NK announces Closure Of Nuclear Test Site, Suspending Missile Tests

[BmorePat87]

(12-11-2018, 12:20 AM)GMDino Wrote: "man folks" said it should not...not would not...happen.  But again those were people who studied the situation over decades and had a good understanding of the ins and out of the diplomatic procedures.  But "many folk" insisted that because it was Trump everything would be great because...Trump.

Did you honestly expect him to admit that the majority of Trump critics here expressed hope for a productive meeting but held off on calling for a Nobel Prize until actual results were seen?

[GMDino]

(12-11-2018, 12:12 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Did you honestly expect him to admit that the majority of Trump critics here expressed hope for a productive meeting but held off on calling for a Nobel Prize until actual results were seen?

I always hope for honesty and someone admitting they were wrong in their interpretation of what happened.  Especially when they claim to be unbiased and not a supporter of Trump.

[Dill]

(12-11-2018, 12:20 AM)GMDino Wrote: Is it possible to say they were fooled, or bought in to what the POTUS said despite all past histories with NK and that almost everyone with experience and knowledge said it wouldn't happen?

I mean if people want to think that that means they are intellectually inferior that's on them.  Maybe they could just admit they bought the snake oil.

No, they cannot admit they bought the snake oil because this goes much farther than NK. And it is not possible to point that out in Foxworld without "looking down your nose" at "flyover America."

That is the genius of Fox. For over three decades now Fox and friends have been constructing the elitism charge to explain why views of the foreign policy establishment don't mesh with the "common sense" of their nativist consumers, who have never bothered to learn much about it. For the Trump base, his success is now linked to their very identity, a worldview constructed for them over decades as they have heard how foolish nation-building, weak PC liberals giving away billions in free aid and opening our borders have dominated US foreign policy. Trump meant a STRONG leader--a CORPORATE CEO and self-made BILLIONAIRE who knew how to cut deals--would step onto the world stage and start putting upstart countries in their place. All the stereotypes of the successul American businessman who could build companies and cut through crap making tough deals that favored the US were evoked by right wing talk radio hosts leading up to the election.

Trump would "fire" allies who didn't toe the line, making liberal heads explode.         And look out China, Mexico, Iran, North Korea and Syria!

Recall all the crowing when Trump won and the elite liberal pundits were wrong. See, Trump KNEW something they and Hillary didn't. He was "in touch" with the guy in the street. A winner.  And this has been the ground of a faith-based support since.  He sees something the establishment doesn't.   He won the election when the elite said he wouldn't.  All the history and foreign policy precedents are just more elitist blather. WHY NOT meet with the NK leader. No one has tried that, right?  Trump's "unpredictability" would make Kim and China pay attention and get results.

Last Saturday I listened for an hour as Tucker Carlson plugged his new book, Ship of Fools, on C-span. He insists Trump is asking the right questions--like "Why do we need NATO"--and Carlson demands to know why "no one can answer him directly."  Jeezus. The reference to "elites" was a drumbeat throughout. 
Sure, he tweets things we might not agree with.  But he is only failing insofar as Congress and the establishment don't support him enough, says Carlson. During the entire hour there were no questions about why Trump is so easy on Russia.  And so it continues.

[Dill]

(12-11-2018, 12:12 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Did you honestly expect him to admit that the majority of Trump critics here expressed hope for a productive meeting but held off on calling for a Nobel Prize until actual results were seen?

Doubting a "winner." So typical of the elite.

[BmorePat87]

(12-11-2018, 01:29 PM)Dill Wrote: Doubting a "winner." So typical of the elite.

There were literally two threads that called for awarding the Nobel Prize in their title.

No doubt scoffing at that is elitist. 

[GMDino]

(12-11-2018, 01:29 PM)Dill Wrote: Doubting a "winner." So typical of the elite.

(12-11-2018, 01:42 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: There were literally two threads that called for awarding the Nobel Prize in their title.

No doubt scoffing at that is elitist. 

I don't get when people take disagreement as scoffing.  Do I think people got fooled? Yep. That doesn't make them inferior or stupid.  Refusing to accept when facts change might make them less smart than others.

