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Category: Anti-Americanism

June 25, 2008

With Friends Like These (Pt. 2)

Via Robert, there is finally confirmation for something I’ve long suspected — the South Korean government brings anti-Americanism to the bargaining table and uses it as a negotiating tool: Hong Seong-tae, a sociology professor at Sangji University, said, “The anti-American sentiment, voluntarily created by citizens, helps South Korea increase its negotiating power in its relations with the U.S. In fact, Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said, “Whenever the negotiations were at risk of failing, I produced a picture of the candlelight...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism
June 25, 2008

With Friends Like These (Pt. 1)

Today is June 25, 2008, the 58th anniversary of Japan’s America’s North Korea’s invasion of South Korea.  I hope you’ll excuse my temporary confusion; my han has been acting up again: More than half of teenagers here do not know when the Korean War broke out or who started it, showing ignorance about the country’s history and national security.  The Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Monday that a survey of 1,016 middle and high school students showed nearly...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean History
June 16, 2008

B.S. Stands for ‘Bovine Spongiform’

At this time a year ago, I thought by now that I’d be writing about the restoration of an alliance that Roh Moo Hyun had just about managed to destroy.  Although I’ve long felt that  a large  U.S. military presence in South Korea was an anachronism no longer justifed by any North Korean threat, I saw benefits to having  a healthy military, diplomatic, and economic alliance between South Korea and the United States.  Also, I think it would be nice...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
April 13, 2008

Kim Won Ung: A Most Joyous Political Obituary

Imagine an America  in which  Cynthia McKinney chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and holds regular meetings with Osama Bin Laden,  and you can  be begin  to grasp the national embarrassment of Kim Won Ung’s tenure as leader of the Korean National Assembly’s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee.  Perhaps this analogy will also illustrate  the depth of my ambivalence at confirming that Kim  has lost his bid for reelction.  Kim Won Ung at Kim Il Sung’s Birthplace in North...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics
April 9, 2008

America: Now 16% Less Hated!

We have some more results for the OFK poll archive on South Korean anti-Americanism. Koreans’ attitudes toward the U.S. are improving, according to a poll by Britain’s broadcaster BBC late last year. A survey of 17,457 people in 34 countries on U.S. influence in the international community shows that the number of positive respondents outnumbered negativists only in South Korea and Portugal. Among 1,031 South Korean respondents, 49 percent showed a mainly positive attitude toward the U.S. The number of...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Society
February 21, 2008

The Morally Retarded Lorin Maazel, Part 2

Lorin Maazel could really use a publicist who understands the concept of “stop digging.” Just when we thought we’d put this flame war behind us, he goes off again, in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page. With time for further reflection and careful editing, here’s how he rephrases his central point: If we are to be effective in bringing succor to the oppressed, many languishing in foreign gulags, the U.S. must claim an authority based on an immaculate ethical record,...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Deprogramming/Human Rights/WTF?
February 8, 2008

The Morally Retarded Lorin Maazel

I’ve  already said that I’m  ambivalent about the visit of the New York Philharmonic to North Korea.  They will play some  good music,  which will probably do little harm and little good.   If we would just accept the music on its face value without injecting politics into it, this visit wouldn’t be taking on  such a  pernicious odor.  Is that too much to ask?  Apparently. Spurred on by the mendacious appeaser  Christopher Hill, the Philharmonic  now imagines itself as an...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Human Rights/WTF?
February 1, 2008

KCTU Declares Jihad Against Lee M.B., Scores Meeting With Nancy Pelosi

On Tuesday, I wrote that  President-Elect Lee was about to meet with the  leaders of  South  Korea’s largest,  most radical, and most violent labor organization — the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.  There was, however, the matter of KCTU Chairman Lee Sok-Haeng’s outstanding arrest warrant for an “illegal” rally last October.  President-Elect Lee, showing more interest in public order than his  predecessor,  was not willing to let this  slide or grant  Chairman Lee the special  privilege of being questioned at...
Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. Politics
August 6, 2007

Pew: Anti-Americanism Declined in South Korea (But Read the Fine Print)

