Peace for our time? Donald Trump as Neville Chamberlain?

[lpetrich]

Peace for our time? Often misquoted as "Peace in our time". That is what Neville Chamberlain called his peace deal with Adolf Hitler, a deal that involved giving him the Sudetenland areas of Czechoslovakia, areas with a lot of ethnic Germans in them, ethnic Germans that were allegedly being mistreated by the Czechs there. Hitler claimed that that was all he wanted, and Chamberlain believed him.

Trump-Kim summit: what it means and what comes next - Vox

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just signed an agreement committing to work together to “build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”

The agreement, while a positive sign, offers little proof that North Korea will follow up on its promises to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” North Korea has made similar promises to the previous three US administrations, and each time they have reneged.

Vipin Narang, interviewed in that article:

And in a lot of ways, Kim ends up the winner, because he has extracted a freeze on US-South Korean military exercises as long as the dialogue continues, and as long as North Korea continues to freeze its development of nukes.

...
China looks like a big winner. Their ultimate goal is a nuclear North Korea that doesn’t provoke a war on the Korean Peninsula, so that there’s a buffer between South Korea, US forces, and China. So China and North Korea are unambiguous winners here. The US comes out mostly even, having gained a nice photo op. South Korea, depending on how it reacts, can still gain from this. Japan appears to be the immediate loser.

 

[Trausti]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump Kim summit: US president hails deal after historic talks - BBC News

However, speaking to reporters after, Mr Trump said:

The US would suspend "provocative" war games it holds with South Korea. Mr Trump said he wanted to see US troops withdraw from the South. A spokesperson for the US forces said they had yet to receive any new guidance
On denuclearisation, he said that Mr Kim had agreed to it being "verified", a key US demand ahead of the meeting
Mr Trump said Mr Kim had also agreed to destroy a "major missile engine testing site"
But he said sanctions would remain in place for now and argued "we haven't given up anything".

Several reporters asked whether Mr Trump had raised the issue of human rights with Mr Kim, who runs a totalitarian regime with extreme censorship and forced-labour camps.

The US president said he had, and did not retract his description of Mr Kim as "talented".

Seems like Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler. Kim Jong Un made no comparable concessions in return.

Trump in surprise summit move says he will halt Korea war games | Reuters

U.S. Senator Cory Gardner told reporters that Vice President Mike Pence promised in a briefing for Republican senators that the Trump administration would “clarify what the president talked about” regarding joint military exercises.

“VP was very clear: regular readiness training and training exchanges will continue ... war games will not,” Gardner later wrote on Twitter.

Pentagon officials were not immediately able to provide any details about Trump’s remarks about suspending drills, a step the U.S. military has long resisted.

One South Korean official said he initially thought Trump had misspoken.

As well he might have -- it was so bizarre.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump’s deal with Kim Jong-un is a con job, and you’re the mark.

Three times during his press conference, Trump was asked about North Korea’s failure to honor previous agreements in which it made similar pledges. Each time the question was asked, Trump blamed the collapse of these agreements on previous American presidents. As evidence, Trump claimed that during the summit, Kim had told him that North Korea lacked “confidence” in Trump’s predecessors.

How convenient. He swallows KJU's excuses whole.

In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Trump said his months of threats against North Korea before the two agreed to meet had just been bluffs: “The rhetoric, I hated to do it. Sometimes I felt foolish doing it.” And he shrugged off the idea of holding Kim to human-rights standards. “He has to be a rough guy,” Trump told Voice of America.

What excuses he makes for Little Rocket Man, as he once called his new buddy.

Lingering questions from the Trump-Kim summit - CNNPolitics

Two days before Trump told the world that Kim "loves his country very much," he blasted America's oldest allies after an acrimonious G7 summit and one of his top advisers warned there was "a special place in hell" reserved for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

That juxtaposition reflected the way Trump often chides America's oldest friends, but seems comfortable in the company of authoritarians like Kim, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping.

