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 they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, 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 Stu Smallwood.
He wrote another piece for us at antiwar.com, Trump-Kim DMZ meeting, a victory for peace, though Pompeo-Bolton sabotage looms large.
Welcome back to the show, Stu.
How's it going?
It's great to be back on, Scott.
And by the way, congrats for the 5,000 interviews, man.
I've been along for a hood of the ride, so it's been cool for me and I'm delighted for you.
Great, man.
Thanks a lot.
Appreciate that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey, did you see the news?
No.
What's the news?
Well, I just read, it was reported last night on the Yonhap News Agency, which is like the Reuters of South Korea.
It might've been reported elsewhere as well.
Somebody in the White House, close to the negotiations, said, you know, off the record, so I guess we need to take all these things with a grain of salt, even when they're positive, that the U.S. is willing to offer 12 to 18 months of sanctioned relief in return for a nuclear freeze and the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
That's just the beginning.
I can get into the details there, but that would be a groundbreaking step.
That is an historic step.
Go on, talk till you're done, man.
All right, so apparently, now it's not like full-scale sanctions relief, but who would expect that?
But it's textile and coal exports, which are pretty crucial for the North Korean economy to bring in foreign currency, which they need because their own currency is more or less valueless, although it tends to fluctuate.
But that's the heart of their economy is foreign currency.
So yeah, I mean, so coal and textile, that's a huge one, 12 to 18 months.
So it's a nuclear freeze, which is already, I mean, that's already happening.
I mean, I haven't heard anything convincing that is suggested that North Korea is currently producing nuclear weapons or anything related to it.
So that would just be a continuation of what they're already doing.
But the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which is the primary site for their nuclear weapons production, would be a significant concession for them.
And if they are willing to do this, if North Korea agrees to these terms, and I mean, I think they will, unless the critics who have said Kim Jong Un is simply just looking for regime legitimacy and doesn't want to do anything towards the nuclearization anyway, which I fundamentally disagree with.
But if he agrees to this process and they're able to hammer out some kind of a, I mean, it would be complicated because it would involve verification on the ground, inspections, who would be involved in that, how would that process work out?
It's a very intrusive process.
So it's not something that you can just sign a paper and say it's going to happen.
So there's a lot of process that would be involved in that.
But if they agree to it, then the US would also be willing to sign a peace agreement formally ending the Korean War, which would be immense.
I always assumed that would be the precondition for any kind of major concessions on North Korea's part in terms of denuclearization.
And then they would establish liaison offices in both capitals.
So, I mean, we are talking a step that has never, ever been really suggested by the US, certainly never actually tried.
And it's honestly, it's completely, it's a complete about face from where things have been in the last, over the last, especially since Hanoi.
So, I mean, it's really good news now.
I mean, that's where kind of the article comes in, because we still have the two massive warmongering guerrillas in the room there, Pompeo and Bolton.
But it sounds great.
It sounds wonderful.
Well, of those two, I mean, I don't want to give the man too much credit, but back when he was CIA director, it seems like Pompeo was loyally acting on the orders of Donald Trump to get over there and break that ice.
And in fact, it seemed meaningful that he sent the CIA director and not the secretary of state Tillerson to go and say, hey, listen.
And then apparently Pompeo had reported back to him that, yes, this is worth pursuing, that there's room to move here.
So, and I think it was on Korea, not Iran, wasn't it, that Bolton was actually leaking against Pompeo and denouncing him.
So, leading to try to form that into a question, it would be, do you think that there's room there to have a division between those two, let Pompeo side with Trump against Bolton and see this thing through?
That's, I mean, it's really hard to get a read.
And you're right.
Absolutely.
Pompeo was actually the guy who almost got it started, like you said.
In a way, it seemed like he was a friend of the process until the first meeting after the Singapore summit, which I detail in the article, that was a really hopeful time.
And it was the follow-up meeting after Singapore, and it went horribly.
Basically, the North Koreans ran him out of town on a rail and said he came in there with absolutely no concessions to offer and simply wanted to know the steps that North Korea would take for denuclearization and how they would begin to develop an inventory for the US.
So, it was, I mean, that was a mini disaster.
And it really, I think it really gave pause to optimists who thought that, yes, in fact, the US is willing to take the concessions necessary.
But, and oh, and to add to that, North Korea fairly recently, about a month and a half ago, did basically call for the Trump administration to stop involving Pompeo in the process.
Not Bolton, although you could be forgiven for confusing them at times.
And maybe it goes without saying, if they don't want Pompeo, they sure don't want Bolton involved.
And there's real reason there.
This isn't just personal or about the mustache or something.
This is the guy who, as you point out in this article, before they went to Singapore, and Singapore was the successful one.
We'll talk about what happened in Vietnam in a minute.
But before they went to Singapore, Bolton said, yeah, we're looking for something along the lines of the Libyan model, where Qaddafi, of course, had given up all his old junk from AQ Khan's garage sale that wasn't even in operation.
But anyway, and then in exchange for that, he was betrayed and murdered by the United States.
And so that was pretty clearly an attempted sabotage right there, right off the bat.
And then you write about here in your article explaining what happened in Hanoi, Vietnam, the second big meeting, which ended with both sides walking away.
Yeah.
So, I mean, he brought out the Libya model, apparently.
Now there have been conflicting reports.
I'm sorry, did I just screw that whole thing up?
He brought the Libya model before Vietnam or before Singapore?
No, no, no, you're right.
He mentioned, he did, he, you know, in media, in the media and in interviews, I'm not sure who he was being interviewed by, but he did raise the Libya model as what they were going for.
And that caused a lot of uproar, rightfully so, from North Korea.
I mean, Kim Jong-un is not going to agree to be lynched and, you know, murdered brutally.
I won't bring up how he was actually killed.
You can look that up.
But yeah.
Well, they shot him in the side of the head.
They tortured him first, though.
Yeah.
They tortured, yeah.
I think there was some bayonetting involved as well.
But yeah.
So, I mean, that was originally brought up by Bolden in the media.
But then in Hanoi, they were in the middle of negotiations.
Now, presumably, you don't go, I mean, Kim Jong-un himself took a 60-hour train ride.
Possibly, I don't think that was completely necessary.
I'm sure he could have flown a plane, but, you know, maybe he wanted to go on a nice leisure tour.
But it's still a pretty long trip.
And I think there's a bit of symbolism there as well.
Not a lot of people have mentioned this, but I do think that train ride kind of symbolizes what South Korea could have if there was a peace deal and eventually sanctions were removed, because right now it's essentially an island and cannot do train rides like that, which would be crucial for exporting materials, importing materials.
It's just another avenue for them to do such things.
But anyway, so we took a 60-hour train ride and ended up with nothing.
It was an absolute disaster.
Now there are conflicting reports about what exactly happened there.
Originally, of course, U.S. media said it was all North Korea's fault.
They demanded complete removal.
This is also what Trump more or less said.
They demanded complete removal of all sanctions for the dismantling of Yongan, which is a completely nonsensical position.
And I highly doubt that that was.
It may have been a starting point for North Korea, but it surely wouldn't have been what they expected an actual deal to look like.
Although you would assume, given this, all the negotiations that went into leading up to Hanoi, that they more or less should have had a framework agreement set up before the meeting and that the meeting was more or less to dot the I's and cross the T's and put some signatures on it.
But anyway, so in the middle of negotiations, Bolton came, who was inexplicably involved in the meeting to start with after he mentioned the Libya model, for example, and we know how hostile he is to peace everywhere, North Korea, just one example.
So he inexplicably brought up the Libya model, which is basically giving up all of your nuclear material, your weapons, your inventory, dismantling all ways to create nuclear weapons before you get anything.
And that's how negotiations fell apart, according to writers who they were the first, probably about a week or week and a half later, maybe a bit longer to report that about this Libya model paper that that Bolton presented in the middle of negotiations and basically destroyed the whole thing.
And it was a complete disaster.
And by the way, it was a complete disaster.
I mean, we really got to stop and say here too, that and there's no way to overstate it.
It's just as pure as fact as anything that this is all John Bolton's fault in the first place.
He brags about it.
Also, it's true that he took the lead in undermining and destroying the agreed framework deal of 1994 and forcing North Korea out of the nonproliferation treaty and their safeguards agreement with the IAEA back in 2002.
And so they never had nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program up until that point, only the latent capability to go that route.
And Bolton is the one also Cheney and Bush, who made sure that that happened.
It's all his fault.
And now they have a couple of dozen nukes that we're trying to negotiate away, maybe if we're lucky, see if we can get them to freeze it.
When we already had a freeze before they had a single atom bomb.
Right.
And nobody, nobody knows exactly what North Korea's nuclear capability is.
I mean, obviously, there's been a lot of scaremongering about, you know, intercontinental ballistic missiles, which I'm highly skeptical they have that ability still.
Even miniaturizing into a warhead is extremely costly and difficult.
