"Prevent a second Korean War by replacing the Kim regime" by Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist August 15, 2017
He never met a regime change he didn't like.
Six weeks ago, on the Fourth of July, North Korea for the first time tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. The launch was a “gift” to the United States, declared Pyongyang’s news agency — the missile would be able to hit the “heart of the United States” with “heavy nuclear warheads.”
Ten days later, CIA Director Mike Pompeo hinted broadly that the Trump administration was seeking regime change in North Korea.
There are respected thinkers who see a nuclear North Korea equipped with long-range missiles as tolerable. “History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea,” former national security advisor Susan Rice wrote last week. Military historian Max Boot likewise argues that just as we accepted a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, we should accept Pyongyang’s nukes — “then sit back and wait for North Korea’s eventual collapse.”
But given the North’s brutal volatility and its long record of sudden, unprovoked murderous attacks, is “sit back and wait” a gamble we really wish to take?
Pompeo is right. It isn’t Kim’s nuclear warheads that are intolerable; it is Kim’s regime. Changing that regime should be America’s goal.
That does not mean going to war. It does mean working to induce North Korea’s military and political elites to depose the dictator. It means circumventing the information blackout Pyongyang imposes within its borders, and flooding North Koreans with accurate information about the crimes of their rulers — and encouraging them to rise up in their own liberation. It means persuading China of the benefits it would realize from helping to bring about a post-Kim North Korea. Just for starters, those benefits include a much greater likelihood that two key US allies, Japan and South Korea, won’t be tempted to build nuclear arsenals of their own.
Stephen Bryen, a former staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urges the creation of a North Korean government-in-exile, formally recognized and supported by the United States.
Who is the Korean Chalabi!?
The time is long past to pull the plug on “strategic patience.” Better by far to effect regime change in Pyongyang — not to trigger Korean War II, but to prevent it.....
How did the invasion of Iraq work out anyway?
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Korean just blinked:
"North Korea will wait ‘a little more’ before acting on Guam threat" by Choe Sang-Hun New York Times August 15, 2017
SEOUL — North Korea appeared on Tuesday to pause its threat to launch ballistic missiles toward Guam, saying it would wait to assess “the foolish and stupid conduct” of the United States before carrying the launchings out.
The statement came as the United States and South Korea were preparing to conduct joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula and surrounding waters starting on Monday, despite North Korea’s vehement opposition to such drills.
In response to threats from President Trump, North Korea’s military announced last week that by mid-August it would submit a plan to Kim Jong-un, the country’s leader, for launching four ballistic missiles into waters around Guam, the US territory that is home to US military bases.
On Monday, Kim reviewed the plan while visiting the command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army but said he would wait a bit before telling the military to proceed with the missile launchings, the state media reported on Tuesday.
“He said that the US imperialists caught the noose around their necks due to their reckless military confrontation racket, adding that they would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees,” said the report from the Korean Central News Agency.
Kim’s decision to wait “a little more” before ordering the launchings represented a slight ratcheting down of tensions and came after some of Trump’s top aides on Monday tried to tamp down fears of a clash after his threat to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea.
South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, on Tuesday offered an unusually blunt rebuke to the Trump administration’s discussions of possible military responses to the North, saying no country should take military action on the Korean Peninsula without his government’s approval.
“It’s only South Korea that can decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said during a nationally televised speech marking National Liberation Day, which celebrates the end of Japanese colonial rule of Korea at the end of World War II. “No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement.”
I would have to agree. They are on the front line.
South Koreans have grown increasingly concerned in recent days about a possible military conflict following Trump’s threats against the North.
As the exchange of combative rhetoric intensified between Trump and Kim, Moon and his office have issued a steady stream of statements opposing any armed conflict on the peninsula.
Although Moon’s latest statement did not mention Trump by name, it marked his strongest expression of disapproval of military options being considered by Washington.
