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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has said diplomatic efforts with North Korea have consistently failed, adding that “only one thing will work”.
Trump has engaged in an escalating war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, trading insults amid rising tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid,” Trump tweeted.
It “hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!”
Donald J. Trump / TwitterPresidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
Donald J. Trump / Twitter...hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
Trump returned to the theme when he appeared on former governor Mike Huckabee’s show on Trinity Broadcasting Network television yesterday, blaming previous administrations for not having adequately addressed the issue before.
This “should have been handled 25 years ago, it should have been handled 10 years ago, it should have been handled during the Obama administration”, the president said, referring to his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.
The US has not ruled out the use of force to compel Pyongyang to halt missile and nuclear tests, and Trump has threatened to destroy the country.
Trump also told journalists at a recent gathering with military leaders to discuss Iran, North Korea and the Islamic State group that the current period “could be the calm before the storm”, declining to clarify his remarks.
In recent days, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flew home from meeting with top Chinese officials, Trump tweeted that his envoy was “wasting his time” in trying to probe North Korea’s willingness to talk.
Insults and threats
The message came after Tillerson had revealed there were backchannels between US and North Korean officials.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis later expressed support for the diplomatic track in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The Defense Department supports fully Secretary Tillerson’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution, but remains focused on defense of the United States and our allies,” Mattis said.
In his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the US or any of its allies, deriding Kim as “Rocket Man” and warning he is on a “suicide mission”.
Kim responded by calling Trump a “mentally deranged dotard”.
Trump’s administration has also been at the forefront of a drive to impose a series of sanctions against North Korea in response to its sixth nuclear test — the largest yet — and the firing of two missiles over Japan.
North Korea’s main economic partner China has signed up to the sanctions, including restrictions on imports, as has Russia.
The US fought a bloody conflict in Korea from 1950-1953 that ultimately ended in stalemate and the continued division of the peninsula after hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops entered on the side of the north, turning it into a war of attrition.
A renewed military conflict on the Korean peninsula would come with devastating consequences. In addition to its nuclear weapons, North Korea has a conventional arsenal that could wreak havoc on the South Korean capital Seoul, which is located near the demilitarised zone dividing the two countries.
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He’s right! The only thing that will work is Twitter
@Billy Connelly: Military are preparing their Nuclear Tweets, Kim is hiding in his mum’s basement and it’s handbags at dawn or more hot air?
@Stephen murphy: More hot air I say. Just needs to think up the next killer Tweet. “Make North Korea Great Again” na too soft. How about “Kim..You’re Fired!”
@Billy Connelly:
‘fired’ as in turned to glass?
@Billy Connelly: Lock him up, maybe and a better chance of him locking kim up than hillary?
@Avina Laaf: obviously…do I need to spell it out?
@Billy Connelly: a trump tower in Pyongyang. 200 stories high and made of gold.
North Korea launching rockets over Japan ! I wonder if U.K. Launched rockets over ireland , would we just say ..sure it will be grand ! No bother
@Alan Phillips: Sure we’d never do that Alan…. Actual half of UK have Irish blood running through their veins.
@Alan Phillips: you analogy doesn’t make sense. Trump isn’t a spokesperson for Japan.
@Alan Phillips: you seem to have forgotten a certain aerlingus flight that “crashed” and to this day its believed to have been caused by UK missile that they were testing.
@B9xiRspG: Believed by whom?
You know the world has gone insane when the left are actually supporting North Korea.
@Eamonn:
Maybe the left just don’t want war.
@Eamonn: “the left”. Grow up. There is no left or right on this.
@Eamonn: The Right, just want another dirty brutal war and everyone suffers. Trump is just loving NK now, a welcomed distraction from his Russia boyfriend and his failures so far.
@Eamonn: in what way are the left supporting North Korea? Please explain? If you think disagreeing with trumps approach to NK is support to NK then you’re as much as a fkn moron as trump himself. Being against thermonuclear war is not the same as supporting NK.
@Eamonn: Explain who the left are in this case. Then explain how they are supporting North Korea. Then will you explain how your arse got control of your vocal cords?
@Maurice Bourke: the left don’t want anything. Except maybe free stuff for everyone and to shut down debate on anything.
@neilo: thanks, just proved my point.
@KingBen: you are a bigger fool than the clown above who started this tripe. Take more tablets and have a lie down.
@Eamonn: ‘The Left’ – lmao, who are the ‘left’ in this instance!? Not a feicin clue. I think Eamonn has left the building never to return after that comment. Schools are back and all.
Are there no journalists at thejournal? Is nobody learned or brave enough to point out that its arguably because of the USA’s history of war and plunder that the N. Korean government feels it needs to develop nuclear weapons, to avoid the fate it suffered previously, or more recently like Iraq of Libya did?