And we don't know.
We don't know for sure that they can they can do any of that.
But I mean, yes.
So Bolton is the guy, one of the premier actors who has ensured that North Korea got to nuclear weapons, and why the standoff is where it is today.
So it raises the obvious question.
Why is he involved?
Why is he still part of the Why is he Why does he play such a prominent role in the administration?
Well, I mean, so to be charitable to Trump, then, you know, not that we should be, but just for argument's sake, it's a good cop, bad cop thing, right?
That like, help me hold them back, guys, kind of a deal.
And you could see how in Hanoi, there were all kinds of domestic political incentives for Trump to walk away from that thing, to issue this deal that was meant to be rejected, when especially the criticism of him from the Democrats is that, oh, Kim is mind controlling Manchurian candidate Trump, and is just manipulating him.
And it's going to walk all over him.
And he's going to get Trump to give all these concessions in exchange for not enough.
And, you know, their demand for unconditional surrender and full denuclearization first, if they're ever even specific about it, that's what they would say.
But mostly, they just are trying to make the political point or were at that time still are, but especially that day, even.
And in the days leading up to Hanoi, we're saying, you know, how easy to manipulate Trump will be.
And so, he almost had to walk away at that point in order to prove the case that he's willing to for domestic political concerns.
This, by the way, goes right to Justin Raimondo's political theory that he called libertarian realism, which is that all foreign policy is determined by domestic policy.
Domestic politics, I guess I should say.
And there sure is a lot of that.
And, you know, I'm trying to remember where I read this to give credit to them for the smart analysis, where somebody pointed out that when Richard Nixon went and shook hands with Mao Zedong, the Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress supported him.
The New York Times supported him.
The entire political establishment was taken by surprise and said, man, if Richard Nixon wants to go over there and shake hands with Mao Zedong and end half of the Cold War right now and, hey, help split him away from the USSR to make our loss in Vietnam not so bad, since they're friends with the Chinese now anyway, OK, let's do it.
And they supported that.
Can you imagine if they had all just gone pure McCarthy on him and said, ah, Nixon is his, and just attacked him?
Which is why, I mean, the opposition now is so disgraceful.
And we can get into that maybe a little bit later.
But no, I mean, and to boil Justin's theory down to the basics.
Yeah, I mean, basically all politicians are individuals.
All state leaders are individuals.
All members of bureaucracy are individuals.
And they will almost 100 percent of the time pursue individual interests.
So, I mean, it absolutely makes perfect sense why Trump would have taken that approach.
And maybe, just maybe, he thought, well, I've got him here.
He's not going to want to walk away from this without some kind of an agreement.
Maybe we can spring this on him at the last minute and we can get it.
Or at the very least, it's seen as a step in the negotiation process where if it doesn't work this time, we'll come back at him later with something a little bit more conciliatory.
And we can blame Bolton, who'd be happy to take the blame, by the way, too, right?
Like if this whole thing was premeditated, they're like, hey, John, we're going to blow this one and I'm going to make it your fault.
He would say, sure thing, Mr. President.
Right.
He didn't care.
He'd be happy to play that role.
And I mean, I mean, at the same time, though, well, I don't believe that Donald Trump is nearly as stupid as most people portray him to be.
I mean, he's obviously figured a few things out.
I think for the most part, he's not a very like I don't think he thinks too far ahead.
I don't know.
It's hard to say.
We don't know for sure.
But I mean, the conventional wisdom is he's not a not a particularly bright guy.
So it might be giving him a little bit too much credit to assume that.
But I mean, there's also there's also other ways to look at it, too, which could be at that point Bolton had a lot of sway.
But now maybe especially after Venezuela, the debacle there, he said it was going to be easy.
Bolton said it was going to be easy.
The coup there and it was a complete disaster itself.
So perhaps Bolton's lost a lot of sway in the White House.
And now Trump is willing to take the more conciliatory approach that Stephen Begin, the head negotiator, has wanted to take for quite some time.
So that could also be an explanation for why they're doing this now.
At any rate, in terms of the domestic politics angle, it's definitely not it's not easy for Trump to do this.
Now, perhaps there's an interest there in terms of placating is there is an aspect of his of his base.
It's a fairly significant one that voted for him because he said a lot of non interventionist things leading up into the election.
So maybe he's trying to placate them by even though he's heightening tensions with Iran in a big way, although he hasn't actually gone to war there yet.
Perhaps he's trying to placate them by giving them this piece at the very least.
And that could be something as well.
