My Bold & Not So Bold Predictions for 2007
Here is my first ever attempt at fortune telling. It will be interesting to see how my predictions turn out at the end of the year. If I hit on half of them I will be pretty impressed. Anyway here are my bold and on a few of them not so bold predictions for 2007:
South Korea
– President Roh Moo-hyun will not resign. (Damn)
– Lee Myung-bak will win the South Korean presidency. (Yeah!)
– President Roh will continue to squash the spy scandal investigation.
– Ban Ki-moon will have little impact on the UN. (UN has little impact with or without Ban)
– Zaytun unit will be redeployed from Iraq. (Pretty much assured.)
– Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not visit war shrine. (I think 50-50 chance)
– There will be no Japanese invasion of Dokdo. (You wouldn’t know it talking to some Koreans.)
North Korea
– Six party talks will make about as much progress next year as it did this year (not exactly a bold prediction).
– North Korea will do something before the South Korean election in order to sway the vote towards whoever is running on the Sunshine Policy platform. (Could be a inter-Korean summit or a armed confrontation depending on the current political situation.)
– North Korea will not conduct another nuclear test (It won’t make as much headlines as the first test did; best to save what little nuclear material they have.)
– North Korea will conduct another missile test (Last test seen as failure, a successful ICBM test across Pacific would make huge headlines.)
– Kim Jong-il will not name a successor (Kim Jong-il won’t name successor until he is really ill.)
– Kim Jong-il won’t get a hair cut anytime soon (Goes without saying.)
Korea-US Issues
– Some kind of anti-US incident will happen that will be manipulated for political purposes (It’s an election year, something absurd will happen).
– USFK will handle it much better than they did in 2002 (Lot’s of lessons learned from previous anti-US hatefests).
– The Camp Humphreys location will officially be delayed by the Pentagon.
– US announces further reductions of forces on the peninsula (Will be influenced by operational control and Camp Humphreys issues).
– Operational control will be handed to the ROK Army at 2009 (No matter if they are ready or not).
– There will be no FTA (another not so bold prediction).
– US beef will continued to be blocked from the South Korean market.
– South Korea will not get a visa waiver (Too much visa fraud).
Like I said, some bold and some not so bold, but I am confident that it will be an interesting year on the peninsula due to the impending presidential election and the North Korea and USFK issues that are still unresolved. Anyone else have any predictions they want to make?Â
"North Korea will do something before the South Korean election in order to sway the vote towards whoever is running on the Sunshine Policy platform."
If it comes, it will be a provocation.
NK has shown good insight into how the world works, but suprisingly to me, only when it comes to brinkmanship. You would think as good as they are at one, they would be good at the other, but they have not been.
What I mean is, they haven't given President Roh many bones to play with to win SK public opinion.
They held the Summit in 2000 because they were still reeling from the famine and collapse of the 1990s – and President Kim Dae Jung gave them a boat load of hard currecny. —- But the 2000 summit (and 1998 IM-F collapse) also flipped South Korean society on its ear. In 1998, South Koreans decided they didn't want unification except in theory, and in 2000 they fell completely in love with the idea NK is a long lost brother that isn't as bad as the world (and their former dictators) said all the time.
Since 2000 —- NK has been sitting very pretty in South Korean society.
But, Roh's incompetence has been hurting the NK gains.
There have been a few instances in Roh's term that NK could have helped him out greatly by throwing him some bones. The South Korean people really, really want to keep a solid fiction about the North in their minds, but the North has done very little to encourage it since 2000-2001.
It doesn't make sense.
It makes me think that Richardson and a couple others might be right when saying many of NK's foreign policy initiatives are driven by domestic concerns. Maybe Kim Jong Il can't throw Roh bones too much, because any widely known good relations with the South would cause problems among the military leaders and others Kim needs for survival…..???….
That would make sense out of what doesn't make sense.
Back in 2000, the NK press said that Kim Dae Jung's visit proved the North had won the Cold War and South Korea was surrendering in a way and that was why they were giving the North stuff.
Maybe they decided that line of thinking wouldn't work long term…
"- USFK will handle it much better than they did in 2002 (Lot’s of lessons learned from previous anti-US hatefests)."
I'm curious what lessons you think the brass learned…
It sounds like one of the comments you hear from time to time in the K-blogsphere about how USFK and the US need to do a better job at publicizing itself to the Korean people.
In my review of the armored vehicle accident, I found, via the Stars and Stripes, a fair amount of things USFK did that nobody in Korea ever heard about – like visiting the families of the victims at the hospital on the day of the accident and giving them the customary small money for breavement.
Then the first candlelight vigil was held — by USFK – 7 days after the accident — and some 4 to 5 months before Korean society began using them instead of the violent protests that had gotten some bad international press.
USFK also came to a monetary settlement with families and the Korean government within a month.
I bet less than 10% of the Korean population has any clue about any of these things listed above.
And short of the US buying up a couple of big Korean news agencies to put out its own message – there isn't a whole hell of a lot USFK can do.
When I read something like GI Korea's quote above on the blogs, I get the feeling what is meant is that the US could have made several positive moves to defuse the situation —
and I think that is exactly opposite what seems to work.
The USFK commander, Rumsfeld, Powell, and then Bush apologizing only raised Korea's ire.
What really made the difference —
what really made an IMMEDIATE difference — if you look back at the news archives (and I noticed it at the time) —-
was when Rumsfeld said at the end of 2002 and kept saying in early 2003 —
that the US would be more than willing to withdraw USFK if the South Korean people wanted —-
—and followed up this "threat" by announcing the downsizing of USFK by 1/3rd and used as part of the reason that a smaller USFK footprint in South Korea would help deminish Korean society's anti-USFK attitude (thus using the fresh memory of SK's 6-8 month orgy of hate inpart to justify the major cutting of USFK troops)
the Korean media and bulk of the public knew it was time to kill the anti-US hatefest, and they did fairly quickly.
There is a lesson to be learned there.
The US is most effective in dampening ——- the public display of anti-US/USFK attitudes ——- (key words being "public display") — when it calls Korean society's bluff…..
Maybe that is why the Korean Natiional Assembly gave retiring Congressman Henry Hyde an award of approval as he leaves office????
Hyde was the only big name US politician who consistently over a significant period of time kept saying the US-SK alliance was in trouble and the US needed to do something about it including considering getting out.
"- US announces further reductions of forces on the peninsula"
I'm not Catholic.
Which saint should I light a candle for to help this prediction come true?
I don't want to get into criticizing generals on here from 2002 because everyone in 2002 was doing the best they could, but I have worked under General Valcourt before and from personal experience I can say he understands Korea much better than anyone from 2002. That was one the reasons he was brought to Korea to be the 8th Army commander. Also General Bell from what I have seen so far has been a great USFK commander. So with two quality generals running the show I think large political incidents will be handled better.
If they would listen to me, they'd follow Rumsfeld, Rice, and Hyde's examples.
For whatever reason, apologizing, battening down the hatches, and trying to defuse things by being nice is seen as vulnerability and Korean society smells blood, and the society as whole pounces.
Stating minor complaints with the Korean press and such is also just fuel for the fire.
This has all been repeated in Korea frequently over the years by the US in Korea.
Apologizing is good when in the wrong. Trying to get the message out through the Korean media and other avenues is good.
But, when we have more right on our side than wrong —
—the best way to handle Korea is to stand up and fight.
One example I have repeated a good bit was Rice's visit in early 2003 when the anti-US orgy had started to die down after months of it. (It had started to die after the American press woke up and began running many stories on it and Rumsfeld announced troop cut backs)
According to the press, Rice was meeting with top Korean gov people, and they were trying to defuse the growing ire being displayed in DC and the US press.
They said something similar to what I noted in the other comments — that "If USFK had only handled this and that better, the whole thing could have been avoided." They mentioned apologies and accepting blame early on and so on – to which the USFK people with Rice are said to have responded that they had, in fact, done each of those things and early on.
But, to the Korean hand-wringing —
Rice is said to have asked if the Korean officials new the names of the two dead girls. They said of course they did. And Rice is said to have asked next if they knew the names of the 7 or 8 Korean soldiers killed in the West Sea Clash due to the North Korean attack just a month or two before the tank accident ——
and of course the Korean officials could not name those Korean GIs who had died fighting for their country.
That is how Korea needs to be handled when it is unreasonably drumming up anti-US activity.
Like with the current beef import issue — the US would be well advised to take a look at the Great Garlic War with China.
Korea was making money hand over fist in China with telecommunications and heavy industry chemical products and so on, and the Korean government cut a trade deal that would increase Korean profits in China, but it also cut Korean tarrifs on Chinese fishery products and some agricultural products like garlic.
The Korean government tried to keep the deal secret, but when the press broke the story, the Korean government void to renegociate the tarrif reductions in the future — which were not supposed to happen but incrementally over a few years.
When China saw the Korean people and media fanning the flames of nationalism and the Korean government caving in —
—it did something US doesn't do —– it thumped Korea upside the head.
