Discussion: WSJ: Kim Jong Un's Murdered Half Brother Was A CIA Source

Fun facts:

  1. Kim Jong Unā€™s brother was a CIA source
  2. He was killed by Kim Jong Un
  3. Trump repeatedly criticized CIA and praised Kim Jong Un
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Yup.

Nothing to see here, just move along. /s

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There were good brothers on both sides.

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Intelligence work is dangerous.

Kim Philby intercepted and killed the agent who was going to out him as a KGB mole in Istanbul. The KGB disseminated images of the execution of the assets Aldrich Ames gave up as a warning to those who might consider taking their place.

A bullet can come from any direction in that world.

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So when did Trump inform KJU of this situation? Iā€™m guessing just before the assassination.

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And unlike the good old days when we had people who were at least patriots in charge, your conspiracy theory just canā€™t be rejected out-of-handā€¦

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Dang, you beat me to it! I had the same thought. Really sad.that we even have to wonder. :unamused:

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Oh, geez, I completely forgot that this happened after Spankee assumed the throne.

Maybe that was some of the stuff he leaked to the Russians in the Oval Office and they passed it on to KJU. Or perhaps during a phone call with KJU, Spankee just casually said, oh, hey, whatā€™s this I hear about your brother being a spy for us??

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February 13, 2017ā€¦ Right at the same time that China and the US were trying to negotiate to bring North Korea to the tableā€¦

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Iā€™m somewhat skeptical of this. It may be true, but, as the article points out, the amount of information Kim Jong Nam had available was likely not that significant. And the ā€œseveral timesā€ is not a lot of meetings ā€“ more like just enough to establish a relationship.

Of course, what that might mean is that Kim Jong Un is even more paranoid about potential threats than we already knew, and as soon as he found out that his half brother had even been contacted by the CIA he gave the order to have him killed.

Also the obvious question about who screwed up: was the surveillance that tight, did someone at the CIA mess up their tradecraft, or was there a source?

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The stink on this leak is strong. Convenient to reveal this ā€œmotiveā€ for Kimā€™s fratricide - perhaps trumpadoodles find this ā€œhumanizingā€? Eww.

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Without my first cup of caffeine, I read the article title as ā€œKim Jongā€™s unmurdered half brother was a CIA Sourceā€ and wondered if that meant that he had some how survived the assassination attempt.

Well, given that the CIAā€™s involved, quite possibly he did, it was all staged for the cameras, and heā€™s living quietly on a beach somewhere.

That whole bit where the girls handled VX with their bare hands yet suffered no effects always was a bit oddā€¦

That was my first thought. It didnā€™t make any sense at the time why his brother would even be on KJUā€™s radar. Various journos said it was bizarre, suggested KJU was becoming increasingly paranoid, etc. Makes perfect sense now.

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Filling in the gapsā€¦

Trips down memory lane look a bit different in hindsight.

Nam was killed two days after that bizarro Trump-Abe ā€˜summitā€™ at Mar-a-GoGo.

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Maybe thatā€™s what they discussed over ā€œthe most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.ā€

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No wonder Trump ā€œlovesā€ KIm. They both have a common enemy: U.S. intelligence.

Well, in Trumpā€™s case, the enemy is intelligence in any form.

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KJU had much better reasons to have his long-exiled half-brother killed. Much like his father before him, KJU sees himself as under constant threat of a coup from either the military, the party, or both. Thatā€™s why North Korean officials get executed so routinely for perceived disloyalty. If there ever were an actual coup, the plotters would benefit greatly from having somebody in the Kim family line to step into place for the sake of continuity with the decades-long personality cult of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader. Taking Kim Jong Nam off the bench therefore helped lessen the chance of a successful coup. And note that JKN was definitely in touch with ā€œNorth Korean dissidents,ā€ since they immediately took his wife and son under protection.

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Was it a precondition to their 2018 meeting

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