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May 14, 2006

Yankee Come Home

Corporal Henry D. Connell was just a boy of 17 when he died for the freedom and prosperity of a place he probably knew nothing about before his country sent him there. The world has forgotten the hill where he died in a Chinese attack on the night of November 2, 1950, along with the imprisoned country in which the hill can still be found. What was left of Henry Connell’s body remained there until 1994, when his bones, and...
Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 12, 2006

The Rising of the Goons

[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 11, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 39: The Korean Malaise, Anti-Americanism & Anti-Anti-Americanism

The bee-man has officially entered his sixteenth minute, and Korea’s fiery gaze has shifted to the violent excesses of the extreme anti-American left — chiefly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Hanchongryeon. There is new statistical evidence that the violence of the red guards has triggered a backlash and alienated the silent majority. This occurs just 20 days before a round of local elections that will choose the next mayor of Seoul and the governor of Kyonggi Province, among...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 10, 2006

Should Hanchongryon Be Designated a Terrorist Organization?

“Let us eliminate anti-unification pro-war forces which intend to cast fire clouds of a nuclear war on the heads of Koreans. — Hanchongryon Statement before visiting Pyongyang If I’d had any idea that things were this bad on South Korean university campuses, I’d have been paying much closer attention: Seven Korea University students face disciplinary punishment after illegally detaining nine professors for 16 hours. The Yonsei University president is working elsewhere after being driven out of his office some 40...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 9, 2006

Roh Moo Hyun, Imperialist Flunkeyist Lackey!

Remember the good old days when only right-wing regimes would call out the Army to battle protestors or haul North Korean sympathizers before military courts? Chew this one slowly. You owe it to yourself to savor this delectable irony. President Roh Moo-Hyun (of the squishy left) is marshaling the power of the state against the radical unions and students (of the bomb-throwing left), many of whom undoubtedly contributed to this razor-thin election in 2002. It seems so very long ago...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 5, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 2

They’re ba …. ack! A day after the Defense Ministry forcefully evacuated protesters from an area in Pyeongtaek slated for the relocation of U.S. military installations, about 2,500 activists staged abrupt demonstrations by cutting through the fences built around the site of the future base. About 2,000 protesters from around the nation broke through the police line to seal off the area from outsiders. They marched three hours to join about 500 other protesters who had been scouting in Daechu...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 4, 2006

Battle at the Hump: You Can Keep the Place

“During the May 1 North-South Workers’ Rally in Pyongyang, the workers of North and South agreed to unify to carry out the anti-American struggle”¦ The center of that struggle with the United States is Daechu-ri, Pyeongtaek. — Kim Tae-Il, “General Secretary” of the Korea’s largest labor group, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions As predicted, South Korean police have cleared out a group of several hundred local area residents and violent anti-American activists — many from the radical KCTU — who...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 1, 2006

Revealed: The Halliburton Conspiracy to Unify Korea!

A comment to this post implies belief in an old canard of the Korean left that the United States is an invisible hand that keeps Korea divided. That argument depends on any number of dubious lines of reasoning, from control of South Korea’s natural resources (such as . . . ?), to controlling its trade (and yet, China is now Korea’s largest trading partner), to keeping Korea as a client for U.S. arms (a united Korea wouldn’t need arms, and...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Democracy/Geopolitics/Humor/Satire/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 30, 2006

USFK Relocation in Trouble

One of the most interesting things I observed during my recent visit to Seoul was the absence of any apparent arrangements to evacuate Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of Seoul. The relocation plan calls for the evacuation of Yongsan by the end of next year, and the movement of all of its facilities to Camp Humphreys, near the shitty city of Pyeongtaek. Yet the only visible changes at Yongsan are improvements — the new bridge connecting Main and South Post,...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
April 30, 2006

Korean Woman Charged in Yongsan Fire

Via the Stars and Stripes. South Korea’s violent, anti-American political subculture found a willing host in the woman, whom the authorities claim to be mentally ill. Although she set the fire to “punish” the United States for its “terrorism,” she ended up burning three Korean workers severely. There were suggestions that the fire had been accidental. At least the Koreans are prosecuting her and asking for hard time, although I doubt that would happen today if this woman were affiliated...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. Military
April 13, 2006

Also Turning Ugly: USFK Relocation

I wish I had the time to cover the latest Camp Humphreys relocation protests in the detail they deserve, given that I spent seven months of my life there defending young, misunderstood soldiers who were wrongly accused of various things. Humphreys, one of the least pleasant sites in the USFK portfolio, has its advantages: cheap land, proximity to Osan Air Base, and a location south of Seoul and out of artillery range. It makes sense to move most of the...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA/Uncategorized
April 10, 2006

Charles Jenkins in OhMyNews

This one is a must-read. The portrait you get is of a man broken in every way possible, yet almost inexplicably, alive. I’ll give you two quotes and let you read the rest yourself: He believes there are more Americans in the country. “I know they’re there but can’t prove it. They’re left from the Korean and Vietnam wars. There is a place there where they got Americans farming.” . . . . Jenkins secretly indulged his love of American...
Categories Abductions/Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 1, 2006

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,...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 1, 2006

2ID KATUSA Escapes Captivity in N. Korea

Some translation is appropriate for non-military readers: KATUSA means Korean Augmentee to the U.S. Army, and 2ID means Second Infantry Division, a brigade of which remains stretched out in an arc perpendicular to the Northern approaches to Seoul. Hundreds of KATUSAs still serve with U.S. Army units there today, but the first KATUSAs served during the Korean War. Here’s what happened to one of them: Lee participated in the Korean War after enlisting in August 1950 as a Korea auxiliary...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Korean History/North Korea/Refugees/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
March 30, 2006

Someone Please Prosecute This Fool

Prosecution Exhibit A  should be this photograph of a South Korean leftist thug putting his hands on a United States Marine.  While there are numerous reasons why this is widely considered unwise, those reasons don’t include  any reason to  fear that the leftist-dominated Korean government will actually prosecute  people like this  for assault.  “Assault” is what you call it when one person puts his hands on another with hostile intent.  It’s a tribute to this Marine’s discipline that he didn’t...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
March 25, 2006

Yongsan Fire Pics

Thanks to readers who responded to my request for more info on the Yongsan fire last week.  That fire destroyed three buildings on Yongsan or the adjacent Korean Service Corps compound.  Worse, it severely burned  three Korean workers.  One was  burned on 60% of his body and had to be put on a respirator.  Reader “Dan,” presumably a soldier, was living near the scene and ran out to take photographs.  He responded to my request for photos; you can see...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military