It placed high tarrifs on telecommunication and chemical industrial products, and what happened? Did this bold move against Korea only cause the flames of nationalism to grow ever higher?
You would think logically that would be the case, but it wasn't.
The oppostive happened: the Korean press did a 180 and told the people to shut up and told the government to stop talking about renegociating the deal. And the Korean people listened.
Korean society does understand which side its bread is buttered on – but if you pussyfoot around with them in the name of not damaging the alliance any more than the latest spike in anti-US activity brings with it —
—it encourages Korean society to go even further – because it stokes their national pride.
But, forcing South Korea to admit how much they benefit from trade and the relationship does work.
In fact, if I were a powerful member of the US government, I'd try to get contacts within the NY Times and Washington Post and Time magazine and CNN and so on —
—and when Korea is being rather unreasonable —
I'd have these media contacts write stories about it.
That one little move right there – if the government could get editors and reporters to do such a thing —-
would strengthen the US-SK alliance more than ANYTHING ELSE the US government might try.
An article in the NY Times negative on Korea is more influencial in Korea than the Pentagon and State Department combined —- this is true just short of the Pentagon announcing troop cut backs…..
The US will have to get much better in dealing with PR issues surrounding its soldiers and GIs. I was appalled at how the Marine "rape" case in the Philippines was allowed to spiral out of control.
The marine was sentenced to 40 years, way too harsh a punishmnet for the particulars of this case. The US is not overly impressed with the legal system in South Korea or the Philippines, but is too diplomatic to tell their allies that their legal systems are third world, and instead, subjects its soldiers to a biased system.
The US botched the case in the Philippines by being too cooperative with the Philippine legal system. The media, activist groups and grandstanding judges collaborated in creating a charged atmosphere that caused unfair treatment of this case. And, it is getting no media attention in the US except to refer to the Marine "rapist" causing problems in the relationship. No media questioning the sentence, the trial, the atmosphere.
I totally agree that the US government doesn't stand up for it's soldiers as strongly as it should. The 2002 accident as USinKorea mention is an example of not defending the soldiers enough and recently with the assault in Dongducheon it was another:
http://rokdrop.com/2006/09/01/the-sofa-agreement-…
The assault in Dongducheon did get some congressional attention at least from Congressmen Hyde's office but with him retired now it has long been forgotten. Expecting the US media to defend the rights of US soldiers will not happen. They are to busy looking for stuff to accuse us of war crimes for.
I believe the US has an interest in working with host countries to reduce GI crime. Although the crime rate of GIs is low, since each "incident" gets a high level of activist and media attention, much of it biased, so all efforts should be made to reduce these crimes.
However, there is a difference in real crime and traffic incidents and stupid brawls. These brawls usually involve Koreans and GIs who are equally at fault, but the Koreans know how to work the system. These need to be handled with fines or handed to the US military for administrative disciplines. It is ridiculous for GIs to have to pay tens of thousands of dollars and risk prison terms for these incidents and the USFK needs to make this clear to the Korean hosts.
In the Philippine case, the courts turned the "rape" case into a circus and now the US must deal with the result. The young Marine involved may need to punished but not with a 40 years sentence and not for the history of colonialism, which is what the trial became.
The US needs to protect its soldiers from systems that are clearly biased against them. What the US should not do is continue to apologize and give up rights under its treaties. If the host legal systems demonstrate the US soldiers are being treated unfairly, this should be made clear to the hosts and the host's legal jurisdiction over US soldiers should be reduced, not increased.
Everyone knows I'm not an apologist for South Korea when it comes to USFK or the US relationship as a whole, but —- from what I've been able to follow over the years, the Korean justice system itself is not incredibly lopsided in its bias against GIs.
As far as I've been able to tell, the conviction rate for GIs has been 100%, but even there, prosecutors usually have a high conviction rate. I don't remember well, but I think I found one article from the Stars and Stripes that put the military procecutor's rate in the 90% range.
The 1995 subway brawl case was a travesty of justice.
The 2000 water dumping case was a travesty of justice.
But, in the end, even with both of them, the actual fate of the people involved was not too great.
In 1995, it seemed clear the GI was convicted for defending his Korean wife when the Korean man who came to "protect her honor" supposedly spit on her and slapped her when she told him the American was her husband.
But, in the end, that GI (and the wife) had to pay a fine of, I think, around $1,000 – $2,000 dollars.
In 2000, the Seoul prosecutor recommended a fine for the disposal of embalming fluid in the base sewer system, which is all a Korean would have faced, but the judge through it out as part of the euphoria over the SK-NK Summit and the large amount of pent up anti-US/USFK anger that unleashed for months on end.