Not to mention Saudi Arabia's leaders.

But there is still no evidence that Pyongyang has dropped its habitual practice of demanding concessions in a drawn out negotiating process that always leaves its weapons programs intact.

So Trump didn't get much from North Korea, despite having an image of being an expert at dealmaking.

 

[Patooka]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

Especially in this case. Everyone was still war-weary from the trenches just prior to WW II, and Hitler was capable of giving a semi believable impression of a sane and rational man sometimes. Compared to today, however, everyone is very motivated to keep nukes out of DPRK, and the only person who believes that Kim Jong Un is not a petulant sociopathic man child is the petulant sociopathic man child in the Oval Office.

 

[bilby]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

Oh, yeah? Well that's pretty much what Stalin said at the Yalta Conference, and look how that turned out.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Most people forget that Clinton had supposedly gotten the Norks to stop trying the get nukes. That deal fell through over time. Though there was great hope from many that Clinton had gotten them to agree to that goal. So what Trump got from NK today may not be what we have a few years from now. We have been here before.

https://www.history.com/news/north-korea-nuclear-deal-bill-clinton-agreed-framework

 

[arkirk]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

While I almost always disagree with you, I think this idea of yours is right on target. However it would be a good question which of the two (Trump or Kim) would be considered the Hitler.

 

[Underseer]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

Oh no! Are people comparing Trump to Chamberlain just because there are similarities between what he did and what Chamberlain did? That's so unfair! Don't those mean liberals know that conservatives are special snowflakes that must never be criticized?

I think what is really funny is that Obama worked out a much better deal with North Korea, and you rightists went ballistic. Now that Trump worked out an even shittier deal than Obama, are you criticizing Trump even more than you did Obama? Nope. You're getting all emotional because people are criticizing Trump at all.

Isn't it tiring being triggered all the time? I would find it emotionally exhausting.

 

[Underseer]

Just a quick reminder for everyone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2214&v=f4eGQBzLGtg

https://nowthisnews.com/videos/poli...tions-regarding-negotiations-with-north-korea

 

[lpetrich]

There ought to be a moratorium on allusions to WWII. Really, most of them don't fit.

After you.

More seriously, there are some differences. It is much easier to restart war games in South Korea than it was for Czechoslovakia to retake the Sudetenland. But his supporters are hailing him as a great peacemaker and diplomat, something like what Neville Chamberlain had gotten at first. There's also a bit of selling out of allies in the quest for a peace deal.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Why would ANYONE, no matter how much USA jingoism coolaid they have guzzled down, actually expect North Korea to disarm after seeing shrub bush call them part of the axis of evil, what happened to WMD free Iraq, what happened with Libya and Trump's administration commending the Libya model?

Kim would have to be unbelievably naive to give up his weapons.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why would ANYONE, no matter how much USA jingoism coolaid they have guzzled down, actually expect North Korea to disarm after seeing shrub bush call them part of the axis of evil, what happened to WMD free Iraq, what happened with Libya and Trump's administration commending the Libya model?

Kim would have to be unbelievably naive to give up his weapons.

Especially when the entire nuclear weapon program was created solely to protect the Kim Dynasty. I think that reason is also why North Korea can't use them as well... that and China doesn't want the US on their border.

The comparison with Chamberlain doesn't seem correct. Firstly, there is only South Korea attached to North Korea, so an advancing of the troops can only take some much land. Hitler, through hindsight, we know had huge aspirations. Kim isn't invading China any time soon. Additionally, we have over 50 years of Kim history to know exactly their path and how their word doesn't mean much. Trump is no Chamberlain. Trump talked to Kim in an attempt to show the world, the world operates different for him, it doesn't. Trump seems to think his judgment of people matters and changes things. It doesn't. Trump has been played as a fool. Trump conceded something to North Korea, for nothing in return, and claimed peace... when peace was only in trouble if Trump preemptively struck North Korea. And agreed to a document he doesn't agree to and didn't have the intelligence to know that.

