Kim/Trump Summit Disaster

[Dill]

(03-01-2019, 12:26 PM)michaelsean Wrote: The problem is you can't call Kim out on it.  "Hey Kim if you didn't authorize this, then let's see the perpetrators punished." "Sure".  At which point Kim would grab a handful of guys and have them shot.  

A US president can and should call him on it. I grant it would be bad to call him out during a summit, but that is one reason why you prepare for summits.

Part of the prep for a world-class summit is having these side issues settled, condemnations issued, rebuttals etc. over and done. At the very least he could say Warmbier was a separate issue--no confirmation of Kim's lie then, and no risk to ongoing diplomacy by insulting. Just tell people "This summit is about nukes; we are working on the Warmbier issue through other channels."

Obama took flak for not raising the issue of one prisoner when he settled the Iran Deal.  It is proper there was no public discussion of that, and that the deal was not conditioned upon it, and O. kept his focus.  We have a lot of past models for this kind of engagement, and involving Republican heroes. Reagan's five summits with Gorbachev (1985-88) come to mind. Those resulted in, among other things, the INF Treaty that Trump just refused to continue. (Trying to think if there have ever been two world class summits in a row which have bagged nothing. Somebody remind me if so.)

Don't know if Kim would have his guys shot. Not a good move to kill your killers for killing if you want to keep them killing.  

If I'm Kim I don't want to do ANYTHING inside my regime because a US president called for it. That said, it is entirely possible somebody effed up, took a beating too far, and is now cleaning latrines in one of the vast gulags Trump supposed Warmbier was lost in.