ROK Police Failed to Protect U.S. Marines
Just in case you thought my most recent rant about South Korea failing to protect U.S. troops (the ones defending its country) was off-base, well, have a look:
The appearance of anti-war demonstrators as the beachfront site of a joint U.S.-Korea military drill on Thursday showed an apparent lack of interest by authorities in keeping exercise sites free of demonstrators and other civilians. Authorities said yesterday that the police in the vicinity of Manripo Beach, in Taean, South Chungcheong province, had been alerted to the exercise and told to prepare for the possibility of protests. But, officials said, only two policemen were dispatched to the beach; they failed to spot the protesters in time to block them.
The article goes on to note that this sort of thing has a history, so the authorities had no excuse for failing to prepare for it. The reponse was also characteristically slow.
Kim Yong-kyu, a public affairs official at the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said yesterday that the command has tried so far to respect demonstrators’ rights to stage protests and express opinions, but warned that such incidents could lead to accidents. On Thursday, protesters waited in their cars until amphibious carriers landed on the beach and rushed to the scene. By the time police reinforcements arrived, the protesters had finished a news conference with reporters covering the exercise and left.
It’s as if the government can’t decide which side it’s on.
You would swear that the ghost of Don Knotts has migrated into Korean police–they’re a bunch of Barney Fifes when it comes to law enforcement.
Watch it, Michael.
Dont’ insult Barney like that. And god help those who try to do the same thing to the Keystone Kops.
The article is not clear. When measuring police response time, you must measure it from the time 911 was dialed to police arrival. It appears that no one measured the time when 911 was first dialed. It is possible that no one dialed 911 until towards the very end of the protests. It even appears from the article that some arrogant low life expected the police to mysteriously appear when the protestors appear.
The lack of objective measure in the assumption that police did not bother to protect US marines must therefore be relegated to propaganda crap to smear the good name of the police forces.
We will see what will happen to these idiots
when the GNP take power in 2007
mahatir_fan wants an objective measure, read the article again… Police were notified by the authorities of possible demonstrators. The objective measure that is obvious to the most casual observer is their lack of posting a capable force to keep the protestors away from the exercise area. Notified early of demonstrators… failed to prepare for demonstrators. Failure to protect.
Here is a video I put together from the protests in Feb and March
http://www.usinkorea.org/videos/new/anti_american_protests_Korea_march_2006.wmv
“Police were notified by the authorities of possible demonstrators.”
Don’t be silly. Try notifying the police before you sleep tonight that your house would be robbed. Do you think the police will show up? This would also count as advance notification.
usainkorea,
why do you refer to the protestors as anti Americans? I saw the video and what I see are pro-Korea freedom lovers. Only freedom loving individuals can share those same views. The korean war is nothing today but a relic of the cold war. There is no immediate threat of an attack from North Korea. What is a threat is the social and cultural exchanges that would spill into North Korea as the borders open up. North Korea has more to fear from the South at this time, both from military and social, and cultural. Even if North Korea goes crazy and attack the South, China will be there to tie the leash on them. China doesn’t want any country at this time to bother her journey towards freedom of prosperity.
There is no better time for South Korean independence than now.
“Don’t be silly. Try notifying the police before you sleep tonight that your house would be robbed. Do you think the police will show up? This would also count as advance notification.”
Do you realize that your analogy is silly, mahathir_fan?