US Vice President Disrespects United Korean Team at Olympics Opening

Before the Olympics US vice president Mike Pence specifically said his mission in traveling there was to prevent North Korean peace overtures. Instead all he has succeeded in showing was how petty, tone-deaf and bellicose the Empire is.

The North Koreans for the first time ever sent a member of the Kim family for a visit, and invited the South Korean prime minister for a summit in Pyongyand. Koreans, north and south, moreover used the opportunity for a historic handshake, and to march under a united flag.

Mike Pence instead refused to stand up when the united Korean team entered the stadium — along his wife the only person in the VIP lodge to do so — then snubbed the North Korean delegation at a reception thrown by hist South Korean hosts.

https://twitter.com/dhookstead/status/961950374436528128

As Koreans celebrate a hopeful Olympics truce Pence acts as a petulant child because the development threatens the permanent crisis the US so badly needs in East Asia.

His performance was so inflammatory that the US leadership is now backtracking and saying that Pence didn’t deliberately snub the North Koreans, but the far bigger insult was Pence not standing up for the Korean team along with his hosts.

Pence takes a knee to protest peace. This could ultimately be a positive development, sidelining the historically rejectionist US as Koreans courageously overcome an American-imposed divide. https://t.co/xSkFaH43VY

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 10, 2018

If anything good may come from Pence’s antics it may be that it helps South Koreans recognize the Empire is not their friend, certainly not the friend of Korean unity or peace on the peninsula.