Search Results for: Taliban ransom

February 11, 2008

S. Korea Still Denies Paying Ransom to Taliban; Larry Craig Still Not Gay

After months of wildly inconsistent estimates ($2 million? $20 million?) of just how much ransom the South Koreans paid for their two dozen-odd hostages in Afghanistan, the Taliban is saying the actual amount was “at least” $4 million. This final, authoritative answer is brought to you by an unidentified “senior Taliban commander,” so we need not ever speak of this again. Until the next time it happens: If we were going to free them without any payment, [the hostage taking]...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
September 1, 2007

Ransom Is Material Support for Terror

[Updated, edited, and bumped, 9/1]   With friends like these …. Thanks to the weakness of the South Korean government, it’s a great day to be a terrorist.  I second what other Korea bloggers are saying about the Taliban’s victory over South Korea.  The Nomad:   “[W]hen Canada criticises you for being soft on terrorism, you’re in big trouble.”  Andy Jackson quotes the Taliban thusly: “We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this...

Categories An Alliance?/Terrorism/Iraq
August 3, 2007

Newsweek: Seoul Paid Ransom to Fake Kidnappers

First, a few updates.  A representative for the hostages’ families has rejected invitations  from radical groups to turn this into the next anti-American election year  issue: The families of the Korean hostages spoke out against a movement to hold the U.S. responsible for the unresolved crisis, saying anti-American demonstrations could put the hostages’ lives at greater risk. The families turned down an offer by some anti-American organizations to stage a candlelight rally. Lee Jeong-hoon, a representative of the families, said...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq
July 31, 2007

Ransom Is Not a Countermeasure

The Taliban have now murdered a second South Korean hostage.  I don’t know what I can say about the Taliban that I haven’t already said, other than that the odds are good they can be tracked down for their trials and whatever appropriately miserable  fate awaits them in Pol-e-Charki Prison.  There have been a lot of stories recently  reporting that  dozens of their fighters have been killed.  Stories like this may or may not indicate a more significant trend.  Insurgencies...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq
July 20, 2007

Taliban Kidnap 18 South Koreans in Afghanistan

They were members of a church group, and readers may recall other church groups  from South Korea have also ventured into some very dangerous places. Taliban gunmen abducted at least 18 members of a South Korean church group in southern Afghanistan, and a purported spokesman for the Islamic militia said Friday it will question them about their activities in Afghanistan before deciding their fate. The Koreans were seized Thursday in Ghazni province as they were traveling by bus from Kabul...

Categories Korean Society/Religion
February 12, 2008

I Wonder How Much $4 Million Can Buy in Gitmo

There’s yet more news on our South Korea-Taliban ransom story. Last September, I told you that Mullah Abdallah Jan, one of the leaders in the kidnapping and murder of South Korean hostages, had an unexpected meeting with an American J-Dam and shortly thereafter, 72 virgin prepubescent boys. This week, when I heard that Mansoor Dadullah had been captured, it occurred to me that the name was familiar, but the Chosun Ilbo makes the connection: Pakistani authorities said that Mansoor Dadullah...

Categories An Alliance?/Terrorism (NK)
June 28, 2010

A Good Week for Lee Myung-Bak, But What America Gained Isn’t So Clear

On balance, Lee Myung Bak seems to having a pretty good week — at least better than last week’s failure to secure a serious response to the Cheonan incident abroad or even at home. This week, Lee has already won a three-year delay in the dissolution of the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command, a/k/a OpCon transfer. He also secured a commitment by President Obama to push for an FTA that had faced strong opposition from some American labor unions and Max...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea
November 17, 2009

If He Has to Deny It, It Must Be True

While we still aren’t sure whether our Blood Allies © paid the Taliban $2 million or $20 million in ransom, or how many American soldiers or Afghan civilians the Taliban used that money to kill, the South Korean government wants you to know that despite its refusal thus far to do more good than harm there, it did not promise the Taliban that it would keep its troops out of Afghanistan: South Korea did not offer to refrain from redeploying...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea
June 24, 2009

In the Absence of Facts, Rumor Overtakes the Injustice of Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s Captivity

I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought of Laura Ling and Euna Lee when I heard about the escape of David Rhode from the Taliban.  An unpleasant quirk of human nature occurred to me:  by virtue of his escape, Rohde had instantly transformed himself from “stupid” to intrepid.  I’m glad Rohde lived to bring the story home.  Oddly enough, the minute I heard the report on the radio, I remembered Rohde’s name, because being captured isn’t a new...

Categories Ling/Lee Incident
May 5, 2009

South Korea: Always There When They Need Us

South Korea, whose main contribution to the war in Afghanistan so far has been to pay the Taliban a $20 million ransom, has ruled out sending troops there to help fight them. Who still thinks that the unsound fundamentals of the US-ROK alliance have suddenly renewed under President Lee, or doubts that Lee’s decision was an acknowledgement of the anti-American sentiments of South Korean voters, sentiments that can only remain latent for so long?  Who still thinks that Obama’s election...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea
March 16, 2009

Kaesong Managers Become Hostages, OFK Blogger Fails to Suppress Schadenfreude

[Update: North Korea lets them out. It’s not clear whether the border is fully reopened, but either way, no sane foreign business would invest in Kaesong now. And just in case all of this wasn’t strange enough, South Korean “academics” see North Korea cutting off one of its own main sources of hard cash and conclude that it’s South Korea that’s in a bind. Hey! I had just been thinking that what an economically strapped economy really needs most is...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics
November 20, 2008

The Safety Dance

In my scrapbook from my Army days in Korea, I still have a leaflet, courtesy of “the protector of our race’s destiny,” declaring that “North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace.”  That leaflet was given to me by a sergeant in my unit, who found it outside Gate 7 of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul found one day after morning PT formation.  Where in the Armistice agreement does it say that only one...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Deprogramming
November 17, 2008

Freedom Isn’t Free

USFK has announced that a battalion of Apache attack helicopters, comprising some 24 aircraft and half of USFK’s Apache strength, will leave Korea for Ft. Carson.  The choppers are expected to redeploy to Afghanistan and Iraq later on. Washington had in the past tried to redeploy some of its Apache helicopters from Korea, but such moves were often met with strong opposition from the government in Seoul, which feared a possible reduction of U.S. strength here. “The situation we are...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea
June 16, 2008

B.S. Stands for ‘Bovine Spongiform’

At this time a year ago, I thought by now that I’d be writing about the restoration of an alliance that Roh Moo Hyun had just about managed to destroy.  Although I’ve long felt that  a large  U.S. military presence in South Korea was an anachronism no longer justifed by any North Korean threat, I saw benefits to having  a healthy military, diplomatic, and economic alliance between South Korea and the United States.  Also, I think it would be nice...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
February 25, 2008

The Long National Nightmare Is (Officially) Over

[Update: Now that I’ve read LMB’s inaugural, I’ve posted more detailed comments / ridicule below the fold and the video.] The 17th presidency of Korea started as Lee Myung-bak formally took over presidential authority from former president Roh Moo-hyun at midnight on Monday, with the Bosingak Bell in downtown Seoul tolling the momentous hour. Lee now embarks on a government of pragmatic conservatism after putting an end to the decade-long leftwing rule. [Chosun Ilbo] Judging by Lee’s inaugural address and...

Categories Korean Politics
September 19, 2007

Have Fun Spending That $20 Million in Hell

Mullah Abdullah Jan, the Taliban commander who led the kidnappings of 23 Korean hostages in Afghanistan, was killed in an air strike by U.S. forces.  U.S. forces launched an airstrike on a house in Ghazni province where a council of Taliban commanders was meeting on Monday night, the Associated Press reported.  Twelve Taliban leaders were killed including Abdullah, the commander of Qarabagh district in Ghazni, AP said on Tuesday, citing Ghazni provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai. Abdullah was believed...

Categories Islam/Terrorism/Iraq
September 7, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 67

[Update: As I had figured, only video really does it justice. Just watch the body language and Bush’s expression. And for that matter, Roh’s. Roh certainly has used his presidency to perfect a sublime aura of idiocy. It’s hard for me to imagine that South Korean voters will be impressed if their media ever decide to cover this story. There definitely isn’t much love in that room. Click the image. Update 1 continued below, with an AP report that does...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea