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Category: UCMJ & SOFA

May 4, 2010

Oh, for F**k’s Sake: Not Another Do-Gooder Congressman Out to Rid the USFK of Juicy Girls

Normally, I actually like Chris Smith, but it’s just plain dumb to go after U.S. service members who, while thousands of miles from home, pursue (a) human nature, and (b) a form of commerce that’s more-or-less openly available to 23 million South Korean men around them: A bill to create a director of global anti-human trafficking policies in the Department of Defense was introduced Thursday in an effort to better monitor the way the military deals with South Korean “juicy...

Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
January 28, 2010

Equality Begins Where Dependence Ends

South Korea, which spent the better part of the last two decades bitching that it wanted to be treated like America’s equal, has been bitching ever since the Pentagon decided that Korea was just about ready to take over wartime operational control of its own military, you know … for its own defense. Needless to say, and largely as a result of having served in the USFK myself for four years, I’m neither as sympathetic nor as diplomatic as our...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
May 30, 2009

A Point of Order on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

G.I. Korea’s latest posting on the renewed “don’t ask, don’t tell” controversy causes me to note a point that this entire debate is missing:  I saw very few cases in which soldiers were discharged involuntarily solely because of homosexual conduct.  In my experience as a former Army JAG, at least 80% of the Chapter 15 (homosexual conduct) discharges I saw were self-reports by soldiers who may or may not have been gay, but who just wanted out of the Army. ...

Categories U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
March 5, 2008

North Korea Has a Meth Problem, Part 2

After I wrote here recently about North Korea’s growing meth problem, it occurred to me that I never talked about how, as a prosecutor, I learned how awful meth really is. I spent just shy of two years of my Army time assigned to Ft. Irwin, California, home of the OPFOR. During most of that time, I was the prosecutor, or Trial Counsel. Irwin is a great place to drive a T-72, shoot AK’s, or go out on field exercises...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
April 17, 2007

Where All of the Guilty Ones Get Fair Trials

I suspect that relatively  few  members or staffers had time to read the long-winded  written statement I submitted to the record with my September 27, 2006 congressional testimony.  Starting on page  Page 79, I described the many procedural and institutional reasons why  American soldiers do not receive fair trials in Korean courts.  I drew heavily on stories that GI Korea and USinKorea had originally linked in preparing it, along with the assistance of a good friend I asked to fact-check...

Categories Anti-Americanism/UCMJ & SOFA
March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

*   No.Please.Stop.   North Korea is threatening to pull  out of the  dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over  the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.”  [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

Categories An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
February 16, 2007

Why We Should Withdraw Our Troops from Korea: Just the Latest Reason

GI Korea has an update on the case of a female American soldier who was sexually assaulted by a Korean soldier during an exercise.  The soldier was found guilty.  And how much time did he get?  Zip.  The 2 1/2 year sentence is an insult by itself, but the court suspended the entire sentence.  And people ask me why I  consider Korean courts incompetent to try American soldiers.  Granted, the assault ended when the  young American woman gave her assailant...

Categories UCMJ & SOFA
February 3, 2007

Here Comes the Election!

Update: I’ve been expecting this, and I expect more of it: There is a fourth reason why the P.P. [the new leftist party that will officially replace Uri this month] will recover considerable support, and it’s the timeless appeal of nationalism, particularly in Korea (ht). The P.P. leaders, Comrade Chung and (especially) Kim Geun Tae, show no sign of any ethical, political, or financial restraints to stop them from setting new lows in crass appeals to those sentiments, to include...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
January 30, 2007

An Ex-JAG’s Guide to Trouble and Lawyers in Korea

I started commenting on this thread on The Marmot’s Hole, responding to someone who may or  may not have been beaten by Korean police after a drunken “protest.”  This drew a few responses, including this one from fellow lawyer Brendan Carr: To my way of thinking, private lawyer is a waste (and I’m one of the private lawyers) — TDS counsel take great pride in fighting for their clients’ rights and contrary to your expectations, TDS counsel have no fear...

Categories UCMJ & SOFA
December 14, 2006

Chinese Diplomats on the Town, Behaving Like … American Infantry!

Heard in the Forbidden City:  “Those uppity vassals won’t get away with  indignities like this  when we build our governor’s mansion on top of Kwanghwamun!” Police pulled over a car with the diplomatic license plate of the Chinese Embassy near the main gate of Ewha Women’s University around 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday. The driver and three passengers declined to take the test or confirm their identities and kept doors and windows locked. Police guided the car into a corner, where...

Categories China & Korea/UCMJ & SOFA/WTF?
December 13, 2006

Korean Apartheid Watch

Arnold knew of only one pool in town, but when she went there she was told, ‘No Foreigners Allowed.”’ She asked a Korean co-worker to call for her and explain that she had to swim for health reasons. “I explained about you (doctor’s order) but they said no,” the co-worker wrote in a follow up e-mail. “Foreigner(s) cannot use the pool.”   [link] The article is incorrect when it states that discrimination is legal in Korea.  As I explained in...

Categories Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
December 8, 2006

Arrest Galloper, Part 2

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over. We finally have closure in a terrible tragedy in which  innocent Korean  pedestrians were cut down by  a reckless foreigner,  who managed to evade local justice and (the outrage!) face a quickie trial and light punishment  in his home country’s courts.  Remember the protests and the vigils?  No?  Probably because the driver was a drunk South Korean Hyundai Asan  employee, and the victims were North Korean soldiers.  Two were injured, one...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA/Uncategorized
October 14, 2006

Another Ambassador of Our Country

Give him style points, at least.  A drunken Army private walking past the War Memorial near the Yongsan Garrison and Samgakji Station couldn’t pass up the opportunity he saw in a Seoul city bus.  Seems he had gotten all the way to Seoul Station — and almost all the way back to the War Memorial — when the Korean Police caught up with him. No word on whether he stopped for passengers. The first good decision he made was to...

Categories U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
April 13, 2006

Also Turning Ugly: USFK Relocation

I wish I had the time to cover the latest Camp Humphreys relocation protests in the detail they deserve, given that I spent seven months of my life there defending young, misunderstood soldiers who were wrongly accused of various things. Humphreys, one of the least pleasant sites in the USFK portfolio, has its advantages: cheap land, proximity to Osan Air Base, and a location south of Seoul and out of artillery range. It makes sense to move most of the...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA/Uncategorized
March 30, 2006

Someone Please Prosecute This Fool

Prosecution Exhibit A  should be this photograph of a South Korean leftist thug putting his hands on a United States Marine.  While there are numerous reasons why this is widely considered unwise, those reasons don’t include  any reason to  fear that the leftist-dominated Korean government will actually prosecute  people like this  for assault.  “Assault” is what you call it when one person puts his hands on another with hostile intent.  It’s a tribute to this Marine’s discipline that he didn’t...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA