Stageleft: life on the left side » Don’t Ask

Don’t Ask – Tell

Subtitled: Roh Moo-hyun, for gods sake grow some presidential balls will you, you’re part of the problem.

It never ceases to amaze me why intelligent people and countries will give up their sovereign right to make decisions that affect them. The latest example is South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun asking, that’s right, asking America to formally end the Korean War.

Dear Mr Moo-hyun

Please pardon my undiplomatic speech, but this is obviously something that you need to hear in plain language, language that leaves no room for misunderstanding, and no room for misinterpretation.

Grow some freaking balls will you. Do not ask America to end your war, set up a meeting with North Korea, sign a peace treaty, and then tell America that the war is over.

It’s really that simple, you are the [supposedly] democratically elected president of a [supposedly] free and sovereign country, and you do not have to ask America to end your war for you. You do not even need to ask their permission, you are the [supposedly] democratically elected president of a [supposedly] free and sovereign country, that gives you the absolute right to make decisions of this nature, on your own, without anyone’s permission, and without anyone holding your hand.

Asking another foreign leader to do this on your behalf is giving up the right of the South Korean people to make their own decisions.

Do you feel no embarrassment in standing before the world and begging America to do for you what you have the right, and the responsibility, to do for yourself?

Have you no shame?

If your public humiliation of the South Korean people does not cause you to bow your head it is probably too much to ask that you consider the rest of the world, but, in the faint hope that you are able to consider these matters in a context greater than yourself, I will ask you to do so anyway.

One of the primary reasons that the United States of America feels it has the right to interfere in, and make decisions regarding, world affairs is that you, and governments like yours, enable them by willfully shirking your responsibilities, and asking them to ‘do something’ – what else should we expect from a nation that is expected by weak-kneed people like yourself to shoulder your responsibilities?

If we are to expect the United States of America to join the global community, as opposed to it acting like a school yard bully that it does, the global community, which includes South Korea, needs to quit enabling them.

If your nations’ goal is to formally end the Korean War then stand up straight, shoulder that responsibility, and all that goes with it, and do so.

As always, yer pal

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