But at the same time, the unbelievable opposition among Democratic, the Democratic Party, the leadership candidates for the next election, with the exception, I guess, of certainly of Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, apparently, according to Christine Ahn, the head of the women crossing the DMZ there, he has been receptive to discussions about this with her and, you know, the idea of continuing the, you know, diplomacy, even if he, you know, if Trump does lose the next election.
So otherwise, though, there's no question that it's pretty much against Trump's domestic political interests to be doing this.
So he does deserve a lot of credit for what's happening right now.
Whether you hate him about everything else.
Yeah.
I mean, it's certainly against his interests in terms of his relationship with the rest of Washington, DC.
But I think this is a huge opportunity for him in terms of the point of view of the American people.
You know, there's this new poll that has the soldiers just as fed up as the civilians with the last 20 years of war over here.
And you think about it, Bush and Obama started so many wars that's starting right now.
And for that matter, Truman did, too, that Trump starting right now could start ending wars and end a war every quarter up until reelection day and still probably have a couple left to resolve.
But he could get us out of Afghanistan.
He could get a peace deal between North and South Korea.
He could pull all the troops out of Somalia, pull all the CIA drones and special operations guys out of Libya and Tunisia and Iraq and Syria, too.
There's plenty.
And he'd be Trump the Great by election day if he just made it clear that that was exactly what he was doing.
And what would the Democrats do about that?
Just do nothing but carry a bunch of generals around on their backs.
Any other generals say they disagree and they want to run against him like that?
I mean, that would be the funniest thing of all.
Not that I'm saying I believe this is going to happen, but I'm just saying from his own point of view, you say he's no dummy.
When it comes to his own sense of his own political interest or his own financial interests or whatever it is, I'm not saying he always makes the best decisions, but he certainly is keenly interested in what's good for him.
And he should know that, hey man, the more TV says this is a bad idea, the more beneficial it is for you to ram it right down their throats.
Let these CNN lip gloss hairdo idiots sit up there and explain why we should not have a peace deal in Korea.
Yeah, it's absolutely, I mean, that's a losing policy for the Democrats if it ever comes to that.
So yeah, it's great political judo against them, you know, because they're based, they're not hawks.
In D.C. they're hawks, but out in the country they're certainly not.
Right.
And I mean, for all of Trump's disgraceful behavior in a lot of ways, I mean, you know, the way he supports Israel, the Saudis, and I mean, you know, his immigration policy and all of these things, these are all continuations, perhaps ramped up to a degree of Obama's presidency.
And he hasn't started, he hasn't actually started a war yet.
So he does have that on his resume.
And if he's able to achieve a peace deal with North Korea, that would look really good on him.
So which, I mean, brings us back to where we are with this report from last night.
I mean, this would be, like I said, a complete, it would be, it would be a step in the right direction, not just a step, it would be an absolute leap, an historic leap.
And he can expect major, major pushback from the mainstream media if this actually comes to be a thing.
And it goes back to the article, which is that if John Bolton is still there, what is he going to do?
Or can, is he powerless to stop it?
Because if he isn't, then surely he will try to do his best in some way to make this, these concessions not happen.
So we'll have to, we'll have to see in that regard.
Okay, y'all, I'm doing a fun drive to raise money for an advance on my new book.
I published my last book, Fool's Errand, through the Libertarian Institute, and it worked out great.
There was no one to boss me around about it, and I was able to publish within a few days after dotting and crossing the last I's and T's.
This time, I'm going to do the same thing, only instead of starving and borrowing money from friends to try to get it done, I'm coming to you loyal listeners first.
I'm trying to raise $20,000 by September to help me get the book done, edited, and out the door in time for Christmas and the 2020 campaign season.
You liked Fool's Errand?
Well, this is like that, only for all the terror wars.
I want what you want, for us to have a voice in this upcoming presidential election debate.
Hey, there's a new book out that says it doesn't have to be this way, finally.
Frankly, I need your help to get it done.
Simple as that.
Check out scotthorton.org slash donate for all the details about all the kickbacks, including signed copies of the book when it comes out.
That's scotthorton.org slash donate.
And thanks, y'all.
Now, did I read your article right, that time is running out on President Moon of South Korea here?
Uh, yeah, no, I mean, it's not, but he still has about two, I believe, I don't have it in front of me, but I think it's about two and a half years left.
Okay, so that's not quite so lame duck.
