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Category: Anti-Americanism

April 7, 2006

Some People Will Believe Anything

The question you really have to ask yourself on reading tripe like this is whether a mature, self-assured democracy would plot to disturb international peace and commerce for a windswept and essentially uninhabited pile of guano. I’ll go out on a long limb here and say Japan and the United States wouldn’t, because unlike South Korea, they are mature and self-assured democracies. You can’t keep a stable alliance with a nation where urban legend passes for public discourse, leading us...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Japan & Korea/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
April 6, 2006

Links of Interest

The Flying Yangban has lots of good stuff up today. If you’re in or near Seoul and aren’t working with LiNK yet, they’re holding another meeting Saturday afternoon. Andy also links to an analysis from the International Crisis Group, giving the encouraging conclusion that the U.S. will never allow anything made in Kaesong to be included in a free-trade agreement. He also informs us of the latest machinations in South Korean politics. Yet more calls for America to disengage from...
Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Islam/Korean Politics/NK Economics/North Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
April 4, 2006

Anti-American Protest Video at Usinkorea

The Korea Sojourner, a/k/a usinkorea, has put up a video montage of some recent anti-American protests. In some parts, especially where he puts up the lyrics to the latest catchy hate song (which has an unmistakably North Korean sound), he does a service to the uninitiated. Soundtrack, too! Judge for yourself: 1. Just how “peaceful” these peace activists are; 2. How effectively the Korean police have kept their violent acts away from U.S. forces that are defending Korea; 3. If...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/U.S. & Korea/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

A Brief History of Insincerity

As a young activist, Roh Moo Hyun called for the expulsion of U.S. forces from Korea. As a candidate, Roh Moo-Hyun rhetorically moved his nation from America’s tit to its feet and promised not to “kowtow” to its long-time protector and benefactor. Speaking before the United Nations last September, President Roh Moo Hyun said this before the entire UN General Assembly: The world must completely divest itself of mindsets and vestiges reminiscent of imperialistic tendencies that appear to linger in...
Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Humor/Satire/Korean Politics/Uncategorized/WTF?
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
February 17, 2006

Paxil for the Lot of You: Cartoons Don’t Kill, Idiocy Does

[Updated] Not a good week for the idea of peaceful coexistence with the undiagnosed and insane.  It may be time to revisit the subject of secretly medicating city water supplies. “We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews.”  Fortunately, my blood is only half   delicious. “Riots in Pakistan spurred by the publication in Europe of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad spilled over to a South Korean...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Europe/Humor/Satire/Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq/WTF?
February 15, 2006

NK ‘Spokesman’: We Have ICBMs!

Today’s WTF headline is this piece of work by Kim Myong Chol, North Korea’s unofficial and unmedicated spokesman in Japan.  The real torment of this piece is the difficulty of deciding which of the choicest cuts to serve you: Three factors make North Korea unique. The first is possession of a fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of unleashing retaliatory nuclear strikes on the US mainland. Second, the North Koreans still torment the Americans as a result of their...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Asia/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Humor/Satire/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
February 14, 2006

Korean Teachers’ Union Gets Some Competition

You may recall how the KTU recently made itself  famous in the Korea blogosphere: its “What a Wonderful World” video for the APEC Summit.  This led, in part,  to an acrimonious controversy over education reform and a silly GNP boycott  of the National Assembly.  On a somwhat more productive front, tt also led to the formation of an upstart rival: The Korean Liberal Teachers Union, established last month by teachers opposed to the educational direction of the left-leaning workers union,...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/Korean Politics/Korean Society
August 7, 2005

Signs of the Times: So This Is Why I Spent Four Years in Korea

Above: 1950. A Marine plays taps over the graves of just a few of the 33,629 Americans killed in action in Korea. Below: August 2005. South Korean demonstrators show their appreciation for their prosperity and freedom of speech by standing at the entrance to a soccer match holding signs that say, “American soldiers not admitted.” The U.S. team was not playing. Isolated incident? No. Barring American soldiers from Korean businesses is quite common, as I can attest from personal experience,...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Racism
June 22, 2005

PROPAGANDA SITE OF THE WEEK: AXIS TO GRIND

From the statement page of the Axis to Grind website: Axis to Grind exposes the clash of cultures of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and North America… our status quo misrepresentation of north Korea actually stands as an obstacle to peace and reunification for the Korean peninsula… My first rapid unlearning of my attitudes about north Korea came when I visited there for 6 weeks as part of an International March for Peace & Reunification of the Korea,...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Media Criticism
June 21, 2005

THE UNFORTUNATE RESULT OF THE SUNSHINE POLICY

Since its inception with former President Kim Dae-jung, the Sunshine Policy has evolved to complicate U.S. Policy efforts in North Korea, but also to hurt the North Korean people. At first the unprecedented policy was acclaimed on all sides, since it had never actually been tried, and resulted in the historic June 2000 summit (which earned Kim Dae-jung his Nobel Peace Prize). But long after its uselessness has been demonstrated, South Korean politicians still pursue the Sunshine Policy, doing anything...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics
May 31, 2005

ANTI-AMERICAN PROTEST AT YONGSAN POST & US EMBASSY, 29 MAY

Following the anti-North Korean rally on Friday, where the older generation called for a stronger ROK-U.S. alliance, South Korean students protested the presence of the U.S. military on the peninsula: Thousands of South Korean students rallying Sunday against the U.S. military’s five-decade presence clashed with police after trying to enter the American base, and at least 12 people were injured and more than 20 were arrested. Demonstrators marched through Seoul before attempting to enter the main Yongsan U.S. military base...
Categories Anti-Americanism