The funniest thing, that borders on depression is Trump tried to seduce Kim with the riches of capitalism. Yes, the guy who lives in luxury... and is a member of a family that doesn't give a fuck about North Koreans, is going to care about capitalism and lifting the boats. Kim's priority is Kim Dynasty forever and get Chinese sanctions lifted. The laughter among the North Koreans in Singapore would have been something to behold.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Fun fantasy game: Any Democrat President did what Orangey did last week in Singapore, then said what he said about the "deal" and about talented young Kim -- here's the fantasy part: just imagine what Rush and Fox 'n' Friends would be saying about it. They'd be absolutely blue in the face. The condemnations would be in hyperbolic terms -- Hannity would go into his gray-face mode. Rush would rant until he was hoarse. McConnell would speak gravely about the perils of having a President who could be used by tyrants. All of these folks would be reminding us of Kim's crimes against humanity. It would be a perfect Republican storm.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Obama bowed to the Saudi King... and all hell broke loose on the right-wing-o-sphere.

Yeah, if Obama:

• Said no more joint military exercises with South Korea
• Signed off on a meaningless document that provided the US with nothing
• Declared the end of a nuclear threat
• Whined about Fox News in several Tweets
• And called Kim 'talented' and applauded how well he took over being a dictator at such a young age

...the impeachment trials would be on going at this point.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Nuclear weapons got Kim a meeting with Trump. Now he's going to give them up, why? Because Trump is ultra super fabulous?

 

[Elixir]

Nuclear weapons got Kim a meeting with Trump. Now he's going to give them up, why? Because Trump is ultra super fabulous?

Because it is very efficient to recycle the same empty promise to every US President. This time he got time, prestige and influence out of the deal, instead of just time. Because Cheat o is such a Great Negotiator.
Tired of all this WINNING yet?

 

[Horatio Parker]

Nuclear weapons got Kim a meeting with Trump. Now he's going to give them up, why? Because Trump is ultra super fabulous?

Because it is very efficient to recycle the same empty promise to every US President. This time he got time, prestige and influence out of the deal, instead of just time. Because Cheat o is such a Great Negotiator.
Tired of all this WINNING yet?

The Pentagon said they're going ahead with exercises as planned, unless ordered differently.

Also saw an item claiming that to the NK, denuclearization means removal of the US nuclear umbrella. Oops...

 

[Elixir]

Nuclear weapons got Kim a meeting with Trump. Now he's going to give them up, why? Because Trump is ultra super fabulous?

Because it is very efficient to recycle the same empty promise to every US President. This time he got time, prestige and influence out of the deal, instead of just time. Because Cheat o is such a Great Negotiator.
Tired of all this WINNING yet?

The Pentagon said they're going ahead with exercises as planned, unless ordered differently.

Also saw an item claiming that to the NK, denuclearization means removal of the US nuclear umbrella. Oops...

Lol! A promise is a promise, right?
A promise from Kim is worth about the same as a promise from Cheato, so I guess it's a very equitable "agreement", eh?

FWIW (<$0.02) I never heard Cheato mention military exercises, just "war games" which are quite another animal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nuclear weapons got Kim a meeting with Trump. Now he's going to give them up, why? Because Trump is ultra super fabulous?

Because it is very efficient to recycle the same empty promise to every US President. This time he got time, prestige and influence out of the deal, instead of just time. Because Cheat o is such a Great Negotiator.
Tired of all this WINNING yet?

The Pentagon said they're going ahead with exercises as planned, unless ordered differently.

Also saw an item claiming that to the NK, denuclearization means removal of the US nuclear umbrella. Oops...

Yes, the North Koreans always refer to the denuclearization of the "Korean Peninsula".

What sucks is that if the US military does a joint training exercise, Kim can point to the US for lying to them... and be fucking right about it.