That's not, that's not lame duck, but it is in a sense, if, um, I know it sounds, sounds crazy to people, but if we're depending on, uh, the U S to be a part of this policy, because obviously sanctions are preventing, uh, preventing South Korea from seeing this through their, their, their North Korean integration, um, through its fullest extent, which is really the ultimate goal of the Korean peace process, because as we know, economic exchange is crucial to a lasting peace.
Um, so, I mean, that, and that is, that's been Moon's platform, President Moon, South Korean President Moon's platform from the beginning in terms of what he's going to do to fix the stagnant Korean, South Korean economy.
It's a lot of it will be in cooperation with the North and investment there and all the different things that could happen.
And, uh, you know, the opening up into Asia and on, on by land, obviously they can, they can ship things now by plane they're open, but it's effectively an island.
So these, these are all things that are the core aspects of his peace policy.
Now the time running out thing, yes, two and a half years, it's, it's a long time, but in some ways it isn't, uh, we've seen how long things have taken to get to this stage in the, in the negotiations between the U S and North Korea.
But as long as the U S insists on maintaining these sanctions, uh, South Korea either will have to stand back and just wait for a chair, another, a more charitable American president, or they will have to take significant steps in pushing against these sanctions, which would be extremely bold, uh, but may end up having to be the way that South Korea does this in the long run.
Because, uh, I, for me, the biggest question is what the next president who the next president is, obviously, if it's Donald Trump, then there's four more years on top of what we have now and a moon moon cannot get reelected.
It's a, it's a one term presidency thing there.
Um, but if it's Joe, if it's Joe Biden, God forbid, he, his stance is that the U S has turned its back on South Korea, uh, through these negotiations, which is by helping their president by allowing him to lead on this.
Yeah.
I mean, just imagine that though, 60, I mean, when these negotiate, when the peace process with South Korea started, I mean, prison moon, JN largely because of this had like an over 80% approval rating now.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong too, is, is it not really the correct way to frame this?
That this is really Trump's, you know, advance here is that he has stepped back and allowed this to happen where Bush and Obama would not.
Absolutely.
Now he's not taking the lead.
This is president moon's mission and Trump is being cooperative.
Thank goodness.
Absolutely.
And you, I mean, you can look back at any of my previous articles and you know, I've stated that time and again.
Um, yes, it's been a Korean led project from the beginning, but, uh, imagine if George Bush was in power, uh, you know, so the, the more liberal South Korean presidents tried to have a more robust peace process with, uh, when president Bush was in power and it went nowhere, basically they were stuck.
He explicitly shut it down.
Yeah.
He shut down all the sunset.
Uh, what was it called?
The sunshine.
You know, uh, Gordon Prather used to always quote this press conference where Bush was with president row R O H. And there was a mistranslation and president row said, wow, wait, I'm sorry, Mr. President, did I just hear you correctly?
Did you just say that we could go ahead and advance talks in parallel, you know, regular talks on normalization in parallel with nuclear talks.
That's great.
And then Bush listens to the translation and goes, no, that's not what I said.
Nuclear first total capitulation on nuclear first when again, he might as well have just handed Kim Jong ill H bombs wrapped up or a bombs at least wrapped up.
You know, it was all his fault.
They had a nuclear weapons program at all, much less actual nuclear devices.
And then of course that became the excuse to prevent any kind of reconciliation with the South that whole time.
Uh, yeah.
I mean, what George Bush did, I mean, his presidency was such an utter, utter disgrace.
Uh, it's unbelievable to send a sanitization that's been going on since Trump got elected of, of this man.
Um, but yes, I mean, that underscores the sort of the urgency in a way.
I mean, but at the same time, when the, when the South Korean president and Kim Jong North Korea's chairman, uh, began this process, in fact, it was a hostile atmosphere.
This was during the fire and fury days.
So they absolutely did this against the approval of the U S you can remember Mike Pence was in South Korea for the winter Olympics there.
And, uh, he refused to even stand up to greed or acknowledge the North Korean, um, delegates who were there, including the younger sister of Kim Jong.
And so, I mean, at that point it was, it could have, it couldn't have been further from what the U S the Trump administration was thinking.
So they really forced the agenda here and the credit, if you, if you will, I think that there is some credit definitely needs to be given to Trump is that he is more or less not protested and not tried to get in the way of it other than, and this is where he deserves complete criticism along with every other U S president, especially since George Bush, the sanctions, there's been absolutely no movement on this, on the sanctions.
It's been maximum pressure, uh, throughout the Trump presidency so far, which is essentially military encirclement and economic warfare on North Korea.
