable and irrational and cannot be negotiated with. Eventually this weird and cruel regime will collapse. Meanwhile, the only solution is more and more pressure. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong?

The North Korean regime has survived for almost seven decades, preserving not just its basic form of government but also its family dynasty, father to son to grandson. It has persisted through the fall of the Soviet Union and its communist satellites, the Orange Revolution, the Arab Spring and the demise of other Asian dictatorships, from South Korea to Taiwan to Indonesia.

The Kim dynasty has been able to achieve striking success in its primary objective — survival. Of course, this is because it rules in a brutal and oppressive fashion, but so did many other regimes, such as Romania, Syria and Burma. But somehow North Korea has maintained its system.

Kim Jong Un is a young man but has been highly effective at preserving his authority. He has secured the support of the military and sidelined or killed anyone who threatened his grip on power — including his uncle and, allegedly, his half brother.

Look at the world from North Korea's perspective. The regime saw the collapse of the Soviet empire and an even more unsettling transformation in China, which went from being a fiery ideological soul mate to a pragmatic trading state that has eagerly integrated into world markets. These days, Beijing seems to view Pyongyang as a nuisance, and China now often votes to condemn and place sanctions against North Korea at the United Nations.

And the world's most powerful country has made clear that North Korea is destined for the ash heap of history. After 9/11, when the United States was attacked by Islamist terrorists emanating from the Middle East, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would no longer tolerate an “axis of evil” comprising Iraq, Iran — and North Korea. It invaded Iraq. Current U.S. policy toward Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently said, is to “work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.” And regarding North Korea, President Trump wants China to “end this nonsense once and for all,” which again can only mean getting rid of the Kim government in some way.

So, the North Korean regime has tried to buy insurance. And in the realm of international affairs, the best insurance is having a nuclear capacity. Pyongyang knows that it has a large-enough army and the Korean theater of war is so small and dense that a conventional war would be unthinkable, producing hundreds of thousands of casualties and millions of refugees pouring into China and South Korea. North Korea has accurately calculated that China and South Korea are more terrified of the chaos that would follow its collapse than of its nuclear arsenal.

Perhaps the right way to look at North Korea is as a smart, rational, calculating government that is functioning shrewdly given its priority of regime survival. More pressure only strengthens its resolve to buy even more insurance. How to handle it under these circumstances?

The first way to break the log-jam in U.S. policy would be to persuade China to put real pressure on its ally. That won't happen by serving President Xi Jinping chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago. Beijing faces an understandable nightmare — under sanctions and pressure, North Korea collapses and the newly unified country becomes a giant version of South Korea, with a defense treaty with Washington, nearly 30,000 American troops and possibly dozens of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons — all on China's border.

Washington will have to promise Beijing now that in the event of unification, it would withdraw its troops, change the nature of its treaty relationship with the new Korea and, working with China, eliminate Korea's nuclear arsenal.

But pressure will work only if there is also some reason for North Korea to make concessions. Pyongyang has indicated in the past that it seeks a formal end to the Korean War (Washington signed only an armistice in 1953), a recognition of the regime and the lifting of sanctions. Obviously none of this should be offered right now, but there is no harm in talking to Pyongyang and searching for ways to trade some of these concessions for the complete eradication of the nuclear program.

It's a bitter pill for Washington to swallow, but the alternative is to hope that China will act against its interests and crush its ally, or that North Korea will finally collapse. But hope is not a strategy.


• Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. He is also the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for The Atlantic.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Jake Sullivan and Victor Cha: The right way to play the China card on North Korea

 • Bruce Klingner and Sue Mi Terry: We participated in talks with North Korean representatives. This is what we learned.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/we-think-north-korea-is-crazy-what-if-were-wrong/2017/07/06/d13044b0-6286-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html
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« Reply #44 on: July 07, 2017, 01:23:47 pm »


from The Washington Post....

North Korea has one big advantage over its adversaries

Kim Jong Un’s dynasty has the clarity of focus lacking among the United States, China and Japan.

By CHARLES LANE | 7:44PM EDT - Thursday, July 06, 2017

Passersby walk in front of an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. — Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press.
Passersby walk in front of an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. — Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press.

AS YET ANOTHER CRISIS looms in Northeast Asia, don't bet against North Korea. In international affairs, as in life, clarity of purpose can be a huge advantage. And of all the parties to this seemingly endless struggle, only the regime in Pyongyang has it.

Kim Jong Un is heir to a family dynasty whose organizing principle — hold on to power, at all costs, and by any means necessary — has been constant ever since his grandfather, the “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, founded it nearly seven decades ago.

To be sure, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has, or had, an ideology, Marxism-Leninism, modified per the great leader's doctrine, “juche”. It declares broad objectives, such as the reunification of North and South Korea on the former's terms.

Any and all such concerns can and will be subordinated to the prime directive, however: regime survival. Out of power, Kim, his family and his inner circle would have a bleak future, if any. This pudgy tyrant manages to be both odious and ridiculous; but the ever-present prospect of a hanging concentrates his mind.