In a meeting with Moon on Monday, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with the South Korean leader that the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats should be resolved through diplomacy and sanctions. But the top US general added that the United States was preparing military options in case those efforts failed.
“The United States’ military’s priority is to support our government’s efforts to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic and economic pressure,” Dunford was quoted as saying in a Korean-language statement released by Moon’s office after the meeting on Monday. “We are preparing a military option in case such efforts fail.”
That will not be happening, so now what?
On Tuesday, Dunford met in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, General Fang Fenghui, discussing North Korea, as well as Taiwan and the South China Sea. It was not clear what message Dunford delivered, or whether the generals discussed China’s proposal that North Korea freeze its nuclear testing in exchange for the United States cutting sharply back on its military exercises with South Korea.
The Pentagon and State Department have said in the last several days that the Trump administration favors diplomacy to resolve the North’s nuclear expansion, but they have rejected China’s proposal, which it first presented earlier this year.
In a statement after the meeting, Fang struck a conciliatory tone on the relationship between the United States and China, but made no mention of North Korea. “Cooperation is the only right choice between China and the US,” he said.
In his speech Tuesday, Moon said his government would “do everything it can to prevent war.”
See: South Korea Says Give Peace a Chance
Nothing regarding Venezuela or Syria today.
At the same time, he called for dialogue with North Korea, repeating his long-held belief that sanctions alone cannot solve the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
“The purpose of strong sanctions and pressure against North Korea is to bring it to the negotiating table, not to raise military tensions,” he said.
The South Korean leader urged North Korea to help create momentum toward dialogue by not conducting any more nuclear or missile tests.
He also reiterated his proposal to the North that the two Koreas organize reunions of families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War as a first step toward easing tensions and improving ties on the divided Korean Peninsula.
China and Russia also kept up pressure on North Korea and the United States to tone down the language of their exchanges.
That's where the print copy ended it.
The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, in a phone call on Tuesday that their governments should “not permit anyone to provoke incidents at the doorsteps of China and Russia,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“The urgent task is to slam the breaks on the mutually provocative words and actions between North Korea and the United States,” Wang said. “Cool the tensions and prevent an ‘August crisis’ from breaking out.”
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Meanwhile, on the U.S. doorstep:
"Three-nation efforts to revise NAFTA set to begin" by Paul Wiseman Associated Press August 15, 2017
WASHINGTON — Of all the trade deals he lambasted on the campaign trail as threats to American workers, President Trump reserved particular scorn for one: the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada was ‘‘the worst trade deal in history,’’ candidate Trump declared. He accused NAFTA of having swollen America’s trade deficit with Mexico, pulled factories south of the border and killed jobs across the United States.
Trump promised to renegotiate the 23-year-old deal — or walk away from it. Now the time has come. Five days of talks aimed at overhauling NAFTA begin Wednesday in Washington, with negotiations to follow in Mexico and Canada.
The United States has never before tried to overhaul a major trade agreement. So analysts aren’t sure what will emerge from the talks, but it’s clear that delivering on Trump’s campaign promises will be difficult. A new version of NAFTA would require approval from a divided Congress. And even an improved NAFTA might not deliver the payoff Trump and his supporters are hoping for: the restoration of millions of lost manufacturing jobs.
Economists and trade analysts do see opportunities to improve NAFTA, which eliminated most barriers on trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. If nothing else, the pact could be updated to reflect the growth of the digital economy.
We are all going to get $crewed again.
But a technocratic rewrite is unlikely to satisfy Trump supporters and NAFTA critics who want a revamped agreement to shrink America’s trade deficit and return jobs to the United States.
A more aggressive approach — demanding more made-in-America content for products that qualify for NAFTA’s duty-free status, for example — risks imperiling some benefits that Americans think the trade deal provided to them.
American farmers, for example, fear losing easy access to the Mexican market. Manufacturing companies have built supply chains that crisscross NAFTA borders; they worry about having investments jeopardized. And Canada and Mexico are sure to respond to any harsh American demands with their own.
