(04-27-2018 03:50 AM)eradicator Wrote:  So far this is all for show and window dressing and NK seems unlikely to give up their nuclear arsenal as that is their o e bargaining chip. Their testing facility is on a mountain that collapsed and it is likely no longer usable so they are offering to give up testing there. We will see if anything comes from this but unless they actually give up their nukes it is all a meaningless show.

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The thought of reunification of the Korean peninsula almost brings tears to my eyes. They are ONE PEOPLE who have been divided for years by disingenuous world powers who DGAF about the Korean people. Elderly Koreans being reunited after 70 years apart will be some of the arresting visuals you could possibly imagine.

Also, its completely over for other countries when it comes to Starcraft.

I want to believe this is real, but part of me feels like this is a bait 'n' switch on the part of Kim. Maybe he's doing this to get more aid only to reel back into his isolation. I mean, it's quite a show, either way.

(04-27-2018 10:58 AM)Enoch Wrote:  The thought of reunification of the Korean peninsula almost brings tears to my eyes. They are ONE PEOPLE who have been divided for years by disingenuous world powers who DGAF about the Korean people. Elderly Koreans being reunited after 70 years apart will be some of the arresting visuals you could possibly imagine.

Also, its completely over for other countries when it comes to Starcraft.

Excellent news indeed and we all are right to rejoice. This is a momentus occasion with the prospect of the Korean War finally coming to an official end after 65 years. We got here because of the following:

a) North Korea achieving a credible strategic deterrent is what precipitated these talks.
b) The new South Korean ruler, Moon Jae-in issuing a blunt warning to Trump against any unilateral strike on the DPRK.
c) Kim Jong-un's decision to halt testing as a sign of goodwill.
d) Chinese and Russian diplomacy between the two Koreas

However I am skeptical that something really concrete will come from this. We have been here before - back in 2000 with Albright's visit to NK.

There are two potential spoilers:

1) Japan - PM Abe who is quite hawkish, will dislike any agreement made between the two Koreas. The Koreans hate the Japanese with a passion due to it being a colony of Japan (1910-45) and Tokyo would view a unified Korea as a potential political and economic rival.

2) Military Industrial Complex in the US - any peaceful outcome would be bad for business for obvious reasons. The MIC would want to keep its troops stationed in Korea and the lucrative position of hostility going with China. Throw in the neo-cons and John Bolton and you get the picture.

3) How flexible will Pyongyang be? Is it a ruse by Kim Jong-un? Who knows.

If peace does break out and DPRK society opens up, we could be seeing a poosy paradise not seen since the early-mid 1990s which saw armies of slutty Slavic women unleashed in the wake of the breakup of the USSR. Except this time it will be hordes of Korean hotties. That would be the Mother of all Datasheets and it demands Suits to lead the charge.

(04-27-2018 01:09 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Hear me out on this. What if, just if, is Kim Jong Un draining his swamp? Think about it, he cultivates the image of dear leader but that may be a tradition he is obliged to do. He knows that NK people could totally lose their minds if they are suddenly presented with alternative system, so he slowly transitions from dictatorship to something more benevolent ("democracy").
During that time, he is also dealing with and/or executing people that are actually driving NK in the same direction in last 60 years or so. Those generals around him, that uncle he executed are IMO military industrial complex of his nation and true rulers and "swamp".

At the same time we may be having same thing with Crown Prince in Saudia Arabia. There are uncanny resemblances.

Or maybe people should see Kim as a sheep being told by the Chinese to shut his mouth because the USA is causing major problems for them?

I'm too cynical to see this as some sort of NK opening to the world ceremony. Trump applied pressure to the Chinese and they didn't want things going bad in the seas over there.

I am obviously glad about the turn of events for North Korea and it would be great if that country would become free and open to the world or even unite with South Korea.

