{"id":179145,"date":"2018-05-04T18:03:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/05\/04\/not-stupid-evil\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T18:03:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T23:03:00","slug":"not-stupid-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/05\/04\/not-stupid-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Stupid, Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Normally, when someone makes a gaffe like this, I assume stupidity, not malice, but this is John Bolton, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/john-bolton-us-using-libya-model-for-north-korea-negotiations\">in Bolton&#8217;s case, never attribute something to incompetence that can be attributed to malice<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">John Bolton, President Donald Trump\u2019s national security adviser, said on Sunday that the United States is using the \u201cLibya model\u201d as it seeks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula\u2014a process that eventually led to the destabilization of that country and the death of its dictator, and one that has drawn North Korea\u2019s ire in the past.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cWe have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004,\u201d Bolton said on Fox News Sunday, referring to the African country\u2019s decision to get rid of its nuclear weapons after negotiating with American officials. Seven years later, Libya found itself in a civil war that led to the death of its dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, after an intervention by the U.S. and its allies.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">It\u2019s unclear how Bolton\u2019s message will be received by Kim Jong Un\u2019s regime, which has already taken some steps\u2014though none of them concrete or verifiable\u2014toward denuclearization. Pyongyang has long cited U.S. interventions in countries such as Libya as a reason why it needs nuclear weapons.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">As the civil war was intensifying there in 2011, North Korea said it was a mistake for Libya to agree to dismantle its nuclear program. A North Korea Foreign Ministry official described it at the time as \u201can invasion tactic to disarm the country.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Boulton brought up the &#8220;L-word&#8221; because he wants to sabotage negotiations, period, full stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normally, when someone makes a gaffe like this, I assume stupidity, not malice, but this is John Bolton, and in Bolton&#8217;s case, never attribute something to incompetence that can be attributed to malice: John Bolton, President Donald Trump\u2019s national security adviser, said on Sunday that the United States is using the \u201cLibya model\u201d as it &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,543,364,394],"class_list":["post-179145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-dprk","tag-evil","tag-foreign-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}