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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, when trying to predict Korea’s reactions to any given event, never underestimate Korea’s instinct for  anti-Americanism; second, when dealing with South Korea — as a few of our generals have learned —  being nice gets you nowhere.  Those two  lessons are extensions of one principle that’s not uniquely applicable to Korea:  people tend to show their “courage” by standing up to people they know won’t hurt them.  Korea just happens to have a special talent for this.

As for a wave of anti-Americanism that some “experts” in Korea are threatening, I’m hoping they’re right.  The diplomatic classes of both nations have done a fairly expert job of papering over the depth of anti-Americanism there, and I’d be perfectly content to  see  a reaction that  outrageously irrational  get enough press for a few U.S. presidential candidates to start talking about troop withdrawals (remember this?).  First, such talk would almost immediately shut up some of Korea’s  professional demagogues, whose conniving calculations we tend to underestimate.  They know what a precipitous withdrawal could do to their economy.  Second, a major U.S. troop presence in Korea doesn’t serve sufficient  U.S. interests  to be worth its financial cost, or to be worth tying  soldiers down where they’re no longer needed.  Third, our troop presence is doing us more political and diplomatic harm than it does us diplomatic and military good.  Finally, our troop presence puts American hostages  within the range of hostile guns and  thus limits  our options in dealing with North Korea. 

As for the Taliban, they must be thinking that they chose the perfect hostages.  Not only were their captives turned on by their own people, their government tried to engineer ransom payments to the terrorists and throw all of the  blame on their  American enemy (my thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking this humble blog).  Meanwhile, hardly a word of complaint about the Taliban can be heard in Seoul for, you know, kidnapping and/or murdering  Korean civilians.

I’d have preferred to link to  more information about the murdered man, Bae Hyung-Kyu, but oddly enough, no one is really writing much about him,  and I still don’t have a clear idea of just what his group was doing in Afghanistan.  He had a young daughter, and as of this article’s publication, she still didn’t know that her father was dead.  Sometimes, you just have to reconcile yourself to contradiction, and for me, this is one of those times.  I can simultaneously see this murder for the tragedy it is, chide the hostages from my safe  home  for putting themselves and others in danger through their choice of venues and methods,  and still believe that paying ransom and freeing terrorists only  begets more tragedy.  And what I’m left with is the breathtaking intolerance of murdering someone for  proposing to  worship God in a different way than their death cult demands.  No layer of hell is low enough them.  I wish them a swift arrival.

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*   Not wanting to feel even momentarily  upstaged at the game of extorting money from South Korea, the industry leader has stomped away (again) from talks aimed at reducing  its massive military  buildup along the DMZ.  These talks have been going on for years without a perceptible reduction in the military threat, and for good reason.

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13 Responses

  1. From my experiences in Korea and with Koreans is that they have a wildy naive outlook on the world–especially when it comes to Islamic terror. I have a very good relationship with a 30-yr veteran officer of the ROK Army and even he was ignorant of the dangers Islamists present to Koreans–not just Americans like me. I tried to explain the dangers but I don’t think he truly understands it yet. I know my girlfriend has no idea about any of this, she is one of the too many wildly naive Koreans I speak of. She was truly and genuinely surprised the Taliban murdered Mr. Bae. From what I’ve seen there’s an idea among Koreans that they really don’t have any enemies. So, knowing this mindset, why wouldn’t a Korean Christian group go to a dangerous land such as Afghanistan. What you don’t know (or understand) can indeed kill you. I pray for the hostages’ souls and for the family of Mr. Bae. I hope they are returned to Korea safely. And I hope NATO shows no mercy upon the Taliban.

  2. “Meanwhile, hardly a word of complaint about the Taliban can be heard in Seoul for, you know, kidnapping and/or murdering Korean civilians.”

    If by “Seoul,” you mean the government, I would agree. I’m not in Korea to check the pulse directly, but the overriding sentiments on the Chosun message board for the breaking story about the murder were shock and anger towards the Taliban for killing the man in cold blood and “dumping his body like garbage,” in the words of one commenter.

  3. At the Chosun Ilbo, I found a Korean-language version of the “blame the US” Korean media spin, which probably originates within the Korean government:

    http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2007/07/26/2007072600530.html

    At the bottom is a message board link. Below I’ve roughly translated the messages with the most recommendations:

    The US came and saved us after our counry was attacked and fed the poor and war orphans. Hoewver, the Left at present has painted the US as evil in order to settle grudges and get power. As I read this article, I am reminded of the special nature of the Left and the Taliban, who cozy up when they need something and kill heartlessly when they don’t need.

    김성호 (lifetimelong) 27 9
    우리나라가 북괴침략에 의해 위기에 빠졌을때 미국이 와서 구해주었고 또한 많은 가난한 사람들이나 전쟁고아들을 그들이 먹여주었다. 그러나 현 좌빨 정권은 오로지 자신들의 한풀이와 권력을 위해 그런 고마운 미국을 오히려 악의 대명사로 몰아서 내버렸다. 이 기사를 읽으면서, 필요할땐 들러붙고 필요없을땐 매몰차게 죽이는 탈레반과 좌빨들의 특성이 연상된다. (07/26/2007 13:35:34)

    A gap in the Korea-US alliance? It’s like a noise that punches through a paper window and disturbs one’s sleep. Still singing a song about the alliance after it’s been invalidated? Seems somebody realizes the sad and severe situation of being an international traitor and outcast. The ROK is just a bowl of rice for terrorist organizations in North Korea, the Taliban, and the world.

