Search Results for: Taliban ransom

September 5, 2007

The Shooting Starts Before the Whimpering Ends

I hope this will be the last post I do on the Korean-Afghan hostage story, at least until we start to see the proceeds of its  resolution in bombs, mangled bodies,  and the next round of kidnappings  it will  inspire.  Koreans are still furious,  but mostly at  the victims rather than the terrorists.  I admit to having thought, “better them than us.”  The Korean street is a capricious thing. Consider all that the South Korean government was willing to do...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism/Iraq
August 13, 2007

Valor, and The Better Part of It

There are some things that should be too obvious to be missed by nearly everyone, and here is one of them:  the only villains of the Afghan hostage crisis are the Taliban.  It may be human nature to seek out demons, heroes, and martyrs, including phantom ones.  South Korea’s masters of public manipulation have certainly offered the South Korean people a wide choice of villains, and that  choice occasionally even includes the Taliban.  As for heroes, I certainly don’t see...

Categories Uncategorized
August 2, 2007

Double Extortion

Yesterday’s report that a hostage  rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan turned out to be premature, but spin operations in Seoul  are sharply accelerating.  In a South Korean election year, it couldn’t be more predicatable that its unpopular  and desperate leftist government, far-left “civic” groups, and certain media are looking for a way to make the  Taliban’s  kidnapping and murder of 23 Korean hostages  America’s fault.  It remains to be seen whether the greater  South Korean public will buy this....

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Terrorism/Iraq
July 26, 2007

South Korea: No Worse Friend, No Better Enemy

By now you’ve heard that the Taliban have murdered their first Korean hostage, and so Korea has now wheeled as one  in spontaneous rage at the Taliban, as though they’d  issued postage stamps with images of  Tokdo, right?  Well, not exactly.  There are many things I could say about the reactions of Roh Moo Hyun, his government, and his country’s media, but Robert Kohler has pretty much already said those things, and a few others.  Two lessons bears repeating:  first,...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/Religion/Terrorism/Iraq