However the suffering of NK people will not end that easily, most of those people are not adapted for living in a free world, they would not know how to survive in such a world. Many will want to resist and fight back. Many will commit suicides unable to tolerate the change. Many women will become prostitutes with no real skills to use in free market economy and unable to function without a master. Many men will still sell themselves to cheap labor and human slavery in China. A freshly liberated NK will attract human traffickers and sex tourists like honey flies. We will have a new porn Bollywood in NK. It's possible Thailand's tourism industry will suffer because all the hungry wolves will get attracted to skinny NK women who will sell themselves for a hamburger. Local men will completely be unable to compete with foreigners, which would cause both much resentment and likely a big gender dis-balance with women being literally purchased in streets by foreigners looking for wives or pimps looking for workers - that leaving many men alone leading to crime and violence. Crime will be rampart. The legal system will have to be constructed a new and different loopholes will be exploited by corrupt bureaucrats for a long time. It will much be similar to the crime ridden 90ties in Russia after Gorbatchev decided to leave office and let Soviet Union fall and become open to free market economy. Only for North Korea it will be worse, because the time period, they spent under communism was much greater. Those people will have to endure 10-30 years of chaos and being exploitable underdogs in free economy before their suffering will truly end.

That change must come slowly and be controllable or suffering will be infernal.

Strangely enough Kim can actually act as savior of his people if he decides to lead this conversion slowly and steadily. If he just decides to be NK version of Gorbachev and bail out for milliards of dollars from west and leaves to Seychelles or Panama with the remaining NK budget, leaving NK people without a leader and forced to build a democracy from zero up, it will be catastrophic. But if he leads that transition until people are ready to elect proper government and carry their own economic weight, then he may actually do something that would clean his soul and make him a true great leader.

(04-27-2018 12:35 PM)Mage Wrote:  I am obviously glad about the turn of events for North Korea and it would be great if that country would become free and open to the world or even unite with South Korea.

However the suffering of NK people will not end that easily, most of those people are not adapted for living in a free world, they would not know how to survive in such a world. Many will want to resist and fight back. Many will commit suicides unable to tolerate the change. Many women will become prostitutes with no real skills to use in free market economy and unable to function without a master. Many men will still sell themselves to cheap labor and human slavery in China. A freshly liberated NK will attract human traffickers and sex tourists like honey flies. We will have a new porn Bollywood in NK. It's possible Thailand's tourism industry will suffer because all the hungry wolves will get attracted to skinny NK women who will sell themselves for a hamburger. Local men will completely be unable to compete with foreigners, which would cause both much resentment and likely a big gender dis-balance with women being literally purchased in streets by foreigners looking for wives or pimps looking for workers - that leaving many men alone leading to crime and violence. Crime will be rampart. The legal system will have to be constructed a new and different loopholes will be exploited by corrupt bureaucrats for a long time. It will much be similar to the crime ridden 90ties in Russia after Gorbatchev decided to leave office and let Soviet Union fall and become open to free market economy. Only for North Korea it will be worse, because the time period, they spent under communism was much greater. Those people will have to endure 10-30 years of chaos and being exploitable underdogs in free economy before their suffering will truly end.

That change must come slowly and be controllable or suffering will be infernal.

Strangely enough Kim can actually act as savior of his people if he decides to lead this conversion slowly and steadily. If he just decides to be NK version of Gorbachev and bail out for milliards of dollars from west and leaves to Seychelles or Panama with the remaining NK budget, leaving NK people without a leader and forced to build a democracy from zero up, it will be catastrophic. But if he leads that transition until people are ready to elect proper government and carry their own economic weight, then he may actually do something that would clean his soul and make him a true great leader.

This is very true. NK was always going to open to the world someday, one way or the other. There is certainly a big risk of this going very badly for most of the population. There are definitely things that could be done to help make things turn out as well as possible for as many people as possible. At least some people will be on the losing end, but hopefully, the impact can be minimized somehow. Fortunely, SK will want to help provide assistance and support in this effort.

If Kim III manages to stay in power and achieve a relatively smooth and stable transition for the NK people, he could come out of this smelling like a rose.

Trump did the whole world a big favor with this. He pulled off this deal for the US the way he would have previously gone after building another Trump mega property in a key world class location.

Kim's bodyguards run alongside his limo during summit

Full video of summit from Russian channel RT without any commentary
1 hour and 12 minutes long

Kim appears @ minute 41:36

2 leaders meet @ min 42:30









Part 2, also without commentary
1 hour, and 53 minutes long

Kim's wife arrives @ minute 1:44:30 (wearing rose/pink dress)

As much as you guys think this is good news...I believe the end goal is for the Chinese to negotiate the US off of the Korean peninsula at any cost. I hope Trump understands this.

(04-27-2018 05:58 PM)ivansirko Wrote:  As much as you guys think this is good news...I believe the end goal is for the Chinese to negotiate the US off of the Korean peninsula at any cost. I hope Trump understands this.