    이상웅 (simonpeterlee) 26 3
    한미동맹 틈 생길라!? 자다가 봉창 두드리는 소리하고 자빠졌네. 한미동맹이 무효화된지가 언제인데 아직까지 한미동맹 타령인가? 국제 배신자로서의 왕따의 신세가 얼마나 서럽고 매서운 것인지 이제 좀 깨달았을 것이다. 대한민국은 이제 북한 테러집단과 탈레반 테러집단 뿐만 아니라 세계의 모든 테러집단의 밥이요 봉일 뿐이다. (07/26/2007 12:54:38)

    We can consult with Israel on how to deal with cases like this. There was a movie, wasn’t there? In the 1972 Munich Olympics, the criminals who carried out the massacre were hunted down and killed. We ought to participate actively in the war against terrorism and support the US. Rather than a force of barely 210 soldiers, we ought to send money or something like Japan . Even poor Mongolia manages to send more than 210 soldiers.

    이성규 (sklee1959) 23 2
    이 경우 이스라엘의 대처 방식을 참조할 수 있겠다. 영화도 있지 않은가 ? 1972년 뮌헨 올림픽 대학살의 범죄자들을 끝까지 추적해서 모두 사살했다. 단 이를 100% 따라할 수는 없어도 적어도 우리도 테러와의 전쟁에 더 적극적으로 참여하고 미국을 지지해야할 것이다. 겨우 군대 210명 말고 하다못해 일본처럼 돈이라도 보내자. 몽골같은 빈국 조차도 210명보다는 많이보내겠다. (07/26/2007 10:37:59)

    Now, granted it’s the Chosun, but its readership doesn’t seem to buying into this blatant attempt to shift responsibility for securing the hostages’ release onto the US.

  5. Sonagi,

    Good comment. My Korean friends I have talked to have also been very angered by the Taliban’s actions as well. It seems like it is just the Korean government and media trying set conditions to blame “others” if the hostages are killed instead of the Korean government.

    However, if this gets protracted to long the Korean public may get angered enough to where they will demand some kind action from their government. It will be interesting to see how this turns out but we should all hope for the best.

  6. Sonagi, As encouraging as that is, I would be a lot more encouraging if you can cite similar results for Naver or Daum. It’s overwhelmingly the hostages who are being blamed the most, but it looks like there’s a contest underway to see if second place goes to America or the Taliban.

  7. I did check the Naver board attached to a similar article linked on a Marmot’s thread. The messages were mostly critical of the missionaries’ trip and of the prospect of paying millions of dollars in ransom. There is also shock and anger at the Taliban over the murder of Pastor Bae. Among the most rec’d posts, I did not read any criticism of the US in its handling of the hostage crisis. My feeling is that popular sentiment towards the Roh government is so low that shifting blame even to Uncle Sam holds little appeal.

  8. OK, now I’m encouraged. It still pisses me off (but does not surprise me much) that influential people try to manipulate a cheap stunt like this.

  9. I think if the killings of the hostage continues as it has, we will see the pressure on the US in Korea rise. If we get the killing of the hostages string out over a period of weeks to a couple of months, I think it stands a good chance of seeing the anti-US angle rise fairly dramatically in the public domain.

    We have already seen the farther left side of Korean society pick up on this led by the Hanky.

    And I think anyone who knows South Korean society would have to admit that the general, strong tendency of the society as a whole is to follow that segment’s lead.

    Examples: The Great Water Dump of 2000, The Host, and the “USFK destroys our environment” phenomenon that has been a big player in US-SK relations since the late 1990s and certainly since the end of 2000. South Koreans do blame Korean companies. They do know the chaebol are at fault. But, that does not stop them from having a 2 track mind on the environment with one of those tracks being a highly hypocritical and gross exaggeration of the amount of damage South Korea’s environmental situation is due to the US in Korea.

    There are plenty of other examples to find to show how Korean society has a national habit of shifting blame to the US for things that it does not feel comfortable with.

    The Kwangju/Gwangju Massacre for one. Even the assassination of Park Chung Hee. Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian style – and so on. Whatever Korean adults might do and say about those people and those events in relation to their being Korean and responsible for this or that, there is tied to it a need to shift attention to how the US in Korea at the time has a lion’s share of the blame.

    This hostage situation in Afghanistan will be no different.

    At minimum it will end up like the I’m-F (IMF) fiasco of the late 1990s. There is a whole cottage industry in Korean academics dedicated to defining the economic collapse as both American-made and an example of US imperialism — whether the less-leftist members of academia use the term “imperialism” in talking about how the US “threw open” the doors to Korea’s markets by taking advantage of Korea during the IMF period or not….

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