All wars are a mistake. Sometimes, war may seem inevitable. But if one deeply examines war, it is always sparked inadvertently by poor judgment, excessive greed or the pure madness of politicians. In the famous film and Broadway musical, “Hair,” for example, the Vietnam War is metaphorically portrayed as a huge mistake of political and military leaders. And it is the people, not politicians, who must suffer and die during war. The Korean War, too, was a fatal mistake that could have been prevent

With discrimination still widespread ...Can Korea ever accept homosexuals?Homosexuality has long been taboo in Korean society. The traditional Confucian emphasis on familial bonds led homosexuality to be regarded as detrimental to the societal order, as defined by the philosophy’s five categories of social relationship. In the 1980s, homosexuals were widely feared as AIDS carriers. Today, many Koreans continue to see the sexual orientation as deviant or symptomatic of mental illness. Some even q

SEOUL ― Last month, the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea agreed to begin negotiations later this year on a trilateral free-trade agreement. If the talks succeed, the global trade map will need to be redrawn. An FTA that encompasses, respectively, the world’s second, third, and 12th biggest economies (in purchasing power parity terms in 2011), with a population of 1.5 billion, would dwarf the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement, comprising the United States, Canada,

Even before NATO forces begin leaving Afghanistan, predator nations are pouring lavish praise, diplomatic agreements and buckets full of cash on Afghan leaders, trying to win access to the nation’s vast natural resources after Western troops leave.Chief among them are China, Iran and India ― nations that contributed nothing toward the military effort over the last decade but hope to reap benefits from it anyway.For example, in Beijing late last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Chinese Pre

BEIRUT ― For a generation, Lebanese lived the nightmare of sectarian civil war. Now they are watching a similar vortex gather velocity in neighboring Syria, and many fear that Lebanon will be sucked into a conflict that nearly everyone dreads. Already, the Syrian strife is starting to bleed into Lebanon. The Akkar region in the northeast has become a transit point for medical and other relief supplies ― and the Syrian opposition hopes to use it as a staging ground for operations across the borde