What To Make Of President Trump's Letter to Kim Jong-un - By Josh Marshall

[DonViejo]

By Josh Marshall | May 24, 2018 11:58 am

Diplomatic communications are usually worded with great care and precision. They aren’t letters one person writes to another. They are documents which communicate specific realities and goals between states. In this case, I completely believe that Donald Trump himself wrote this letter or dictated it. In fact, I feel almost certain he did. The words resonate with a genuine hurt and anguish, mixed with moments of menace and still hope for the future. It reads needy. It’s like a letter you write to a romantic partner who has abandoned you without saying so. You write, hurt, finalizing what is already clear.

We are in an era of candor and transparency. But one would hope it goes without saying that this is no way to conduct diplomacy, certainly not when nuclear weapons are at the center of it. There’s a reason diplomats do things the way they do. It can be good to have a head of state to push past some formalities. But the US never should have agreed to this summit. Indeed, President Trump’s claims notwithstanding, the North Koreans themselves didn’t seem to have suggested this at all, though they have been on the record for decades wanting such a meeting.



So how did we even get here?

Our best reporting suggests that the South Korean National Security Advisor was visiting the White House to consult with top US national security advisors. He was not scheduled to have an at length or substantive meeting with the President. The President switched plans and brought him into the Oval Office to talk and describe his recent meeting with Kim Jong-un. During that conversation, the South Korean mentioned that Kim was eager to meet with President Trump. Trump took this as an invitation to meet and immediately accepted. The key point is that the decision seems to have been based on impulse and to a significant degree a misunderstanding.

It was clear to anyone who was really listening and who knows North Korea’s history that there was little reason to think the North Koreans were seriously considering giving up their nuclear deterrent. Indeed, why would they? They’ve made immense sacrifices to achieve it and see it – quite reasonably – as a guarantee that they will never face violent regime change from the United States or South Korea.

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-to-make-of-president-trumps-letter-to-kim-jong-un

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Written by a 12 yr old with a chip on his shoulder.

I am so fucking embarrassed by this asshole.

[Iliyah]

2. t-rump did not write that and I would be surprised if he read it.

More than likely, they explained the content of the letter to him while he was watching fake news (Murdoch). Whomever his writers are and communication persons are, they suck. Also, lying must be a qualification in obtaining a job with t-rump.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. It's full of grammatical weirdness, and incredibly disjointed

If his flunkies are now trying to write diplomatic communiques as if he wrote them, rather than just his tweets, that would be even more worrying than if he wrote it himself. It would show they want to screw up international relations just to keep some illiterate voters thinking Trump is One Of Them.

[CanonRay]

3. Trump goes with his gut

which has zero connection to his brain, which is barely functional itself.