MARCH 16, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Much hinges on President Trump
meeting with N. Korean leader
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
They have met on Twitter, but not
nose to nose. They dreamed up nick-
names for each other,
with President Donald
Trump dubbing Kim
Jong Un “Rocket Man”
and the North Korean
strongman calling Trump
“a mentally deranged
U.S. dotard.”
Their
schoolyard
taunts have spawned
countless comedy op-
portunities, even though their rela-
tionship could not be more serious
for the world around them.
As Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, re-
cently warned at the Munich Securi-
ty Conference in Germany, if North
Korea deploys its nuclear arsenal,
“it’s going to be probably one of the
worst catastrophic events in the his-
tory of our civilization.”
Last week, South Korean National
Security Advisor Chung Eui-Yong
announced that Trump and Kim had
agreed to meet. In front of the White
House, Chung said that, thanks to
Trump’s “maximum-pressure policy”
and international efforts, Kim de-
clared his commitment to denucle-
arize and expressed his eagerness to
meet the president “as soon as pos-
sible.”
Trump agreed to a meeting by
May. On Twitter, he signaled that he
would keep the heat on high until an
agreement is reached.
What happens when the two wild
cards meet? There are reasons to fear
that the U.S. gets rolled again, reasons
to assume that nothing will come of
the whole exercise, and yet slim hope
that Pyongyang decides disarmament
is in its national interest.
So much hinges on Trump. The
president clearly believes that his
“maximum-pressure” approach—
a mix of harsh economic sanctions,
bellicose threats and personal insults
—drove Kim to ask for a meeting.
Asked if Trump’s unpredictabil-
ity factors in this dance, Jonathan
Schanzer, senior vice president of the
Foundation for the Defense of De-
mocracies, mused, “How would I put
this? His unpredictability and his un-
wavering commitment to maximum
pressure has undoubtedly brought us
to this place. But that is not the vic-
tory. The victory would be denucle-
arization.”
Bruce Klinger, a former U.S. in-
telligence offi cer who is now a senior
fellow at the conservative Heritage
Foundation, saw Trump’s decision to
meet face-to-face with Kim as “im-
petuous” and “a bit premature.”
Klinger gave voice to the same
criticism lobbed at Trump after he
announced he would move the U.S.
embassy to Jerusalem.
“If the fi rst summit is the high-
est coin of the realm,” Klinger said,
“President Trump seems to have
spent it without getting anything
in return”—not even the release of
three Americans detained in North
Korea.
Trump’s highly personalized style
has a way of cutting through the re-
straints of diplomacy. When Trump
met Russian President Vladimir Pu-
tin at the G-20 meeting in Germany
last July, for example, the two got on
so famously that a scheduled 30-min-
ute session exceeded two hours and
ended with a Syrian ceasefi re agree-
ment.
But later that night, the downside
of Trump’s freewheeling
style became clear. During
a dinner for world leaders,
Trump wandered over to
where Putin was seated and
the two spoke with the help
of a Russian interpreter.
With no American inter-
preter, there is no U.S. re-
cord of what was said.
Klinger noted that when
Trump invited Chinese President Xi
Jinping to Mar-a-Lago last year, the
White House suggested the president
would be tough on Xi. Trump no
doubt impressed the Chinese presi-
dent when he told him over choco-
late cake that the U.S. had bombed
Syrian forces in retaliation for Bashar
al Assad’s use of chemical weapons
against his own people.
But also, Klinger noted, Trump
showed he can be played. Xi gave
Trump a “ten-minute lecture” on
North Korea and Trump emerged
with a different view.
Republicans and Democrats have
been aghast at the number of empty
positions in the State Department
and the fact that Trump has not
nominated an ambassador to South
Korea. Klinger doesn’t see how
Trump expects to prepare for a sum-
mit in less than two months with a
hollowed-out foreign policy shop.
Schanzer is less concerned. He
noted that the Obama administration
had very sharp operatives working
on the Iran nuclear deal, “but they
folded in the face of Iranian negotia-
tors.”
Schanzer also is heartened by the
administration’s focus on North Ko-
rea, which “has been the No. 1 issue
for the National Security Council.”
When you add staff from the Pen-
tagon and intelligence agencies, he
said, “it’s not as if we don’t have man-
power on this issue.”
After more than three decades of
U.S. presidents trying but failing to
tame Pyongyang, Trump at least ben-
efi ts from the effects of international
isolation and trade sanctions that
have deprived North Korea of oil
imports and other resources.
