From:
slider@nanashram.com
Pyongyang, North Korea (CNN)North Korean officials were closely watching
US President Donald Trump when he addressed the South Korean National
Assembly Wednesday, but they say they weren't listening.
Though the American leader's tone was more subdued -- and he proposed what
some perceived as a conditional olive branch -- officials in Pyongyang authorized to speak for the government told CNN when it comes to Trump,
"we don't care about what that mad dog may utter because we've already
heard enough."
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/08/asia/north-korea-trump-speech-analysis/index.html
Pyongyang accuses Trump and the United States of heightening tensions to a level not seen since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953. They
say it's actions not words that matter, pointing to three US aircraft
carriers and a submarine currently off the coast of the Korean Peninsula.
"The United States is threatening us with nuclear aircraft carriers and strategic bombers. They are challenging us with with the most vicious and demeaning provocations but we will counter those threats by bolstering the power of justice in order to take out the root cause of aggression and
war," the officials said.
Trump did hint at a chance of diplomacy to resolve the standoff, but only
if North Korea were to stop its provocative behavior, quit developing
ballistic missiles, and agree to "complete, verifiable, and total" denuclearization. Most Korea-watchers believe that last item is a
non-starter.
"The prospect of the North Koreans actually denuclearizing is near zero,"
said Michael Hayden, a former head of the CIA and the NSA. "They are not irrational in this regard, they've seen what happens to states who have
given up their nuclear programs and they're trying to hold on to this as a matter of regime survival."
Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, told
CNN he was particularly concerned that Trump sees North Korea giving up
its nuclear weapons as a starting point, not an end of the negotiating
process.
"He held to the same old insistence on complete, verifiable
denculearization, without a plan to get there, which we didn't hear,"
Mount said. "That insistence will prevent any kind of forward progress."
Though Trump stood before South Korean lawmakers, his audience was likely
more global.
"It was a tough speech," said Hayden. "It wasn't over the top, it wasn't
beyond the edge. No rocket man and no fire and fury, no over-posturing
about imminent action on the part of the United States. Now, that said, he didn't point out an obvious off-ramp, as to how we get out of the
circumstances that we're in."
That may have not gone over well in the National Assembly chambers, where
many politicians are concerned about the potential of a catastrophic
conflict.
James Clapper, the former US Director of National Intelligence, described
the speech as "mostly stick and not much carrot."
Though Trump avoided the fiery rhetoric and name-calling that he's
employed when previously discussing North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong
Un, the address will likely still rub Pyongang's most powerful the wrong
way.
He called life in the hermit nation "a hell that no person deserves" and
said the country has committed crimes "against God and man."
"You don't go so overboard in insulting and attacking your adversary if
you want to get into some kind of negotiation," said John Delury, a
professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International
Relations.
### - this is all ultimatum rather than negotiation thang, an impossible situation to resolve 'other' than militarily...
'coz 'no way' is NK gonna be allowed to 'remain' nuclear and 'no-way' is ding-dong ever gonna de-nuclearise lest he immediately goes the way of
gadaffi & iraq! (a guaranteed certainty considering all the threats he's
made!)
maybe they're hoping his 'own' peeps will take him out, but he'll likely
go out with a bang rather than just 'give-up' all that family-line and
stuff??
something's gonna happennnnnn!
and who KNOWS how it could go after that!
better getcher' popcorns ready sport :)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)