Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again, you've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing their army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like, say our name, say it, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Tim Shorrock, writing at The Nation Magazine, thenation.com.
U.S.-North Korea talks are moving decisively to the diplomatic phase.
Despite the progress, pundits and leading Democrats still complain.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Tim?
I'm very good, thank you.
Man, I'm sorry I had missed this, but now I got it, and so it will run on antiwar.com for all you guys too.
And boy, you're right, you know, I made the mistake of catching just a glimpse of the Jake Tapper there the other day.
And they're saying, well, Trump says that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, but his own intelligence bosses say that they're not going to give up their nuclear weapons, therefore he's stupid and or wrong and or not qualified to be the president.
Let's get him, everybody.
And so you're certainly right that they just won't have it, any kind of progress here.
But anyway, Trump actually didn't say, or at least the quote that they're reacting about, is nuclear threat, which is arguably true, right, that all the threats stopped and they quit testing missiles and they have been making some progress on testing sites and this, that, and the other thing, and have warmed up relations with South Korea and the United States to such a great degree that it's making their nuclear weapons possession much less of a threat, to be sure, right, but they won't give Trump any credit for anything at all.
They go after any kind of thing, even someone as badly spoken as himself.
They still have to twist his words in order to just mock the slightest semblance of progress on this, and it's really out of proportion.
They had never attacked George Bush this badly for screwing everything up back in 2002 and 2003, you know?
Nope.
Well, the interesting thing about this whole intelligence scruffle was that, you know, they said that, they claimed that, you know, North Korea has no intention, will not denuclearize.
I'm not sure how they know that because U.S. intelligence on North Korea is completely, you know, electronic surveillance.
I doubt if they have any human intelligence, you know, people buried in, you know, people deep in the, you know, some spies in North Korea, they don't have that at all.
So it's based on electronic surveillance and their supposition that he's not going to give them up.
Well, if that's true, then, you know, in fact, the U.S. negotiating team has some people from the CIA on it, people working with Stephen Begin, who's now doing the negotiations for the State Department.
And, you know, clearly some fashions of the U.S. intelligence believe that there's a chance that there's going to be, you know, a peaceful outcome here.
But anyway, I think, you know, as I reported in my most recent piece, you know, they have gone to the diplomatic phase now and they're definitely deep into talks.
There's going to be another meeting in the next few days in Korea at Panmunjom between the North Korean negotiating team and the U.S. team led by this guy, Stephen Begin, where they're going to iron out the details for the next summit sometime in late February.
And what they're talking about and what Begin laid out yesterday in a speech in Stanford was that the U.S. is kind of going for an incremental approach where they're saying that, you know, they're looking for North Korea to make some steps, such as closing down the Yongbyon facility, which is their primary facility for making plutonium and also enriching uranium, where they make most of their weapons.
And then in return, the U.S. will, you know, probably lift some of the sanctions or start lifting some of the sanctions.
And then they're going to move step by step towards this way.
But they also seem to recognize that, you know, North Korea has these weapons and that the thing to do is to move toward a peace regime so there's no chance for another war.
And I think, as you said earlier, North and South Korea have made tremendous progress in that direction.
So, you know, all in all, I think the experts are wrong.
And I think, you know, this was the right approach by the Trump administration to take with North Korea and Kim Jong Un.
And, you know, it's starting to work.
So just to clarify, you're saying that the former announced policy that, well, you have to give up all your nukes first, that even after they broke the ice, they were still kind of insisting on that denuclearization first.
So now they're recognizing that that really is not going to work.
And they better go ahead and turn it around and work more along the lines of what the South Korean government has already been pursuing.
Right.
And also, you know, at the declaration that Trump and Kim, you know, released in Singapore last June, you know, the first two steps on that was, you know, build a new U.S.-North Korea relationship.
And the second part of that was, the second step was to start a, you know, peace process and support the peace process between North and South in Korea.
That came before anything about denuclearization.
And, you know, for months, you know, the North Korean side has been saying, you know, that part of it has not been met.
There's been no steps taken towards, you know, improving or making a new relationship.
