Dancing with Dictators Part II?

Just when you thought the world would be safe for another day, Donald Trump and his inflated ego and his desire for that Nobel Peace Prize strikes again. Rather than walk away mad, the catfished reality T.V. game show host turned president announced another go at producing the Dancing with Dictators show in Singapore. The problem is, this is not a reality T.V. show. This is a serious diplomatic summit of which Donald Trump is too ill-equipped to conduct. He has neither the tact nor the skills to not screw this up. For this reason, we do not support peace talks with North Korea. It is better to maintain the current balance of terror until we have a stable American leader with proven diplomatic skills to conduct these negotiations rather than risk catastrophe. Donald is more interested in the Peace Prize than the actual peace and Kim Jong Un knows that. He is not interested unless there is personal profit in it for him. He would easily sell out South Korea with disastrous results just to build another Trump Golf Resort north of the DMZ if he knew he could get away with it. Knowing his corrupt nature, he does not have neither America's or South Korea's interests at heart. At this rate, Dennis Rodman has more credibility and that's not saying much. Donald's brand of government by chaos will not serve us well. Pray this thing gets called off before someone gets hurt. 

Patriotism or Pyongyang? NFL Owners Cave Into Trump's Demands

It's not even been a week since Reality T.V. Show host turned "President" Donald Trump who previously mocked North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un was last praising him. Now that Kim has catfished Donald in the most humiliating way, he is once again turned his un-presidential rage against Black NFL players in suggesting that if they do not bow to our national anthem then perhaps they should not be in this country. It's outrageous that the White NFL owners caved into Trump's racist demands to punish Black players, but worse, he is emulating the very man in Pyongyang he is angry at and all because he won't be receiving that coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Seeing Donald having the temperament of a spoiled child, it's no wonder Kim Jong Un had no trouble playing him like a fiddle. Truly pathetic!

It's bad enough we are not going to the World Cup this year, but worse that one man has forced another league's players to stand for an anthem as if this was North Korea. What's next? Will people be required to bow before his portrait like they do in Pyongyang? We can't let that happen. Not here, not now. I love this country dearly but hate this blatant racism and police brutality that is taking place. As much as it pains me to say, until further notice, I too will not stand for the anthem because one man says so.

This is not a dictatorship and I as a citizen whose family has served this county during war and in peacetime will not yield to this draft dodgers questionable authority. I am taking this stand in solidarity with our fellow Brothers and Sisters of Color because it is right. They are Americans too and many of them have spilled the same blood in the same mud for this country. This silent protest was never was about our military, or in any way a disrespect to it, but now it has become about one man's ego and you don't get to question this proud son of a Vietnam Veteran's patriotism. When facing social injustice, protest is the most American thing you can do. #EndRacism #NFLProtest

Dancing with Dictators Canceled

This week, it was announced both here in the United States and in North Korea that the scheduled meeting in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will not take place. The world can now take a major sigh of relief. In a dangerous nuclear world, it is better for South Korea and Japan that these two unstable ruthless men never meet. While Donald loves to play Mob Boss on Reality TV and in the White House, he is too ill-equipped with his unimaginative negotiation skill set comprised of threats and name calling that further lacks any sense of diplomacy to sit down and deal with a real-life gangster like Kim. Anyone who thought to negotiate a peaceful de-nuclearisation of the Korean Penninsula via Twitter is sadly mistaken. The Kim family has had a generations stranglehold on power and will not give it up willingly despite the collapse of the DPRK's sole nuclear testing facility. It will take Korean leaders to work out how to settle their generations-long differences and not by some crass simpleton's threats on social media. We still have a long way to go before truly achieving peace. We hope it can be done in a world without Donald Trump.

South Korea's Moon Renegs on Japan's 2015 Comfort Women Settlment

South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in recently stated in an interview that he wants the reject the 2015 Settlement Agreement made by his predecessor and the government of Japan. In the Agreement, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe formally apologized for Japan's wartime mistreatment of Korean women who were forced to work in Imperial Japanese Army Brothels during WWII. As part of that agreement, Japan has paid 1 Billion Japanese Yen (Equivalent to 9 million USD) in compensation to the few aging survivors and their families. As part of that agreement, the government of South Korea had declared the matter settled and agreed to end once and for all calls for any further apologies from Japan. So what happened? Japan has met its part of the deal disbursing the agreed funds into a South Korean fund and the PM has expressed his apologies and remorse for the suffering of these women. But then South Korea impeached their former President Park Geun-hye over corruption and now the new president feels the agreement made under the former president is not enough. This of course opens a whole new can of worms and both countries have been down this road before. The past cannot be undone but Japan has taken responsibility and settled the issue with South Korea. New demands for greater compensation and more apologies may impact bilateral relations. On the course of greater instability by the DPRK, South Korea will need Japan as an ally. No dollar amount cannot erase the crimes of the past. From our perspective, the dollar amount in the 2015 settlement does not adequately compensate for the scale of the crime. But that's what South Korea Agreed to. When you consider how few elderly Comfort Women are still alive, it is not within reason. That being said, call for new apologies will serve no purpose. We hope Moon will find a way to back down from his own campaign rhetoric and either agree to the terms of the 2015 settlement or find a better solution to a problem he chose to champion.

Trump Team Misplaces Carrier?

There are times one must ask what kind of crazy world are we living in today? Seriously! After a week that saw North Korea call out the Trump Regime's bluff by launching a missile (which failed), tensions on the Korean Peninsula nearly reached a boiling point with the announced deployment of the USS Cal Vinson's carrier group. It's hard to guess if this is more laughable or just plain reckless to make such an announcement of sending force when in fact the fleet went somewhere else. While this must have made for great laughs by the Anti-Trump Resistance movement here at home, Koreans on both sides of the DMZ are likely not laughing. It's still not certain if the White House deliberately intended to fool the North Koreans or just simply did not know themselves. In any case, it's embarrassing considering Trump himself declared he knows more than his generals do. Chances are this won't be the last SNAFU on the part of the Trump Regime. Hopefully it does not get anyone killed. Then again, consider who we are talking about with his finger on the button. A position no man-child should wield yet here we are, watching two overgrown children armed with nuclear weapons toying with people's lives. You just can't make this shit up!

Pyongyang Posturing

This week has seen the U.S. Third Fleet change its plans. In the recent wake of increased tensions with the DPRK, the Navy canceled the scheduled port of calls in Australia and re-directed the U.S.S. Carl Vinson (CV-70) and it's carrier group to take up station within the sphere of the Korean Peninsula.  Under normal circumstances this would seem like routine posturing to let the rogue nation and it's "Dear Leader" that the United States stands ready to defend it's South Korean & Japanese allies. What is troubling is not so much the threats coming out of Pyongyang but rather from our own new regime of amateurs whose sole foreign consistency has been its own unpredictability. Particularly when Trump claims to know more than his generals and takes his foreign policy advice from his handbag designer daughter and inexperienced son in law. This makes for a dangerous mix especially when you count the PRC's recent deployment of 150,000 ground troops along North Korea's northern border. We at American Mishima are counting on Secretary of Defense "Mad Dog" Mattis and our Naval Commanders in the Third Fleet to use caution and not indulge the impulsive whims of our unpredictable part time leader who spends more time golfing at his Florida resorts and Tweeting threats than actually governing. This should make for interesting conversation in Beijing and nervousness in Seoul & Tokyo. As we have said many times, may cooler heads prevail.