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Category: 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
August 9, 2006

Republican Congressmen to Visit S. Korea

Regular readers of this blog and OFK before it have seen some very direct expressions of displeasure coming from Representative Henry Hyde to the South Korean government, or whizzing past its ears on the way to North Korea, often scanned in in their original and complete form (here, here, here, here, here, here). So when Yonhap reports that Hyde, the outgoing Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, is on his way to Seoul to visit President Roh Moo Hyun,...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
August 7, 2006

Analyst: All U.S. Ground Forces May Leave by 2012 (D.O.A. #46)

This entire Asia Times piece by Bruce Klingner is a must-read, but this is the paragraph that leapt off the page for me: The US is contemplating cuts below the already-reduced, 25,000-troop level announced for 2008, including a rumored total withdrawal of US ground forces by 2012. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Burwell Bell, commander of US Forces in Korea, have warned that the recent closure of the Maehyangri training range to US pilots could cause Washington to redeploy...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 29, 2006

Can Anyone Still Save the FTA?

The South Korean government has concluded that its proposed Free Trade Agreement with the United States has a P.R. problem. Workshop to be announced; head-scratching to follow. Let’s hope whatever discussion comes of this will be more productive than previous warnings about CIA microphones disguises as insects. Thus far, the government has been afraid to take on the extremists, thugs, and demagogues who have seized control of this debate, often forcibly, but if those people comprise a significant portion of...

Categories Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
July 27, 2006

V.P. Cheney Speaks at Korean War Memorial

[Thanks to a reader for forwarding; this is an excerpt.] In the course of the struggle, our good ally, South Korea, sustained horrendous losses, both military and civilian, at the hands of the communist forces. Yet so much of the suffering that came to South Koreans in that period of war has been the daily experience of their brothers and sisters in the North for the more than 50 years since. North Korea is a scene of merciless repression, chronic...

Categories Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
July 27, 2006

Now What? Part 4: Someone Didn’t Get the Memo

[Several very interesting updates here; scroll down.] Recently, it has often seemed that different parts of South Korea have been applying different policies to the same issue. Take South Korea’s response to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695, which requires countries and companies to exercise “vigilance” in making sure they don’t supply North Korea with the components or funds to build more missiles. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok has opted for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” interpretation of that resolution,...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 25, 2006

Free at Last?

The Koreans have been relatively free for some time now. But if a new bill passes, the American men and women who help secure that freedom may be able to put outrages like these behind them: The bill aims to prevent discrimination in all public and private sectors including employment and education. Discrimination would be defined based on 20 criteria, including gender, physical disability, religion, age, nationality, race, skin color, appearance, pregnancy, ideas and sexual preferences. Under the bill, indirect...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
July 25, 2006

Let Them Make Won!

Update: Gee, how curious. Police recovered a briefcase containing a hoard of probably forged United States Treasury bonds worth $500 million during the investigation of a local theft, Seoul’s Gwanak Police Station announced. Police said they are looking into the possible involvement of international crime networks. ===================================== With Seoul questioning why the United States is making such a big deal out of North Korea’s counterfeiting of its currency and saying it “will take no further steps” against it, the Chosun...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/U.S. & Korea
July 23, 2006

And They Wonder Why Relations Are Deteriorating

Update: Ouch. You can clearly see how this administration has moved to the left from where it began. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok says the United States “failed the most” when North Korea launched its missile. You thought, perhaps, those whose main event exploded 45 seconds after launch? The rising superpower whose uncontrollable satellite managed to cement a U.S.-Japanese alliance? The government whose incalculably costly and increasingly unpopular appeasement policies were exposed as a worthless sham at the push of one...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/WMD/WTF?
July 22, 2006

Now What? Part 2

Right after North Korea launched its round of missiles, I outlined a series of options, mostly financial, that the U.S. and other countries could take in response. Two weeks later, several aspects of that forecast are holding up well. What looked at first like another U.N. farce, then a modestly successful sanctions effort (by U.N. standards, anyway), now looks to be an important and hard-won component of a coordinated effort to tighten the squeeze on the regime-sustaining half of North...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 22, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 45: An October Surprise?

[This is an updated post, originally published Saturday morning (22 July 06). An interview with the USFK Commanding general has partially confirmed what it asserts, so I’m supplementing the old post rather than starting a new one.] Jodi at The Asia Pages appears to be the recipient of some inside information that a dramatic reduction of the U.S.-Korean military welfare state alliance will be announced this fall, which coincides high-level security consultations scheduled for October. According to Jodi’s source, the...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 21, 2006

‘Truly Evil’

Not starving millions of your own people to build missiles for attacking cities in other nations, but the idea that one of those nations might try to protect its citizens from them. There’s only one way I can make that statement remotely comprehensible — by recalling that Roh won’t protect his own citizens. Just as a reminder, we have 30,000 troops in Roh’s country, with a resulting defense cost savings of $60 billion a year. I wonder how much of...

Categories Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 17, 2006

The Death of an Aliance, Part 43: Kim Won-Ung, Nutcase

The problem with identifying the most unhinged politician in South Korea’s ruling Uri party is a lot like trying to identify France’s most offensive armpit: at a certain point, extremity renders empirical comparison pointless. Still, I’m not sure anyone in the Uri party has built a more solid record than ex-GNP’er Kim Won-Ung, the only South Korean parliamentarian to have earned two of his very own “DOA” posts. His latest oral discharge is a ferocious denial that North Korea’s short-range...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD/WTF?
July 15, 2006

Too Little, Too Late

There may be no better way to defeat a radical movement than to let it win an election. The radical is an inherently emotional creation, one ill suited to the objective analysis of facts that effective government requires. If democratic institutions can survive their tenure of office, they generally discredit themselves in short order. I can’t imagine a better illustration of this principle than watching a South Korean government with a 14% approval rating meekly promoting a military alliance and...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 13, 2006

The FTA Has Turned Ugly

An anti-Free Trade Agreement protest of 25,000 has clogged downtown Seoul, and on that day, it wasn’t safe to look “American” on the streets, not even for the Swiss. A Swiss man and two friends were set upon by a mob of angry protestors who apparently mistook them for Americans on Wednesday. The group of 10, who were taking part in a Gwangwhamun rally to protest against an FTA between Korea and the U.S., approached the man and his friends...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea