Don't you love all these "hidden" bases that are readily viewable on Google Maps and well-known to the intelligence community...but not to POTUS.

Excellent deception.

Read that back to yourself a few times and think about it.

To me the concerning factor is if Trump in order to save face and keep on winning fails to hold NK accountable. I don't think most people would put it past him to put his own interests above those of the nation.

I think he knows full well...

The OP subject is incorrect. Trump isn't getting played. He's just lying about what NK has done.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

He is getting played, in that N. Korea is using US behavior on sanctions and the like to improve their capabilities and relations with other countries. This is a case where his lies are having a real-life impact, not just raising a Twitter storm.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

What I am saying is that Trump is fully aware of what NK is doing.

But instead he lies about it and tells his idiotic followers that NK is under control. And they believe him, because all other news is fake news.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

BLeP wrote:

Trump isn't getting played. He's just lying about what NK has done.

He's not really lying. He's just completely given up.

If it takes two years, three years or five months,” Mr. Trump said, suggesting that the timeline for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons was flexible. “I got all the time in the world,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t have to rush it.” (source)

He openly admits he has no clue what to do. Which is status quo for Presidents. So I wouldn't fault him just for that. It's a really hard problem. Except by publicly admitting he's given up he's blown all deal-making leverage and signaled N.K. to build full tilt, which they're doing. I have no idea why he'd blow all deal-making leverage by admitting defeat. I think he's just moved on to the caravan. Lot easier to defeat a few thousand destitute South Americans than a nuclear power.

But remember the Iran deal was bad for some reason.

Because Obama.

Feet on the desk! Tan suit! Latte salute! He was worse than hitler!!!!

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===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

I don't blame him for not getting a deal on NK. I've talked about 60+ years of their nuclear program before as evidence that there is no easy answer. And if I am NK, I definitely want nuclear weapons as a deterrent and as a bargaining chip.

But as mentioned above, by proclaiming victory it made it much easier for other countries to lift sanctions and go back to trading with them. And in order to get them to reimpose sanctions Trump would need to proclaim defeat, which he is not capable of doing.

Who could have known that diplomacy was so hard?

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Yes, people did not want war 8 months ago. But that does not make just pretending that everything is going well right either. This is not a binary choice between war and not war. There are options besides war.

We don't have any missiles being test fired, because the DPRK does not need to fire any. They already have a credible deterrent to drop nuclear warheads on America. Why waste more money firing more? Well, until they are ready to fire their solid fueled ICBM, but not much reason to fire more of their liquid fueled missiles.

Dude, go get a life. This thread has zero value.

it's the Lavender Room...

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Sure sounds like Trump has been played.

https://www.cnn.com/...kcna-intl/index.html

Dude, go get a life. This thread has zero value.



Sure sounds like Trump has been played.



Of course he got played, it's embarrassing how he fawned over Kim.

I can almost forgive him for being played. But he is such a butthead, he refuses to admit it and doubles down. At this point, NK could detonate a H-bomb and he would still call it fake news. It almost makes me wonder if Putin gave him a copy of whatever he has on Trump.

He's been quoted as saying to never admit you're wrong because that's a sign of weakness. Definitely a butthead.

https://thehill.com/...-missile-base-report





What? This makes about as much sense as a hole in the head.

Hmmmm. He's been lying to us for years. He hasn't lived up to his most recent promises. So another summit is likely to be productive?

BTW: The above statement rings equally true of both Kim Jung Un and Donald Trump.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

What's the harm in trying?

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

There is no harm in trying. There WAS harm in saying they aren't a threat any more removing the pressure on other countries to maintain sanctions and enabling them to go back to doing business with NK. When we said the problem was solved we lost leverage in keeping people from trading with them.

But assuming we don't want to start a shooting war with them, talks and sanctions are the tools we have.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Makes me wonder if NK does another nuclear test, will Trump throw Kim a military parade in Washington?

It's a win-win right?

No harm but Trump will leave the talks telling everyone how NK is capitulating and, of course, reality will tell a different story.

Pretty much the same thing with every topic that Trump discusses.

There is what Trump says and then there is reality. The are never the same thing.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

But every President tells us BS. Did Obama's treaty with Iran really make us safer? Was Bush's war really a success? Did Clinton really not have sex with that girl? Was Nixon not a crook? Anyone expecting their politicians to be honest should be repeatedly whacked with a hammer. And that goes for ALL politicians.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Bolton kind of holding Trump at arm's length there, "Trump believes, "President thinks".

I think that's called a false equivalency. It's like saying everyone lies, so a husband who tells his wife her ass doesn't look fat in a dress is the just the same as the one who tells his wife he's not having an affair with his co-worker (and does it over and over in every way possible way day after day).

Other than trump blurting out a promise without consulting with our allies and causing tension with our allies? And get nothing in return for that promise?

Also it is another great propaganda coup for North Korea. They get to show to their people how powerful their leader is by getting the US president to do what Kim wants and put photos of the meeting everywhere.

I think every President lies. And everyone in Congress too. It's the nature of politics. When's the last time a political group stood up and said they suck? Or we lied just to get the vote? Or yes our candidate is awful but yours is even worse? There is no false equivalency here. If I can go back to a quote from the 2016 election I think you will get my point:


"The media’s need to cover “both sides” of every story makes no sense when one side has little regard for the truth."

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Maybe he's not lying. Which is an even scarier thought.

Yes I think you can find examples of people lying on both sides. I also think it's patently ridiculous to claim what Trump does is akin to what others on either side typically do when they lie both in magnitude and frequency.

You know they say Comedy = tragedy + time. This could be hilarious in a few years.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Yes, it did. I mean Iran not having nuclear weapons makes us safer. Add to that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would probably want them also.

No harm. The dialogue should continue.
The problem is that this President disparaged every predecessor (DEM and REP) as ineffective and weak. He made it clear that they all failed and that he would succeed because of the TRUMP factor.
This boastful, egotistic approach and complete lack of self awareness is at best embarrassing to the US, and more likely harmful in the long run as ally's faith in US diplomacy will plummet.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has maintained that Iran does not have nuclear weapons under the premise that such weapons are forbidden by Islam."

Does that statement make you more likely to believe Iran or does it make you fall on the floor and laugh uncontrollably? Because I have to wipe the tears off my eyes every time I read it, it's so damn amusing.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Poor Obama never got the old, "No harm in trying," I guess. A lot of people are apparently willing to give North Korea the old college try despite 50 years of rock-solid evidence, But those same people knew for damn sure there was no point in trying with Iran, who actually did stop their nuclear development by all available evidence (as opposed to North Korea, who are right now publicly shoving it in our faces).

I also love how under Obama "sanctions" were this naive silly thing that everyone knows never works. But now Trump sanctions are this manly strongman move.

Of course there are hypocrisies on both sides. I'm just pointing out these ones in play now.

The sense to a second meeting to me is this: Trump did get played in the first summit. He committed to more than he should. Was vague and without specifics throughout in his private discussions. Loose ends now abound and he is returning to tie them up and provide a bit more clarity and a little less chummyness.

But then, will he even be around to fix his mess?

I don't believe the Ayatollah, but I don't know that has to do with the JCPOA.

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Little doubt Trump is getting played here, but Obama got played by Iran, and because the agreement was so bad Early warningof inspections, military sites that are off limits altogether, etc) we don't get to see it...that's the difference. So you're right that the inspectors have returned good reports, but it's for incomplete look at what's going on there, so of limited value. Meanwhile, the cost has been huge, Obama going very easy on an increasingly aggressive Russia (till his last couple months), not following through on a Syria red line, the result being large amounts of casualties of massive human migration that's unsettled Europe and prompted waves of nationalism, and a big (US funded) increase in Iranian ability to foment problems throughout the ME (see the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict in Yemen, and the related US involvement, as example one). So, lots of cost, and really unknown gain.

Not sure what sanctions you are talking about, but if you look at the years leading to the Iran deal, congress repeatedly pushed (and passed) sanctions on Iran, bipartisan sanctions that the Obama admin fought, and in the end pubs credited for bring Iran to the table. You can reason out your POV on that result, but at least those sanctions are not the ones to which you refer.

Ok, there seems to be a real lack of understanding on this deal and the methodology. Yes, there was warning, but access to Military sites was allowed. It just required more warning and very low standard of proof. Now you may say, but they have 20 days of warning. Well, the nuclear weapons experts on our side agreed to that amount of warning. Why, did they agree to that? Because over the decades the US and others have researched this. They have actually done experiments when we take down old nuclear weapons facilities, they have experts go in and try and scrub the evidence. Then they have another team go in and try and find that evidence. Through these programs we have a very good idea of what is required to hide evidence and they will not be able to do it in the time they have. In addition after the warning, that site will be watched like a hawk by observers, so any coming and goings will be monitored and could easily catch things leaving the site. Not to mention national assets of the US and others that would catch things once they leave buildings. Also soil and air samples can be taken around the site that would give away the game.

