Letters to the Editor: Trump deserves credit for trying something different on North Korea

To the editor: I give President Trump high marks for at least trying a different tactic on North Korea.

The fact of the matter is this: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather told President Dwight Eisenhower to get lost, his father told President Bill Clinton to get lost, and now he is telling Trump to get lost. There may be a little toddler Kim running around who will one day tell a future president to get lost too.

It will take an investment of blood and treasure to remove the Kims once and for all. I’m not advocating this, I’m just pointing out the price tag.

Peter Scofield, Corona del Mar

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To the editor: For all of Trump’s “Art of the Deal” expertise, his image-obsessed stunting won’t induce Kim to make any substantive concessions.

Kim knows that in Trump’s ballyhooed negotiations, eradicating nuclear weapons isn’t his top priority. No, it’s all about temporarily creating the illusion — one lasting until election day next November — that the North Korean stalemate is being resolved.

Within the next few months look for Trump, with Kim’s feigned cooperation, to make some grand proclamation about pending denuclearization. But whatever glitzy “deal” is reached, it’s sure to leave wiggle room for Kim to renounce it.

It’ll be the same old stalemate song, with Trump being played like a fiddle.

Eugene M. Martinez, Orcutt, Calif.

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To the editor: Democrats and Republicans share dishonesty about North Korea. We branded North Korea a menace, whereas we have been the aggressor.

We intervened in the 1950s Korean civil war, killing off some 20% of the North Korean population and devastating nearly all its cities. Then we refused to make peace with North Korea by signing a treaty to end the war.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argues we should not lift painful sanctions against the North Koreans until they denuclearize completely. They would have to trust the U.S. to reciprocate afterward, despite our virtually unmatched historical record of violating treaties.

Why in the world should the North Koreans disarm in the face of, as Martin Luther King Jr. called the U.S. government, the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world”?

Roger Carasso, Santa Fe, N.M.

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To the editor: This only goes to show the U.S. should have stayed with President Obama’s strategy on North Korea. What was it?

Paul Hegness, Newport Beach