Wry Humor As Diplomacy

It’s apparent that the Korea blogosphere isn’t alone in its enjoyment of the delicious ironies surrounding our impending withdrawal from the Korea. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard apparently told a crowd of Korean brownshirts at Seoul National University that the U.S. was withdrawing its troops from Korea to reduce the risk of more dangerous training accidents! If that one wasn’t obvious enough, check out Budaechigae today, which quotes a Pentagon offical (via the Korean MoFA) as saying that “the United States welcomed Seoul’s plans for a more independent defense and would actively help South Korea with that.”

Read more on your own here (NYT) and here (WashTimes, but it actually covers the story better).

Somebody in the U.S. government is obviously enjoying this. Meanwhile, this Chosun story doesn’t try terribly hard to mask the Korean government’s confusion and disarray at discovering how easy it was for Korea to get its independence.

No wonder, given the picture that accompanied this story. Don’t expect to see Korean university students holding up this picture, of course. After all, isn’t it counterproductive to needlessly offend an ally?