Review of Roland Bleiker, Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and Richard Saccone, Living with the Enemy (Hollym, 2006) According to the ideology of South Korean nationalism, all Koreans are one: one people, one blood. Korea can claim thousands of years of common history. The last 60 years… Continue reading Living with the Enemy (Review)
Albert Beveridge was a promising politician in his 30s when he stood up to speak in favor of war and the promotion of democracy to his peers in the U.S. Senate. A historian, Beveridge unabashedly called for the United States to remake the globe. “We will not renounce our part in the mission of our… Continue reading American Foreign Policy Is Broken
Back in September 2002, Maher Arar was passing through JFK airport in New York. He was expecting a simple transit. A Syrian-born Canadian citizen and wireless technology consultant, Arar was traveling home to Ottawa after a vacation with his family in Tunis. The stopover in New York was the best deal he could get with his frequent… Continue reading Can We Pursue Terrorists without Becoming Like Them
Thanks to all of you who contributed last week, we’re halfway to our goal of raising $5,000 to qualify for our matching gift. For those of you who merely thought about giving a year-end, tax-deductible donation, go on and take the plunge. Time is running out–we need to meet our goal by December 19. Don’t stand on the… Continue reading Take the Plunge
The foreign teachers at the Chinese university were frank. Teaching English and computer science was a means to the end. They wanted to save souls. In 1998, I spent a day at a university tucked into the corner of northeast China. The evangelical Christians who built the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) catered… Continue reading Spreading the Word
A special place is reserved in Dante’s inferno for false prophets and fraudulent advisors. The heads of those who pry into the secrets of the future are twisted around so that they can only look into the past. Those who give lousy advice earn their own personal sheath of fire. It’s not a very nice… Continue reading Eighth Circle of Hell
The all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the hotel in Pusan had only a couple dozen pieces of the long strips of dark red sushi. I managed to snag one piece before it ran out. My first experience of whale meat was not chewy at all. It tasted like an especially rich piece of raw tuna. Whale… Continue reading Whale of a Meal
Okay, you Hollywood types are busy, so I’ll cut to the pitch. You all know the Left Behind series? Exactly: the bestsellers about the Apocalypse. You haven’t read them? Here’s a quick summary. Just as Russia launches an attack against Israel to take over the Middle East, the Rapture takes place. Israel’s enemies are mysteriously defeated. All… Continue reading Right Behind
Ataka’s party car. Photo by Don Russell You can find anti-Turkish and anti-Roma slogans spray-painted on the walls of Sofia, in Bulgaria, just as you can elsewhere in the Balkans. But in Bulgaria, the slogan has moved up a level to appear on the side of cars. Like its Balkan neighbors, Bulgaria has significant… Continue reading Postcard from Sofia
Early Sunday morning after a marathon session, Congress put a blue ribbon on the immense hog known as the defense budget and declared it a winner. Just before going on their August vacation, the House approved the 2008 defense appropriations bill of $459 billion. The vote was 395 to 13. With the nearly full support… Continue reading Whole Hog