[Dill]

(12-11-2018, 02:08 PM)GMDino Wrote: I don't get when people take disagreement as scoffing.  Do I think people got fooled? Yep. That doesn't make them inferior or stupid.  Refusing to accept when facts change might make them less smart than others.

That's sort of what I was trying to get at in post# 63.

Issues are pre-framed so that critique of bad judgment, or even just disagreement, can be cast as elitists looking down on right wingers.  At the very least it precludes analysis and often changes the subject, as the "elitist" must now explain he didn't mean it that way and otherwise help protect the person who got fooled from recognizing and owning what just happened. 

Nevermind that the poor victim of elitism was just himself looking down his nose at stoopid "librals" who don't get it.

So what began as exposure of poor judgment turns back into confirmation of the worldview which led to the poor judgment.

Feedback loop thus cut, the vicious circle continues. Trump 2020!

[GMDino]

You know, it's *almost* like DJT got played because he didn't understand how things work.

https://apnews.com/9ad490e00ff5458daa98edb9745aa27e

Quote:N. Korea says it won’t denuclearize unless US removes threat


[url=https://apnews.com/9ad490e00ff5458daa98edb9745aa27e/gallery/media:3678098f61ea4089aeaf123bde5546e2][/url]SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes what Pyongyang called a nuclear threat. The surprisingly blunt statement jars with Seoul’s rosier presentation of the North Korean position and could rattle the fragile trilateral diplomacy to defuse a nuclear crisis that last year had many fearing war.

The latest from North Korea comes as the United States and North Korea struggle over the sequencing of the denuclearization that Washington wants and the removal of international sanctions desired by Pyongyang. The statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency also raises credibility problems for the liberal South Korean government, which has continuously claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is genuinely interested in negotiating away his nuclear weapons as Seoul tries to sustain a positive atmosphere for dialogue.



The North’s comments may also be seen as proof of what outside skeptics have long said: that Kim will never voluntarily relinquish an arsenal he sees as a stronger guarantee of survival than whatever security assurances the United States might provide. The statement suggests North Korea will eventually demand the United States withdraw or significantly reduce the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, a major sticking point in any disarmament deal.


Kim and President Donald Trump met June 12 in Singapore where they agreed on a vague goal for the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. The leaders are trying to arrange another meeting for early next year.


But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. In Thursday’s statement, the North made clear it’s sticking to its traditional stance on denuclearization. It accused Washington of twisting what had been agreed on in Singapore and driving post-summit talks into an impasse.


“The United States must now recognize the accurate meaning of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and especially, must study geography,” the statement said.

“When we talk about the Korean Peninsula, it includes the territory of our republic and also the entire region of (South Korea) where the United States has placed its invasive force, including nuclear weapons. When we talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it means the removal of all sources of nuclear threat, not only from the South and North but also from areas neighboring the Korean Peninsula,” the statement said.


The United States removed its tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea in the 1990s. Washington and Seoul did not immediately respond to the North Korean statement.


North Korea’s reiteration of its long-standing position on denuclearization could prove to be a major setback for diplomacy, which was revived early this year following a series of provocative nuclear and missile tests that left Kim and Trump spending most of 2017 exchanging personal insults and war threats. The statement could jeopardize a second Trump-Kim summit as the United States may have difficulty negotiating further if the North ties the future of its nukes to the U.S. military presence in the South, analysts said.


South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who met Kim three times this year and lobbied hard for the Trump-Kim meeting, has said Kim wasn’t demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula as a precondition for abandoning his nuclear weapons. But Kim has never made such comments in public.


“The blunt statement could be an indicator that the North has no intentions to return to the negotiation table anytime soon,” said Shin Beomchul, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “It’s clear that the North intends to keep its nukes and turn the diplomatic process into a bilateral arms reduction negotiation with the United States, rather than a process where it unilaterally surrenders its program.”


Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said it’s unlikely that the North would push things too far and allow the momentum for dialogue to collapse. Pyongyang has been strengthening its demands for the removal of sanctions and its latest statement is another attempt to win concessions from Washington, Yang said.


“Pyongyang is sending a message to Washington that confrontation and dialogue cannot coexist,” Yang said.


The nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since the Trump-Kim meeting. The United States wants North Korea to provide a detailed account of nuclear and missile facilities that would be inspected and dismantled under a potential deal, while the North is insisting that sanctions be lifted first.