And so, you know, I think that's where they were stuck on.
And I think they've clearly made some progress on that because, you know, otherwise they wouldn't be meeting and moving forward.
And also, as I noted in that article, that, you know, Kim Jong-un's negotiating team includes, you know, some very skilled diplomats who have a lot of experience working with U.S. officials, talking to U.S. officials, including one that I wrote about, who's been working with, you know, NGOs and peace groups in the U.S. because he was at the U.N., North Korean mission at the U.N. in New York for a long time.
And so, you know, these are people that, you know, are used to, you know, have had experience dealing with the U.S. and they're really getting down to some, you know, nitty gritty issues.
So, you know, I think that really, it really does, you know, hold some promise.
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Yeah, really, it's very exciting.
I mean, it's world historical stuff going on when you have these guys meeting and the DMZ itself becoming demilitarized and we need a new name for it now.
Oh no, it already was the Demilitarized Zone.
It's just now that's not contradiction, but it's a...
Making it a zone of peace.
I mean, you know, one of the interesting things about the DMZ, you know, which is, you know, quite actually, you know, quite, you know, it's a very, you know, fairly large area that divides the two Koreas.
And inside, you know, because there's been no development or anything, there's this, you know, incredible, you know, animal, all kinds of birds and animals that aren't anywhere else in Korea, plant life and so on.
It's, you know, it's been able to, you know, so like there's a lot of talk and has been in South Korea about, you know, making, transforming it eventually into like a peace park and peace zone where you can, you know, people can enjoy nature.
So, you know, that's an interesting aspect.
Cool.
Man, that's a great, just one small anecdote in all of this, I guess.
Yeah.
I really like the sound of that.
So I guess give us a rundown if you could about, I guess, first of all, on the most important questions of how many missile testing sites have been demolished and this kind of thing on the nuclear question, missile questions and nuclear questions.
And then also in terms of the pacification truly of the DMZ and the different, the guard towers coming down and the different, I don't know, roads opening up and whatever all is happening there.
And I guess in order of importance to you in terms of what you think is, really makes a difference compared to what's merely symbolic.
Well, you know, on the North Korean side, they have, you know, they dismantled, you know, part of this missile facility.
And then they also, you know, blow up this, these tunnels underneath this mountain where they were, they had tested their weapons.
And, you know, that happened actually, you know, quite a while ago.
But I think the most important steps have been, you know, between North and South where they're like, as you said, they've, you know, dismantled these guard towers, you know, left a couple there, but, you know, really the amazing thing is the site and these photographs that have been taken of North and South Korean soldiers, you know, mingling together and talking together in that area.
You know, that's unprecedented.
And, you know, I mean, before anytime North, North Korean soldiers saw South Korean soldiers, they would be shooting at each other.
And so the fact that they're, you know, walking around this, this area and, you know, inspecting, you know, these, these guard towers they've taken down and that kind of thing is, is, you know, quite amazing.
And to me, it's just astonishing that, you know, all these, you know, so many experts here in Washington and the U.S. don't, don't seem to recognize this.
Don't seem to think that it's any kind of big deal.
I mean, this is a huge deal, you know, for Koreans because, you know, ending the war is so important to people in Korea.
I mean, you know, it's, people remember what it was like, you know, that this brief thing that happened, this terrible thing that happened in Hawaii, you know, over a year ago when there was this false alarm about North Korean missiles heading their way, you know, this, this fear of war, this fear of sudden, you know, attack or something like that.
And, you know, people in Korea on both sides of the board have been living with that kind of fear for, you know, for decades.
And it kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's very difficult and it creates, it creates trauma and it's, you know, people are traumatized by, by this and, you know, and everything they've had to live with in their, with their own governments.
I mean, for years, you know, the South Korean government, you know, to enforce anti-communism was, you know, super authoritarian.
They elected, you know, and had a democratic upsurge in the 1980s and they finally won the democracy.
South Korea, North Korea is still, you know, ruled in a very authoritarian way under the same kind of logic.
And, and I think, you know, that's, that's what, you know, people are sick of.
And I think that, you know, peace is going to be, is going to open the gates to reconciliation.
