Take Thaad Away from Korea! (2017년 5월 1일)

마침내 5월입니다. 

상처로 얼룩진 오월... 첫날에 트럼프 미국대통령에게 '사드를 철수시키라'는 편지를 쓰게 된 게 우연은 아니겠지요.

5월 9일이 오월의 얼룩과 눈물을 다소나마 씻어주는 날이 되기를 기원합니다.

Dear Mr. Trump,

 

You and I are quite distant in many ways but seem to share one thing: We are quick to the point. 

So, here’s what I have to say to you after hearing your yet another wayward remark on the U. S. 

deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as Thaad. You told Reuters 

on Thursday, April 27 by my calendar, that we should pay for Thaad.

 

Our answer is clear and simple ‘No.’ So please take the system out of my land. We never wanted it and 

we do not want it. We will not pay for it. You can not make money by forcing us to pay for it, because we are not going to pay for what we never wanted to have in the first place. I have heard that you are such a successful businessman. If you are what I have heard you are, you should know what you have to do.

 

The American papers say that you ‘rattled’ and ‘caused alarm’ to us Koreans in the southern half of the 

Korean Peninsula by your latest statement, but they are wrong. You have failed to cause alarm among us; you have made us laugh, if not sneer. Pardon my honesty, but we do not respect you and so we can not 

be alarmed by you.

 

You may have struck some Koreans by surprise. They are the remnants of the now deposed president 

Park Keun-hye who said ‘Yes’ to letting in Thaad. They may have trusted you and feel frustrated now

that you speak like a merchant who is so out of mind that he asks for money for something he imposed 

on his customer despite the latter’s ‘No.’

 

The majority of us Koreans opposed even the idea of having Thaad in our land. We never welcomed its 

presence. Think about all the anti-Thaad and anti-American protests incurred by the system. Your 

armed forces, probably with the help of the Korean Defense Ministry, another group of Park loyalists, 

have smuggled into this land, though. If you did business with Park’s administration, you chose the wrong partner. She has wronged much and many, and is in jail to pay for what she had done. In a word, she is a failure. Yet, we are not and the best step for you to take is having Thaad withdrawn from Korea.

 

We have gone through a time of difficulty and are beginning a new chapter in our history. If your country happens to be a friend of ours, you would be waiting for us to succeed in silence. If you try to take 

advantage of our struggle for transition, you will only cause shame on you and spark a storm of anti-

American sentiment here and abroad. Think about the months of candlelight protests in and outside 

Korea that toppled Park. We still have the candles at home and will burn them again when we have to. 

And this time, our target is not in Korea.