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Tue, October 23, 2018 | 17:02

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Bombing the North with leaflets

Donald Trump’s notion of “fire and fury” for North Korea inspires cheers, fears and jeers. Is he threatening the biblical “fire and brimstone,” or does his rhetoric more closely resemble Shakespeare’s “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Yes, there are those who think the American president is an idiot, but you also find some who admire him for getting Kim Jong-un to back down. Kim did call off ordering a missile to hit somewhere off Guam, didn’t he? That’s true enough _ though it’s not likely the fearless, “Respected” leader has given up on that idea while th...

Donald Kirk | 2017-08-24 17:53

Gesturing for peace

Small gestures would be so helpful in bringing about reconciliation with North Korea. Take, for instance, the cases of the three U.S. citizens still held in the North. They are all Korean-Americans, two of them former teachers at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the other a businessman who once ran a trading company in the Rason special economic zone on the North’s far northeastern coast. Actually, freeing these three would be more than a small gesture but would be relatively minor compared to Kim Jong-un’s decision to pull back from the immediate threat of test-firing med...

Donald Kirk | 2017-08-17 16:28

Visions of peace

GANGJEONG, Jeju - Upstaged by THAAD - that’s the sad fate of the gaggle of dutiful protesters who pray and hold signs aloft and march in front of the main entrance to the gleaming new Republic of Korea naval base on the southern coast of this island paradise. They claim most of the villagers here adamantly oppose the base, which they say accommodates U.S. warships as well as those of the South Korean Navy, but you don’t sense much real anti-base zeal despite the tattered banners and posters or the fervent prayers of the faithful. No way do the protests match those of the zealots demanding re...

Donald Kirk | 2017-08-10 17:56

Brainstorming North Korea

WASHINGTON - North Korea pops off another ICBM, and suddenly the U.S. media is full of talking heads offering views and solutions. They range from the extremes of annihilating North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities to, “Oh, just sign a peace treaty and everything will be okay.” It’s hard to know which extreme is more troubling, but then the moderate positions don’t offer much consolation either. We’re done with “strategic patience,” if we can take the word of the Trumpsters, so what has a chance of working? Right, President Trump says he’s “handling” the problem but gives no clue as to...

Donald Kirk | 2017-08-03 17:02

Escalating sanctions

WASHINGTON _ Americans are so fixated on the issues of healthcare and Russia that tightening sanctions on North Korea almost escapes notice. One minute the networks are vying with one another on what passes as “analysis” on President Trump’s efforts to replace Obamacare with Trumpcare, and the next they’re covering the latest “revelation” of whatever Trump and his family members and friends might have asked or told the Russians. Foreigners should be forgiven if they simply cannot understand what’s going on. Certainly Trump isn’t coming clean on all the ins and outs of his relationship with R...

Donald Kirk | 2017-07-27 17:45

Moon's war of words

WASHINGTON - The standoff on the Korean peninsula is entering a new phase. While President Moon Jae-in calls for talks with North Koreans, he is also honoring the U.S.-Korean alliance and insisting the North give up its nuclear program. Can Moon have it both ways? He’s besieged by protesters who expect him to abandon totally the policies of his conservative predecessors and support North Korea’s strategy of weakening the South from within. Against leftist demands, for instance, he is holding on to THAAD, the terminal high altitude area defense system that consists of one counter-missile batt...

Donald Kirk | 2017-07-20 17:37

Art of diplomatic deal

WASHINGTON - We keep hearing so often about tight U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia that we forget the Saudis kicked out the last U.S. troops in the early 2000’s. Seems they regarded the U.S. presence as an affront to Islam more than a decade after U.S. forces drove Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait and possibly saved Saudi Arabia from being overrun as well. That’s just a detail in the convoluted, incomprehensible puzzle of the Middle East, but the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia is particularly significant considering where they wound up. Yes, the largest U.S. air base ov...

Donald Kirk | 2017-07-13 18:34

Giving peace another chance

WASHINGTON - Pro-Northers have got to be more than a little disappointed by the recent summit between the presidents of the Republic of Korea and the United States. Judging from all the blather they were emitting before the summit, the pro-North crowd would have far rather seen President Moon Jae-in and President Trump pulling out their stilettos, jabbing one another with sly innuendoes if not full-frontal attacks.

Donald Kirk | 2017-07-06 17:12

Talking for peace

WASHINGTON - The good news about President Moon Jae-in’s summitry with President Donald Trump this week is they’re talking as partners in the drive to end North Korea’s nuclear program and bring about inter-Korean reconciliation. A major barrier to cooperation, however, is loose talk about a peace treaty or peace agreement that would formally “end” the 1950-53 Korean War more than six decades after the truce was signed at Panmunjeom. Sure, why not sign a treaty, say the deal’s advocates, after which all sides will live happily and peacefully, no more “incidents.” Actually, however, any such ...

Donald Kirk | 2017-06-29 16:13

'Peace will spur US investment in N. Korea'

An exercise in terrorism

The death of Otto Warmbier provides a powerful reminder of the torture and terrorism perpetrated by one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Americans are no doubt aware of the tyranny of the dynasty led by a man who revels in ordering the development of long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to the U.S., but how many know about the suffering of the millions who have died in his gulag system?

Donald Kirk | 2017-06-22 17:08

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