South Korean civic groups today announced the temporary withdrawal of all anti-American protest signs and slogans after a sudden epidemic of cognitive dissonance (photo). The outbreak followed a U.S. announcement that it would pull 12,500 troops out of Korea by the end of 2005. Anti-U.S. groups, which had demanded a total U.S. withdrawal for years–a result they apparently never considered even faintly possible–reacted to the Pentagon’s announcement with a mixture of sharp criticism, strong approval, apathy, ambivalence, and panic. At...

Is Korea starting to figure things out, now that it’s too late? According to this piece in the Korea Herald, 82% of Americans surveyed favor the Pentagon’s plan to pull 12,000 troops out of Korea. Opposition was in the single digits. At first, I got excited–finally, someone asking what Americans think about Korea. As it turned out, however, the poll isn’t scientific; worse yet, it’s on Fox, which means that it’s from a skewed sample. Still, could anyone have expected...

If you’re accustomed to the measured, soporific language that diplomats use, this interview with Richard Lawless will make you spit 815 cola all over your monitor. Money quotes, emphasis mine: But now, with our two sides asking whether the garrison transfer would be 3.6 million pyeong or 3.3 million pyong, and this petty thing becoming contentious, we are extremely confused and disappointed. I’m frustrated that in our 50-year relationship of alliance, a difference of 300,000 pyeong can become contentious. Translation–we’ve...

A public service announcement in the interest of promoting greater trans-Pacific understanding . . . courtesy of the USFK: Current intelligence reporting indicates a potential for an increased number of civil gatherings in the next two weeks fueled in part by the following events: the anniversary of the 13 Jun 02 deaths of two teenage girls killed in an accident with a USFK military vehicle; the war in Iraq; and the deployment of ROK forces to Iraq. As a result...

South Korean civic groups today announced the temporary withdrawal of all anti-American protest signs and slogans after a sudden epidemic of cognitive dissonance (photo). The outbreak followed a U.S. announcement that it would pull 12,500 troops out of Korea by the end of 2005. Anti-U.S. groups, which had demanded a total U.S. withdrawal for years–a result they apparently never considered even faintly possible–reacted to the Pentagon’s announcement with a mixture of sharp criticism, strong approval, apathy, ambivalence, and panic. At...

South Korean civic groups today announced the temporary withdrawal of all anti-American protest signs and slogans after a sudden epidemic of cognitive dissonance (photo). The outbreak followed a U.S. announcement that it would pull 12,500 troops out of Korea by the end of 2005. Anti-U.S. groups, which had demanded a total U.S. withdrawal for years–a result they apparently never considered even faintly possible–reacted to the Pentagon’s announcement with a mixture of sharp criticism, strong approval, apathy, ambivalence, and panic. At...

If you’re accustomed to the measured, soporific language that diplomats use, this interview with Richard Lawless will make you spit 815 cola all over your monitor. Money quotes, emphasis mine: But now, with our two sides asking whether the garrison transfer would be 3.6 million pyeong or 3.3 million pyong, and this petty thing becoming contentious, we are extremely confused and disappointed. I’m frustrated that in our 50-year relationship of alliance, a difference of 300,000 pyeong can become contentious. Translation–we’ve...

If you’re accustomed to the measured, soporific language that diplomats use, this interview with Richard Lawless will make you spit 815 cola all over your monitor. Money quotes, emphasis mine: But now, with our two sides asking whether the garrison transfer would be 3.6 million pyeong or 3.3 million pyong, and this petty thing becoming contentious, we are extremely confused and disappointed. I’m frustrated that in our 50-year relationship of alliance, a difference of 300,000 pyeong can become contentious. Translation–we’ve...

A public service announcement in the interest of promoting greater trans-Pacific understanding . . . courtesy of the USFK: Current intelligence reporting indicates a potential for an increased number of civil gatherings in the next two weeks fueled in part by the following events: the anniversary of the 13 Jun 02 deaths of two teenage girls killed in an accident with a USFK military vehicle; the war in Iraq; and the deployment of ROK forces to Iraq. As a result...

The Pentagon today refused to comment on South Korea’s latest call for revisions of the two countries’ Status of Forces Agreement. The revisions, said to be inspired by the case of U.S. citizen and convicted spy Robert Kim, 64, would interpret the existence of a new “Korean Pride” clause within the text of the treaty’s article concerning the agricultural inspection of duty-free processed luncheon meats. A provision of this clause would immunize all persons of Korean descent from prosecution for...

Sure, it’s riding on a wave of sentimentality, and I hesitate at the current proposal to put Reagan on the $10 bill. The twenty, however, is another matter. That’s certainly justified, if for just this reason: Andrew Jackson was an outlaw. I’m referring to the Andrew Jackson who threw the Cherokees off the land granted to them by treaty . . . and when the Cherokees sued in the Supreme Court and won, Jackson dared the Supreme Court to enforce...

The Pentagon today refused to comment on South Korea’s latest call for revisions of the two countries’ Status of Forces Agreement. The revisions, said to be inspired by the case of U.S. citizen and convicted spy Robert Kim, 64, would interpret the existence of a new “Korean Pride” clause within the text of the treaty’s article concerning the agricultural inspection of duty-free processed luncheon meats. A provision of this clause would immunize all persons of Korean descent from prosecution for...

The Pentagon today refused to comment on South Korea’s latest call for revisions of the two countries’ Status of Forces Agreement. The revisions, said to be inspired by the case of U.S. citizen and convicted spy Robert Kim, 64, would interpret the existence of a new “Korean Pride” clause within the text of the treaty’s article concerning the agricultural inspection of duty-free processed luncheon meats. A provision of this clause would immunize all persons of Korean descent from prosecution for...

Sure, it’s riding on a wave of sentimentality, and I hesitate at the current proposal to put Reagan on the $10 bill. The twenty, however, is another matter. That’s certainly justified, if for just this reason: Andrew Jackson was an outlaw. I’m referring to the Andrew Jackson who threw the Cherokees off the land granted to them by treaty . . . and when the Cherokees sued in the Supreme Court and won, Jackson dared the Supreme Court to enforce...

Andrew Petty at the Korea Herald has written a story on the latest outrage of anti-American bigotry in Korea. I was actually quoted for the story, but it took Owen Rathbone to find it (minor correction–I left the Army several months ago). Read his whole post, along with his kind words about President Reagan. And be sure to read the story he posted about earlier examples of Korea’s xenophobic blood libels. Haven’t I heard that one somewhere else? Or was...

It’s apparent that the Korea blogosphere isn’t alone in its enjoyment of the delicious ironies surrounding our impending withdrawal from the Korea. U.S. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard apparently told a crowd of Korean brownshirts at Seoul National University that the U.S. was withdrawing its troops from Korea to reduce the risk of more dangerous training accidents! If that one wasn’t obvious enough, check out Budaechigae today, which quotes a Pentagon offical (via the Korean MoFA) as saying that “the United States...

If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with...

When I was a kid in elementary school and Carter was president, I began to believe, as many others did, that America had entered a phase of terminal economic and political decline. The advance of Communism everywhere seemed irreversible. I saw the same worry in my parents, who represented both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, both bought into the myth that Reagan was an “extremist” and threw their votes away on John Anderson as a protest vote (they knew...