...and?

South Korea has the ability to defend itself and benefits from a half-century of trickle-down US training and equipment. Ditto with the Japanese.

Economic cooperation with the future powerhouses of the world - China (East Asia as a whole) and Russia should be the long game, not bolstering up last century's Western European entanglements.

(04-27-2018 06:52 PM)dicknixon72 Wrote:  ...and?

South Korea has the ability to defend itself and benefits from a half-century of trickle-down US training and equipment. Ditto with the Japanese.

The test of this is if/when the US leaves Korea and Japan. China has nukes. Where are the Japanese and ROK nukes?

China is easing its way into the coastlines of most of South East Asia. If we negotiate from a position of weakness China will exploit it and may choose to turn all of this into a hot war.

(04-27-2018 06:52 PM)dicknixon72 Wrote:  

(04-27-2018 05:58 PM)ivansirko Wrote:  As much as you guys think this is good news...I believe the end goal is for the Chinese to negotiate the US off of the Korean peninsula at any cost. I hope Trump understands this.

...and?

South Korea has the ability to defend itself and benefits from a half-century of trickle-down US training and equipment. Ditto with the Japanese.

Economic cooperation with the future powerhouses of the world - China (East Asia as a whole) and Russia should be the long game, not bolstering up last century's Western European entanglements.

South Korea absolutely can not defend itself from China alone. That's a silly proposition.

The worries with NK/SK negotiations were that SK + US could barely hope to protect a large segment of SK's population from NK artillery.

To be clear, SK/NK peace is a great thing, but ivansirko is 100% right: the US has to be careful about the balance of power in Asia if it's going to pull out of SK completely.

Just because the US under Trump is practicing a less interventionist foreign policy doesn't mean you simply build China into a behemoth and then leave your allies alone with them in a room.

Any successful long term foreign policy in Asia must follow this maxim:

Never trust China, at least not for too long.

Hilarious watching you guys twist and twirl to try to spin this development into anything but a great thing.

(04-27-2018 09:02 PM)Gmac Wrote:  Hilarious watching you guys twist and twirl to try to spin this development into anything but a great thing.

Hilarious to see you constantly come unhinged over the slightest things.

(04-27-2018 07:36 PM)Enigma Wrote:  To be clear, SK/NK peace is a great thing

(04-27-2018 09:02 PM)Gmac Wrote:  Hilarious watching you guys twist and twirl to try to spin this development into anything but a great thing.

I agree. This is great news. It is one of the greatest achievements, at least on paper, in recent history. MAGA 2020!

I dont see this as a bad thing at all, however beware of Communists bearing gifts.

To my understanding there was a secret not-so-secret meeting in China between Kim and the Chinese Premier a month ago. Communists do not do anything without a plan.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/27/asia/nort...index.html

I do think it speaks volumes of how this is happening during a Trump Administration. He needs to use those negotiating skills he talks about. No other president could ever do this (maybe besides Nixon).

It wouldn't surprise me if Trump has looked at the financial books and figured 'we get diddly squat from this region for a lot of military investment, so it's time to put the onus to defend the peace back on its occupants.'

It would explain why he's dropping missiles into the ME and peace talks into Korea.

(04-27-2018 09:02 PM)Gmac Wrote:  Hilarious watching you guys twist and twirl to try to spin this development into anything but a great thing.

Some guys love talking themselves out of good pussy.

Hopefully by the end of the decade we can see both Koreas flying under one flag for the first time since the end of WWII.

(04-27-2018 05:58 PM)ivansirko Wrote:  As much as you guys think this is good news...I believe the end goal is for the Chinese to negotiate the US off of the Korean peninsula at any cost. I hope Trump understands this.

This. Kim Jong Un visited China recently and now he has turned around.

But it doesn't matter if Trump gets it, since it should be clear for everyone by now that he's just a puppet for the jews and they get it. They won't get their hands off North Korea that easily, and the US has little to gain by a united and demilitarised Korea. China has.

What are the odds the North Korean regime inexplicably gasses a few hundred citizens just before a peace treaty can be signed?

Nothing is going to change security wise. Our troops are positioned in strategic locations all over the world for a reason.

No one is so short sighted as to leave China to it’s own devices.

I think the trade war is about to ramp up big time.