White House Press Secretary
Sarah Sanders told reporters that
the North Koreans have “promised
to denuclearize, they’ve promised to
stop nuclear and missile testing and
they’ve recognized that we’re going
to continue in our military exercises.”
At the same time, Sanders said,
“The United States has made zero
concessions.”
While past international agree-
ments have failed, Klinger said that
doesn’t mean that this effort abso-
lutely must fail. The key is to not fall
into two familiar traps. “We accepted
very vaguely worded agreements
in order to reach an agreement,”
Klinger said, and, “we had insuffi -
cient verifi cation.”
the
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(Creators Syndicate)
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Salem, Oregon
A lot happened in short session
The short session of 2018 is fi nally good bi-partisan bills this year and I
over, and I wanted to let you know want to share some of them with you:
HB
4035—Requires
Higher
some of what went on behind the
Education Coordinating
scenes, what bills passed
Commission to provide
and what bills I tried to
grants to qualifi ed members
stop. I will readily admit,
of Oregon National Guard
without the strong leader-
to attend community col-
ship of Senate President
leges or public universities.
Peter Courtney, a lot more
HB 4055 —This goes af-
damaging legislation would
ter those who are involved
have passed. Though he and
in a “hit and run” and don’t
I do not always see “eye to
come back to the scene
eye,” I will say this: one day
when they know or believe
we will all miss him for his
their vehicle has been in a
love of the “institution” that
from the collision.
is the Legislature. So, let’s
HB 4098—Directs de-
start with what I feel very
capitol partment
to provide annual
good about accomplishing
training
to
county veterans’
this session:
By BILL POST
service offi cers and veter-
First, I passed both
ans’ organizations regarding
of my bills. House Bill
apprenticeship
programs
4068 passed out of the
House and Senate on an 88-0 vote (2 and federal and state education ben-
excused). I am very proud of this bill efi ts.
SB 1506—Directs Department
as it was exactly what the short session
was supposed to be about: amending of Transportation to issue Oregon
previously passed legislation and bud- Wounded Warrior parking permits to
get fi xes. This bill fi xed an issue with qualifi ed applicants.
SB 1562—Provides that person
grass seed farmers that was mistakenly
commits crime of strangulation if
made in 2011.
House Bill 4078, though it did not person knowingly impedes normal
pass as a bill itself, was “stuffed” into breathing or circulation of another
House Bill 4028 and so in essence, I person by applying pressure to chest of
“passed” the bill by working to get it other person.
I also voted ‘Yes’ on several bills
into another bill as an amendment. It
will also help rural agricultural entities that help with affordable housing and
help bring down the cost of pharmacy
prosper in their business.
Secondly, I helped pass several really products. I was also instrumental in
helping to stop a bill that I originally
had sponsored. Originally, SB 1540 was
intended to help provide clarifi cation
and protection for the Salem-Keizer
School District. Then Sen. Sara Gelser
amended it so that it would have effec-
tively lowered the age of sexual con-
sent to 12. I worked hard behind the
scenes and we were able to convince
enough of the House Democrats that
it would have been “political suicide”
for them to vote ‘Yes’ for 12-year-old
sex, that they actually did something
very unusual: they pulled the bill from
the House fl oor and amended it in
Rules to take that part out. Now we
will need to go back during the in-
terim and work with the school dis-
trict and others to fi nd a solution that
protects our kids and teachers.
Tucked into one of the budget bills
we passed, was funding for the Marion
and Yamhill County food banks, and
emergency winter shelter (warming
centers) for our neighbors who are
struggling.
So, overall, it was a less damag-
ing session than it could have been,
though I personally believe there were
way too many complicated bills that
should not have been considered for
the short session. Thankfully most of
them did not pass.
(Bill Post represents House Disd
trict 25. He can be reached at 503d
986d1425 or via email at rep. bild
post@ oregonlegislature.gov.)
Will student protests change things?
Ever since the school shooting at
Columbine High School on April 20,
1999, this writer has wondered what’s
involved in the mental makeup of that
ever-growing number who commit
murderous acts. That incident, and the
many others that followed it, left me
‘lost at sea’ because nothing even re-
motely like it happened at
the high school in Oregon
I attended.
