Mike Pompeo responds to North Korea's complaint that his "unilateral... demand for denuclearization" is "gangster-like."
WaPo reports.
I suspect that "gangster-like" refers to the idea, from "The Godfather," of an offer you can't refuse. But:
1. I don't think a firm, unilateral offer is the same thing as an offer you must accept because the alternative is death.
2. The idea of "The Godfather" seems connected to Pompeo's Italian ethnicity, and it's unsophisticated of North Korea to display ethnic bias.
3. There's a hint of an expression of love for American pop culture — the movies... and even the gangsters. Perhaps there was an idea of canceling out the idea that Kim Jong-Un was ignorant of Western pop culture in that he didn't know the song "Rocket Man," a knowledge gap highlighted by Mike Pompeo's giving Kim a Trump-signed copy of the recording.
4. Pompeo's response — "If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster" — is terse and memorable, but it is ambiguous as hell. One meaning is: The requests are not gangster-like, because they're typical of the way deal-making is done all over the world. But the other meaning is: The world is a gangster. In a way, it doesn't matter which of those meanings is true or intended. The message is the same: Quit whining, face reality, and make a deal.
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The actual gangsters are Kim's generals, who are not going to go along with the deal because they wind up dead.
I thought he meant that the world is a gangster because the whole world wants North Korea to give up their nukes.
Trump can make a deal where those generals end up rich men in tropical paradises if that is what it takes.
Interesting. My first read on the title quote was that Secretary Pompeo is saying that the world is making that request (that North Korea denuclearize), regardless of how North Korea chooses to characterize it.
Clicking through to the article, I see that this seems to be what Pompeo meant: "“If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster,” said Pompeo, noting that U.S. demands for North Korea to denuclearize were supported by a consensus at the U.N. Security Council."
Very positive article -- lots of praise and optimism from the leaders of Japan and South Korea, who would be in a better position to judge all this than we would.
I hope Mr. Pompeo is talking to President Trump every bit of the way. All this hinges on whether Kim Jung Un decides to sign off on it. And I literally trust no one in the world as much a Donald Trump to correctly read that.
Tim has it- transitive property of equaljty.
Play out The Godfather analogy. Is Trump the Don? Is Pompeo Michael? Sonny? Tom Hagen? Who is Kim?
He may have meant "gangnum."
WaPo is the Sicilian message stinky fish wrapper.
And next comes the Brussels Gang, that calls itself an European Union, getting a Donald John Trump offer that it cannot refuse. The times they are a changing.
Don Jon! I like it!
To some, to mangle and mash Churchill, Trump is a riddle wrapped in an enigma protected by a bodyguard of lies, but to me he is maybe the most honest winning national politician who has ever lived. Because his words have elicited a deeper truth, that like the kitchen light at 3 am, has the cockroaches scurrying.
OK, of my lifetime. which goes back in memory to JFK.
Barry Weingast on the violence trap is a good explanation of how such societies are structured and how you can't change them easily.
http://www.econtalk.org/weingast-on-the-violence-trap/
I had a friend, now gone, who fought in Europe in WWII. After the war ended, he spent about a year in Germany and Vienna before he went home. Told me some great stories. One was of walking down a street, I think in Berlin, and coming upon 2 Russian soldiers. He said he smiled and greeted them. Certainly they didn't speak English, but both said to him, "Gangster! Gangster!" My friend said he thought the Russian soldiers had been taught that all Americans were gangsters.
So, testing nuclear and ballistic technology over the heads of your neighbors isn’t gangster-like. Got it.
"Gangster" is a typical epithet in NK propaganda.
This is not new, it is just a word in the unique NK style book that seems to have been in use since the Soviets supplied it along with the burp guns and T-34's, over half a century ago.
I wouldn't try to read too much meaning into it.
The underlying fact is that Hillary poisoned this well with Libya. Trump has to convince Kim and his warlords, which is what they are, that the US can be trusted.
Democrats will do what they can to kill this deal if it looks like it's going to work.
Ted Kennedy tried to support Brezhnev over Reagan.
They do not care about America, only their own power.
He may have meant "gangnum."
I'm SURE he meant that; after, Kim made this video
GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) PARODY! KIM JONG STYLE!
Ah, here comes the blame the left contingent. Yeah, it is all Ted Kennedy's fault Michael.
Trump just had a summit and told us about the great deal he made there.
Now that it comes out that Trump did not make an actual deal there, lets blame Clinton because we surely cannot hold the Trump Administration accountable.
Lied to and still blaming the left.
It appears that, as usual with the Donald and his great "deals," he's all brag, no fact.
"Trump has to convince Kim and his warlords, which is what they are, that the US can be trusted."
But the US can't be trusted.
This is why NK wants nukes...as insurance the US (or its allies) would not preemptively invade their country or mount or sponsor other military offenses. NK saw what happened to a nuke-less Iraq and took warning from that.
Where's John Kerry?
This is China pulling the leash. This is all about tariffs and trade. Notice the timing.
The underlying fact is that Hillary poisoned this well with Libya. Trump has to convince Kim and his warlords, which is what they are, that the US can be trusted.
Really?! And pulling out of the Iran deal had no impact.
Face it. Trump got played. He signed a meaningless agreement that promised denuclearization, not of North Korea, but of the entire Korean peninsula. You and Trump may be too stupid to understand the significance of that, but it would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops. By longstanding policy, the U.S. does not comment on the presence of nuclear weapons.
If Obama had gone to North Korea and came back with the same agreement and then praised Kim like Trump did (and called joint military exercises with South Korea provocative and cancelled them without consulting DoD), you would be screaming bloody murder.
"Trump has to convince Kim and his warlords, which is what they are, that the US can be trusted."
No. He just has to "convince" them that the alternative is worse. Not clear that it is, or can be, but Trump has squeezed a little harder.
Their calculation doesn't just involve us. They also have to survive domestically. Without the security apparatus, they are at risk--not just as a regime, but personally. So far, they have viewed nukes as the dual linchpin: useful blackmail, keeping the lid on.
But the Chinese and the SKs can help more credibly on the domestic front.
“Really?! And pulling out of the Iran deal had no impact.”
This is the Trumpian reality, there are never consequences to Trumpian follies. It’s always someone else’s fault.
THE WORLD IS YOURS...
"And everything in it, Chico."
China is pissed about the trade war and told NK, “do what you want” and NK was only waiting for an excuse to make a fool out of Trump, it didn’t take long.
Ukraine and Libya were evidence the US can’t be trusted to keep a deal.
Iraq showed the only way to deter the US is by having nukes.
Pakistan, India, and Israel has shown there is little political cost for having nukes.
Ukraine showed it was stupid to give them up.
I’m surprised Trump has gotten this far with NK.
SK does not want reunification, and the US has accepted historically their veto over armed responses to NK by the US.
Someone needs to tell Lil Kim that his alternatives are to behave, or to be strung up from a street lamp by his own people, or to be shot by his own soldiers, or to be in a jail cell for the rest of his life in the Hague, or to catch a cruise missile up his ass. And no nuclear program will prevent one of those from happening. Soon.
Every one of our resident leftists is giddy with the hope that the deal falls through. They believe, like Tom Steyer, that a nuclear war is a small price to pay for Democrats to regain power.
"the US has accepted historically their veto over armed responses to NK by the US."
True. But can't-trust-the-U.S. now works both ways.
Who knows what mad Trump will do? I mean, even Steyerian progs are clamoring for war, dialing their scorch-the-earth tactics up to 11 so they can prevail in their domestic pursuit of power.
"Every one of our resident leftists is giddy with the hope that the deal falls through. They believe, like Tom Steyer, that a nuclear war is a small price to pay for Democrats to regain power."
Not so. If NK were to denuclearize it would be a good thing, in that any reduction in nations with nukes is better than any increase in nations with nukes. If Trump can effect NK's denuclearization, good on him. However, we cannot demand it; Trump the deal-maker has to give NK enough in return that they will volunatarily denuclearize.
The question is: is Trump really a deal-maker?
Well, to the fellow that claimed that a nuke-free peninsula means US-troop free. Totally wrong, no rational link between the two. And to the notion that the DPRK must desperately cling to nukes for deterrence is equally silly. They currently hold Seoul hostage, and have effectively done so for years, without nukes, depending only on long range artillery and a substantial inventory of chem/bio WMDs.