Several years later, however, as the Korean court kept trying to get the US civilian worker in court, in the end, a small fine was the result.
In the cases I've been able to find information on, the GIs have been given prison sentences and fines in line with what I've seen in a few examples for what Koreans doing similar crimes have gotten.
The area where the courts do a horrible job isn't with the sentencing of GIs — it's what they have done with Koreans who commit crimes against GIs that is truly bad.
Several of the big time anti-US NGO leaders have had judges throw their cases out of court for nationalistic reasons. There have been a few quotes over the years from judges about why it would be wrong to try such a civic leader due to the amount of "attention" they draw to "important" issues that would make your jaw drop.
When GIs (or other foreigners for that matter) are the victims of crime, the police and courts don't want to touch it.
In the 2002 subway case, after the first 2 days of the typical "USFK needs to hand the criminal GIs over" stuff came from the press and government, and after Korea saw that this time the US was pissed off too much to "endure" and the NY Times ran a story about the GI being beaten and held captive by the anti-US mob, eventually – the police stated publically that they had concluded the anti-US NGO leader and former National Assembly member kicked out of office for pro-North Korea activity — had started the fight.
So what did they do?
They thought it was gracious enough that they had let the time period for charging the GI with a crime pass.
They did not charge the person they concluded started the fight.
Nor did they prosecute the university students who had beaten the GI and held him captive. They said it was hard to find out who actually did it.
I guess the videos on the internet and photos from the anti-US festival showing the soldier being guarded by protesters as they forced the GI to watch the elaborate anti-US show and also participate by writing out a "confession" were not evidence enough to go by……
Nice to see my memetic engineering — by repetitively reminding you all about Lt.Gen Charles Campbell crying on the Sixty Minutes show after being asked about Korean treachery — has seeded and yielded fruit.
Here below USinKorea, Kate, and GI flatter me by plagiarizing my main themes that I have repeated over and over: the treachery of feckless American leadership within the US military who obey a commander-in-Chief… whose main allegiance is the SKULL and BONES agenda.
USinKorea says: "For whatever reason, apologizing, battening down the hatches, and trying to defuse things by being nice is seen as vulnerability and Korean society smells blood, and the society as whole pounces."
Damn right, USinKorea.
Kate says: "The US needs to protect its soldiers from systems that are clearly biased against them. What the US should not do is continue to apologize and give up rights under its treaties."
Kate, for a woman … you aren't too stupid.
The go-along to get-along GI Korea jumps on the bandwagon and says: "I totally agree that the US government doesn’t stand up for it’s soldiers as strongly as it should."
GI, yea … you can come along and play with us.
You are all good students. But, I must remind you that intelligence monitors are data-basing your conspiratorial comments for future reference.
Now, gather around the conspiracy campfire for a tale in order to understand why your leadership has no qualms handing you over to appease the savage's Asian pride. The reason is … your leaders are trained no longer to be defenders of the US constitution, but have been indoctrinated to be "global citizens" who see its subordinates as human resources easily sacrificed for the common good. A prosthetic leg for Arabs or an unfair lenghty prison sentence to gratify Koreans is one's global community service. "Service Learning" in the US military does have its underlying motive: happy cannon-fodder who believe they are making a difference in the world.
The common good sought is the economic integration of China, South Korea, and Japan with the ASEAN structure … in order to create an Asian Union — an economic and political structure linking with the North American Union for a comprehensive global management system. For this reason, US policy indirectly subidizes North Korea, by subsidizing South Korea's subsidization of North Korea: in order to create an Asian "War on Terror" that frightens the savages — making them consolidate for mutual security. The same reason why Iraq is encouraged to implode into civil war: de-moralize the region to make them beg for a strategic partnership with America.
Don't be a lazy intellectual slacker and prove Kerry right … start looking into the matter. Then come back and talk turkey.
Ahh, Silly Sally,… just when it seems you can't argue with the logic that's been around for years, you claim the logic as your own. First, I'd like to see where you've said all this before. Then, I'd like to see proof that no one else had ever said any of this before you. You can't do that, can you? Gee, go figure.
Nice how you told Kate, "Kate, for a woman … you aren’t too stupid."… Let me enlighten you. Sally is also a woman's name. Are you confused? Or is it that all Trolls are hermafroditic, like most parasites? For a member of the Kingdom Animalia (let's include both past and present in order to include such species as the do-do), you ARE way below the curve when it comes to brain function.
Seriously, stop before you get further behind.