And while contextualizing the current tension is it not lacking balance and clarity to omit the fact that the US dropped more bombs (etc) on Korea than were used in the whole WWII Pacific Theater, destroying the entire nation so that there simply were no buildings left standing to bomb (according to the US commander at the time)? Oh, and it might even be worth mentioning that the USA’ attack on Korea left 4-5 million native men, women and children dead, the infrastructure obliterated and the land poisoned…
It would be impossible for readers to begin to understand the current situation without some awareness of the genocide from which it takes its roots.
@Marc O’Dóinn: Actually, total casualties came to 3mn, and the US was part of a coalition of 15 other United Nations states. Neither the US nor China wanted the war to escalate into ww3 at the time, but the commander in chief was Douglas MacArthur, and he had a very Trump-esque view of the whole situation, which only aggravated tensions and caused diplomacy to fail. Also, it should be noted that North Korea invaded the South first, nearly obliterating that state from existence before the UN and US got involved.
It’s a far more complicated event than simply America being the bad guy, but why let facts get in the way of a good story?
@Zack Twamley: How can one invade one’s own country???
Look,
Trump is smart Guy, or so he reckons himself. He’ll sort something out as soon as someone explains to him what’s going on. He’s like the school yard bully and he needs to grow up.
@Martin Stapleton: agree with everything else but you mixed up stupid with smart.
If he involved US ground forces ,the casualties on both sides if only using conventional arms would be extremely high.What would be the reaction of his redneck supporters ,when their corn fed sons and daughters start coming home in body bags.?
I have met men who fought in the Korean War they where all either physically or mentally F screwed up..imagine if both sides started using battlefield nuclear weapons ,the escalation would be rapid and could become global,
Good Morning.
@Brian O Reilly:
Which is precisely why he won’t involve US ground forces.
@Avina Laaf: if he wont use diplomacy what other alternatives does he have? He has no proxy ground forces to use. Nuke them?
@Avina Laaf: youre right the human wave concept rules that out, but a war can’t be won just from the air and sea either, so that leaves nuclear or internal sedition. I can’t see China allowing nuclear and sedition requires the people to be in a position to rise up. Trump is writing cheques that can’t be cashed. I suppose he has form in that.
@WinSomeLoseSome:
That’s really a question for Trump, not me.
@Avina Laaf: I think he will answer with another question. “If we have all these nukes. Why can’t we use them?”
@Brian O Reilly: i don’t think he’d use them, north Korea has over 2 million troops including reserve…
my father was in the RAF there, and had 2 uncles in the Middlesex it was brutal, totally outnumbered..
i still don’t get why there still paying them..
There are no European countries dealing and trading with them apart from Germany…
cut of the money, that’s when you’re able to deal with them…
He just needs some time to figure out one thing.
@Garry Clarke: …provide him with beautiful chocolate cake .He loves that.
@prochoice4ever: Chocolate is nice, with Covfefe.
@Garry Clarke: Every US president wants their own war, preferably a winnable war……but numbnuts Trump wants to go nuclear on an ally of the only serious threat to the US from a nuclear -capability standpoint-China. His idiocy is the biggest threat to world peace in decades
Two proven deranged, unhinged and mentally unstable leaders of their retrospective countries have the potential to bring the world to the brink.
@ktsiwot: they should just have a fist fight and leave everyone else out of it
@ktsiwot: We all know Trump is all those. We don’t know Kim is.
He is deflecting from the domestic issues under extreme pressure regarding tax cuts which will benefit him and his cronies. Neither him or his elite rich buddies in his administration has the capability of a running a country. Laughing stock
Kim is being nice by calling him a mentally deranged dotard. I’m starting to like Kim
The people in North Korea probably haven’t a breeze of what’s going on and if Trump wades in the west will have another enemy .People who in all likeliness whose lives are miserable or maybe they are happy in there situation will be devastated
@FlopFlipU: I’d imagine they’d have a better clue than the people in the US…who couldn’t find it on a map.
Is there a way to get this dangerous idiot banned of Twitter for all our sakes. He will tweet the world into Armageddon and we can all record it on our smartphones.
Now I am the best Death ever. The greatest destroyer of worlds. Ever. Have a good time… Jared is going to look after it.
If Trump wants a war with North Korea I suggest he go fight them himself and take all those who voted for him .
He started this war of words in the first place
Only solution is the biggest UFC fight in history, Kim v Trump. The pay per view would solve world poverty.
Missile launched “over Japan” was at an altitude of more than 500km; i.e. it was in space, higher than some satellites.
Trump has a tiny little Willie but when he holds it in his hands it looks huge.
Well he’s threatened violence to no good effect. Like The Piranha Brothers sketch in Monty Python, that most terrifying of all weapons is left to best and last. SARCASM. Problem is many Americans don’t recognise sarcasm. That’s an observation by the way, not a criticism. So Mr. Trump is left with…bathos?
Cadbury’s Roses.
Would somebody put these two morons out of their misery already.
Carthago delenda est.
@Fiona deFreyne: you’ve just hannibalised Trump.
More lube please be more lube
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