To the person who thinks nixing the Iran deal forecloses a deal with the DPRK. Wrong again, most likely the opposite is true. That deal was the epitome of weakness, didn't shut down the Iranian program permanently, allowed, almost encouraged, Iranian cheating via an incomplete/hobbled inspection regeim, and did nothing re. their ballistic missile program--capped by the delivery of a plane load of cash. Given this, the DPRK would have used the JCPOA as a negotiating baseline. The Iran deal had to go.
More sound and fury for the punters to squabble over.
Well, to the fellow that claimed that a nuke-free peninsula means US-troop free. Totally wrong, no rational link between the two. And to the notion that the DPRK must desperately cling to nukes for deterrence is equally silly. They currently hold Seoul hostage, and have effectively done so for years, without nukes, depending only on long range artillery and a substantial inventory of chem/bio WMDs.
To the person who thinks nixing the Iran deal forecloses a deal with the DPRK. Wrong again, most likely the opposite is true. That deal was the epitome of weakness, didn't shut down the Iranian program permanently, allowed, almost encouraged, Iranian cheating via an incomplete/hobbled inspection regeim, and did nothing re. their ballistic missile program--capped by the delivery of a plane load of cash. Given this, the DPRK would have used the JCPOA as a negotiating baseline. The Iran deal had to go.
The kicker and the question: The DPRK will insist on a ratified treaty to insure the deal will stick. The question is whether or not the democrats will put their current rage driven insanity on hold and allow the senate to ratify a success by Trump.
Blogger Robert Cook said...
"Every one of our resident leftists is giddy with the hope that the deal falls through. They believe, like Tom Steyer, that a nuclear war is a small price to pay for Democrats to regain power."
"Not so. If NK were to denuclearize it would be a good thing, in that any reduction in nations with nukes is better than any increase in nations with nukes. If Trump can effect NK's denuclearization, good on him. However, we cannot demand it; Trump the deal-maker has to give NK enough in return that they will volunatarily denuclearize"
I am happy you feel that way. However, your comment above: "It appears that, as usual with the Donald and his great "deals," he's all brag, no fact." didn't seem to convey that message.
I'm happy our resident leftists are here to explain their expertise in world affairs ... especially as it relates to North Korea.
Based upon their track record, we should trust their judgement.
Very positive article -- lots of praise and optimism from the leaders of Japan and South Korea, who would be in a better position to judge all this than we would.
Nope. Our leftists know much, much more. They're always correct on things they know nothing about.
Robert Cook: You might want the same No Nuke outcome as the Trump, but you must also be a mindless cheerleader as a Trumpster snowflake Richard to satisfy his need to follow a lockstep goose march.
Totally wrong, no rational link between the two.
How is it "totally wrong". Most of our combat aircraft are nuclear capable. Nuclear capable warships visit South Korean ports all the time. We neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons in a specific place (if you want an example of this carried to the ridiculous limit, visit the website of FE Warren AFB and see where they acknowledge that their Minutemen missiles are nuclear armed). We are certainly not going to accept inspections of our bases by the North Koreans. A nuclear free peninsula, as opposed to a nuclear free DPRK, means no U.S. troops in South Korea, no port visits by U.S. combat ships and no overflights by nuclear capable aircraft.
Blogger Mark said...
Ah, here comes the blame the left contingent. Yeah, it is all Ted Kennedy's fault Michael.
So, Ted Kennedy's actions were not treasonous? And Kerry's ?
Your heroes.
I wish you two Marks would self identify. I try to skip autoleft posts.
SK does not want reunification, and the US has accepted historically their veto over armed responses to NK by the US.
I could see the end game as reunification and the combined Korea keeping nukes.
I think the same might happen with Iran if the people succeed in throwing off the mullahs.
The danger is not the nukes but the regime.
re Nuclear free Korea: We simply don't have to have nukes on the peninsula to be able to employ them there if necessary. As to nuke-capable aircraft and ships, we will not negotiate those away.
Blogger Winston said...
re Nuclear free Korea: We simply don't have to have nukes on the peninsula to be able to employ them there if necessary. As to nuke-capable aircraft and ships, we will not negotiate those away.
That's some seriously Gangster shit that allows Pompeo to make the Norks an offer they couldn't refuse.
"Robert Cook: You might want the same No Nuke outcome as the Trump, but you must also be a mindless cheerleader as a Trumpster snowflake Richard to satisfy his need to follow a lockstep goose march."
What?
Can you interpret your statement for me?
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