The Death of an Alliance, Part 36: FTA Meets WTF
Beware of the dragonfly: it may be a bugging robot disguised as a harmless insect. No, the advice does not come from a mental patient convinced the government is spying on his laundry bills: it was one of the security tips issued during last week’s two-day workshop for 120 Korean delegates in the nation’s impending free-trade negotiations with the U.S. The workshop was designed to help delegates guard their negotiation strategies from prying ears when the talks start in June.
It’s official. The people who are covering the flanks and backs of 32,000 of our service members are undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenics.
One government official set delegates on edge when he warned, “There is no telling what lengths the U.S. with its technological might will go to if it decides to eavesdrop. Sure enough, the CIA also has other members of the insect kingdom at its disposal, besides using a coin-sized camera that can take 11 pictures.
Correction: make that undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenics who hate us. The Chosun aptly treats the story with the ridicule it warrants, although, to be completely fair, the CIA did indeed attempt to create such a device, with limited success. Not mentioned was exactly how a dragonfly is supposed to be an unobtrusive presence while buzzing around during an international negotiation. But put nothing past those scheming Yankees!
An official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the workshop had been organized not because it was concluded that U.S. negotiators will bug their Korean counterparts but to instill security awareness among delegates.
OK, then. So it appears that these two long-standing “allies” have some trust issues, I take it? Every nation is entitled to take precautions to keep its secrets. Keeping secrets has in fact been a significant problem for Korea in the recent past, one that would seem to have damaged U.S.-Korean cooperation on intelligence, diplomacy, and defense.
The part I can’t explain, however, is what legitimate purpose it serves to hold a public workshop on this. In addition to making the Foreign Ministry look like a group of raving lunatics, it’s certainly not going to do much for U.S.-Korean relations or help the Koreans get their FTA, which they need much more than the U.S. does. I realize that people will believe anything if they want to believe it desperately enough; what I can’t explain is just what makes them so desperate to believe the most addlebrained nonsense, as long as it has an anti-American angle. Can’t you please wait until we feed you before you bite our hands again? And might some distance improve the health of this relationship? On balance, I think the FTA is probably good for both Korea and America, but the evidence continues to mount that U.S. military protection for South Korea is good for neither.