Seriously, we have experts in this sort of thing that have spent decades working on the problem. These are not politicians, but experts in the technical aspects of this that developed this deal. It is really really hard to hide this stuff and you just can't clean up a site in a couple months.

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A number of problems, here are a couple: if you remember, there was a side deal that allowed Iran to do the soil collecting itself:
"The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged Monday that samples used to determine whether Iran tried to develop a nuclear weapon were collected by the Iranians instead of agency experts, but insisted the probe stands up to strict agency standards.
Such sampling of soil, air or dust from equipment is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency's own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano confirmed that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested in the past.
Diplomats say Iran insisted on the compromise as a condition for any probe of Parchin."
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rent_post_id=6810034


and as to the military sites:

"Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization tasked with monitoring Iran's nuclear facilities, have not requested access to military sites since the agreement went into effect, according to experts monitoring the process."
https://www.latimes.com/...-20170830-story.html

Arguably, it did. But even ignoring that, did it make us less safe? Were there any other benefits that Trump threw away when he tossed the aside the deal?

Ask Boeing.

Ok, how does any of that address what I wrote?

Explain how the probe of parchin is hiding something? I think you need to learn the history of the site and how the deal works.

Yea, they had not requested access to a military site. I have never been to Alaska, does that mean I am forbidden from going to Alaska?

The agreement made us less safe because Iran is still continuing with it's atomic program and they have help from NK. Why not ask Israel if they are more safe today?

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Nope, we are now more safe, because they don't have an atomic weapons program. The JCPOA allowed for a tightly controlled, more tightly controlled than they are obligated under the NPT, peaceful nuclear program.

But every President tells us BS. Did Obama's treaty with Iran really make us safer?

When was Iran a threat to the U.S?

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You're right, what was that idiot Obama thinking?!! Actually, I think the "threat" idea has more to do with developing a weapons program and efforts toward nukes, combined with the little Satan - great Satan rhetoric.

I think the "threat" idea has more to do with developing a weapons program and efforts toward nukes, combined with the little Satan - great Satan rhetoric.


True but Pakistan has a nuclear weapon and they are the ones how hid OBL and are a breeding ground for radical terrorism. Then there's North Korea. They can fool Trump easily of course by giving him a few personal compliments but the rest of the adult world sees how they are developing a nuclear program. Then of course there's the Saudis where MBS murders someone and Trump refuses to criticize them and cast doubts about his own intelligence agencies. Finally, there's Russia who continues to do whatever they want in Ukraine and Crimea without a peep from the Whitehouse.


But destroying a nuclear agreement with Iran that was actually working is the extent of Trump's foreign policy accomplishments. That's quite a leader you got there.

What do you mean? Even their civilian airliners are a threat; that's why we have to occasionally shoot one down.

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Trump is not as easy to track on these things as you think. I agree with some of your points, but there is a big disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions; from selling missile defense systems to Poland (fulfilling a GWB pledge that Obama reneged on) to bombing inside Syria for chemical weapons use, to the actions covered below, Trump has been a much more aggressive FP POTUS, and while he is disliked by heads of many countries, he is also disliked by the bad actors, and I like that.
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Pakistan
"The Trump administration will suspend most security assistance to Pakistan, the State Department said on Thursday, expanding its retribution over militant safe havens that U.S. officials blame for ongoing violence in Afghanistan.____
"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...m_term=.a36cea0a682b

Russia
" "When you actually look at the substance of what this administration has done, not the rhetoric but the substance, this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era," said Daniel Vajdich, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Take military spending: Trump sought to add $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2018 to the European Deterrence Initiative — a military effort to deter Russian aggression that was initially known as the European Reassurance Initiative. That's a 41 percent increase from the last year of the Obama administration. The president also agreed to send lethal weapons to Ukraine — a step that Obama resisted. And Trump gave U.S. forces in Syria more leeway to engage with Russian troops.


"Those loosened rules of engagement have resulted in direct military clashes with Russian militants and mercenaries on the ground, actually resulting in one incident in hundreds of casualties on the Russian side," Vajdich said.

The administration has also imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials. And Trump has aggressively promoted U.S. energy exports, although so far that hasn't created much competition for Russia's oil and gas."
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https://www.npr.org/...ghest-ever-on-russia

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https://www.nytimes.com/...kistan-strategy.html