The real groundwork

Remember back in 2013 when Dennis Rodman went to Pyongyang, North Korea with the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, sat with Kim Jong Un at a basketball game, and attended a party at the dictator’s palace?

North Korea had recently conducted its third nuclear test, had increased its rhetoric against the United States, and had threatened Washington with “miserable destruction”.

Kim was upset that the United States and its allies were planning military exercises near his country.

In summarizing the trip, which many made the brunt of jokes, Rodman stated that Kim Jong Un

“wants Obama to do one thing: call him.”

At the time, the Obama administration was facing criticism from GOP lawmakers who demanded a tougher approach against Kim.

Rodman had spent more time with Kim than any other American since he succeeded his father as the country’s leader, and, therefore, may have seen a side to Kim that those outside of North Korea had yet to see.

Steve Ganyard, former deputy assistant secretary of state admitted back then,

“There is nobody at the CIA who can tell you more personally about Kim Jong Un than Dennis Rodman, and that in itself is scary.”

In response, Rodman joked,

“That’s not scary.”
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Rodman suggested that the North Korean leader had been misunderstood and really did not want conflict with Washington.

According to Rodman,

“He said, ‘If you can, Dennis – I don’t want [to] do war. I don’t want to do war.’ He said that to me.”

And, oh, how we all laughed at the idea and derided Rodman.

Perhaps it would seem that if the GOP was willing to lighten up and accept an alternate approach to North Korea, and that phone call was made, a lot of the blather and posturing from both sides in the ensuing years  could have been avoided.

When North Korea met with South Korea, Trump claimed,

“When I began, people were saying that was an impossibility. They said there were two alternatives: Let them have what they have, or go to war. And now we have a much better alternative than anybody thought even possible.”

Rodman didn’t think that five years ago, and, if the phone call invite was legit, Kim Jong Un didn’t think so either.

The real hardliners back in 2013 are now crowing that Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize when it comes to the Koreas meeting.

Looking at the facts, perhaps the person who really deserves it is Dennis Rodman for having tried years ago.

 

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