It doesn't impact, it does impact to an extent the leadership in the sense that it makes them stronger in comparison to the rest of the North Korean population who suffered greatly.
We know how sanctions work.
Trump has demonstrated, right?
That he understands the dynamic here, where he called off those exercises and said, Hey, frankly, they are provocative, which was hilarious to watch.
Then all the Democrats and Hawks on TV say, Oh my God, he used the same word that the translators of Korean use when they're translating the North Koreans.
Provocative.
My God, that's how dare he say that about our routinely practiced full scale invasion of their country on their shore, right off their shores.
Yeah.
And in fact, that is a major concession in terms of stepping back because there would not have been these military, uh, the military agreements that South Korea and North Korea have made in terms of, uh, demilitarizing certain parts of the demilitarized zone that was, and has never been, it's one of, it was one of the, one of the most probably still is armed regions in the world.
But, uh, without those, without that concession, suspending the drills, these, uh, simulated invasions, which have led to clashes in the past.
Um, and you can understand exactly how North Koreans would feel a country that was destroyed, completely destroyed in, in, uh, the Korean war, a fifth of the population killed.
But that was a huge, huge concession by Trump.
So again, there, there's another thing that he deserves credit for it.
It allowed South Korea and North Korea to come to these military agreements and to reduce, reduce all military tensions, which enabled, for example, meeting in the DMZ, uh, we can offer two weeks ago, uh, unarmed.
So back to this news, you're breaking here pretty much about the, um, the new offer here.
We have so many layers of sanctions on Korea.
We have so many troops on their Southern border and ships out at sea and all of these things that we have a lot to concede to while still keeping our maximum pressure grip, et cetera, this and that.
Uh, we have plenty of cushion there, essentially from the point of view of the government, you know, me, I say repeal all sanctions immediately and with no conditions, I don't care.
But, um, it just seems, you know, it, it illustrates the point.
If they can do this, there's a lot more they can do in terms of confidence building measures.
And after all, I mean, if we're talking about the real world, not what Liz Cheney thinks or what have you here, if there is the slightest possibility in the world that the North Koreans would ever give up their atom bombs, it would only be if they are completely confident that they are not going to be attacked by the United States or any of their other enemies.
And the only way to do that, you can't deceive them and you can't bully them into that.
You're going to have to actually just kill them with kindness to the point where they're willing to say, okay, I'm saying, accepting the premise that that's really your goal is you're going to get rid of every last A-bomb on their shelf, huh?
Well, if Trump is not best friends with Kim Jong-un, then there's no chance of that happening.
So that has to be, and again, it should be easy.
We have so much to give and no real right to demand a thing here.
It ought to be pretty simple to come to an agreement with their point of view.
Yeah.
And that gets, what that really goes to is the insanity of maximum pressure, which the thing is, and it's 100% true that the U.S. is an unbelievable amount to give.
But the idea of maximum pressure is that if you give even an inch, then that is a complete end to the maximum pressure campaign.
And the idea, it gives them access to foreign currency or whatever.
And the idea of maximum pressure, ultimately, though, people don't say this, it's not for him to give up nuclear weapons, it's for the regime to collapse.
However, it's a completely failed strategy because, as we know, sanctions only strengthen the regime.
Now, that's why this recent report is such a fundamental shift, because it would be that first concession and it would be the end of maximum pressure completely, because it's a holistic approach that never works.
And the way that they're talking in this report, I mean, here's a quote, the White House is open to many ideas to incentivize the North to make what they call a critical first step on denuclearization.
Their first goal in the talks is to prove to the North that they can trust the U.S. and that Washington wants to do something historic to ensure the hostile intent of both sides is now firmly in the past.
So that goes back to what you're saying.
I mean, once you start to build concessions or to allow concessions, there's so much that can be given on your side, and there's so much that can be given, not as much by North Korea, obviously, but it starts this gradual step-by-step process.
And the source did, in fact, discuss this.
They want to begin what would be giving up one thing for them to give up another, and then moving on to something else, giving up more sanctions for perhaps dismantling of a certain amount of weapons that would be verifiably inspectable, so on.
But it's a complete reversal of the idea of the Libya model.
So it does seem like John Bolton, he is still high up in the administration, but it's not something that he would ever agree to.
It's a disavowal of his approach and what the new conservatives would want to see happen in Iran, all of those things.
So it's really hopeful.
Now, we'll just have to see how it goes.
I mean, in terms of building trust with North Korea, really the first thing that he could do is fire John Bolton.
That would be a huge, huge flag for North Korea to see, yes, okay, here we might be on to something.
