South Korean President Moons Bolton
By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | May 26, 2018
Thanks no doubt to his bellicose national security adviser John Bolton, President Donald Trump has now lost control of the movement toward peace between the two Koreas. Trump has put himself in a corner; he must now either reject — or, better, fire — Bolton, or face the prospect of wide war in the Far East, including the Chinese, with whom a mutual defense treaty with North Korea is still on the books.
The visuals of the surprise meeting late yesterday (local time) between the top leaders of South Korea and North
Korea pretty much tell the story. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in drove into the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and Seoul quickly released a one-minute video of what, by all appearances, was an extremely warm encounter with Kim Jung-un. It amounted to a smiling, thumbing of two noses at Bolton and the rest of the “crazies” who follow his advice, such as Vice President Mike Pence who echoed Bolton’s insane evocation of the “Libya model” for North Korea, which caused Pyongyang to go ballistic. Their angry response was the reason Trump cited for cancelling the June 12 summit with Kim.
But Trump almost immediately afterward began to waffle. At their meeting on Friday the two Korean leaders made it clear their main purpose was to make “the successful holding of the North Korea-U.S. Summit” happen. Moon is expected to announce the outcome of his talks with Kim Sunday morning (Korean time).
Why is Trump Waffling?
One cannot rule out the possibility that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has some cojones beneath his girth. He has a personal, as well as a diplomatic stake in whether or not Bolton succeeds in wrecking the summit. (Trump, after all, deputized Pompeo, while he was still CIA director, to set it up.) It’s also possible some non-crazy advisers are warning Trump about Bolton’s next “March of Folly.” Other advisers may be appealing to Trump’s legendary vanity by dangling the prospect that he may blow his only shot at a Nobel Peace Prize.
The two Korean leaders have made abundantly clear their determination to continue on the path of reconciliation despite the artificial divide created by the U.S. 70 years ago. Now, a lot depends on the unpredictable Trump. If enough people talk sense to him and help him see the dangerous consequences of letting himself be led by Bolton, peace on the Korean peninsula may be within reach.
It is no longer a fantasy to suggest that the DMZ could evaporate just as unexpectedly and quickly as that other artifact of the Cold War did — the Berlin Wall almost four decades ago.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington, D.C.. A Fordham alumnus, he spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, from the Kennedy administration to the first Bush administration. He holds a certificate in theological studies from Georgetown and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.
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6 MAJOR US foreign policy failures of the post-Cold War era
By Adam Garrie | The Duran | September 14, 2017
In the 1990s, US officials, all of whom would go on to serve in the George W. Bush White House, authored two short, but deeply important policy documents that have subsequently been the guiding force behind every major US foreign policy decision taken since the year 2000 and particularly since 9/11.
These documents include the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (more commonly known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine). This document, as the name implies was authored by George W. Bush’s deeply influential Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as well as I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who served as an advisor to former US Vice President Dick Cheney.
The other major document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, from 1996 was authored by former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee in the administration of George W. Bush, Richard Norman Perle.
Both documents provide a simplistic but highly unambiguous blueprint for US foreign police in the Middle East, Russia’s near abroad and East Asia. The contents of the Wolfowitz Doctrine were first published by the New York Times in 1992 after they were leaked to the media. Shortly thereafter, many of the specific threats made in the document were re-written using broader language. In this sense, when comparing the official version with the leaked version, it reads in the manner of the proverbial ‘what I said versus what I meant’ adage.
By contrast, A Clean Break was written in 1996 as a kind of gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who apparently was not impressed with the document at the time. In spite of this, the US has implemented many of the recommendations in the document in spite of who was/is in power in Tel Aviv.
While many of the recommendations in both documents have indeed been implemented, their overall success rate has been staggeringly bad.
Below are major points from the documents followed by an assessment of their success or failure. … continue
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Aletho News 
The original appointment of “Israel Firster” John Bolton as America’s “National Security Advisor” was akin to appointing Count Dracular to head the Blood Bank. The North Korean Leader was quickly able to see that further ‘negotiations’ with the USA would be a waste of time.
And, “Trump’s legendary vanity by dangling the prospect that he may blow his only shot at a Nobel Peace Prize” just goes to show that the NPP has become an extremely Bad Joke. Maybe Adolph Hitler should be awarded a NPP posthumously, I mean, Henry Kissinger(and Barak Obama) got one.
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Bellicose Bolton…that has an ominous ring to it. I’ll add to it: the Bellicose Bas*ard Bolton is a revoltin’ presence who, I predict, will find myriad ways to screw up the current geopolitical scene (be wary, Palestine) and will go down as one of the real as*holes of history. He, Trump, Adelson, Bitchi Nikki, 2Pence, Pompeo, Satanyahu, Congresstitutes, Pressitutes et al, of course, are a rogues’ gallery of as*holes, all intertwined and “entangled Zioallies” of iniquitous infamy. They shame me and all decent Americans and world citizens.
Thanks as always to the astute observer, great patriot, and special human being Ray McGovern. I’m hoping that he’s recovering satisfactorily after the recent assault on and injuries to his near-80-yo person (for protesting in Congresstitute-land the soon-thereafter-bipartisan-approved appointment of Torturer Haspel as director of “the company”/CIA). This analysis proves at a minimum that they won’t shut him up.
And good on Consortium News and Aletho News!
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“Congresstitutes”, “2Pence”, “Bitchi Nikki”. “Zioallies” “Bellicose Bas*ard Bolton” ‘Satanyahu(The Devil would be ashamed to be compared to bibi………Well Done…….Can I add, “Ass*oleAdelson”?
So many Badasses in the one situation…..What could possibly go wrong??
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