{"id":30261,"date":"2018-06-12T02:21:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T02:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30261"},"modified":"2018-06-12T02:21:47","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T02:21:47","slug":"tough-to-overstate-significance-of-these-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30261","title":{"rendered":"Tough to overstate significance of these talks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/index-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-30262\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/index-1-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It is damn near impossible to overstate the significance of what the world witnessed a little while ago this evening.<\/p>\n<p>Two men strode toward each other, extended their hands, with one of them grabbing the other man&#8217;s arm with his &#8220;off hand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The men are Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, and Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>What they said to each other in that private meeting &#8212; with no staff members present &#8212; remains a secret at this moment. We&#8217;ll find out likely as the president wings his way back home aboard Air Force One.<\/p>\n<p>But &#8230; the meeting, the shaking of hands, the cautious smiles and courtesy between these men is a very big deal in and of themselves.<\/p>\n<p>The United States and North Korea remain in a state of war. The Korean War didn&#8217;t &#8220;end&#8221; when the shooting stopped in 1953; the ceasefire merely ended the killing. There is no peace treaty. There&#8217;s no document that declares peace between South and North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s monumental first step marks the first-ever meeting between the heads of state between the United States and North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>Critics of the U.S.-North Korea summit say it gives legitimacy to a brutal dictator. Those who praise it say it might open the door to that long-awaited peace treaty &#8212; and it well might result eventually in a pact that persuades Kim Jong Un to &#8220;denuclearize&#8221; his arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>His countrymen and women are starving. North Korea remains a desperately poor nation. Yet the dictator has continued to tons of money into a weapons system the country cannot afford.<\/p>\n<p>Have we seen the beginning of a new era? Is there a possibility that the handshakes, the smiles and the apparent good tidings can produce something &#8212; anything! &#8212; of substance?<\/p>\n<p>Well, a handshake is a start.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is damn near impossible to overstate the significance of what the world witnessed a little while ago this evening. Two men strode toward each other, extended their hands, with one of them grabbing the other man&#8217;s arm with his &#8220;off hand.&#8221; The men are Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30261\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tough to overstate significance of these talks<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1424,2681,2695,3335],"class_list":["post-30261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korean-war","tag-north-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30263,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30261\/revisions\/30263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}