According to this year’s Pew Global attitudes report, anti-Americanism has declined significantly in South Korea, from  46% favorable  in 2003 to 58% favorable last year.  Pew says that the “U.S. image has improved dramatically” there, and while  this result suggests  a significant and positive change,  Pew’s  enthusiasm is overstated, because Pew is comparing two extremes that may overstate the actual situation. Pew’s first point of comparison is 2003, when anti-Americanism  was at its fevered peak, when  no South Korean politician...
Categories Anti-Americanism
August 3, 2007

Newsweek: Seoul Paid Ransom to Fake Kidnappers

First, a few updates.  A representative for the hostages’ families has rejected invitations  from radical groups to turn this into the next anti-American election year  issue: The families of the Korean hostages spoke out against a movement to hold the U.S. responsible for the unresolved crisis, saying anti-American demonstrations could put the hostages’ lives at greater risk. The families turned down an offer by some anti-American organizations to stage a candlelight rally. Lee Jeong-hoon, a representative of the families, said...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq
August 2, 2007

Double Extortion

Yesterday’s report that a hostage  rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan turned out to be premature, but spin operations in Seoul  are sharply accelerating.  In a South Korean election year, it couldn’t be more predicatable that its unpopular  and desperate leftist government, far-left “civic” groups, and certain media are looking for a way to make the  Taliban’s  kidnapping and murder of 23 Korean hostages  America’s fault.  It remains to be seen whether the greater  South Korean public will buy this....
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Terrorism/Iraq
July 31, 2007

Ransom Is Not a Countermeasure

The Taliban have now murdered a second South Korean hostage.  I don’t know what I can say about the Taliban that I haven’t already said, other than that the odds are good they can be tracked down for their trials and whatever appropriately miserable  fate awaits them in Pol-e-Charki Prison.  There have been a lot of stories recently  reporting that  dozens of their fighters have been killed.  Stories like this may or may not indicate a more significant trend.  Insurgencies...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq
July 26, 2007

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,...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/Religion/Terrorism/Iraq
April 17, 2007

Where All of the Guilty Ones Get Fair Trials

I suspect that relatively  few  members or staffers had time to read the long-winded  written statement I submitted to the record with my September 27, 2006 congressional testimony.  Starting on page  Page 79, I described the many procedural and institutional reasons why  American soldiers do not receive fair trials in Korean courts.  I drew heavily on stories that GI Korea and USinKorea had originally linked in preparing it, along with the assistance of a good friend I asked to fact-check...
Categories Anti-Americanism/UCMJ & SOFA
April 16, 2007

Anju Links for 16 April 2007

*  My latest K-blog discovery is “Six Happy Feet,” a superb photoblog with a great  name.  You’ll want to put this one on your blogrolls.  It’s hard to read  it without concluding that this is just a genuinely nice family. *   A Nation’s Conscience.   Some South Koreans are demanding freedom for those North Korean refugees in Laos — the ones the South Korean government refused to help.  *   Heal Thyself, Part 1.   I can understand why...
Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2:   Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive.  Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions.  Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over  15 years, which is a long time.  (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.)   Korea also gets to protect its rice market.  There’s really only one bright spot I...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
March 31, 2007

An FTA Pre-Post Mortem

At this hour, it looks like free trade talks with South Korea are about to fail, despite their extension for another 48 hours.   It may be  a bit  early for  the Chosun Ilbo  to have  published this post-mortem, but any free-trade agreement we reach now will be unworthy of the name and hardly worth doing from an American perspective.  Yes, I still  believe an US-Korean FTA is a good idea, but it’s pretty hard to  write a good one when...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
March 15, 2007

Al-Qaeda Planned USFK Attacks

From the confession of the Ron Jeremy look-alike known as  Khalid Sheikh Mohammad: 23. I was responsible for planning and surveying to hit American targets in South Korea, such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers. The thought occurred to me almost every post-9/11 day I was assigned to Korea.  The “Hooker Hill” district  of Itaewon mixes very uneasily with the nearby Korea Islam Mosque, a congregation that includes a  high percentage of conversative...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military