Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk It wasn’t exactly a declaration of war, but it did come close. What else to make of President Trump’s remark that the U.S. might “totally destroy North Korea”? It was one thing to belittle Kim Jong-Un as “rocket man” but quite another to threaten annihilation of a country torn […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk President Moon Jae-In has to be a master of the art of compromise. He was all for the latest watered-down UN sanctions that cut down but don’t cut off the flow of oil from China and Russia to North Korea. The U.S. would far prefer to see all the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk Donald Trump doesn’t get it. He warns South Korea about “appeasement,” but who’s appeasing whom? Yes, President Moon Jae-In, hero of the candlelight protests that lofted him as the liberal darling into the presidency after the ouster of the conservative Park Geun-Hye, would love to go down in history […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk One demand you don’t hear South Korean leaders making whenever North Korea pops off another missile is, “Oh, let’s sign a peace treaty, and everything will be okay.” That’s partly because, if there’s one party with whom North Korean strategists don’t want to include in any such treaty, it’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk 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 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk 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 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk 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 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk 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 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk 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 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― We hear 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 […]
