‘Miscalculation can spark Korean war’

“THE government in North Korea is headed by a young dictator Kim Jong Un who lacks political and economic experience,” columnist and former ambassador Ahmad Al-Dawas wrote for Al-Seyassah daily Monday.

“North Korea can be seen as the poorest nation on the face of the earth most of the time a victim of famine. Kim actually pays more concern to the country’s military might and most of the nation’s resources are channeled in this direction, turning a blind eye to poverty and hunger of the people.

“This policy has helped North Korea build a big army in terms of numbers. But what does it benefit the world such a police that has been adopted by North Korea from the political and economic point of view.

“Politically Pyongyang may be a strong nation but from the economic point of view it is one of the worst countries given the standard of living of the citizens, individual freedoms and human dignity. Not just that, North Korea is well-known for putting the prisoners of conscience behind bars compared to other countries of the world.

“Fifteen years ago North Korea is known to have attempted to manufacture nuclear weapons and succeeded in spite of such strong opposition from the United States of America. In this context, we know Washington has been dealing with Pyongyang in ‘stick and the carrot’ policy.

“In other words, Washington offered Pyongyang a choice of sanctions or economic privileges and the latter opted for a method of obstinacy and even threatened to destabilize the neighboring countries. North Korea also was responsible for sinking a South Korean ship and killing 46 sailors. In addition, Pyongyang also threatened to transform the capital of South Korea, Seoul into ash.

“Such provocative and irresponsible behavior has resulted in South Korea seeking the assistance from its ally, the United States of America. The US sent a carrier and aircraft to the Korean Peninsula in March 2103. The aircraft flew several sorties over Seoul in a show of support for South Korea and warning to the North.

Al-Dawas

“However, following this development North Korea took it for granted that the US and South Korea had declared a war and the North Korean leader ended up threatening to destroy South Korea and hit the United States of America mercilessly and its military bases in the Pacific Ocean.

“Following such consecutive developments, the United States of America felt the need of China more than at any other time in view of the ability of Beijing to control the behavior of Pyongyang — its major political ally in the region.

“In light of the above, we have observed the difference between the enlightened leadership of South Korea and the rash nature of North Korea. The former has paid every attention to its economic development and the per capita income which now exceeds fifty-two times that of North Korea.

“Not just that, South Korea has paid every concern for the educational issues to evolve its human resources and currently occupies a distinguished position among the major economic and industrial countries of the world. South Korea also is currently the runner-up on the scale of the world intellectual creativity.

“It is needless to say the situation in North Korea is totally different from that of South Korea, because the North is still pursuing an arrogant and stupid policy of persecuting the citizens and using all its resources to build the military superiority.

“In this case, when the US President Donald Trump ordered a strike on one of the Syrian military bases on April 7, 2017 in an attempt to come to the rescue of the persecuted people, he was actually intending to send a message to North Korea in response to the latter’s threat of strike the US and its Eastern Asian allies, by dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb on April 13, 2017 on one of the Islamic State’s (IS) bases in Afghanistan.

“Anyway, there are thousands of US military personnel in the Korean Peninsula. Hence we feel they are exposed to death if North Korea strikes the South. This is in addition to millions of people who are likely to die.

“Given the above, we conclude that the situation in the Korean Peninsula is too delicate and a war can break out following mistake in military calculations.”

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“In 1945, South Korea declared its independence from Japan,” columnist Dr Ali Abdurrahman Al-Huwail wrote for Al-Anba daily Monday.

“Its population is about 50 million and they live on one hundred thousand square kilometers land in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula perched between the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea.

“At the economic level, South Korea is deemed as one of the most significant economies in the world and has made tremendous progress in the electronic industries including the smart telephones industry producing the second best product in the world.

“Not only that, the South Korean automobile industries are currently competing with the most celebrated European industries even in the latter’s traditional markets. The annual per capita income in South Korea equals to that of its counterpart in the most important European countries.

“However, the scarcity of natural resources in South Korea has resulted in its thinkers and strategists pay every possible concern to human resources through educational renaissance.

“In other words, they have exploited the traditional concern shown by the Koreans to educational issue to develop their country and this was evident by the fact that the Korean students from primary level up to the higher secondary stage are exempted from any type of educational fees, but this is not applicable to the university students because of the high costs.

“In spite of the above, the South Koreans are always keen to pay for higher education of their children at the universities. In this context, we say that there are as many as three hundred universities in South Korea and many of them are at par with the distinguished universities of the world.

“Speaking of the success made by South Korea at educational level the progress signifies the tremendous budget that has been allocated to develop the educational sector.

“In this connection, we say that the educational budget of South Korea in 1975 was $300 million and this sum constitutes as much as fourteen percent of the then State budget of the country.

“But in 1985, this sum jumped to $5 billion or 27.3 percent of the then State budget. In 2006 it was $30 billion or about twenty percent of the budget, but this amount in 2012 jumped to $47 billion or 16.3 percent of the State budget.

“In light of the above, we conclude that South Korea has doubled the education budget between 1975 and 2012 by as much as 155 times, from $300 million in 1975 to $47 billion in 2011.”

“A paragraph in the Preamble of Kuwait’s Constitution says, ‘Seeking a better future where the nation and citizens enjoy more prosperity and international standing and offers citizens more freedom, equality and social justice, and fixes the bases of dignity of the individual and caring for the interests of the community that are part of the Arabian character’,” Dr Abdulrahman Al-Jiran wrote for Al-Rai daily.

“The last words of the abovementioned paragraph are what I mostly care about, namely the dignity of the Arabian character and the interests of the community. Articles 7, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 39 and 43 include definitions of freedom and human dignity describing them as the backbone of society’s stability. However, enforcement of freedom shows the extent we have distorted the real meanings of freedom and reality of articles of the Constitution.

“Have we really cared about the interests of the community in using parliamentary grilling or it is being used as a tool to win disputes and for personal reasons? Lying is prohibited and even when someone lied to me, I should not lie to him. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, ‘Betray not those who betrayed you.’

“Many false claims have been made against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and they continued targeting others until today. They claimed that Ibn Taimeya hated Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) when he stated his opinion that traveling to the Prophet’s (PBUH) tomb is prohibited. Actually, there is a big difference between traveling to visit the Prophet’s (PBUH) Mosque and traveling to visit his tomb. The first one is worshipping Allah and that is what He ordered us to do. While worshipping Allah, humans are prohibited in Islam to include worshipping the Prophet (PBUH) himself. This does not mean we do not love the Prophet (PBUH) but we follow his instructions when he said, ‘Do not take my grave as a feast.’

“Islam ordered us to keep promises which include contracts or agreements between two persons or between two groups of people. Keeping promises is one of the characteristics of Arabs and Muslims, especially in the past. The world of politics today completely contradicts such concepts.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb