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Wed, January 16, 2019 | 18:54

Opinion > Oh Young-jin Column >

About national security president

Who would be more effective on national security issues, Moon Jae-in or Ahn Cheol-soo? Judging by experience, Moon is ahead. He worked as chief of staff for President Roh Moo-hyun, among other posts. Roh wished to project Korea as an honest broker to coordinate among the United States, China and Japan. He was ahead of his time, according to his supporters, but his detractors ...

2017-04-14 11:31

Ahn Cheol-soo continuing to pose threat to Moon

THAAD is only one of many excuses

Here is a multiple choice question. If a thug pulls a gun and puts it against your temple, how would you react? A) Check the maker of the gun drawn to see whether it is imported B) Pull your gun or borrow one, if you don’t have one, and aim it at the thug C) Follow the third-party instructions and freeze D) Wish the other party wouldn’t pull the trigger E) Wait for the next g...

2017-04-07 17:31

Is Moon Jae-in pinko?

Some detractors of Moon Jae-in would call him and his supporters a bunch of commies and claim that they shouldn’t be trusted to run the country. Moon, the leading contender in the May 9 presidential election, recently caught a great deal of flak for talking about his being cited by Chun Doo-hwan, a former Army general and president, for his tour of duty in a Special Forces un...

2017-03-31 10:41

Bennett's curse - about US pullout

Bruce Benett is a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation. The spooky-sounding Rand dates back to the height of the Cold War, helping prepare the United States for war or other contingencies. Dr. Bennett is a Korea expert and we should feel better off with some of his plans kept in the pigeonhole. So I was surprised to know he was speaking to a general audience, Tuesday.

2017-03-26 13:17

Divided we Koreans stand

Koreans have always been team players, whether they like it or not. With perils coming from every direction, Koreans have come to take unity as a survival strategy, while division is the ticket to perdition. Japanese colonial education during its 36-year occupation brainwashed them, constantly hammering home the message: Koreans are born to be divisive and are fated not to li...

2017-03-17 10:47

Xi's twisted China Dream

Chinese leader Xi Jinping had dream for his country.In 2012, Xi laid out the plan for it, called “Two 100s.” The first 100 is that by 2021, the centennial of the communist party, China will be moderately wealthy. The second is about it joining the ranks of advanced nations by 2049, the 100th anniversary of People’s Republic of China. For the first goal, he may claim some cred...

2017-03-10 15:05

Korea addicted to impeachment

What are the odds of the next president getting impeached? If we put the weathermen’s probability to the extreme, it would be safe to say that the odds are greater than before. If you insist on knowing “before what,” what here is the traumatic experience we are now undergoing in connection with the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Here is one very subjective call invol...

2017-03-03 15:08

Missing 'US nuclear umbrella'

Is the United States pulling Dean Acheson on Korea again? Acheson is a terrible name to Koreans as the former U.S. secretary of state under President Truman excluded Korea from the U.S. line of defense against the Soviets at the start of the Cold War. The Acheson line included Japan and invited North Korea to attack the South in the 1950-1953 Korean War. Now, the latest versi...

2017-02-24 14:36

Mega damages suit against President

With presidents and prime ministers emerging to be a risk factor around the world, can we just wait for history to pass its judgment on them, while watching them wreak havoc? Or do we institutionalize a system that punishes bad-apple leaders through, say, a class action for punitive damages against them? (Both are not fully available in Korea). That way, the leaders would beh...

2017-02-17 11:24

Korea-first president (I)

We need a Korea-first president. None is in sight among presidential candidates in the forthcoming election. They are by and large reactionary specialists, lacking a global view and direction to make Korea great again. They have dawdled on the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to counter North Korea’s missile threat, which is being vehem...

2017-02-10 16:21

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