Yeah, you have to leave rotten deals that benefit corporations in place for $tability. Now you know why I didn't want them in the first place.
Plus, the clock is ticking. Next year brings a presidential election in Mexico and congressional elections in the United States. Forging a complex agreement will be even tougher if the political temperature is running hot.
Last month, the Trump administration listed its objectives for the renegotiation. Some of them will meet fierce resistance from Canadian and Mexican negotiators.
They always do.
The administration has riled Canada, for example, by saying it wants to eliminate a dispute-resolution process established under NAFTA. That process lets Mexico and Canada appeal unfavorable rulings by US courts and agencies in trade cases. They can appeal to five-person NAFTA panels, composed of two members from each county in the dispute and a fifth that usually alternates between them. The panels’ rulings are binding, but the panels have a reputation for overturning US trade decisions. That is especially so in cases involving Canadian softwood timber imports to the United States — a longstanding source of conflict. America complains that Canada subsidizes its loggers, allowing them to dump cheap timber in the United States.
Then it means war!
That idea causes heartburn in Ottawa.
That's what the thought of war gives me, too.
The United States also wants more leeway to slap tariffs on imports that are found to hurt American industry. For now, NAFTA limits America’s ability to use that power in cases involving Canada and Mexico. If America imposes taxes on their exports, would Canada and Mexico retaliate with their own tariffs?
Notice the subtle use of terminology in my corporate pre$$. They "slap" sanctions on you.
In another attempt to ensure that any revamped pact promotes US manufacturing, the Trump administration wants tougher rules requiring that goods that qualify for NAFTA benefits are actually made mostly inside the three-country free-trade bloc — and don’t include too many components from, say, China.....
Or anybody, you know.
SIGH!
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Anyhow, the latest breaking news is that Trump has placed the Coast Guard on high alert, the troops have been called up, and off we go into the wild blue yonder....
"Solar developers and panel makers clash over tariff request" by Diane Cardwell New York Times August 15, 2017
WASHINGTON — Dozens of solar industry executives, government officials, and foreign diplomats gathered Tuesday to urge federal trade commissioners to reject a petition from two troubled domestic solar equipment manufacturers to impose steep tariffs and minimum price guarantees on similar imports.
At risk, they argued, is the future of the solar industry itself.
Guess who took over that.
“They seek a public remedy for their own private failings,” said Matthew R. Nicely, a lawyer representing the main solar trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, before the US International Trade Commission. “If successful, they will undermine the hard work and innovation that is making solar a viable alternative to conventional energy sources.”
But Matthew J. McConkey, a lawyer for Suniva, the Georgia-based manufacturer that originally brought the petition, argued that the case was about more than two companies that managed to outlast the many manufacturers squeezed out of business by foreign competition.
“The United States is literally strewn with the carcasses of shuttered solar manufacturing facilities,” he said. “It’s about all of those companies and their workers who are out of business.”
It's about labor?
The case, which follows an unusual procedure that could put the final decision about government intervention, and any remedy, directly in President Trump’s hands, could become one of the first major trade decisions of his administration. It also could determine how and whether the US solar industry can continue to grow.
At issue is whether the financial woes of Suniva and its co-petitioner, SolarWorld Americas, are a result of unfair competition from Chinese companies benefiting from state subsidies, or of their own business practices. And though the sharp drops in the cost of panels have made it difficult for domestic manufacturers to compete, they have also fueled a boom in solar development throughout the country, providing a lift to an industry that says it now has more than 250,000 jobs.
Further complicating matters is that Suniva, once lauded on the White House blog as “an American success story” during the Obama administration but now in bankruptcy, is majority-owned by a Chinese company that now disavows the case.
With roots in a protracted trade war between the United States and China that started in 2011, the dispute centers on crystalline silicon cells, the major electricity-producing components, as well as the modules, or panels, into which they are assembled.
