Trump declares war on N.K.

[Horn]

North Korea accuses Trump of declaring war

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/north-korea-fm-us-bombers/index.html

[Joshua01]

Sorry, can't bring myself to read anything CNN says. Nothing personal Horn!

[old steel]

Currency wars, trade wars, shooting wars.

All this talk of war, where is Jesus?

[Joshua01]

I would imagine hiding in his bunker like the rest of the elites
Currency wars, trade wars, shooting wars.

All this talk of war, where is Jesus?

[old steel]

MATTIS, NORTH KOREA, AND HINTS OF EXOTIC WEAPONS

https://sputniknews.com/military/201709191057534095-mattis-north-korea-strike-seoul/


https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/911153670976425984/Qv_fgRtb?format=jpg&name=800x419


https://gizadeathstar.com/2017/09/mattis-north-korea-hints-exotic-weapons/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GizaDeathStar+%28Giza+Death+S tar%29

[madfranks]

Trump should not be antagonizing foreign nuclear powers in such a casual and cavalier manner.

[old steel]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKlu9XZU8AAZY0o.jpg




Trump is just trolling NK, nothing to see here....



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKVyLRqUMAACie-.jpg

[Cebu_4_2]

Trump should not be antagonizing foreign nuclear powers in such a casual and cavalier manner.


He would be banned here lol.

[vacuum]

Trump should not be antagonizing foreign nuclear powers in such a casual and cavalier manner.

If he doesn't create a crisis, nothing will happen. The UN wouldn't be putting sanctions on NK. They would just keep developing their weapons tech. By creating a crisis and making people think a nuclear war could actually happen, it causes the whole world to react. They'll put on sanctions and possibly come to a resolution. Problem reaction solution.

[old steel]

Former top CIA official: US 'running out of options' on NK"I think we have to put more pressure on China, even if it means not paying our debts to them," he continued.


http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/352081-former-top-cia-official-running-out-of-options-on-nk

[madfranks]

If he doesn't create a crisis, nothing will happen. The UN wouldn't be putting sanctions on NK. They would just keep developing their weapons tech. By creating a crisis and making people think a nuclear war could actually happen, it causes the whole world to react. They'll put on sanctions and possibly come to a resolution. Problem reaction solution.

So what you're saying is, beyond never letting a good crisis go to waste, we should create the crisis in the first place?

[old steel]

USA pretends it will pay its debts to China; China pretends it will get paid. The con game goes on.

Why is NK an excuse?

[Horn]

Former top CIA official: US 'running out of options' on NK"I think we have to put more pressure on China, even if it means not paying our debts to them," he continued.


http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/352081-former-top-cia-official-running-out-of-options-on-nk

My goodness, this is starting to get embarassing to even me.

[singular_me]

:)

https://admin62b4b.davidicke.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/1-2.jpg

[vacuum]

So what you're saying is, beyond never letting a good crisis go to waste, we should create the crisis in the first place?

There already is a crisis from a long-term point of view. Simply bringing it to a head is just forcing action.

[Horn]

President Trump targets North Korea, Chad and Venezuela in new travel ban.

It’s not just Muslims now.

North Korea became the first non-majority Muslim country to make President Trump’s infamous travel ban.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-targets-north-korea-chad-venezuela-new-travel-ban-article-1.3518637

[Horn]

Venezuela Spurns Travel Ban, Calls U.S. Major ‘Rights Violator

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza decried the U.S. travel ban on its officials and their families, saying the measure is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to force regime change in the South American nation.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-09-25/venezuela-spurns-travel-ban-calls-u-s-major-rights-violator

[Horn]

North Korea taps GOP analysts to better understand Trump and his messages

BERN, Switzerland — North Korean government officials have been quietly trying to arrange talks with Republican-linked analysts in Washington, in an apparent attempt to make sense of President Trump and his confusing messages to Kim Jong Un's regime.

The outreach began before the current eruption of threats between the two leaders but probably will become more urgent as Trump and Kim have descended into name-calling that, many analysts worry, sharply increases the chances of potentially catastrophic misunderstandings.

"Their number-one concern is Trump. They can't figure him out," said one person with direct knowledge of North Korea's approach of experts on Asia with Republican connections.

There is no suggestion that the North Koreans are interested in negotiations about their nuclear program, and the Trump administration has made clear it is not interested in talking right now. Intermediaries instead seem to want forums for insisting on being recognized as a nuclear state.

At a multilateral meeting in Switzerland earlier this month, North Korea's representatives were adamant about being recognized as a nuclear-weapons state and showed no willingness to even talk about denuclearization.



Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has advanced its ballistic missile and nuclear weapon technology at an unprecedented rate. Here are a few key tests under Kim Jong Un’s rule and the resulting U.N. Security Council sanctions. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)
But to get a better understanding of American intentions, in the absence of official diplomatic talks with the U.S. government, North Korea's mission to the United Nations invited Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst who is now the Heritage Foundation's top expert on North Korea, to visit Pyongyang for meetings.

Trump has close ties to Heritage, a conservative think tank that has influenced the president on everything from travel restrictions to defense spending, but no personal connection to Klingner.

"They're on a new binge of reaching out to American scholars and ex-officials," said Klingner, who declined the North Korean invitation. "While such meetings are useful, if the regime wants to send a clear message, it should reach out directly to the U.S. government."

North Korean intermediaries also have approached Douglas H. Paal, who served as an Asia expert on the National Security Council under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and is now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

They wanted Paal to arrange talks between North Korean officials and American experts with Republican ties in a neutral location such as Switzerland. He also declined the North Korean request.

"The North Koreans are clearly eager to deliver a message. But I think they're only interested in getting some travel, in getting out of the country for a bit," Paal said.

Related: [North Korea threatens to shoot down U.S. warplanes]

Everyday, North Koreans are told that the Americans are "imperialists" and North Korean children are taught that "cunning American wolves" want to kill them. To understand why, we need to go back to the Korean War. (Anna Fifield, Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)
North Korea has about seven such invitations out to organizations that have hosted previous talks — a surprising number of requests for a country that is threatening to launch a nuclear strike on the United States.

Over the past two years in particular, Pyongyang has sent officials from its Foreign Ministry to hold meetings with Americans — usually former diplomats and think-tankers — in neutral places such as Geneva, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

They are referred to as "Track 1.5" talks because they are official (Track 1) on the North Korean side but unofficial (Track 2) on the American side, although the U.S. government is kept informed of the discussions.

But since Trump's election, the North Korean representatives have been predominantly interested in figuring out the unconventional president's strategy, according to almost a dozen people involved in the discussions. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the sensitive meetings.

Early in Trump's term, the North Koreans asked broad questions: Is the U.S. president serious about closing American military bases in South Korea and Japan, as he said on the campaign trail? Might he really send U.S. nuclear weapons back to the southern half of the Korean Peninsula?

Related: [Trump threatens to ‘totally destroy North Korea’ and calls Kim Jong Un ‘Rocket Man’ ]

But the questions since then have become more specific. Why, for instance, are Trump's top officials, notably Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, directly contradicting the president so often?

"The North Koreans are reaching out through various channels and through various counterparts," said Evans Revere, a former State Department official who dealt with North Korea and is a frequent participant in such talks. There are several theories about why North Korea is doing this.

"My own guess is that they are somewhat puzzled as to the direction in which the U.S. is going, so they're trying to open up channels to take the pulse in Washington," Revere said. "They haven't seen the U.S. act like this before."

Revere attended a multilateral meeting with North Korean officials in the picturesque Swiss village of Glion earlier this month, together with Ralph A. Cossa, chairman of the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and another frequent interlocutor with Pyongyang's representatives.

The meeting is an annual event organized by the Geneva Center for Security Policy, a government-linked think tank. But it took on extra significance this year due to the sudden rise in tensions between North Korea and the United States.

All countries involved in the now-defunct six-party denuclearization talks — the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas — were represented, as were Mongolia, Switzerland and the European Union. The Swiss invited the U.S. government to send an official, but it did not.

The North Koreans at the meeting displayed an "encyclopedic" knowledge of Trump's tweets, to the extent that they were able to quote them back to the Americans present.

Related: [Kim Jong Un calls Trump a ‘mentally deranged U.S. dotard’ ]

Pyongyang's delegation was headed by Choe Kang Il, deputy director of the Americas division in the Foreign Ministry. He was accompanied by three officials in their late 20s who wowed the other participants with their intellectual analysis and perfect American-accented English. One even explained to the other delegates how the U.S. Congress works.

"They were as self-confident as I've ever seen them," said Cossa. Revere added: "They may be puzzled about our intentions, but they have a very clear set of intentions of their own."

The participants declined to divulge the contents of the discussions, as they were off the record.

But others familiar with the talks said the North Koreans completely ruled out the "freeze-for-freeze" idea being promoted by China and Russia, in which Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear and missile activities if the United States stopped conducting military exercises in South Korea. The United States, Japan and South Korea also outright reject the idea.

Participants left the day-and-a-half-long meeting with little hope for any improvement anytime soon.