Since engaging in diplomacy, North Korea has unilaterally dismantled its nuclear testing ground and parts of a missile engine test facility and suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests. However, none of those moves were verified by outsiders, and most experts say they fall short as material steps toward denuclearization. In the third meeting between Kim and Moon in September, the North also said it would dismantle its main nuclear facility in Nyongbyon if the United States takes “corresponding measures,” which the state media later specified as sanctions relief.


Kim declared his nuclear force was complete after the torrent of weapons tests in 2017, including the detonation of a purported thermonuclear weapon and three test-flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Several reports from private analysts in recent weeks have accused North Korea of continuing nuclear and missile development, citing details from commercial satellite imagery.


“If we unilaterally give up our nuclear weapons without any security assurance despite being first on the U.S. list of targets for pre-emptive nuclear strikes, that wouldn’t be denuclearization — it would rather be a creation of a defenseless state where the balance in nuclear strategic strength is destroyed and the crisis of a nuclear war is brought forth,” the KCNA said.


“The corresponding measures we have asked the United States to take aren’t difficult for the United States to commit to and carry out. We are just asking the United States to put an end to its hostile policies (on North Korea) and remove the unjust sanctions, things it can do even without a snap of a finger.”


The North Korean statement came a day after Stephen Biegun, the Trump administration’s special envoy on North Korea, told reporters in South Korea that Washington was reviewing easing travel restrictions on North Korea to facilitate humanitarian shipments to help resolve the impasse in nuclear negotiations.


During his four-day visit, Biegun plans to discuss with South Korean officials the allies’ policies on North Korea, including the enforcement of sanctions. The meetings are likely to include conversations about a groundbreaking ceremony the Koreas plan to hold at the border village of Panmunjom next week for an aspirational project to reconnect their roads and railways.


The North has yet to respond to Biegun’s comments.

Of course Trump might actually cave here too.  If Putin tell him to.

[ballsofsteel]

(12-11-2018, 01:14 PM)Dill Wrote: No, they cannot admit they bought the snake oil because this goes much farther than NK. And it is not possible to point that out in Foxworld without "looking down your nose" at "flyover America."

That is the genius of Fox. For over three decades now Fox and friends have been constructing the elitism charge to explain why views of the foreign policy establishment don't mesh with the "common sense" of their nativist consumers, who have never bothered to learn much about it. For the Trump base, his success is now linked to their very identity, a worldview constructed for them over decades as they have heard how foolish nation-building, weak PC liberals giving away billions in free aid and opening our borders have dominated US foreign policy. Trump meant a STRONG leader--a CORPORATE CEO and self-made BILLIONAIRE who knew how to cut deals--would step onto the world stage and start putting upstart countries in their place. All the stereotypes of the successul American businessman who could build companies and cut through crap making tough deals that favored the US were evoked by right wing talk radio hosts leading up to the election.

Trump would "fire" allies who didn't toe the line, making liberal heads explode.         And look out China, Mexico, Iran, North Korea and Syria!

Recall all the crowing when Trump won and the elite liberal pundits were wrong. See, Trump KNEW something they and Hillary didn't. He was "in touch" with the guy in the street. A winner.  And this has been the ground of a faith-based support since.  He sees something the establishment doesn't.   He won the election when the elite said he wouldn't.  All the history and foreign policy precedents are just more elitist blather. WHY NOT meet with the NK leader. No one has tried that, right?  Trump's "unpredictability" would make Kim and China pay attention and get results.

Last Saturday I listened for an hour as Tucker Carlson plugged his new book, Ship of Fools, on C-span. He insists Trump is asking the right questions--like "Why do we need NATO"--and Carlson demands to know why "no one can answer him directly."  Jeezus. The reference to "elites" was a drumbeat throughout. 
Sure, he tweets things we might not agree with.  But he is only failing insofar as Congress and the establishment don't support him enough, says Carlson. During the entire hour there were no questions about why Trump is so easy on Russia.  And so it continues.

"Trump meant a STRONG leader--a CORPORATE CEO and self-made BILLIONAIRE "


Just curious. If your given over 400 million dollar, being born on third base, is a person really "self made"?