SolarWorld Americas, a subsidiary of a now-bankrupt German panel maker, had filed a trade complaint along with six other domestic solar manufacturers that accused their Chinese counterparts of using unfair government subsidies to finance their operations and then selling their merchandise for less than the cost of manufacturing and shipping it.
SolarWorld won the case, as well as a second that included Taiwan, where Chinese manufacturers had turned for cells to avoid anticipated tariffs, but that, the petitioners argue, set off a global race to the bottom on price, as manufacturers opened factories in other low-cost countries, leading to the current case.
Isn't Taiwan where Foxconn is from?
This time, the companies are seeking blanket global protections to keep manufacturers from circumventing tariffs aimed at specific countries by expanding elsewhere in what the petition referred to as a game of Whac-a-Mole.
The case, which the commission itself designated “extraordinarily complicated,” has given rise to a number of unusual alliances and fault lines.
It has lined up almost the entire domestic industry — from electricians to corporate executives — against two of its own. It has also made bedfellows of solar businesses and conservative-minded policy groups opposed to trade restrictions and subsidies that have in the past worked to undermine solar’s forward march.
Among those opposing the Suniva petition is the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is connected with Charles G. and David H. Koch, billionaire brothers whose fortunes derive, at least in part, from fossil fuels.
It was foolish to let the print article end there.
Interest in the proceeding was so high that shortly before the hearing began, staff members were scrambling to squeeze extra chairs into the hearing chamber to accommodate all the witnesses and their lawyers, as well as the public. In that group was a crew of solar workers organized by the solar trade group, wearing T-shirts that said, “Save America’s Solar Jobs, No New Solar Tariffs,” but at least one government official traveled to testify in support of the case: Bucky Johnson, the mayor of Norcross, Ga., where Suniva is based.
“Some might say protectionism — I say bunk,” he told the commission. “Given a level playing field, I believe that Suniva and the solar manufacturing industry can thrive in our economy and provide some of the most innovative and sustainable products in the world.”
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The $un in the $ky:
"Stock indexes finished Tuesday close to where they started as technology companies and household goods makers rose, but weak reports from sporting goods and auto parts retailers left a lot of smaller companies with steep losses. Stocks were coming off their biggest one-day gain in more than three months as the market recovered from last week’s turmoil....."
The crash is set for fall and they will blame North Korea.
"Money managers who’ve watched the surge in corporate profits take US equities to records are starting to fret about earnings growth, and that’s an “ominous” sign, Bank of America says. Just 33 percent of managers in the bank’s latest survey say corporate profits profits will improve, down from 58 percent at the start of the year. The drop represents a “warning sign for equities over bonds, high yield over investment grade, and cyclical sectors over defensive ones,” chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note Tuesday. “Further deterioration is likely to cause risk-off trades.” At the same time, a record 46 percent said equity markets are overvalued."
I've been saying that kind of thing all through the run-up.
Good thing US businesses increased their stockpiles in June because it is generally seen as a sign of their confidence that sales will increase in the coming months and a decrease in inventories can be a sign of pessimism about future sales.
Or you can be building up inventory in expectation for something that never comes.
Good thing the Commerce Department reported that spending up by largest amount in seven months.
That means the anger regarding the air bags has been deflated.
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Oddly, North Korea is connected to this next item. It was the North Koreans who stood by the Iranians during the decades of sanctions.
It's all part of the same PNAC plan, isn't it? You weaken Iran when you change the regime in North Korea.
"Iran’s president threatens to restart nuclear program" by Thomas Erdbrink New York Times August 16, 2017
Their war-mongering has become tiresome.
TEHRAN — Iran’s nuclear program could be restarted in a matter of “hours” if the US government imposes further sanctions on Tehran, the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said Tuesday.