"I'm very pessimistic," said Shin Beom-chul, a North Korea expert at the South's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, after participating in the Glion meeting. "They want to keep their nuclear weapons, and they will only return to dialogue after the United States nullifies its 'hostile policy.' They want the U.S. to stop all military exercises and lift all sanctions on them."

Ken Jimbo, who teaches at Keio University in Japan and was also at the meeting, said North Korea may still be interested in dialogue but on terms that are unacceptable to the other side.

"North Korea wants to be recognized as a nuclear-weapons state," Jimbo said. "But when is North Korea ready for talks? This is what I kept asking the North Koreans: How much is enough?"

Read more:

Related: U.S. families got fake orders to leave South Korea

Related: China watches in frustration as North Korea crisis enters dangerous spiral

Related: What is North Korea trying to hit?

Related: Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Related: Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-seeks-help-from-republican-analysts-whats-up-with-trump/2017/09/26/ea91909e-a278-11e7-8c37-e1d99ad6aa22_story.html

[Neuro]

LOL Trump managed to outcraze the North Koreans. ;D ;D ;D

[brosil]

Did anyone mention that we've been at war in the Korean peninsula since the 1950's and we're still at war there?

[Cebu_4_2]

They were unified for centuries under the Joseon Dynasty (1392 - 1910), and share the same language and essential culture. Yet for the last six decades and more, North Korea and South Korea have been divided along a fortified DMZ. How did that split come about? Why do North and South Korea exist where once there stood a unified kingdom?

This story begins with the Japanese conquest of Korea at the end of the nineteenth century.

The Empire of Japan formally annexed the Korean Peninsula in 1910. It had actually run the country through puppet emperors since its 1895 victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. Thus, from 1910 until 1945, Korea was a Japanese colony.

As World War II drew to a close in 1945, it became clear to the Allied Powers that they would have to take over administration of Japan's occupied territories, including Korea, until elections could be organized and local governments set up. The United States government knew that it would administer the Philippines as well as Japan itself, so it was reluctant to also take trusteeship of Korea. Unfortunately, Korea just wasn't a very high priority for the US. The Soviets, on the other hand, were more than willing to step in and take control of lands that the Tsar's government had relinquished its claim to after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05).

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and invaded Manchuria. Soviet amphibious troops also landed at three points along the coast of northern Korea. On August 15, after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender, ending World War II.

Just five days before Japan surrendered, US officials Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel were given the task of delineating the US occupation zone in East Asia.

Without consulting any Koreans, they arbitrarily decided to cut Korea roughly in half along the 38th parallel of latitude, ensuring that the capital city of Seoul would be in the American section. Rusk and Bonesteel's choice was enshrined in General Order No. 1, America's guidelines for administering Japan in the aftermath of the war.

Japanese forces in northern Korea surrendered to the Soviets, while those in southern Korea surrendered to the Americans. Although South Korean political parties quickly formed and put forward their own candidates and plans for forming a government in Seoul, the US Military Administration feared the leftist tendencies of many of the nominees. The trust administrators from the US and the USSR were supposed to arrange for nation-wide elections to reunify Korea in 1948, but neither side trusted the other. The US wanted the entire peninsula to be democratic and capitalist; the Soviets wanted it all to be communist.

In the end, the US essentially appointed the anti-communist leader Syngman Rhee to rule South Korea. The South declared itself a nation in May of 1948. Rhee was formally installed as the first president in August, and immediately began waging a low-level war against communists and other leftists south of the 38th parallel.

Meanwhile, in North Korea, the Soviets appointed Kim Il-sung, who had served during the war as a major in the Soviet Red Army, as the new leader of their occupation zone. He officially took office on September 9, 1948. Kim began to squash political opposition, particularly from capitalists, and also began to construct his cult of personality. By 1949, statues of Kim Il-sung were springing up all over North Korea, and he had dubbed himself the "Great Leader."

In 1950, Kim Il-sung decided to try to reunify Korea under communist rule. He launched an invasion of South Korea, which turned into the three-year-long Korean War; it killed more than 3 million Koreans, but the two countries ended up back where they started, divided along the 38th parallel.

And so, a rushed decision made by junior US government officials in the heat and confusion of World War II's final days has resulted in the seemingly permanent creation of two warring neighbors.

More than sixty years and millions of lives later, the accidental division of North and South Korea continues to haunt the world, and the 38th parallel remains arguably the tensest border on Earth.

[Neuro]

I read that Kim Il-Sung still officially is the ruler of North Korea, despite being dead for a long time...

[Jewboo]

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1470/29/1470296354831.jpg