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Special Envoy Dennis Rodman heading to North Korea

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by KingCheetah, Jun 12, 2017.

  1. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Exclusive: Dennis Rodman heading to North Korea

    NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman is expected to arrive in North Korea Tuesday, according to two officials in that country who spoke to CNN.

    CNN spotted Rodman at Beijing International Airport, where he declined to answer questions. Rodman would be arriving in Pyongyang at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Pyongyang, which is currently detaining four Americans.
    It's unclear what the purpose of Rodman's visit to the secretive country could be, but the eccentric former basketball player -- and a former contestant on Donald Trump's pre-presidency reality TV show "Celebrity Apprentice" -- is one of the only Americans to have met current North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
    When asked by CNN journalists in Pyongyang, unnamed North Korean officials confirmed that Rodman is expected to arrive in Pyongyang Tuesday. They gave no further details.


    Rodman has visited the country at least four times, with three of the visits taking place between 2013 and 2014. A senior US official said the State Department was aware Rodman was planning to travel to North Korea, but stressed he is not there in any official capacity.
    His last visit came in January 2014, when Rodman and a group of other former NBA players took part in an exhibition basketball game. It was supposedly a birthday gift for Kim who's said to be a big basketball fan.

    Rodman was filmed leading a sing-along of "Happy Birthday" to the North Korean leader, a man he calls a friend and a "very good guy," but is widely seen as a brutal dictator who once lauded the execution of his own uncle.
    Rodman has described his series of trips to North Korea as a "basketball diplomacy" project and defended the trip for Kim's birthday in a CNN interview saying it was a "great idea for the world."

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/politics/hfr-dennis-rodman-north-korea/index.html
     
  2. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    He is a drunk malcontent with maybe a couple years left of child support payments, so I don't fault him for pilfering some third world treasury to crash the boards while pushing 60. I just hope he doesn't get accused of espionage or something or get caught up in a coup.
     
  3. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    We have re entered Bizarro World.
     
    MadMax likes this.
  4. Rashmon

    Rashmon Contributing Member

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    Never thought I would be more comfortable with Dennis Rodman handling diplomacy than the president of the US.
     
  5. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    Hilarious post. But also sad at the same time.
     
  6. wouldabeen23

    wouldabeen23 Contributing Member

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    Finally, Trump makes the consensus pick and sends a seasoned, sober diplomat to the DPRK.
     
    Deckard likes this.
  7. conquistador#11

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    They should question mr. Kim on the real issues that matter...
    Lebron better than jordan?
    I could see a firing squad for the question being presented.
     
  8. Rashmon

    Rashmon Contributing Member

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  9. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Last time, I worried for him. This time....
     
  10. ima_drummer2k

    ima_drummer2k Contributing Member

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    Not sure if 100% serious, but if so......I agree......
     
  11. Buck Turgidson

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    The obvious choice was Metta World Peace.
     
    wouldabeen23 likes this.
  12. JeffB

    JeffB Contributing Member
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    So...

    Al Franken is a U.S. Senator working to take down Donald Trump who is President of the United States. While Dennis Rodman steps in to engage North Korea in "basketball diplomacy." You can't make this stuff up.
     
  13. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Is Dennis Rodman Trump’s Secret “Back Channel” to North Korea?

    Dennis Rodman, of course, has a history with, and an affinity for, the North Korean president and has visited the country on multiple occasions. Despite Rodman’s notably un-diplomatic demeanor on the basketball court, that hasn’t stopped him from cozying up to Kim. He’s even played ball and sung “Happy Birthday” all under the auspices of “basketball diplomacy.” Rodman has also gone too far at times enthusing about the human rights violation of a country and leader.

    But as much fun as Rodman’s previous shenanigans were, the already frosty relationship between North Korea and the U.S. has hit a deep freeze of late with Pyongyang repeatedly holding nuclear tests at the outset of the Trump presidency. For his part, Trump has talked tough on Kim’s escalating nuclear ambition. It seems unlikely that what this international crisis needed was a little loving from Dennis Rodman, but that might be what we’re about to get. “Rodman’s trip has sparked speculation that he may be traveling to free some or all of the four American citizens being held by North Korea, perhaps as a first and important step toward lessening tensions between Washington and Pyongyang,” according to the Washington Post. “Multiple people involved in unofficial talks with North Korea say that the Trump administration has been making overtures toward the Kim regime, including trying to set up a secret back channel to the North Korean leader using ‘an associate of Trump’s’ rather than the usual line-up of North Korea experts and former officials who talk to Pyongyang’s representatives.”

    In defense of the absurd idea that the president of the United States would enlist the help of a man nicknamed “the Worm,” the two like to say nice things about each other publicly. Rodman endorsed Trump for president (obviously); Trump has had him on Rodman his show a number of times.

    Can Dennis Rodman stave off a nuclear war? I’m almost positive I’ve seen that movie before.