So there is still that aspect of, okay, well, let's see how this goes.
But I see a lot of hope here, finally.
And this would never have happened without the DMZ meeting.
So maybe it wasn't just a photo op after all.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's the thing, too, for people to attack something like that, any president doing something like shaking hands with, crossing the line, going to walking up the steps, imposing this, simply a symbolic thing.
But to do that with a country that we've been legally at war with since the 1950s, and on hair trigger alert against them all this time, with 30,000 something of our guys and their families in the country, and we're not even all this time with 30,000 something of our guys and their families in the crossfire there in the event of an actual war, for anyone to attack that as some kind of weakness on the part of America, as though anybody thinks that America's military is dissolved, our spy satellites fall out of orbit, our CIA all commit Harry Caray, and the entire empire vanishes as soon as Donald Trump goes and shake hands with a pipsqueak little dictator and says, hey, maybe we can work things out.
That anyone in America would attack Donald Trump for that, for what they think is their own gain, and maybe it is, I don't know.
It's pretty ugly and embarrassing in a way.
It is embarrassing, honest to God.
If listeners are talking to somebody who is adamant that this is a bad idea, even if you try to bring up all the talking points, and they stick to their guns, you should laugh them out of the room, because at the end of the day, what it is, is a complete revelation of the inherent racism that is our policy in North Korea, and imperialism in general, obviously, it requires that.
That goes back to what Joe Biden said.
He said this was us turning our back on the South Koreans.
If more than 60% of South Koreans agree that the meeting in the DMZ was a good thing, how does he come up with this?
The only way he comes up with it is because in most mainstream media, I would say probably all mainstream media, I know that Rachel Maddow, right after the meeting with Kim Jong-un and the DMZ, she had somebody on who was a former CIA analyst who now works, I believe, for CSIS, which is a military industry-funded major think tank.
She, of course, was highly critical of it.
The only time they talk to actual Koreans is when they are from major military-funded think tanks, and usually from the old guard right wing that has been marginalized to a pretty large extent still in South Korea.
There's no consideration at all for how actual Koreans really think, South Koreans.
Certainly, we don't know about- Never mind the future of the poor peasants of North Korea who were locked in one of the most totalitarian dictatorships, if not the most totalitarian garrison state in all of world history.
Somebody's got to break through that thing.
Are we going to have another war?
Are we going to do a regime change and kill how many people to save them?
Or it's obvious to just follow the Richard Nixon model here and just go shake hands with Mao and tell him, you know what we're going to do?
We're going to try getting along.
We're going to make the big first step toward peace first and work out our smaller differences later and move forward from there.
What right does anyone have to deny that to the people of North Korea when this is clearly their best chance to break slightly free with, again, obviously, limited liberty that could be gained by them just from having a bit more prosperity.
We're not any closer to overthrowing or ending the North Korean tyranny as we've been since 1952, so maybe we should just forget about that and look at how the obvious best thing for these poor people is to try to open up trade with them as fast as we can.
They've been on the verge of collapsing for decades, the North Korean regime.
I mean, the Chinese people aren't free now, but they're not all starving to death by the tens of millions.
So forgive me if I chalk that up and call it progress compared to what could have been.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I have two things to say about that.
The first is, yes, I mean, I think the biggest problem is that most people don't know what sanctions are and what they do.
I know Patrick Coburn had an excellent article about the effect of sanctions in Iraq and Syria recently that was highlighted on your website, antiwar.com.
But the same thing is true in North Korea.
It is completely debilitating for the North Korean population.
It cuts off, it destroys markets.
It cuts off access to food and resources.
And the worst thing is when a disaster hits, there have been a lot of famines in North Korea because of droughts and whatnot.
When a disaster hits, they're just that much less capable of overcoming it.
And sanctions themselves are the equivalent of a long-term natural disaster that just makes it so that the poorest people who lack the resources to overcome the scarcity caused by sanctions are incapable of overcoming it.
Many of them die.
Many of them fall ill.
But the people who have the resources to overcome it, the government, the military, they are comparatively able to thrive.
So it strengthens their position further.
Now, even if sanctions were working to the degree that, although some might say that the main goal is simply to keep North Korea isolated forever and to use it as an excuse to encircle China, which is absolutely true in some cases, but if the sanctions did actually work and cause the North Korean government to collapse, what would be the outcome of that?
We have a country that is extremely militarized, a large number of soldiers.
Are they all going to just fall in line and all decide that they want the same leader at the end?
No, it would be a civil war.
There's no other way.