And there are already lots of talk.
I was in, in, in Washington a couple of days ago, there was two lawmakers from two of the, one of the ruling party, Moon Jae-in's party, and then another party that's on the left in South Korea.
And they were talking about the discussions that have happened between North and South in the last few months about economic cooperation.
They're really gone, you know, quite a ways.
And they're really ready to really start some, start some, you know, new, new, new, new projects.
You know, North Korea has a few zones where they would like to have, you know, investment from South Korea and foreign investment from, you know, outside of Korea.
And, you know, they're really hoping to, you know, to move toward that.
And, you know, but they have to have, the peace process between the US and North Korea, you know, it has to bear fruit for that to happen.
So, you know, there's a lot riding on these talks and, you know, it's just not, it's, you know, the media just sort of put South Korea out of the picture and it's always, you know, the good America versus the bad North Korea, instead of seeing it as something that's really important for, for Koreans.
You know, after all, we didn't intervene in Korea.
We intervened in Korea to, you know, supposedly to, you know, stop a North Korea, to stop a war, to, you know, to defeat a North Korean invasion.
But it was a, you know, it was, it was, you know, it was a civil war between, you know, two parts of the South and, you know, they're, they're now moving toward ending it.
So, you know, that's what the United States should be supporting.
So tell me, Tim, what's China's view of all this now?
Well, I think China's, you know, very supportive of the whole process.
I mean, Kim Jong-un has been there.
He's met with Xi Jinping now, you know, three times and he's, you know, visited, you know, some of the Chinese, you know, high-tech economic zones and, you know, seeing what he'd like to happen, you know, in the, in the DPRK.
And, you know, of course they don't want to have, you know, China wants to have this resolved because they, they have actually very close economic ties and even political ties with South Korea.
Their ally is North Korea, but, you know, for them, you know, a Korea peace, Korea peace and, you know, unification, moving toward unification, economic development is really important for China.
Interestingly, these South Korean lawmakers I met the other day, you know, and I think they reflect the views of a lot of people in South Korea, which is they don't like, they're concerned that if the, if the U.S. pushes North Korea too much, it'll just, you know, get, you know, give up the peace process and just, you know, become much more closer with China and, you know, become much more integrated with China than they are.
And I think North Koreans have said to South Koreans, they don't want to be dominated by China themselves.
And so, you know, they want to have some independence too.
And so, you know, I think China has, is sort of, you know, wary in some ways about the process because they, they're concerned that, you know, South Korea would become more allied with the United States.
But for overall, for the kind of economic development that they're, China's talking about this, you know, these projects extending, you know, road and rail to the Middle East and Europe and so on.
I mean, all this fits what's happening in Korea fits into that.
So, you know, I think they've been playing, I think they've been playing a positive role.
Well, I actually saw, I guess it was an excerpt of something that the South Korean president had said about how, if we don't really break the ice here and make peace with North Korea, China is going to profit from all this development instead of us.
We need to get in there now for South Korea's interest there.
A bit of that crisis capitalism, that Naomi Klein stuff, right?
The disaster capitalism.
Well, South Korean companies, you know, of course, you know, they're really want to have this Kaesong industrial zone reopened where they had factories going for quite a while until they were, you know, that whole zone was shut down during the previous administration in South Korea when tensions got really high, you know, about five, six years ago.
But, you know, there's always been this, you know, I mean, unification is not a left-wing concept in Korea.
It's, you know, it's a concept embraced by all sides of the, you know, Korean, Korean political divide in South Korea, you know, so you have, you know, conservatives want unification as do, you know, people that are on the left and, you know, it's, it's how to get there, you know, is, is, is the key.
So, you know, I think, I think that, you know, that South Korea sees South Korean, you know, companies, you know, see, see all kinds of ways that they, they could, the Korean economy could benefit with closer links with the United States, with North Korea and be able to, for, for Korea itself, you know, as a nation South and North together could become much more independent of both the U S and China and the other, and the other great powers.
Sorry, hold on just one second.
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Now, so back to Trump and Bolton, you know, I mentioned 2003 and Bush getting us into the smash.
