It’s Official: Dean Acheson Was Right

Our blood allies in Korea are asserting their “maturity” again. While we’re gathering to tell the world about a few-million odd North Koreans starved to death by a regime that always seems to find the ready cash for cruise missiles and fuel rods, “progressive” South Koreans are on the way to Inchon to tear down the statue of MacArthur.

Fears of a violent clash mounted Friday after progressive civic groups wanting a statue of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in Incheon pulled down and conservative groups determined to protect it to the very end announced simultaneous Sunday demonstrations in the city’s Freedom Park.

One pro-unification civic group told police it will hold a rally in front of the MacArthur statue from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. The gathering, which it expects to attract 100 people, will call for the expulsion of the U.S. military and the toppling of the statue.

The group’s chairman Kim Su-nam said rectifying “the vestiges of colonialism and our distorted history must begin with removing the MacArthur statue, which is a symbol of imperialism.” He said the group would form a coalition with other groups to from Incheon to bring down the statue.

Meanwhile, in one of those moments of perfect absurdity, the South Korean Ambassador is trying to dispel some absurd “misconceptions” that South Koreans are anti-American.

In an address at the Rotary Club in Washington, D.C., [Ambassador] Hong said despite evidence that the alliance between the two countries has been a success, some people cast doubt on the soundness of the two allies’ relationship. What emerged from them was a “surprising” depth of misunderstanding by intellectuals and the media, Hong said, and correcting them was one of his most important duties as ambassador.

The five are:â–² anti-American sentiment is rife in Korea; â–² Koreans no longer want U.S. troops in their country; â–² Koreans place greater importance on their ethnic unity with North Korea than their alliance with the U.S.; â–² President Roh Moo-hyun is overly progressive; â–² Korea is leaning toward China and away from the U.S.

Hong attributed such conceptions to an insufficient understanding of changes sweeping Korea and the world at large, and to excessive focus on trivial incidents.

Well, consider me among those sharing some of those misconceptions, and I certainly didn’t acquire them from the media (but rather from four years wearing a uniform over there). I understand that free societies all have their own taxonomic classifications of whackjobs that pour into the streets for any number of imagined grievances, and that they don’t necessarily reflect the mood of the greater society. I’m more interested in the breadth of the base of support for these activites, the extent to which polling data tell us more about that, and how determined the government is to preserve law and order when its own voters try to turn Seoul into Berlin in the early 1930s.

There is still the question of what we tell the families of 38,000 Americans who died fighting so that their grandchildren could be spat on by the grandchildren of their beneficiaries. Maybe we can say, “Sorry ’bout that.”

Afterthought: Pro-unification group?

Update: Similar thoughts from The Marmot, who points out that Ambassador Hong owned the Joongang Ilbo for a good share of the time these “misconceptions” were created. While it’s one of Korea’s better papers, it has flung some remarkable turds, too.