Like no President Ever: Donald Trump and Kim Jung Un
Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Like most of you I was greeted this morning by the images of President Trump crossing a few feet in North Korea to meet with North Korean Dictator Kim Jun Un for a photo op and promise that Lil’ Kim would resume negotiations on his nuclear program, the exact same thing he promised last year but hasn’t done.
The sad fact of the matter that the only reason that Trump got this far with Kim was that he has stopped condemning North Korean Human Rights abuses, Slave Labor Camps, political murders, and his support of Iranian missile and nuclear programs. These are things that every President since the North Korean attack on South Korea in 1950 have opposed. But if your overwhelming desire is not the security of the United States and its allies, but your personal aggrandizement means more than the country whose Constitution you swore to uphold and defend then it makes perfect sense. Sacrifice your allies, your country, and the founding principles of the country to make lovey-dovey with a brutal dictator for your ego, and nothing else matters.
During his visit across the border his new Press Secretary was physically assaulted by North Korean Secret Police while attempting to get American reporters to the scene of the event. Don’t expect that he will offer her any words or comfort or support. She was behaving as an official who expected freedom of the press to be observed when it came to visits of the President to foreign countries. I don’t expect her to have a long tour as Press Secretary.
I have served under six Presidents of both parties. Had I not listened to my parents this would be my seventh, but I enlisted at the time that I was also eligible to enter the advanced program of Army ROTC. However, it was the Iranian hostage crisis and the failure of the attempt to rescue to hostages that led me to throw my hat into the ring and volunteer to serve. Now I serve under a President who is threatening to go to war with Iran, while supporting Iran’s primary ally in its quest for ICBMs and nuclear weapons. To me this makes no sense. North Korea is an existential threat to South Korea, and to the security of North East Asia. Should it continue its ICBM development, which I have no doubt that it is, it will become a major threat to the Continental United States.
But for President Trump this doesn’t seem to matter. He hasn’t met or heard of a dictator or authoritarian despot that he doesn’t support. Putin, Kim, Erdogan of Turkey, Orban Of Hungary, and the Central American dictators whose policies are creating the crisis on our souther border.
The fact is that President Trump is willfully ignorant of American History, and political norms, as well as the history Of the Twentieth Century in General. He doesn’t seem to understand that his words and auctions have meaning, and that being President is not just about pleasing his Cult-like supports, but to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. For me that is inexcusable, and for him to step across the North Korean Border without confronting the North Korean record on Human Rights, its illegal development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and the murder of American student Otto Warmbier is inexcusable, regardless of his political party. If President Obama had acted similarly I would have a similar opinion to render. For me this isn’t about politics or party, but American ideals.
President Trump is a man without principle and he is using his office for personal and political gain, as well as retribution against anyone he has wronged or that oppose his policies. Trump is an existential threat to the American political, economic, and social system that have given us a political and diplomatic stability, and prosperity unknown in history, not that things like that matter to Trump and his Cult.
Honestly, I wish I could have believed that President Trump would have stood for American values and not just policies that could only benefit his bottom line, but that is indeed the case, and that strikes me in the heart as a betrayal of the American tradition and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. I hate that, and that matters have come to this. To see an American President defending and protecting some of the worst violators of human rights, political freedoms, and democracy is disheartening to me.
For that I cannot remain silent. I think of the words of Major General Henning Von Tresckow:
“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.”
In my paraphrase: We have to show the world world that we are not like him. Otherwise this will always be Trump’s America.
Sadly, I believe that we have crossed the Rubicon to dictatorship, Trump will find a way to remain in power no matter what the election, the Congress, or the courts say. We will all end up being damned for it.
Until tomorrow,
Peace,
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 