Mackey vs. Beeley + North-South Peace on the Korean Peninsula

This morning Niqnaq posts an illuminating exchange of tweets between the odious Robert Mackey and the excellent Vanessa Beeley. Mackey attempts to undermine last Thursday's news conference at the OPCW by alleging that Russia rushed the testimony of the eyewitnesses to the public without allowing the OPCW to interview them first. Beeley refutes this, with an assist from the Russian embassy in the Netherlands, and then demands that Mackey produce the OPCW statement that he says "asked Russia to let them interview the witnesses first, and not hold their event until after the inspectors finish their work and file their report." Mackey does not, which probably means that he just made it up.

The silver lining to the Douma false flag provocation is that it exposes intelligence agency assets like Robert Mackey who have burrowed into left-of-center outlets like The Intercept. Mackey will go on finding work, but his career will never be the same.

****

Having had an opportunity to digest some of the reporting of the Kim-Moon talks at Panmunjom, my sense is that there is little chance for success because the U.S. is insisting on complete, rapid denuclearization before any sanctions are lifted. Call it the Gaddafi option. North Korean leadership is not as gullible as the ousted and lynched colonel.

Everyone knows by now that the United States is a bad-faith agent, something that will be even more pronounced when the U.S. pulls out the Iran nuclear deal sometime in May. It will be an official marker for the end of the U.S. unipolar world.

The North Korean strategy is to move South Korea away from the U.S. and closer to China. I think they will be successful.