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estebanana -> RE: The Foro Logo (Jul. 2 2020 1:22:41)
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quote:
Kim Jong Un played Trump like a fiddle. In the first place, we should never have given Kim a presidential summit, in Singapore or anywhere else. There was no groundwork done to ensure some accomplishment was achieved, and sure enough nothing was achieved. We gave Kim a huge win just by having the summit with Trump. North Korea had done nothing to deserve a meeting with the US president.
Moreover, we doubly gave the store away by agreeing to suspend joint military exercises with the South Koreans. Exercises are essential to maintaining the edge required in military readiness. They are even more important when they involve two military forces like the US and South Korea. Each has its own doctrine, yet if they are going to mesh well in a combat situation they must practice and exercise frequently to maintain the interoperability required to prevail.
But Trump thinks photo ops "trump" (pun intended) actual, substantive achievements. Trump dances to the same tune played by Putin and Xi Jinping as well. The fool thinks his "personal relationships" conquer all and doesn't realize how he has hollowed out the United States's position vis-a-vis NATO, the European Union, East Asia (which we have pretty well ceded to China), and adversaries like Russia, China, and North Korea. None take us seriously the way they once did.
Bill
The joint military cooperation is important. I think one of the breakdowns happening now and over the last two to three years between Japanese and South Korean security compacts is due to lack faith in trump and the US as a facilitator. That three country pact of trust is a big problem for Xi and NK. And it causes problems if accountability with China and NK because it absolves China of being responsible in curbing NK from its Beijing position. The rift between Japan and Korea didn’t have to happen in the industrial sphere, there’s a problem with regional cooperation in high tech manufacturing because security sensitive information is now difficult to share between Japan and Korea because Korea is seen as a security risk by Japan and Japan us seen as a faithfulness partner by Korea- same old stuff, and pile on Korean grievances about colonialism.
All these issues are above trumps attention span and he hasn’t worked to mediate between them. He’s assigned poor management at the embassy level in both countries. I’m happy to that an old hand, Biden, is looking good because his overview of the East Asia politics is exponentially superior to any trump cabinet members short of the Joint Chiefs.
I’m also amused by most Americans naive understanding of why Japan and Korean cooperation are important. I’m not a hawk by any means, but when I’ve explained why strong boundaries with NK and China are vital I’ve been called down for being aggressive and warmongering. I had a discussion about the F-35 joint fighter program- the topic was why have spend billions on this when the US doesn’t have a socialized health program. I had to point out that 12 or 14 countries are participating and buying the fighters, and that all the participant countries except Singapore have socialized health care. Meaning if Mc Connell wasn’t blocking the the development of the ACA we could have both. When you really look at it most countries have a further developed and nuanced version of the ACA, not something that resembles Medicare. Then the argument came to ‘Japan should pay for its own defense and not rely on US support’
That’s a an argument shared by both the far left and the far right and is also trumps position.
I said Japan needs allies to help defense because it has a pacifist constitution. It can’t mount an attack until it’s been attacked (which is a very interesting Military historical study in karmic Retribution) I walked away from the discussion and simply said Trumps “America first” slogan and his nationalist disengagement with the world is equivalent to the attitude that NATO be disbanded and Japan change its constitution to build a bigger military with Legal offensive Options.
I didn’t hear anything else because they had to digest that.
Even through the US has major interior problems with the denial of its history of slave holding, it’s still playing a vital role in regional stability as we know it. Our internal problems are now coming to the fore. Also funny to me it how naive leftists credit ol white Bernie for pushing this. He didn’t push White people to learn anything, he advocated a an America first politic not unlike trumps in many respects. I think if anyone gets credit for what’s happening it’s Black kids with Steve Jobs technology. Black kids with iPhones are calling in the revolution and publishing it in ways white culture can no longer deny it.
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