Donald Trump Saluted A North Korean Military General, & Dude, What Are You Doing

[Boats]

Donald Trump Saluted A North Korean Military General, & Dude, What Are You Doing
By Shelby Black26 min ago 6-14-18
RE: https://www.elitedaily.com/p/donald-...-doing-9409677

I tried to watch the whole thing the other night but I must have missed his salute?

On June 12, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sat down in Singapore for a historic meeting to discuss improving relations between both nations. The summit might have been all business, but a few days later North Korean state media released a short documentary that showed some behind the scene footage, including a clip where Donald Trump saluted a North Korean military general. Cue facepalm.

On June 14, North Korea released a 42-minute video of the historic Trump-Kim summit meeting. According to The Washington Post, The Korean Central Television created the documentary as propaganda, but the video did show glimpses into a different side of this face to face with the two world leaders. And of course, in typical Trump fashion, there had to be at least one awkward moment take place. In the video, Trump extends his hand in greeting to a North Korean military general, who salutes in response. Well, in response to that, Trump actually salutes back to the military general and then shakes his hand.

Um, last time I checked Trump, you were the one in charge here.

It's highly uncommon for a president to salute back to a member of foreign military according to the Washington Post — presidents aren't even technically required to return the salutes of members of the U.S. military. Even though this exchange might have lasted just a few seconds, it's sure to have had a lasting impact on Kim Jong-un, who watched this all go down. Trump probably was just trying to be polite, but it all just ended up being terribly, terribly uncomfortable.

North Korea scholar, Jean H. Lee, spoke to The Washington Post about the significance of this salute, and how it will impact Trump's credibility in North Korea.

“This is a moment that will be used over and over in North Korea’s propaganda as 'proof' that the American president defers to the North Korean military,” Lee told The Post. “It will be treated as a military victory by the North Koreans.”

Fantastic.

Donald Trump, proving time and time again he is unlike any other president in history.

Trump's salute was arguably the most memorable point in the documentary, but the rest of the video was all about documenting Kim's journey leading up to the summit. From lavish hotels to huge crowds, viewers got an inside look into the experience of one of the world's most mysterious leaders.

On June 12, history was made when Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un met in Singapore for a much anticipated meeting. We may never know what exactly was said during the summit, but the two leaders signed a document that states the two nations will "work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." In addition, the document claims that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be a key figure in assisting with additional negotiations following the summit.

The document read,

The United States and the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

I have to admit, it's nice to see these two get along after all this time. It's no secret that the two controversial leaders have had some hostility over the past. On Sept. 19, 2017 Donald Trump referred to Kim as "rocket man" during a United Nations general assembly. Oh, and on Jan. 1, Kim addressed Trump's threats to "destroy" North Korea with a few threats of his own by saying that Trump "will face results beyond his expectation." Not great.

Well, it looks like their antagonism towards each other might actually turn into the world's most unsuspecting bromance. Hey, 2018 definitely has seen stranger things.

Closing comment by the writer: You've come a long way, boys.

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I would have closed by saying you've got a hell of ways to go boys. This may have made to TV for both sides but NK is full of dishonesty and I wouldn't trust these guys for the next 20 years. They are full of tricks and scheme's of which they will find a way to make things fall apart - I think alot sooner than later. I don't know what the end game will be but I've got a feeling this Love they have will have short comings and broken promises in the very near future.

Next I wouldn't pull our troops out of SK for at least 5 to 10 years and then see how things are going but to yank them out now would be a disaster and China would walk right in and volunteer or want to put a base in SK. That would put SK in the middle of a bad situation for sure.

Just my thoughts!

Boats

[Boats]

China Wins If Trump Pulls Troops From South Korea
By Fareed Zakaria - Friday, 15 June 2018 01:17 AM
RE: https://www.newsmax.com/fareedzakari.../15/id/866302/

"America will remain the world's dominant power in the 21st century only if it is the dominant Pacific power," the late Lee Kuan Yew often said to me. Lee, the founder of modern Singapore and one of the smartest strategic minds I have ever encountered, spoke about this issue late in life as he worried about the breakdown of the stability that had allowed for the extraordinary global growth of the last half century. The key, he was certain, was deep American engagement in Asia, which was quickly becoming the center of global economics and power. Alas, Donald Trump appears to be doing everything he can to violate Lee's dictum.

The media got it wrong. The real headline of the Trump-Kim summit — ironically held in Singapore, the city-state that Lee built — should have been: "U.S. weakens its 70-year alliance with South Korea." The most striking elements of Trump's initiative were not simply that he lavished praise on North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong Un, but that he announced the cancellation of military exercises with South Korea, adopting North Korea's own rhetoric by calling them "provocative."

The president must have missed his briefing. In fact, it is North Korea that provokes and threatens South Korea, as it has done since it first invaded the South in 1950. North Korea is believed to have about a million active-duty troops, almost double the South, and it has constructed perhaps as many as 20 tunnels to mount a surprise invasion. North Korea also has more than 6,000 pieces of artillery that can reach South Korea, including some whose range is so long that 32.5 million people are in danger, more than half the country's population, according to a study by the Rand Corp. The U.S. Defense Department estimated in 2006 that if North Korea opened artillery fire on the south, 250,000 people would be killed in Seoul alone, the Rand study notes. Of course, about a decade later, North Korea now has up to 60 nuclear bombs, complete with the missiles to deliver them. South Korea's "war games" with the U.S. are a necessary set of defensive exercises undertaken in the shadow of an aggressive adversary.

Even worse, Trump signaled that he would like to end the American troop presence in South Korea. He is wrong that this would save money, unless he plans to demobilize the troops — which would mean cutting America's active-duty forces, the opposite of his policy. Since South Korea covers almost half the costs of U.S. troops stationed there, moving them to, say, Georgia, would not be cheaper. But that's beside the point. Through bitter experience, the United States has found it is much better to have troops ready, battle-trained and with knowledge of the local geography rather than keeping them all in the U.S., only to be sent abroad when trouble breaks out.

A few commentators have pointed out that the big winner of the Singapore summit was the great power that was not even there: China. That's exactly right. Consider what China has always wanted. First, the stabilization of North Korea. Until recently, there was much talk of the impending implosion of the North Korean regime. For China, this is a nightmare, since unification would take place on South Korean terms. This would mean a large democratic state allied with Washington, housing American troops right on China's southern border. That nightmare looks unlikely now that the U.S. is promising security guarantees for North Korea and dangling aid and investment.

China's second great desire has been to rid Asia of American troops, especially from the mainland. Trump appears inclined to do this as well. After the Cold War ended, many Asian countries got nervous that the United States would withdraw from Asia, leaving its allies to the tender mercies of a rising China. To assure them otherwise, Joseph Nye, a top Defense department official in the Clinton administration, formulated a report and initiative that committed the United States to maintain a forward troop presence in Asia of about 100,000. Were Trump to follow through on his impulse to withdraw troops from South Korea, the U.S. would fall far below that threshold.

For China, the Trump administration has been the gift that keeps on giving. Trump began his term in office by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was created by a group of American allies to stand as an alternative to the Chinese market. The partnership was a bulwark against Chinese power that could have proved attractive to other Asian countries. Now the rules of the road are being written in Asia, and they are being written in Mandarin.

Lee was right. The long game for the United States over the next few decades is how to handle the rise of China. And right now, we are quitting the field.

About the writer: Fareed Zakaria hosts CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," and makes regular appearances on shows such as ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet The Press." He has been an editor at large Time magazine since 2010, and spent 10 years overseeing Newsweek's foreign editions. He is a Washington Post (and internationally syndicated) columnist. He is author of "The Post-American World."