And I mean, the refugee crisis that would be caused by that is unimaginable.
And the fact that they have nuclear weapons, that probably wouldn't work out so well either.
But the main thing is, and this is the second point, you have, and this goes back to South Korea's interest, obviously they have an interest because they want to be reconnected with their brethren to the North.
But there's so much artillery pointed, especially at Seoul, which is one of the most populated areas in the world, an extremely developed city, just unbelievable infrastructure that Americans would be shocked at if they actually were able to travel there and compare it to what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis in their own country.
But millions of people would die if there were a war, forget nuclear weapons.
So if the regime collapsed, there's a really good chance that it would lead to a regional war.
So these people aren't even, I mean, some of them maybe are thinking it through, but I think most people just don't ever really consider at the end of the day what these sanctions mean and what the ultimate outcome would be if they were successful and led to a regime collapse.
So when you talk about Joe Biden and people like that saying that they've turned their backs on the Koreans, it's absolutely unbelievable.
And it should be completely and utterly criticized to the extent where he is completely made a mockery of because it's the complete opposite of the case.
And it just goes back to the racism.
Same guy who supported the war in Iraq, same guy supported the war in Libya, same guy supported the half attempt at regime change in Syria that led to the rise of the Islamic State, guy who has no credibility on these issues whatsoever.
He doesn't, but he's not really saying anything different than the major talking heads in the mainstream media.
So that's the official position, right?
We've turned our backs on Korea, Japan, security of Asia is in question now because of what Donald Trump has done.
So I mean, people really need to push back on that.
Hey, I got bad news for you right now.
This reporter, Jonathan Swan from Axios is saying Trump wants to get rid of Dan Coats, which that sounds okay so far, but to replace him, Fred Flights.
I'm not familiar.
Smithers from FDD.
Okay.
Oh my God.
So I- As director of national intelligence, can you imagine?
Boy, there's your war with Iran right there, man.
If that happens, my God.
It goes back to the complete inability to predict what's going on there.
Is there a plan?
I don't know, but maybe the most charitable way that I can look at this right now, if I'm feeling like being optimistic is, and it's not very optimistic because it's completely horrible, is that he's willing to be a hawk on Iran, but he's going to, and that's his concession, but so that he can do the North Korea thing.
And that also is completely terrible.
I mean, I hear you.
He would be the world's greatest fool to throw this opportunity away now.
But with John Bolton's deputy running as the director of national intelligence, even, um, that's a, that's a, it's hard to understand.
It's really hard to understand.
So all that we have going for, I mean, for us is this, uh- You know what though, too, is it could be that Bolton is the source for that, that Trump's looking at flights.
I don't know.
It sure does speak very well to the idea that Trump's looking to get rid of Bolton, though.
I guess we're both, these are both, that's an unconfirmed report as well, or a- Well, it's a reporter claimed it on Twitter, is the link that I got from one of the guys in the Reddit room here.
Oh no, he's linking to his story here.
It's Trump tells confidants he's eager to remove Dan Coats, is the piece at Axios.
Okay.
And then followed up by who he's going to replace him with.
Yeah, supposedly that's in there.
Okay.
I love this.
Trump has, Trump has told people he likes flights and has quote, heard great things.
So it's a lock.
He's going to be, he's going to be the man.
Breaking news of the terrible fashion and the Scott Horton show there.
Um, we've had, I mean, so we're dealing with an unconfirmed report about the North Korean thing and then there's this.
So whether, whether- By the way, can you send me that link?
Yeah, I will.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, whether any of this is possible with the likes of Bolton and his, uh, underlings, they're still in major positions is the biggest question.
So we'll have to see how it goes.
But regardless, um, what the meeting represented, um, was much more than a photo op, even if it doesn't go any further, because it's just, it's another example of reducing the tensions in Korea.
And that is a victory in itself for Koreans.
So at the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters.
Well, it's not the only thing, but it is the most important thing that matters.
All right, you guys, that's Stu Smallwood.
I'm sorry.
I should have explained at the beginning that he lived in Korea for many years and, uh, is a translator of Korean, uh, living in Canada there and a regular writer for antiwar.com.
And you can find the latest here.
It's, uh, original.antiwar.com slash Stu underscore Smallwood.
And you'll find Trump Kim DMZ meeting a victory for peace.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at libertarianinstitute.org at scotthorton.org antiwar.com and reddit.com slash Scott Horton show.
Oh yeah.
And read my book fool's errand timed and the war in Afghanistan at fool's errand.us.
