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December 28, 2006

Mercurial Politics Watch: Light Entertainment for a Long Year

I didn’t bother fisking  President Roh’s latest attack of the vapors, because I didn’t  have to.  “It’s evident that any missiles North Korea fires won’t target South Korea. So why should the government step forward and tell people to stock up on instant noodles and buy gas masks in preparation for missile attacks from the North?” Referring to parliamentary confirmation hearings of ministers-designate who were asked what caused the Korean War, he complained that lawmakers evidently take him for a...
Categories Korean Politics
December 22, 2006

Roh Learns Bitter Lesson About the Futility of Appeasing Implacable Foes

… inside his own party. The president also laid into three aspiring candidates in next year’s presidential election, describing his appointment of the moderate Goh Kun as his first prime minister as “a failure. “I chose Goh in the hope that he would become a bridge bringing me closer to conservatives, but it alienated me and the government from them instead,” Roh said. His decision to appoint Uri Party hopefuls Kim Geun-tae and Chung Dong-young as health and unification ministers...
Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. Military
December 13, 2006

Korean Apartheid Watch

Arnold knew of only one pool in town, but when she went there she was told, ‘No Foreigners Allowed.”’ She asked a Korean co-worker to call for her and explain that she had to swim for health reasons. “I explained about you (doctor’s order) but they said no,” the co-worker wrote in a follow up e-mail. “Foreigner(s) cannot use the pool.”   [link] The article is incorrect when it states that discrimination is legal in Korea.  As I explained in...
Categories Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
December 13, 2006

N. Korean Agent Received Orders Through Korean-Canadian ‘Comrade’

We have more details about Kang Soon-Jeong, co-chairman of the pro-North Korean group that led the violent 9/11/05 protests that attempted to tear down the MacArthur statue in Incheon, and who also played a role in the much more violent Pyeongtaek protests last spring. Kang allegedly took orders via a Korean-Canadian and over five years sent some 500 reports to North Korea. They included photos of the massive anti-American protests following the death of two schoolgirls who were killed by...
Categories Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
December 12, 2006

Fifth Column Update

Prosecutors have identified additional suspects in the Il Shim Hue cell, who they think provided the following types of information to the North Koreans: The suspects reportedly provided information on the six-nation talks and the internal split of the Grand National Party over the National Security Law to Mr. Jang starting early last year. Internal conflicts in the army and developments in the judicial and media communities were also provided to Mr. Jang. That information was delivered to Pyongyang, sources...
Categories Six-Party Talks/The Fifth Column
December 12, 2006

On Second Thought, We Can Too Remain Silent (Updated)

Update:   To extend the Marmot’s comment on this issue, sometimes it is necessary to call bullshit to cry freedom.  I thought it would be fun to contrast the South Korean Human Rights Commission’s  refusal of jurisdiction  to investigate or talk about human rights in North  Korea with its March 26,  2003  condemnation of the U.S.-coalition invasion of Iraq.  As I found this morning, the English versions of the HRC’s previous statements and annual reports  had recently and mysteriously vanished...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Unintended Humor/WTF?
December 9, 2006

S. Korean Businessman Praised for Helping to Print Distorted Textbooks

Books printed by the recipient of the donated printing press have been known to deny the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea, support policies that  have killed millions of Koreans,  and falsely accuse  American soldiers of an organized campaign of rape on the streets of Seoul.  Unlike past controversies over foreign textbooks, however, police predict absolutely  no outrage on the streets this time.  Foreign analysts who were asked to explain the uncharacteristic calm simply shook their heads in befuddlement and...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Unintended Humor/WTF?
December 9, 2006

South Korea’s Influence Machine

The Donga Ilbo has an excellent piece on how South Korea lobbies Congress.  Well worth reading in its entirety. Related:  how it tries to influence the American  press. Also related:   Felony violations  of the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act  are now classified as Specified Unlawful Activity  under 18 U.S.C. sec. 1956, meaning the transactions of unregistered agents are considered money laundering.
Categories Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
December 8, 2006

Which ‘Major Government Offices’ Contained N. Korean Moles?

Update:   The Chosun Ilbo thinks the investigation’s recent lack of progress is suspicious. A court has issued five indictments, including one against U.S. citizen, former soldier, and current traitor, Jang Min Ho. In the Korean judicial system, those who are indicted are virtually always convicted, so these fellows are looking at some time. Prosecutors also said the group delivered secret information to Pyongyang under direct or e-mail directives from a North Korean spy operative. The information provided was mostly...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea
December 8, 2006

Arrest Galloper, Part 2

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over. We finally have closure in a terrible tragedy in which  innocent Korean  pedestrians were cut down by  a reckless foreigner,  who managed to evade local justice and (the outrage!) face a quickie trial and light punishment  in his home country’s courts.  Remember the protests and the vigils?  No?  Probably because the driver was a drunk South Korean Hyundai Asan  employee, and the victims were North Korean soldiers.  Two were injured, one...
Categories Korean Law/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA/Uncategorized
December 6, 2006

Just Wondering…

Does the National Human Rights Commission make a distinction between peaceful protest and violent protest?  On the one hand, it’s pretty obvious that the South Korean government is trying to censor both peaceful and violent opposition to the proposed Free Trade Agreement (and it’s such a dead issue, all you can do is wonder why anyone bothers).  On the other hand, when protestors get through the police blockades, things like this happen.  Another 20 injured today.  Gee, I wonder if...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
December 6, 2006

A Billion for Tribute, But Not One More Cent for Defense!

Update:   Guess what?  GI Korea had it exactly right all along.    All hail GI Korea!   Wow.  Talk about nailing it. Let’s compare the $780 million dollar cost sharing agreement to the amount of money Seoul sends to North Korea.   While North Korea was busy creating international stability with their ballistic missile and nuclear bomb tests, the South Korean government was busy sending them a record amount of humanitarian aid.   The South Korean government sent $227...
Categories An Alliance?/NK Economics/U.S. Military/Washington Views
December 6, 2006

South Korea’s ‘Hostile’ Class

Leaving no stone unturned in its quest to emulate North Korean concepts of social justice, South Korea has announced the first official list of 100  Japanese collaborators whose blood, we can suppose,  will hereby stain three generations of class enemies (from way back in 1904, in some cases!).  Just to make sure the new songbun designations become nice and official, the government sent notices to  said descendants.  Depending on whose report you believe, there are either about 400, about 800,...
Categories History/Japan & Korea/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/WTF?
December 6, 2006

Just the Latest Juche Idiocy from the Korean Teachers’ Union

The students went up on stage and told participants they had distributed anti-war badges around the nation in protest against the Iraq war and said they felt unifying the two Koreas was a way to create “a world without wars. They also joined the former communist guerrillas in the shouting of their old slogans against “imperialist Yankee soldiers” and the “puppet regime of Syngman Rhee. Kim, who also instructed his students to operate an online group that opposes the U.S.-led...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/The Fifth Column
December 5, 2006

Robert Gates Gets It (Mostly) Right on Korea

Consider that:  how often do bloggers, who live to bite ankles, find no fault with the pronouncements of those who make policy?  I begin my observation of Gates as SecDef as a skeptic.  And indeed, nothing that Gates could say about Korea could make me a fan if he prescribes Surrender Lite in Iraq or “learning to live with” an Iranian bomb.  But listen carefully to his views on the Koreas, from his confirmation hearings.  Begin in 1994, back when...
Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Washington Views