Thursday, December 26, 2002

A Note on North Korea Given the holidays, there is little time for blogging here, what with our kids home from various places, and 4 nights of Christmas festivities, then a short vacation.  But I have re-installed radio on a new computer, and have to try it out.  North Korea has been on my mind.  My next post will be Monday, Dec 30th. Here is a quote from the 12-25 New York Times: "Remarkably, after more than two years of high-profile efforts to engage with Pyongyang, public opinion surveys here show that South Koreans are as skeptical of their longtime ally, the United States, as they are of heavily armed North Korea. The president-elect, Roh Moo Hyun, who emerged victorious last week in part on the strength of these sentiments, is an ardent advocate of engagement with North Korea, and has vowed to be assertive in dealing with the United States, which he has openly called heavy-handed." North Korea is a serious problem, but the current mess has been largely a predictable response to  Bush's  "Axis of Evil" speech. By dividing the world into black and white, good and evil, Bush has forgotten that not everyone sees things his way.  One group who doesn't are the South Koreans, who see an eventual peaceful reunification with the North.  Now some of the chickens are coming home to roost.  Because of South Korean public alarm about Bush's brinkmanship, and the unwelcome prospect of unending American hegemony over the Korean peninsula, the candidate who advocated moderation and reconciliation won the South Korean presidential election.  Now, once again, the U.S. is in the role of making possible war plans opposed by its allies and the "beneficiaries" of its military might. North Korea is the first of a number of countries that will find creative ways to resist U.S. hegemony, sometimes in dangerous ways.  By forcing countries to fear an unpredictable, militaristic America, Bush has created a climate where the American people will be forced to pay more and more for policing the world, which we cannot do any more than could Hans Brinkers hold back the sea from Holland with his thumb in the dike, if leaks were springing up all over.  We cannot afford so many holes in the dike of world peace and mutual security.   9:55:35 PM   comment []

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