It was Bolton that helped him do it.
And now he's in here and he got this guy, Mike Pompeo, who's a hawk on every single thing and has been in some ways, I guess, very useful in helping to set up these talks, but has also been, you know, kind of a sour note, putting denuclearization first and foremost and all these kinds of things.
And so I wonder how much of an uphill battle do you think Trump has even with his own team in moving forward on the next set of talks here?
Well, I, you know, I think, you know, Pompeo was, you know, pretty critical to the whole way this has moved.
And, you know, he was with a CIA before the CIA itself has been very, very much, you know, a part of the process and within National Security Council and meeting with North Korea's own intelligence, with South Korean intelligence.
So, you know, I think, you know, when, when Bolton came in, you know, whenever it was, last year, I said then at the time that I thought he is, his impact on what was going on with North Korea would be, would be muted and that he would be much more dangerous in terms of, especially at the time, Iran.
And now you can see he's also very dangerous on the issue of Venezuela, as is Pompeo and Trump themselves, you know, but, but I think, you know, Bolton's influence on the, on Korea, I mean, you know, in the past he would, he always like ridiculed the whole idea of talking with North Korea.
And when he, you know, when he became National Security Advisor to President Trump, you know, he had to, you know, put all those previous objections aside.
And anyway, the process was well underway.
So, you know, he's been sort of on the sidelines really, and it's really been driven by Pompeo.
And then they, they appointed this guy, Begin, who took up, you know, several months to sort of, you know, get on, get to speed about what was going on.
But, you know, Begin made a speech yesterday at Stanford University, which is like the most far-reaching speech on U.S.-DPRK relations that's been expressed by a government official for forever, maybe.
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's quite a speech.
It's available on the State Department site website, but, you know, it's very profound things he said, including that, that, that Trump is now, you know, really behind ending the Korean War.
And of course, this is something the North and South have been asking for, you know, a declaration to formally end the war.
So, you know, I think, and Begin has also said that, you know, he's be willing to see, you know, sort of intermediate steps by, by the North and then intermediate steps taken by the U.S.
He's sort of adopted a sort of step-by-step process that was initially, you know, the idea of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, you know, was like seeing this as a very long-term process with, with different steps toward, you know, normalization and demilitarization and then eventual denuclearization at the end.
So, you know, I think they're on this kind of step-by-step process.
And, you know, I don't think that by the end of this term of Trump, if he's still in office, you know, the process is going to have moved along quite a bit.
I don't think they're, they're not going to, I doubt if they're going to give up their weapons until they're absolutely certain that they don't need any kind of deterrence, deterrent force.
But I think they'll be, you know, well on their way.
And we'll see what happens at this, you know, in the next, in the next couple of weeks with this interim meetings.
And then the summit would happen sometime at the end of February.
And it looks like it's going to be in Vietnam.
Yeah.
Someone had posted this speech, Stephen Biegun at Stanford University that you're talking about.
So that'll be in the show notes here.
And I'm afraid I haven't seen it yet, but it's very much, very much worth reading.
I mean, it goes to show really right that Trump understands here that he's going to have to make a big gesture, some kind of overarching security agreement or a real peace treaty to end the war or both, or something like that.
If he has a prayer, if he thinks that, especially from the way everything's gone so far, he has to be willing to do things like that.
If he has a prayer of getting the North Koreans to really open up their weapons program to the IAEA to come in and dismantle.
I mean, talk about a tall order.
Right.
Only one country has ever done that South Africa, right.
As the white government was changing and falling.
And so we better get rid of these nukes.
Well, I guess you could count Ukraine too.
I mean, Oh yeah.
Right, right, right.
I mean, the nukes into the former Soviet Union.
You know, something like that is possible.
I mean, but the thing is like the North Koreans have been saying for years, they want a normal relationship with the United States.
And so when they see signs that that's actually happening, I think they're going to move on it.
But it is a huge step.
And that's why the meeting that happened last June between the two leaders was so important because that had never happened before.
And even though lots of people here squawked about it, liberals especially, that we were recognizing this terrible government in North Korea.
