View from Space: North and South Korea World of Differences
Peace
Makers or More Showboating
(Time
will tell)
Introduction from CNN report: – The last time a U.S. official of
CIA director Mike Pompeo's stature visited North Korea was in 2014, when
then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper went to secure the release of two Americans
held prisoner. There, Clapper met with low-level
officials.
Note: The news of Pompeo's meeting with
Kim, which occurred over Easter weekend (sometime over the end of March and the
beginning of April) also raised eyebrows that unlike Clapper, Pompeo went to
North Korea and didn't come back with Americans
being held captive there.
There are three Americans currently being held in
North Korea. Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang-duk (also known as Tony Kim) were imprisoned
in 2017 on suspicion of “hostile acts.” Kim Dong-chul was arrested in 2015 and
has been serving a 10-year sentence on “espionage charges.” Noteworthy: Sweden
has been helping to negotiate their release.
This time, Pompeo
traveled to Pyongyang and met with leader Kim Jong-Un himself, a move that
appears to signify both sides' commitment to have a summit and discuss
denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, and giving Kim the presidential
audience he's craved.
To meet with
a sitting US President has been a long-held ambition of the Kim family.
For President Trump however, the nearer the
summit approaches, the harder it will be to back out.
Key Summary (my emphasis on key points):
Trump's
mention during the briefing of North and South Korean officials discussing an
end of the Korean war (Note: Now only a UN “cease fire” is still in effect since
July 1953) will certainly require an American presence should such negotiations
actually succeed. It was the U.S. and not South Korea that signed that cease
fire armistice with North Korea in 1953.
Trump told
reporters he supported the discussions adding: “And they do have my blessing to
discuss the end of the war. People don't realize the Korean War has not ended.
It's going on right now and they are discussing an end to the war.”
Another factor
in Trump's inability to walk away from a meeting with Kim: It might bring about
some kind of arrangement for a peaceful solution for the peninsula. That would
be a huge political win for his presidency.
Now, the standard Trump self-praise:
He claimed
credit for the peace the Koreas have experienced so far this year.
He praised
his own leadership prevented military confrontations during the Winter Olympics
that were held in South Korea in February.
He said praise from President Moon, Jae-in, and Japanese PM Shinzō
Abe, and
others as proof of his skills.
More from self-fluffing
Trump: “They've been
very generous that without us and without me
in particular, I guess you would have to say, they wouldn't be discussing
anything, and including the Olympics would have been a failure. Instead it was
a great success. They would have had a real problem. But as you know North
Korea participated in the Olympics and ... it was quite a success. That would not have happened.”
======================================================
My 2
Cents: First of all,
that self-praise that Trump mentions for his own credit actually belongs to
South Korean president Moon, Jae-in and not to Trump – let’s be clear on the
facts, shall we?
Historically, I have advocated for a one-Korea peaceful
solution my whole adult life. Such a reunification would put one Korea on a
path to greatness – just look at the comparisons now between North and South –
as different as seeing Earth and our colors at night and the dark side of the
Moon – it’s that stark
Kim, Jung-un right now has a great chance to do
something no one has ever tried with any kind of success even under the Kim
one-family rule since 1945. He could be a real hero in that region if it’s
peace and prosperity the wants and not to sustain a one-man dictatorship.
The
key to all this is: What would one Korea look like, be established as, and governed
under – either some sort of democratic system or a parliamentary system, and
what laws and such. All that is a long way away. But, any peaceful first steps
are sorely needed – this could be that.
Time will tell – but keep in mind that both Kim and
Trump love center stage and a monopoly on bragging rights, attention, and heaps
of praise and that could be one huge road block – we shall see.
Hopefully any meeting between Trump and Kim will lead
to permanent peace on that peninsula – it is long overdue. I know and have
seen that massive change and brilliance in the south since the war that I saw
firsthand when I first served there in 1961-63 and nearly 15 years after that
off and on as a Marine and later as a DOD civilian.
Just look at South Korea today, or Japan since WWII, and now China today - all true miracles.
Thanks for stopping by.
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