Left Flank

I always assumed the Golden Rule was unexportable, but Hans Küng argues for a globalized ethics based on the Golden Rule and a modified form of the Abrahamic religions.

Likewise, Confucius was the first to formulate the Golden Rule of Reciprocity: «Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.» Through the spread of Chinese characters, the concept of ren and the Golden Rule spread throughout the vast Chinese-influenced area that reaches from Central Asia to Taiwan and from Korea to Singapore.

This Golden Rule, however, also appears in the Indian tradition. In Jainism, it is stated as: «A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.» In Buddhism: «A state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must also be so to him; and a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?» In Hinduism: «One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality.»

This «Golden Rule» can also, of course, be found in the Abrahamic religions. Rabbi Hillel (60 B.C.) said: «What is hurtful to yourself do not do to your fellow man.» Jesus worded it positively: «So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.» Islam, too, has a similar concept: «None of you believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.»

Moreover, such commonalities go beyond the principle of humanity and the Golden Rule of Reciprocity. Four concrete ethical rules were laid down in the Buddhist canon by Patanjali, the founder of Yoga, in the Chinese tradition and, of course, in the three prophetic religions: «Do not kill,» «do not steal,» «do not bear false witness,» and «do not abuse sexuality.»

These trans-cultural ethical rules form structural elements of a common human ethic, whatever we call it, and make almost irrelevant the idea of a deep antagonism between «Asian» and «Western» values. If Asia focuses on its trans-cultural ethical core, an entirely new spirit of unity can be developed that uses soft power instead of military force and does not know enemies, but only partners and competitors. In this way, Asia could catch up with the West in terms of its cultural integration while contributing to the establishment of a genuinely peaceful new world order.

This project differs from the West's human rights movement, which is based on natural law thinking. The point is rather to integrate values, standards, and attitudes of ethical-religious traditions that, while appearing in each culture in a specific form, are common to all, and that can be supported by non-religious people as well.

Not that here isn't something awe-inspiring about the concept of spending gazillions for nuke-tipped missiles, only to present a check for yet more missiles to destroy the first batch, but 70% is not a great record.

The $85 million test was a rerun of one that was supposed to have taken place in May but was scrubbed when the target misfired.

The test marked the sixth successful downing of a target in 10 full-fledged intercept tests since October 1999 in which knocking down the target was the primary objective, said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency.

It's also inspiring, that Washington doesn't feel challenged enough in Iraq to tackle another challenge with the Kim regime that cannot both feed people and deliver a nuclear payload consistently. I feel safe as an American, that Washington can spend so much money to be so diligent about self-fulfilling tests. Being the profligate hyperpower that devices the threat of wasting more money than humanly possible is a big deterrent to a sadist willing to sacrifice his population. It'll certainly be embarrassing if Pyongyang can undermine the US the way the US outspent the former Soviet Union.

Caveat: This is not a book review; I have not read this book. I was interested in the opinions expressed in these two book reviews. But, for a complete account of the war, I recommend William Stueck's The Korean War and Rethinking the Korean War.

David Halberstam's last book, The Coldest Winter, about the Korean War, is receiving attention more for its author's career than the subject.

Two reviews, by Stephen Sestanovich and Erik Spanberg, caught my attention for what each said, not for the book each agreed was important, but if only for its author. Sestanovich concludes:

The Korean War that David Halberstam describes offers echo after echo of our contemporary predicament, or at least of one reading of it. His story is all about the hijacking of American policy, the fomenting of national hysteria, and the disaster that follows. But he would have written a truer?and, for that matter, a more useful?book if he had admitted how many people in high positions thought the policy was both necessary and right. For an understanding of the insidious workings of consensus, rather than of conspiracy, The Best and the Brightest would have been an excellent place to start.

Spanberg concludes:

No one won much of anything, but the ripples and lessons of political and military hubris echo to the present. «The Coldest Winter» is a fitting, warm tribute to the art of reporting, the most appropriate epitaph imaginable for David Halberstam.

What about the Koreas today? What about the Six-Party talks at least? Has the Iraq War and partisan politics in America warped perception so completely, that all of history is a lesson about the Bush administration? Both reviewers agree on Halberstam's main thesis: General MacArthur was the problem. But, there were over two years left to a sausage-grinder of a war, in which battles often occurred for no reason but diplomatic leverage. Spanberg punctuates what for me is one of the enduring legacies of the war.

Late in the book, Halberstam skips over large portions of the war's final two years, exhausted, no doubt, by the endless skirmishes over anonymous hills and villages for little to no gain on both sides.

That is a minor quibble in a book filled with insight and marvelous detail. Some of Halberstam's work in recent years smacked of a reporting treadmill, churned out too quickly. With «The Coldest Winter,» it is clear that Halberstam invested all of his considerable talents - and energy - without being rushed to meet a publishing deadline.

Within the tedious diplomatic exchanges at Panmumjon lies the record of the infuriating tactics Pyongyang has honed to a science in the last 50 years. The casualties and deaths compiled on those Korean hills while diplomats talked is a harbinger of decades of murderous economic development and political infighting in both Koreas, and, possibly, of a future war. America could not end the war then in victory, and America has not found a way to end a war still stuck in armistice. The denizens of the DPRK's gulags are a testament to that inhumanly brutal and frustrating legacy.