Well, that's the only way to get things moving.
And it's shown that that was a wise decision.
Well, that point itself is just so ridiculous too.
Bestowing legitimacy.
Donald Trump bestowing legitimacy on a government that's a hammy down from grandfather that's existed since the end of the Second World War that has a seat at the United Nations in New York that doesn't need legitimacy, but which is an unquestionable, unquestioned dictatorship in their own realm at penalty of terrible violence.
No question of whether Kim Jong Un is in charge in North Korea or not.
Nobody needed Donald Trump of all people to bestow legitimacy onto him.
And to think that that was a talking point because that was how low at the bottom of the barrel they were scraping to come up with a excuse to oppose this kind of peace summit.
Well, it was ridiculous from the get go.
I mean, I remember as soon as I got back from Singapore and just seeing watching MSNBC and CNN and these people, it's just the stuff they were saying was ludicrous.
But also it just showed they knew nothing, really knew nothing about Korea, North or South.
Yeah.
Nor do they care to.
They just nor do they care to.
It's like all they see it as in terms of like, you know, how does this one affect Trump?
You know, will it make will be good or bad for Trump?
And to how will whatever happens there affect, you know, the U.S. standing as the you know, this great empire?
You know, they don't they don't want it.
You know, so they so the whole part of the discussion is focused on the fact that, you know, U.S. South Korean military exercises have been really downscaled since, you know, they began talking.
And there's a lot of talk here about, oh, this is hurting U.S. military readiness and so on.
You know, but then, you know, two weeks ago you had the former U.S. commander in Korea saying, you know, you know, like, well, this is a step you have to take if you want peace.
Right.
You know, so you give up the so-called readiness.
But, I mean, if you have if you can end the war, you don't need to be ready for a war.
So, you know, it's it's I mean, even, you know, people the people who really have had experience in Korea, including in the military, by far, those kind of people support, you know, these talks.
Right.
And the negotiations, you know, people that really know the complexity of South Korea and its own politics and the complexity of North Korea and North-South relations.
They know that this is the right the right thing to do.
Right.
And that's you know, those are the people that Americans need to listen to, not these idiots that appear on, you know, CNN and MSNBC every day.
And it's so easy to tell the difference.
Right.
I mean, a guy like you who says, you know, Trump is bad in X many ways, but I like it when he stops doing something wrong for crying out loud.
That's not a very tall order.
That's that's easy if you're a man of principle.
But to these people, they just have no principle at all.
And as you say, or if they do have principle, it's that they don't see it your way at all, that this is a good thing.
This could jeopardize our hegemony over Japan somehow or something.
And so that's why they can't give him the kind of credit that you and I expect them to give him a little credit.
But no, to them, it really is a shame.
And we're seeing, you know, a move by some Democrats led by Democrats.
But, you know, some Republicans are joining it, too.
The letter sign telling telling Trump to resume the U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which would be really stupid.
Yeah.
And what would you know, defeat what's been happening would go against the grain and would really.
Sort of what would damage, if not destroy the peace process, and they're pushing for, you know, to restart these massive military exercises, which, you know, Trump himself even called him provocative.
But, you know, we didn't need to have Trump say that.
I mean, you know, I've been saying that for years and like, of course, they're provocative when you practice an invasion and when you practice a nuclear strike.
And when you practice what they used to call decapitation, you know, where where they would practice, you know, sending in SEAL Team Six and going to assassinate the leadership.
And this was part of these exercises.
Of course, they were provocative.
Of course, North Korea was very alarmed by that.
Yeah.
And stop those exercises while these talks are going on was critical.
And to restart them is the ultimate in stupidity.
And it's very dangerous.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I got to stop here.
I'm late for my next one.
But thanks so much, Tim.
Really appreciate all your work on this.
Bye bye.
All right, you guys.
That's Tim Shorrock at The Nation.
U.S.-North Korea talks are moving decisively to the diplomatic phase.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at libertarianinstitute.org, at scotthorton.org, antiwar.com, and reddit.com.
Oh, yeah.
And read my book, Fool's Errand.
Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