Rouhani said that a reconstituted nuclear program would be “far more advanced,” a veiled threat that the country could start enriching uranium up to the level of 20 percent, a step toward building a nuclear weapon. Such enrichment activities were a major concern before 2015, when Tehran signed a landmark agreement with the United States and other world powers that lifted crippling economic sanctions in return for severe limits on its nuclear activities.
Just helping out a friend.
President Trump has repeatedly called the nuclear deal a “disaster,” said that he believes the Iranians are violating its terms, and twice called for reviews, in hopes of finding reasons to kill it.
Does he?
The other parties to the nuclear deal — Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia — disagree with Trump, saying that Iran is not in violation of the pact, which is overseen by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Yeah, if he kills it then Boeing and other U.S. multinationals lose dough.
New sanctions approved by Congress this month penalized Iran for its ballistic missile program and other activities in the region. Iran says that it has the right to conduct missile tests and that it has fully complied with the provisions of the nuclear agreement.
While Rouhani was reelected this year, he has faced increasing pressure from hard-liners, who have said all along that the United States is not to be trusted and would never deliver on its promises. The economic benefits Rouhani promised from the signing of the nuclear deal have not been completely realized, largely because of unilateral US sanctions that have deterred much foreign investment.
You certainly can understand the lack of trust, never mind Operation Ajax or the Shah's bloody Savak, and Trump faces his own pressure from hard-liners here.
Trump’s threats to withdraw from the nuclear agreement have added weight to the hard-liners’ arguments, putting Rouhani ever more on the defensive and weakening him politically. On Monday, for example, conservatives were able to tighten their grip on the Expediency Council, one of Iran’s most influential oversight bodies.
Rouhani warned the Trump administration that Iran could react quickly if further sanctions were confirmed. “The new US officials should know that the failed experience of sanctions and coercion compelled their previous governments to eventually come to the negotiation table,” Rouhani said. “If they want to try those experiences again, Iran will definitely revert to a far more advanced situation than it had before the negotiations, not in a matter of weeks or months but in a matter of days or hours,” he told lawmakers.
Rouhani also noted that Trump had pulled out of several international treaties or was threatening to do so. “It is the US government, especially the current Trump administration, that is ignoring international treaties,” he said, “showing to the world and its allies that the US is neither a good ally nor a trustworthy negotiating partner.”
(Blog editor shrugs shoulders)
Several other Iranian officials have recently threatened to restart industrial-scale uranium enrichment. Ali Akbar Salehi, president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the country could go up to 20 percent enrichment to “surprise the Americans and their supporters.”
Analysts say that Iran will probably be extremely careful not to alienate the other countries in the nuclear agreement. The European Union, which strongly supported global sanctions against Iran under President Obama, has started to invest in the country since the deal was signed.
Yeah, the reporting within the last week said Iran would do everything to keep from being seen as causing the deals failure and now I have the Jew York Times implying that they are or soon will.
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There they go again.
Maybe you should write them a letter:
"Taliban ‘open letter’ to Trump urges US to leave Afghanistan" Associated Press August 15, 2017
ISLAMABAD — The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday released an ‘‘open letter’’ to President Trump, reiterating their calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 16 years of war.
In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents said Trump has recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.
Mujahid said Trump should not hand control of the US Afghan policy to the military but rather announce the withdrawal of US forces — and not an increase in troops as the administration has planned.
The 1,600-word note said a US withdrawal would ‘‘truly deliver American troops from harm’s way’’ and bring about ‘‘an end to an inherited war.’’
The United States now has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. Trump has so far resisted the Pentagon’s recommendations to send almost 4,000 more to expand training of Afghan military forces.
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What a WONDERFUL PIECE of FORGERY and STAGED PROPAGANDA!
Yes, the "Taliban" suggest leaving so you must do the opposite, right?
Once again, Trump is dragging his heels on the escalation of some war so some laughable propaganda needs to be sent out to encourage him.
Related: US airstrikes in Afghanistan are said to kill 16 civilians
They are still checking.
