Pompeo hasn't been straight with us on North Korea

[DonViejo]

By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
August 26 at 12:00 PM

For more than two months since the Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has assured us that Trump’s brilliant strategy was working. We’ve given up nothing, Pompeo said, ignoring the PR coup for Kim and the cancellation of U.S.-South Korea joint exercises. We still have sanctions, he insisted — ignoring the assistance extended by China to Pyongyang. We’re making progress in talks, he assured us.

In July, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. CNN recounted, “Pompeo would not say publicly if North Korea is still moving forward with its nuclear program. He told [a] senator he’d answer the question ‘in a different setting.’ . . . When Sen. Ed Markey expressed concerns that the US was being ‘taken for a ride’ by North Korea, Pompeo quickly responded, saying, ‘Fear not, senator. Fear not.'”

After visits to North Korea, Pompeo downplayed signs that Pyongyang had never changed its tune. On July 8, the Associated Press reported:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday brushed aside North Korea’s accusation of “gangster-like” denuclearization demands. Pompeo maintained that his third visit to the country had produced results but also vowed that sanctions would remain until Pyongyang follows through on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pledge to get rid of his atomic weapons. . . . Speaking after meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo, Pompeo said his two days of talks in Pyongyang had been productive and conducted in good faith.

It is not clear what he was trying to accomplish by all this happy talk. Perhaps he did not want to enrage his boss by revealing that Trump’s nauseating bowing and scraping in Singapore had actually made things worse, demonstrating to Kim that Trump is a fool who can be played while North Korea advances its nuclear program and gets economic relief from China.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/08/26/pompeo-hasnt-been-straight-with-us-on-north-korea

[spanone]

1. they. all. lie.

[2naSalit]

2. I don't get where

anyone ever thought he was or ever would! He's been a tool since the day he decided to run for office.

[Squinch]

3. Exactly. And today's "we might in the future have a trade

agreement with Mexico" is the same Lucy holding the football. The American public is Charlie Brown and they fall for it EVERY time.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. By the time Trump realizes he's been played North Korea will have hundreds of nukes.

[Squinch]

6. He KNOWS has been played. It doesn't matter to him. What matters to him

is that the average American doesn't know hes been played.

[gratuitous]

5. When I wake up, I'll show you my shocked face

You won't be able to tell that I woke up, though.

The only people who bought this nonsense were, sadly, the ones paid to go on the trip and report back to their audiences in the United States. We were treated to stories for days on end about what an historic and unprecedented trip this was. Spoilsports who remembered that North Korea tends to fudge the truth were brushed aside. Pointy-headed know-it-alls who complained that the trip was nothing more than a granting of credibility to Kim, an honor his family had lusted after for generations, didn't get any air at all. Pragmatic types who analyzed what the North Koreans were saying and concluding that they hadn't agreed to do anything were ignored: Why you gotta spoil everyone's good time?

[maxsolomon]

7. "Bowing and Scraping"

Trump thinks that's being a great host: blowing smoke up your guest's ass with over-the-top compliments. The context doesn't matter. He did it with Putin, too.

I'll give him this: he WAS insincere, since he's incapable of sincerity. Or compassion, empathy, regret, or any other actual human emotion that acknowledges that other humans exist outside of his pathological Solipsism.

[soryang]

8. Wash Post reporting on the negotiations with North Korea is the worst

...and least reliable. There are deep problems with the negotiations but the Wash Post's analysis is superficial and speaks only for the MICC establishment which can't formulate a different approach to Northeast Asian regional security.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. That's pretty much the only consistent thing

that can be said about the entire Trump (mis-)Administration.