By contrast, the United States has multiple and, indeed, conflicting interests. It wants to eliminate the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and missile technology, obviously. Washington would like to see human rights and democracy prevail. But it is not willing to achieve these goals at the risk of war, whose most likely outcome would be Pyrrhic victory, with the Kim dynasty overthrown but many thousands of Americans dead and wealthy, democratic South Korea in ruins.

This would be true no matter who was president, which is why U.S. policy under Democratic and Republican administrations has been characterized by a cycle of threats and negotiations, all essentially futile, since North Korea's nuclear weapons program first became an issue a quarter-century ago.

The United States might be able to chart a clearer course if its ally South Korea's goals were as plain and simple as those of its evil twin north of the 38th parallel. Yet South Korea's ambivalence may exceed Washington's: Seoul has no appetite for fratricidal war and even frets that peaceful regime change would saddle it with huge costs of reunification.

Not surprisingly, South Korean leaders periodically succumb to magical thinking about the prospects for diplomatic engagement toward their long-lost brethren, which they call a “sunshine policy”. The new president in Seoul, Moon Jae-in, is the latest case in point.

For its part, Japan fears North Korea as much as the United States does, if not more, since it is already well within missile range. Tokyo, though, makes a problematic ally due to its history as a hated colonial power in Korea. Deep down, the Japanese aren't sure whether a united Korea, even a democratic, capitalist one, would be in their long-term interest, given the old rivalries.

Similar misgivings plague China, the deus ex machina of U.S. strategy, such as it is, under President Trump — though this is hardly a new hope, since Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, also wished for China to apply enough pressure on Pyongyang to get it to abandon nukes.

Dream on. For all its evident exasperation with the impetuous new kid in Pyongyang, China has long-standing ties to the Kim dynasty going back to the Korean War, during which the People's Liberation Army shed a sea of blood on its client's behalf.

Such commitments are not easily abandoned, especially when such a break could ultimately lead to a new, united Korea, democratic and allied with the United States, right on China's border.

Korea's final neighbor, Russia, triggered this crisis, in the sense that the Soviet Union's collapse deprived Pyongyang of military and economic support, obliging first Kim Il Sung and then his son Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un's father), to improvise survival through nuclear blackmail.

However, the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in a definitive solution. As long as the conflict does not erupt in actual war, Moscow is happy to have it drain and distract the United States. This is why Moscow does business with South Korea but also has more recently been strengthening its economic ties to North Korea.

Undoubtedly, North Korea could miscalculate and push the United States past the point where there is no alternative to ending the standoff through force. That's always a risk, especially under the mercurial Trump.

If the past 25 years have taught three generations of Kims anything, though, it is that its potential adversaries are incurably divided, both internally and among themselves, and will therefore tolerate threats and blackmail — even actual occasional conventional military attacks on South Korea — rather than forge the collective effort it would take to end the game once and for all.


• Charles Lane is a Washington Post editorial writer specializing in economic and fiscal policy, a weekly columnist, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-korea-has-one-big-advantage-over-its-adversaries/2017/07/06/1a63d32c-625a-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html
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« Reply #45 on: July 08, 2017, 02:30:56 am »


from The Atlantic....

How to Deal With North Korea

There are no good options. But some are worse than others.


The article the above link takes you to is a really long one, but it is well worth taking the time to read it in its entirety.
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« Reply #46 on: July 08, 2017, 06:12:11 am »

Ktj......"The Orange Goblin (Donald J. Trump) is clearly waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of his depth when it comes to dealing with the likes of Kim Jong-in."

....I'm sorry I must have missed something...Trump has been in power a few months, and has not solved the North Korea problem...
....Obummar was in power for 8 long and lazy years....and what was it that he achieved with North Korea...
..oh...that's right...absolutely nothing😳
Obammar just back pedled like a scared rabbit all the way😒
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« Reply #47 on: July 08, 2017, 12:17:05 pm »


Obama didn't claim he was going to fix everything in 100 days like that LIAR Donald Trump did.

As 100 days is well and truly up, Donald Trump has been proven to be full-of-shit.

As are his stupid, retarded supporters.
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« Reply #48 on: July 08, 2017, 01:10:42 pm »

Ktj...."Obama didn't claim he was going to fix everything in 100 days".....

..no...Obumma didn't fix anything in 8 long years...He just ran away like a scared lefty rabbit😳
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« Reply #49 on: July 08, 2017, 02:30:24 pm »


Obama fixed heaps.

Such as giving millions of Americans access to health-care they never had before.

Trump and the Republicans want to pull-the-rug-out-from-under-those-people just to show what nasty arseholes they are.

Mind you....do you know what is hilarious about that? The stupid retards who voted for Trump are those most likely to end up with no healthcare access.

Ain't that incredibly funny, eh? Just think....Trump's supporters will start dying off from curable afflictions because Trump cut-off their healthcare access.

Serves the bastards right for voting for Trump.

The upside is....more DEAD Americans.


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