North Korea’s Blatant Act of Propaganda Fools No One (Except Donald Trump)

It’s not like we didn’t know.

Sure, they may have fooled some of the slower wits, but all you really needed was an average intellect and a small sense of the history of North Korea’s attempts to find a world leader gullible enough to give them the appearance of legitimacy.

Few have been willing to fall into that trap, through the years. It took Donald Trump and his insatiable desire to be seen as a competent, powerful leader, with the ability to bring about world peace.

Seriously, if I see one more Trump loyalist crowing about the end of the long, Korean war, thanks to Donald Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize-worthy mediation skills, I’m pretty sure I’m going to retch.

On May 24, North Korea released video to the world that purported to show the world that they were serious about denuclearization.

A series of explosions were said to be the beginning of the end of their nuclear program.

It was a good will gesture embraced by Trump and he eagerly announced that he was willing to reschedule meetings with the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.

Donald Trump has been so busy promising to make North Korea wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, while dreaming of his own accolades, that he missed the big picture.

It was all a con job.

While calling it “transparency,” international journalists were invited by North Korean officials to come and film the detonation of their underground nuclear test tunnels.

A CNN crew at the remote mountain site in the country’s north witnessed explosions at nuclear tunnels 2, 3 and 4 from observation decks about 500 meters (547 yards) away. They were among two dozen journalists invited into the country to observe the apparent destruction of the site.

Hours later, the White House canceled a planned meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, but Trump announced Friday that the June 12 summit is back on despite no further demonstrations of goodwill by Pyongyang.

Here’s the thing about that little show – no weapons inspectors or nonproliferation experts were invited to witness it. Only journalists were invited.

“The explosions seem to have been too small” for scientists to have discerned any significant geologic activity such as collapsing tunnels, an international arms control official who follows North Korea closely told CNN.

“The fact that journalists were reportedly only around 500 meters from the explosions is a good indication that these were small blasts. And the amount of dust leads us to believe that they were quite superficial,” the official said.

The plan was apparently to get enough journalists and their cameras there to put on a good show for the world.

The overall belief of those who examined the footage, as well as readings from seismic sensors in the region, is that these were too weak to matter.

US officials have also confirmed that imagery shows technical equipment was removed from the tunnel complex prior to the detonations, indicating the North Koreans were keeping gear for potential reuse.

Of course.

U.S. officials have indicated that given what has not been given up by North Korea, and the fact that they’ve so far been unwilling to commit to giving up all nuclear ambitions, there’s nothing they’ve done, thus far, that can’t be reversed.

Trump hosted Kim Yong Chol, the second most powerful man in North Korea on Friday, then emerged to announce the June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un was back on.

Congratulations, Trump. You gave a lying, oppressive, tyrannical regime what they wanted most: Legitimacy on the world stage.

This is not winning.

Donald Trump is out of his element, and it’s painfully obvious to anyone not wrapped up in his cult of personality.