Not able to make sense
out of these malevolent
acts, I have searched to
discover explanations that
assist me to understand
reasons for murder in high
numbers of other citizens
by assault weapons usually seen nearly
exclusively overseas in guerilla war-
fare and subjugation activity. Dave
Cullen, who’s written extensively
on the horror of Columbine, has af-
forded some credible clues to what’s
going on with people who commit
these crimes.
Cullen fi rst reminds us of conclu-
sions reached after Columbine. One
was that the “Trench Coat Mafi a
outcasts” who had found their school
experience miserable, were taking re-
venge against bullies.
However, a team of FBI experts,
psychiatrists and psychologists came to
a different conclusion. They came to-
gether a few months after Columbine,
concluding from discovery that Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold dreamed
much bigger than an impulsive act
on students and teachers to vent their
rage. In fact, that pair of killers were
reported to have laughed at previous
school shooters and planned a massive
scale bombing where, fortunately, the
propane bombs they set in the cafete-
ria didn’t explode. A way of interpret-
ing what they intended: Their vision
was to create a nightmare so devas-
tating and apocalyptic that the entire
world would take notice of the power
they wielded.
But the beat goes on in the U.S.
where we’ve had mass shootings on
an apocalyptic scale, one after an-
other. Obviously, then, there is a great
hue and cry here to put together and
implement stronger and more effec-
tive mental health efforts. It’s certain
we’d do better at stopping these awful
acts of violence if we set our nation
to doing so and prioritized that ob-
jective at the top of a national list of
urgent particulars. Trou-
bling in the extreme is
the American population
seems to possess an ever
greater percentage of the
citizens not able to accept
and deal with life matters
at a personal responsibil-
ity level while our national
leaders do not lead respon-
sibly.
The U.S. is different from other
post-industrial nations in noticeable
ways.For one example, our Consti-
tution, although written more than
200 years ago, immediately after the
Colonists fought a war with the most
powerful nation on earth, had self-
protection fi xed fi rmly in their minds
in order to defend themselves. We
need to adjust laws for modern times
with special attention to interven-
tions that keep guns—by universal
background checks and the closing of
loopholes—away from the infi rm, the
psychotic, the psychopathic and those
raging, for what results in infamy (not
the kind of fame they seek) through
dastardly deeds.
We could try the Australian ap-
proach to gun controls. After all, the
government in Canberra went about
collecting guns by buying them from
owners and destroying them, the result
being a marked decline in shootings
there. We could try that approach but
it would likely get in the way of any-
thing effective because of the Second
Amendment. It would also go against
the dictates of the National Rifl e As-
sociation. The NRA has a vested in-
terest in keeping dues intact as well as
do the gun manufacturers, gun sales
outlets, gun shows and private hands
sales whose profi ts would fall from
bans and strict controls.
gene
h.
mcintyre
Fits and starts have gotten under-
way in a few places throughout the
nation, resulting from the high school
massacre in Parkland, Florida. The
youth from that school have launched
a protest that’s reverberating through-
out the country. Every effort remains
unsettled at this time as, while the
enthusiasm is stratospheric now, the
foot-dragging and fi nding reasons to
say “No!” again, and outnumber the
“Yes!” votes. Then there are the pre-
dictable law suits that follow every re-
form effort. One solution to the gun
issue that would not receive approval
from this retired educator: placing
guns in the hands of teachers, and,
thereby, forcing gun controls in the
U.S. on them.
The original scare-inducing ar-
gument among those who want no
restrictions is the perennial “slippery
slope” argument, the one that says, if
even one gun is taken away, the gov-
ernment will come for all the others.
It’s material for an SNL skit depicting
how absurd some of us can be. Case
in point: having lived a long life in the
U.S.A., and having known hundreds
of gun owners, I’ve never known of
a gun confi scation unless it was asso-
ciated by hard evidence with having
been used to commit a crime.
And so it goes in the United States
of America. No person is safe any-
where in this nation because guns
are everywhere and those who have
them, unfi t or not, have the freedom
to use them at will. All of this adds up
to mean no citizen here is immune
from harm and thereby can be hit by a
bullet while in bed, attending school,
a music festival, shopping at a mall,
viewing a movie or going to church.
There are many ways we could bring
controls to this mania but it won’t
happen until a whole lot more of us
get fed up enough to act when we
declare, “We won’t take it anymore!”
and end the careers of those politi-
cians who don’t serve a majority of
Americans. Until that time, the gun
beat goes on, madly, insanely and end-
less.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)