This is … good? Fuck Trump, don’t vote for him, but diplomacy is good. Progressives should be advocating for an end to our economic warfare against the people of NK, and attitudes like this are moving in that direction.
I mean, independent of Trump doing it yeah it’s a good thing to try and pull them into normal diplomacy. But Trumps not inviting Kim for normal diplomacy in the hopes their countries can be freer and more prosperous together. He’s inviting him so their countries can be more dictatorial. This is technically speculation, but I’d call it closer to an educated guess based on Trumps praise of dictators.
There’s diplomacy and then there’s taking Kim Jong-Un out to a baseball game like he deserves anything friendlier than a punch in the mouth. This would have an effect far closer to validating his behaviour than working towards improving it.
Trump is eating dinner at the table full of Nazis(and other authoritarians).
In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.
Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.
-1 Increasing drone strikes in the middle east and Africa
-1 Not enforcing Minsk II
-1 stealing Iranian tanker
-1 Blowing up the guy who beat ISIS, while he was on a peace mission in a third country
+1 Calling off the war with Iran at the last hour
+1 threatening to leave NATO
-1 increasing funding for NATO
+1 Afghanistan withdrawal agreement
-1 escalating trade war with China
I can’t give him one for North Korea since it didn’t result in anything but a silly photo where Trump salutes some random north Korean soldier.
edit: What are the downvotes for? Does anyone disagree with my analysis? Is there someone out there chomping at the bit for war with Afghanistan, Iran, China, and Russia and starving Cubans?
This is … good? Fuck Trump, don’t vote for him, but diplomacy is good. Progressives should be advocating for an end to our economic warfare against the people of NK, and attitudes like this are moving in that direction.
I mean, independent of Trump doing it yeah it’s a good thing to try and pull them into normal diplomacy. But Trumps not inviting Kim for normal diplomacy in the hopes their countries can be freer and more prosperous together. He’s inviting him so their countries can be more dictatorial. This is technically speculation, but I’d call it closer to an educated guess based on Trumps praise of dictators.
There’s diplomacy and then there’s taking Kim Jong-Un out to a baseball game like he deserves anything friendlier than a punch in the mouth. This would have an effect far closer to validating his behaviour than working towards improving it.
Trump is eating dinner at the table full of Nazis(and other authoritarians).
In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.
Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.
Trump foreign policy:
-1 Increasing sanctions on Cuba
-1 Increasing drone strikes in the middle east and Africa
-1 Not enforcing Minsk II
-1 stealing Iranian tanker
-1 Blowing up the guy who beat ISIS, while he was on a peace mission in a third country
+1 Calling off the war with Iran at the last hour
+1 threatening to leave NATO
-1 increasing funding for NATO
+1 Afghanistan withdrawal agreement
-1 escalating trade war with China
I can’t give him one for North Korea since it didn’t result in anything but a silly photo where Trump salutes some random north Korean soldier.
edit: What are the downvotes for? Does anyone disagree with my analysis? Is there someone out there chomping at the bit for war with Afghanistan, Iran, China, and Russia and starving Cubans?