It’s called diplomatic give-and-take for a reason. The United States cannot get some of what it wants without giving North Korea some of what it wants. Yet that is precisely what Washington has been trying to do—and predictably getting nowhere.
The summit was a significant step forward in avoiding war and achieving peace on the Korean peninsula. The summit gives an imprimatur to inter-Korean efforts to advance slow-motion reunification.
World peace, “the most important topic on earth….not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” That was 1963, the president was was John F. Kennedy. Contrast to today and the desire for ever greater stockpiles of nuclear bombs.
The hard-right national security adviser successfully tanked the Iran deal. His next target? The North Korea talks.
In John Bolton, now Trump’s National Security Adviser, the far right and the maniacal dovetail. Jesus said that if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a ditch. The ditch in this case could well be a ruinous war with Iran.
To the U.S., steps toward denuclearization have been the starting and ending point for negotiations with North Korea. But for the North Koreans, it has always been about trying to secure a guarantee to merely exist.
Not since 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviets exploded thermonuclear bombs, has the world been such a powder keg!
Reader Comments: Nuclear Disarmament - Again on the Agenda; Trump's Racism - recalling Martin Niemöller's dire warning in Nazi Germany; Radical lessons of Martin Luther King; #TimesUp; Traditional Labor Organizing - sharp disagreement with Portside Labor post; Sports in Colleges; Oprah - more disagreement with Portside posts; Grim Times in Austria; Announcements: The '60s-Years that Changed America; Concert for Puerto Rico; War or Peace with North Korea? and more....
When the US entered the nuclear age, it did so recklessly. New research suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. The nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in 250,000 deaths. And now, Donald Trump is threatening to use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.
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