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Category: South Korea

September 8, 2006

Dastardly Hegemonistic Brilliance

How to get South Korea ready to accept its president’s demand for wartime control of its forces? Why, an aggressive schedule of military exercises, of course! An official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday Washington proposed a series of combined military training drills before Korea obtains independent wartime operational control. “The training would be tiered and occur over three years, including the actual transfer period,” he said. In other words, two years before the handover, whether that is...

Categories An Alliance?/NK Military/ROK Military/U.S. Military
September 8, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 50: Alternative Realities and Real Alternatives

I suppose everyone is entitled a theory on why Kim Jong Il decided to launch a round of missiles on July 4th, thereby drawing the wrong kind of attention from the U.N. Security Council, Japan, China, and the U.S. Treasury Department. This blog has been lukewarm on the conventional “extortion” theory, and has recently hosted discussions of the Strategic Disengagement Theory, the “Barrel of a Gun” Theory, The Loyalty Test Theory, and most recently, the Robert Kaplan Theory. All of...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
September 4, 2006

Anti-Americans Head for Seattle; Anti-Anti-Americans Fill Void on Streets of Seoul

GI Korea points to an impressive turnout for an anti-anti-American demonstration in Seoul. Although it’s not clear whether 50,000 or 200,000 showed up, it was at least comparable to the turnout at the anti-American protests of 2002. There was word that early presidential front-runner Park Geun-Hye even planned to show up. The word I often use to describe the Korean street is “mercurial.” The America-hating left isn’t just going away, though, especially when it can count on local reinforcements …...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
September 1, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 49: The Perception Gap

[Update: The U.S. and Korean authorities are now denying that the Humphreys move is on hold. The Commanding General of the USFK admits that “minor adjustments” may be necessary, but that they can be “easily handled within the framework of the current plan.” H/t GI Korea] It begins with the apparent perception that Roh Moo Hyun could expect a state dinner or a 21-gun salute. I guess he perceived wrong: Unlike the incumbent, former presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
August 31, 2006

TKL Interview with Chuck Downs on the Alliance, Diplomacy, Nukes, and Why Kim Jong Il Tested Those Missiles

[Update 2: Thanks to the reader who pointed out that I had accidentally disabled the comments! That’s fixed now; please submit any questions or comments you have.] [Update: This post will “stick” at the top of the page for a couple of days; scroll down for new entries.] Chuck Downs is an author, independent consultant, and former Pentagon official who frequently appears on television news programs to discuss North Korea policy. He has held a number of important positions in...

Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/Geopolitics/Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology/NK Military/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views/WMD
August 29, 2006

Be the First One on Your Block to Instigate a Missile Crisis (No, really.)

Update: Scroll down and tell me I didn’t find what I think I found. Yes, I had spent many hours “flying” over North Korea with Google Earth, but it took this article to tip me off to an entire online community of amateur photo intel analysts. The L.A. Times reports: An intrepid German poster named “wonders” has flagged more than 332 sites of interest. Most are military — the vast air defenses ringing Pyongyang, the artillery along the demilitarized zone,...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Korean Society/NK Military/North Korea/Technology
August 28, 2006

Miss Woods, Fetch My ‘Enemies List!’

Well, well, look who the new “centrist” candidate, Goh Kun, invited to his big political coming-out day: The group’s inaugural meeting was held at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry building yesterday. A list of 106 promoters of the group included mostly scholars and prominent figures, including former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, who is now a professor at Ewha Womans University, and theater actress Park Jung-ja. Mr. Goh said the group did not include active politicians. Yes, that Jeong...

Categories Human Rights/Korean Politics
August 26, 2006

Lefkowitz: N.Korean Refugees Welcome in America

Updates: This chatroom for English-speaking expats in Thailand has pictures of the refugees and pages of outraged, sympathic comments. One of them points to this BBC story. The Thai government’s reaction is to increase patrols on the Mekong to keep the refugees out. Look at this baby’s face. Then try to comprehend what will happen to her if she is sent back to North Korea. . . ====== (original post follows) ====== With somewhere around 175 North Korean refugees in...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
August 21, 2006

Ministry of Perfect Timing

Seoul Condoles [?] N.Korea on Death of Spymaster— Chosun Ilbo, August 21, 2006 Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok on Monday expressed his condolences to his North Korean counterpart Kwon Ho-ung on the death of Rim Dong-ok, the vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland[….] The North Korea committee happens to have another job in planning anti-South Korean operations like dispatching spies, in cooperation with the 35th office of the Workers’ Party. Chameleon N.Korean Spy Nabbed in...

Categories Appeasement/The Fifth Column/WTF?
August 21, 2006

Kaesong Update

[Correction: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A reader (thanks!) notes that Ms. Schwab is the U.S. Trade Representative. As it happens, the USTR has been independent from the State Department since 1962! My apologies to the State Department for the unintended defamation.] This may be the most unequivocal thing I’ve ever heard anyone in our State Department say, ever. And it pertains to including (North Korean) Kaesong products in a possible FTA with South...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
August 17, 2006

TKL Saves Washington’s Upstanding Moral Reputation

The questionable massage parlor James blogged about here has been raided and shut down. In the District, federal agents targeted five brothels that were masquerading as massage parlors or spas. The establishments were 14K Spot, which operated in a basement in the 1400 block of K Street Northwest; Downtown Spa, in the 1000 block of Vermont Avenue Northwest; OK Spa, in the 2400 block of Wisconsin Avenue Northwest; Cleveland Park Holistic Health, on the second floor of a building in...

Categories Human Trafficking/Korean Society/Media Criticism/Uncategorized
August 15, 2006

You’re Welcome.

Today is Liberation Day, at least for those of us on this side of the International Date Line. And because we’ve recently been on the subject of things that happened at Incheon, I thought I’d mention that the Incheon landing pictured here took place on September 8, 1945, when the United States Army arrived to liberate South Korea for the first time … from Japanese rule. You did hear that, right? Funny how no one ever talks about it. If...

Categories Anti-Americanism/History/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
August 15, 2006

Referendum

I don’t really have much to add to this, because I’ve thought a referendum on the alliance was needed since I was serving in Korea myself. While there, I could see the tension between Koreans’ desire to keep the alliance’s benefits and their contempt for the soldiers and the country who bore its burden. My small quibble with Kim Dae Joong is that “wartime control” is only the first of many dominos, and phrasing the question that way benefits those...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
August 12, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 47: What Henry Hyde Said at Incheon

Last September 11th, a band of violent quislings to a pathologically murderous regime tried to tear down a statue of the man who saved their country and the system of government that would eventually protect their right to call for its destruction. The statue survived, but the relationship between two nations suffered one more of many injuries that cumulatively may well be mortal. True alliances cannot be unilateral. As the United States and the Republic of Korea both ask what...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea
August 10, 2006

The “C” Word

When I see things like this: Sixteen former defense ministers and nine retired generals on Thursday expressed dismay at President Roh Moo-hyun’s remarks in an interview Wednesday that suggested Korea can withdraw wartime control of its troops from the U.S. any time. … and contrast them with things like this: In an interview with the Yonhap news agency, the president said, “The South Korean military’s capability is sufficient and it can get U.S. military support.” The remarks pour oil on...

Categories An Alliance?/Democracy/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
August 10, 2006

TKL Exclusive: What Hyde Will Tell Roh

Via a reliable source I can’t name, I now have some specifics on just how pretty this won’t be. Among Hyde’s expected talking points for his visit to Korea this week are the following. Disclaimer — this is a paraphrase of a paraphrase: * You want operational control of all forces during wartime. How is that going to work? Will there be a U.S. general and a Korean general commanding the entire force jointly or two forces separately? Either way,...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/China & Korea/Human Rights/Korean Society/NK Economics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views