Text Fwd:[Christine Ahn] "Resolving the Face-Off in Korea"

Ten Thousand Things
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Christine Ahn: "Resolving the Face-Off in Korea"

Another accurate, objective, and humane analysis, "Resolving the Face-Off in Korea" from Christine Ahn at Foreign Policy in Focus.

Like the Korean churches, Ahn compares the havoc resulting from the reckless brinksmanship played by world leaders to the violent trauma of the Korean War. Who's paying the price: innocent and ordinary civilians of both countries, especially elder survivors of the war that has never ended:
On Monday, the Korean peninsula averted a cataclysmic showdown that could have escalated into full-blown war. The United Nations Security Council wasn’t able to conclude a statement that would defuse tensions, with countries lining up along Cold War divisions.

Seconds before I appeared on Al-Jazeera International Sunday night, the producer informed me that South Korea, despite pleas from both Russia and China to cancel the live fire artillery drills, had in fact started the exercises. Having been to North Korea several times, and knowing how their worldview centers on the right to defend their sovereignty, I feared the worst.

But by the time I returned home, the South Korean military drills were over. It lasted 94 minutes. North Korea, which had promised to retaliate with even more force than the November 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong island, decided that the South’s aggression was “not worth reacting” to. According to the North’s Korean Central News Agency, “The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war.”


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