Sorry, GI Korea, but it had to be done. By the way, I have written a little something on another 'incident' that happened just before I left Korea (PCS). It's about the Uijongbu bus incident that happened a couple months ago. Just go to the website I listed and go to my little quasi-blog (myspace is free, so I call it 'quasi').
Miguk,
In order to enforce GI Korea's groupthink for his blog, you can't just "break discipline" and respond to Silly Sally: it's the same as a soldier sitting down next to Kerry at the cafeteria. You ruin everything.
You tell me to stop while I am behind? Take a look at yourself; you are a loose cannon violating GI's persona non-grata rule. Is that why they sent you back home? You did something hot-headed and stupid like jump on top of a Korean taxi, or attack the Itaewon police station for corruption? Silly Sally is to be ignored in "military highschool".
However, I beg to differ. If you have kept track of GI Korea and his commentators, behind all the querulous complaining about Koreans … there has always been a bias in favor of USFK's fecklessness in dealing with Koreans. A manifestation of military groupthink.
My power comes in being forbidden fruit: the marginlized nigger of every group wields a curious unconscious powerful influence. It's simple group dynamics.
You doubt me? Black Americans used to be the niggers in America … but now … no white girl would even dream of winning the American Idol contest without a commanding on-stage "black voice" singing style. The power of the so-called nigger(now African-Americans).
(Remember Enya came from Ireland … not the USA.)
.
For this reason — thankfully — GI has given me "nigger" status on his blog(probably because I am a woman with a brain). The result: USinKorea, Kate, our boy GI Korea, and countless other readers of this blog — parrot every theme I put forward… eventually.
Now that's power.
Do yourself a favor, don't fight it … just respect it.
Do you honestly think for a minute that being a troll raises the intellect of anyone here?
They threw me out of Korea? That's a laugh. Actually, at the end of my first year in Korea, my 2 year AIP request was approved. At the end of my third year, my extension was approved. When it was finally time to go, I had to leave a few Koreans in tears. One wanted me to divorce my husband and marry him (his mother and father begged me to stay and marry their son, as well); 6 others have continued to keep in contact by e-mail. They all miss me. And the Army? I still write to some of my old unit. They miss me and the work I did. Need proof? Fly to Korea. Go to Waegwan and Uijongbu. Ask around. Need more? I could give you names of people in Seoul, Gwangju and a few other places.
When I was a Specialist, I once told an Colonel that his beret was hanging out of his pocket, that he was violating regulation. I am now a Sergeant, he is a Brigadier General, and nothing has been ruined. I see no reason a Soldier could not sit next to Kerry at lunch. What would be ruined? His pathetic whine about how Bush did everything wrong, even though he has no answer for how it should have been done? Please, let it be ruined.
Enlighten me…what is military groupthink? I mean, seeing as how every Soldier still has there own opinions. There are as many different opinions in the military as there are Servicemembers.
Next question…are you actually insinuating that American Idol contestants should be looked up to? Oh, and when did Enya have anything to do with American Idol? Do you realize that the albums that American Idol winners have made are sold mainly through Wal-Mart and 1-800 numbers, the same as other albums that will never become mainstream?
You want to be the n***** on this blog?
"African American comedian Chris Rock's 1996 television special Bring the Pain and 1997 album Roll with the New included a segment known as "Niggas vs Black People". Rock cast "niggas" as "low-expectation-havin'" individuals – proud to be ignorant, violent, and on welfare." -Wikipedia (think about the 'proud to be ignorant' part)
Ignorance is not power. Saying the equivilent of 'ha ha told you so' is not power. I find nothing to respect about you.
I once heard: "Never argue with a moron. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." That said, I will not argue with you further. Anyone with half a brain knows what I think of you, and trust me, it's not envy.
As for the persona non-grata rule, all I have seen you do on this blog is cut down everyone else without any thought put into any of your statements.
Now, back to the person that really has the power here, the writer of this blog, GI Korea himself.
GI Korea
I noticed you killed off my last comment. I wrote it for Silly Sally, so if she saw it before it was deleted, then fine. However, since (I assume) you've deleted it because of it's content, then it's only right to delete both of Silly Sally's comments and all but the last paragraph of my first comment in this thread. Thank you.
Wierd I thought I posted something here, but now it is gone????
Hmm, I thought I posted a response here. Was it deleted?
Ha, Ha … GI Korea deleted you … because you continue to break discipline. All commentators are suppose to ignore me. If you can't comply — you will be deleted.
No I didnt delete anything.
Yes, you did … you are a dirty-rotten deleter.
[…] this time last year I made a list of predictions for 2007 and felt it would be interesting to see how they turned out at the end of the year. Here is the […]