Trump’s National Security Policy, North Korea, “No Seating? Prepare for a Beating”

By now, many of you have seen video of the United Airlines incident, which is unspinnable, though United Continental’s CEO Oscar Munoz did try to on Twitter (in what The Atlantic called “the least human-sounding statement in crisis-PR history”): “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.” Oh, but don’t worry, he also said in an email to his employees that while he deeply regretted the situation, he  “also emphatically stand[s] behind all of you” and wanted “to commend [his staff] for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.” Wow…fly right?! It seems we have forgotten how to truly apologize. To err is human, to honestly apologize today is rare.

While denying passengers pre-purchased seats due to overbooking is legal, such incidents have steadily declined over the last two decades. However, many have noted that United could have avoided the entire situation by simply offering the passengers more money to leave the plane. Given that it was a Sunday night and the next flight was not until the following afternoon, it was easy to understand why there were no volunteers. The man pulled off the flight yelled that he was a doctor who needed to see patients the next day and that he had been singled out for being Chinese.

The Atlantic also called attention to another problem that is important to note: “Domestic airlines are now enjoying record profits, having flown more passengers each year since 2010. This is in part because the airline industry is sheltered from both antitrust regulation and litigation. Four carriers—United, Delta, American, and Southwest—earn more than $20 billion in profits annually and own 80 percent of seats on domestic flights.”

North Korea and Trump’s National Security Policy: During the 2016 elections, Trump’s opponent was of course Hillary Clinton. But Trump was also running against the domestic and national security legacies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, his “establishment” predecessors. Given Trump’s statements about being willing to act unilaterally on North Korea, Trump and his national security team seem to be following George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld’s strategy of pre-emption. While Bush II had his ‘Axis of Evil’–Iran, Iraq, and North Korea–it seems that Trump’s axis, er…square of terror includes Iran, ISIS, North Korea, and Syria.

If we had to characterize President Trump’s national security policy to date it would be the following: be unpredictable, act fast and unilaterally with military precision and force, generate national goodwill from the act, and answer policy questions after the fact. A stark change from the Powell doctrine favored by previous administrations.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has seemed to begin filling into his role. Tillerson recently said that China understands that “action has to be taken” with regard to North Korea and why the US and other countries view North Korea as the global Dennis the Menace.

North Korea, despite being the Hermit Kingdom, seems to be able to divine from the Twitter leaves and pay-per-view television that Trump’s Wrestlemania persona might be the same one he uses in national security briefings. But North Korea thus far seems undaunted, and like the Rock, has pretty much said, “Just Bring It!” Ok, what North Korea’s state news agency actually said in response to the US’ deployment of a Navy strike group to the Korean peninsula on Monday was: “The DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US.” How accommodating of them.  

Three Men Convicted for Crimes Against Humanity During Cambodian Genocide: After more than 10 years and nearly $300 million spent, the UN-backed tribunal prosecuting the crimes of the Khmer Rouge has convicted just three men. At the moment, it appears that they could be the only individuals to face trial for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979, in what was one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. Of the three men convicted, two were top officials in the radical Communist regime, and the third convict commanded a notorious Khmer Rouge prison. All three were sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity.

The trial’s length and its susceptibility to political interference were in part the result of an unusual agreement between the Cambodia and the United Nations to set up a combined international court. Three more potential defendants have been investigated by the court, but because of resistance on the part of the Cambodian government, there are doubts that their indictments will proceed to trial. The government includes several former members of the Khmer Rouge, including the current Prime Minister Hun Sen, and it has been careful to protect its own. The limited number of convictions is also partly due to the quarter-century of civil war and political upheaval that took place between the collapse of the Khmer Rouge and the start of the trials in 2006. Many perpetrators of the genocide are no longer alive, including Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, who died in 1998.

Le Pen’s Candidacy on Shaky Ground After Holocaust Denial: Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate for the French far-right Front National party, has drawn widespread condemnation for her comments regarding French collaboration in the killing of Jews during the Holocaust. Le Pen, who has previously drawn a thin line between her party and the extreme-right elements of French society, incredulously denied France’s responsibility in the rounding up of Jews at the Vel D’Hiv cycling track in Paris. Ordered in July 1942, some 13,000 individuals were rounded up, of which only 780 were still alive by the time World War II ended in 1945.

The renewed controversy is likely to empower Le Pen’s opponents as the first round of voting for the election arrives in less than two weeks. Long laboring under her father’s shadow, Le Pen has consistently denied allegations of anti-Semitism and has attempted to bring the party from the fringe to the mainstream. In a possible campaign-defining quote, Benoit Hamon, the Socialist party candidate, told a local radio channel that “if some people were still doubting that Marine Le Pen is from the far right, from now on they cannot do so anymore.”

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