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...ump_s_secret_back_channel_to_north_korea.html



     
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  14. Torn n Frayed

    Torn n Frayed Member

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    No no no! Real question is; Is Mr. Kim better than a Lebron/MJ hybrid?
     
  15. peleincubus

    peleincubus Member

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    Still young at heart.

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Jugdish

    Jugdish Member

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    Breaking new ground...

    [​IMG]
     
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  17. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Kim Jong Un Effectively Made Dennis Rodman a U.S. Ambassador

    There are few better illustrations for how dysfunctional U.S.-North Korea relations have become than the events of June 13. Dressed in a black tee for sponsor “Potcoin,” a cryptocurrency for the global mar1juana industry, NBA legend Dennis Rodman
    arrived in Pyongyang, telling assembled media, “I’m here to see some friends and have a good time.” Hours later, Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student sentenced to 15 years' hard labor for "hostile acts,” was medevac’d back to the U.S. reportedly in a coma.

    North Korea remains for most Americans a subject of otherworldly fascination — a land of brutalist streetscapes, Stalinist iconography and a closed, collectivized society not seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the plight of Warmbier, who was arrested at Pyongyang Airport last January after allegedly stealing a hotel’s propaganda poster, shows that North Korea is also geopolitical TNT: unpredictable, potentially deadly, and prone to calamitous combustion if not handled with the utmost care.

    Nevertheless, it seems that Rodman, the 56-year-old New Jersey-native and five-time NBA champion, has now become a key interlocutor with that regime. And Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is exploiting that situation to boost calls for reengagement, thus turning a diplomatic crisis over Warmbier's health into a deft piece of legerdemain.

    “The North Koreans may have known they screwed up,” says Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and congressman who works to negotiate the release of American prisoners in North Korea. “And so [Rodman] may get a message from somebody there that [North Korea] is ready for dialogue. He may be the only channel."

    And so Kim may have manufactured his own diplomatic intervention: The mercurial Rodman. “He’s not the best ambassador we could have but it’s who we have,” shrugs Gause. Kim, meanwhile, has managed to get the same message across as if a former President arrived: Engage with us and reap the dividends.

    http://time.com/4817638/north-korea-otto-warmbier-kim-jong-un-dennis-rodman/
     
  18. Amiga

    Amiga I get vaunted sacred revelations from social media
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    I don't know who look worse in this romance. Kim Jong Un or Dennis Rodman?
     
  19. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Dennis Rodman’s North Korea Trip Just Saved the World

    When Rodman gave a copy of Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal’ as a gift in Pyongyang, the implication was clear: it’s time for Trump and Kim to talk.

    The man certainly knows how to feed a narrative. Erstwhile basketball great, sometime “Celebrity Apprentice,” and apparent Kim Jong Un buddy Dennis Rodman on Thursday gave North Korean Sports Minister Kim Il Guk a copy of President Trump’s The Art of the Deal—suggesting a negotiated settlement could be had. And in the process, Rodman fed speculation that he had traveled to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as an emissary of the world’s most powerful figure.

    Sometimes diplomacy needs a cross-dressing, pierced, tattooed weirdo who has five NBA championship rings and a place in the league’s Hall of Fame.

    Such as this moment, when there’s war talk on the Korean peninsula. Beijing, to avoid a calamity, wants to restart negotiations with Pyongyang as do Moscow, Seoul, and Washington. Although all the participants hope to talk, they have not found the means to do so.

    The suggestion is by no means outrageous. After all, The Worm is the only person in the world who can call both President Donald John Trump and Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un a friend. No American has had more contact with the Kimster, who is even more unavailable to world leaders than his reclusive father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il.

    And Rodman on his way to Pyongyang talked like an envoy. At the Beijing Capital Airport on Tuesday, asked whether Trump knew about the trip, the Hall of Famer told reporters “I’m pretty sure he’s happy at the fact I’m over here trying to accomplish something we both need.”

    I will discuss my mission upon my return to the U.S.A.,” Rodman said. He also mentioned he was attempting to accomplish something “pretty positive.”


    http://www.thedailybeast.com/dennis-rodmans-north-korea-trip-just-saved-the-world
     
  20. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Peacekeeper? Dennis Rodman thinks he can bring Trump and 'friend' Kim Jong Un together

    Dennis Rodman is urging President Trump to allow him to travel to North Korea as a peace envoy, according to media reports.

    The former NBA star’s plea came after the State Department barred American passport holders from traveling there starting Sept. 1, after the death of Otto Warmbier, a U.S. student who had been imprisoned for theft in the reclusive nation.

    Rodman, who wanted to travel to the North’s capital Pyongyang for a sixth time, said during an interview in Beijing with the Guardianthat American officials said of his travel plans: “It’s not a good time right now.”

    Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have been fraught for months over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile program, and Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have waged a bitter war of words.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/12/12/dennis-rodman-north-korea/943443001/
     

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