Hillary Clinton Accuses S. Korea of ‘Historical Amnesia’

Korea-bashing is officially a bi-partisan sport:

A newly hawkish U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday chastised South Korea for what she claimed was a fog of “historical amnesia” clouding its relationship with Washington. She said the alliance was at a “critical juncture.

Clinton’s comments came during the confirmation hearing for Gen. Burwell Bell, President Bush’s nominee to command USFK.

Clinton said the U.S. role in bringing about South Korea’s remarkable economic success since the Korean War was significant, but lack of recognition of that view in Korea bordered on “historical amnesia.” She said changes in the dynamic between the two countries were largely due to South Koreans’ lack of “understanding of the importance of our position there and what we have done over so many decades to provide them the freedom that they have enjoyed to develop the economy that is now providing so many benefits for South Koreans,” the senator said. She urged citizens of both countries to acknowledge “what the stakes are.”

This comment from Bell deserves mention as well:

He backed U.S. moves toward greater “strategic flexibility” for its forces in the region, saying they must be in a position to respond to contingencies in other parts of the world and ready for prompt deployment.

The Korea Times (ht: The Marmot) also covers the Clinton story, taking almost all of the same quotations, and placing them in the context of growing anti-Americanism and the latest political fads in the South: open sympathy for Kim Il Sung and academic adoption of North Korean propaganda as historical fact. The Marmot then comments:

Personally, I don’t think the “historical amnesia” is quite as important as the refusal on the part of some in the United States to realize that as South Korea grows and becomes less dependent on its Cold War patron, it may begin defining its national interests in ways than don’t necessarily coincide with Washington’s.

I respectfully but strongly disagree.

The problem, from Washington’s perspective, is not that South Korea “defin[es] its national interests in ways than don’t necessarily coincide with Washington’s,” but that it wishes to pursue these changed interests while simultaneously receiving U.S. military protection and an annual defense subsidy of $15 billion. It is the duty of America’s leaders to allocate limited military and economic resources so that they support U.S. interests. The more the interests of another nation differ from those of the United States, the less justification exists to allocate U.S. resources to support that other nation’s differing interests, particularly when the other nation is relatively wealthy.

It’s also charitable in the extreme to characterize South Korea’s anti-Americanism, most of which is visceral, emotional, and illogical, as a redefinition of its national interests (thus imputing logic to it). In its more extreme forms, anti-Americanism been expressed as violence against U.S. soldiers, ugly acts of public discrimination, and most recently, in the 9/11 riot. Those were the acts of an extreme minority, of course, but bungling by both of South Korea’s two largest political parties has given these extreme views the initiative in South Korea’s national debate.

The South Korean government is largely to blame for the mood in Congress today. The far left’s antics would have been dismissed as the views of a small lunatic fringe had the South Korean government not attempted to “triangulate” toward them. Senator Clinton’s comments closely followed this N.Y. Post op-ed. Can we surmise that her office received a few calls and letters? Would Senator Clinton have made these comments–and would Representative Hyde be strongly considering hearings on the state of the alliance–if South Korea had vigorously punished violent expressions of extreme views, outlawed discrimination against U.S. troops, or made strong public statements contradicting such patent lies as the recent North Korean-inspired libel that MacArthur authorized the mass rape of women in Seoul? The left-wing Uri Party has only tepidly denounced the patent falsity of the extremists’ views on General MacArthur and the violence with which they were expressed. Days after the riot, one of their senior lawmakers played the race card, praising the extremists’ “deep ethnic purity.”

The right-wing Grand National Party, for its part, took the lazy and cowardly path of substituting criminal punishment for defeating the wrong ideas themselves in a much-needed national debate about what relationships South Korea should have with both North Korea and the United States. That, of course, would require the discussion about some uncomfortable truths about the things that are happening in the North today, but if the GNP hopes to win power other than by sheer default, it will have to win that debate or eventually face demographic extinction as its older voters die off.

True alliances are voluntary and mutual contracts. I have yet to hear a serious American suggestion that South Korea lacks the right to set its own independent policy. South Korea has the freedom–one exercised all too often–to publicly differ from U.S. policy, or even to renegotiate or end the alliance. The converse is true for the United States. Public differences and renegotiation of the contractual terms are not exclusive South Korean rights.

Alliances are based on agreed interests, not unilateral delusions of entitlement.

Update 10/26: The Joongang Ilbo concludes that the days of America-bashing without consequences are over. Unfortunately, these things sometimes take longer to catch fire–and to cool down again–in the United States.