This time, the media is the circus. It’s election season in Washington. How can I tell? The Washington Post’s headlines were full of non-news “news analysis” of gloomy views about Iraq. Here is today’s cartoon from the Post, and here is today’s front-page picture of John Kerry from the Washington Times. I could use many of the same words to describe both–unfair, distorted, cheap, and blatantly partisan. No wonder people are defecting to blogs for their news. Yesterday’s media burial...

NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave. My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign...

Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has been accused of sexual harassment by an American woman who has worked for the agency for 20 years. Given Lubbers’ pathetic performance of his duties–especially when it comes to North Koreans in China–it’s tempting to presume the truth of the accusations and hound him into retirement for the good of all humanity. If it’s true, it suggests one way China might have corrupted him. Having investigated, prosecuted, and defended dozens of...

NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave. My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign...

NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave. My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign...

Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has been accused of sexual harassment by an American woman who has worked for the agency for 20 years. Given Lubbers’ pathetic performance of his duties–especially when it comes to North Koreans in China–it’s tempting to presume the truth of the accusations and hound him into retirement for the good of all humanity. If it’s true, it suggests one way China might have corrupted him. Having investigated, prosecuted, and defended dozens of...

Everyone really ought to stop hyperventilating (ok, please forgive me for that one) . . . in a political sense, I mean. It doesn’t sound very certain that it is sarin, and if it is, it’s just one shell that may not have had any markings. Has everyone on either side of the political spectrum forgotten that there are more important questions than who looks bad because of this? Our first concern ought to be getting those weapons out of...

The Pentagon just confirmed that it won’t replace the brigade that it will withdraw from Korea. It also says that the number to be reduced is 3,600, not 4,000. As stated before, however, that doesn’t include thousands more whose function had been to provide their combat support, medical, dental, legal, commo, etc. Aidan Foster-Carter has a must-read denunciation of the thugs who may succeed in shutting down FreeNK, the effort of a few North Korean defectors to broadcast into their...

Everyone really ought to stop hyperventilating (ok, please forgive me for that one) . . . in a political sense, I mean. It doesn’t sound very certain that it is sarin, and if it is, it’s just one shell that may not have had any markings. Has everyone on either side of the political spectrum forgotten that there are more important questions than who looks bad because of this? Our first concern ought to be getting those weapons out of...

. . . but you probably made the same guess yourself. Rummy will indeed take troops from Korea to send them to Iraq, just as I’ve been suggesting. The diplomatic significance of the U.S. Army taking half of its infantry strength–a whole brigade of 4,000 troops–is hard to overstate. This is an earthquake. Here are just a few of the angles from which one can analyze this. US Force Restructuring It marks a dramatic escalation of the agreed timetable for...

The Pentagon just confirmed that it won’t replace the brigade that it will withdraw from Korea. It also says that the number to be reduced is 3,600, not 4,000. As stated before, however, that doesn’t include thousands more whose function had been to provide their combat support, medical, dental, legal, commo, etc. Aidan Foster-Carter has a must-read denunciation of the thugs who may succeed in shutting down FreeNK, the effort of a few North Korean defectors to broadcast into their...

The Pentagon just confirmed that it won’t replace the brigade that it will withdraw from Korea. It also says that the number to be reduced is 3,600, not 4,000. As stated before, however, that doesn’t include thousands more whose function had been to provide their combat support, medical, dental, legal, commo, etc. Aidan Foster-Carter has a must-read denunciation of the thugs who may succeed in shutting down FreeNK, the effort of a few North Korean defectors to broadcast into their...

JeffInKorea has opened up a raging debate over at his site about the different ways Koreans and Americans think. Not being a philosophy major, I went home and asked my wife what she thinks of the premise. Her answer: “It depends on the person.” Such a smart woman; no wonder I married her. But isn’t there an undeniable difference in the ways Koreans and Americans reason through problems–a difference that one does not see with Korean-Americans? After much more discussion...

. . . but you probably made the same guess yourself. Rummy will indeed take troops from Korea to send them to Iraq, just as I’ve been suggesting. The diplomatic significance of the U.S. Army taking half of its infantry strength–a whole brigade of 4,000 troops–is hard to overstate. This is an earthquake. Here are just a few of the angles from which one can analyze this. US Force Restructuring It marks a dramatic escalation of the agreed timetable for...

. . . but you probably made the same guess yourself. Rummy will indeed take troops from Korea to send them to Iraq, just as I’ve been suggesting. The diplomatic significance of the U.S. Army taking half of its infantry strength–a whole brigade of 4,000 troops–is hard to overstate. This is an earthquake. Here are just a few of the angles from which one can analyze this. US Force Restructuring It marks a dramatic escalation of the agreed timetable for...

JeffInKorea has opened up a raging debate over at his site about the different ways Koreans and Americans think. Not being a philosophy major, I went home and asked my wife what she thinks of the premise. Her answer: “It depends on the person.” Such a smart woman; no wonder I married her. But isn’t there an undeniable difference in the ways Koreans and Americans reason through problems–a difference that one does not see with Korean-Americans? After much more discussion...

JeffinKorea has posted some of the most insightful analysis of the differences in how Koreans and Americans think that I’ve seen anywhere. His thesis is that Koreans reason inductively–moving from the conclusion to the facts–rather than deductively, as most westerners tend to do. My comment below his post extends his insight to the growing chasm between Americans and Koreans to the SOFA and North Korea. I think Jeff is onto something here.

Some comments I’ve spotted at various blogs have hoped (against all odds) that the Constitutional Court will uphold Roh’s impeachment. Roh is incompetent and the impeachment is legal, ergo it’s a good idea. That argument misses the point as surely as the impeachment itself did. Just look at where it got the GNP. Roh was riding at 30% in the polls before the GNP gave him that sympathy boost, no matter how illogical and divorced from the realities of Roh’s...