South Korean Government To Announce Golf Course to Become THAAD Site
This is probably not much of a surprise to people following this issue:
The militaries of South Korea and the United States are expected to announce a golf course as the new site for an advanced American antimissile system this week, a defense official here said Sunday.
According to the defense ministry official, evaluations for three candidate sites to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Seongju County, located in the southeastern part of the nation, “are virtually complete.” The announcement will likely be made before the end of September after the military briefs Seongju residents on its decision. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the government still faces two problems before the THAAD site can be established. First of all, according to the article Lotte wants $90.6 million to hand over the golf course which will require additional funds from the National Assembly. The second issue they face is that the citizens of Gimcheon plan to launch full scale protests to stop the THAAD deployment.
Considering Lotte’s current legal problems, they may be willing to sell the Golf Course for a considerable discount. Perhaps an understanding can be reached on whether or not Lotte Executives need to actually go to prison, or even be found guilty of anything harsher than “Failure to Properly Signal a Lane Change.”
Trickier to say. If Fatty Kim pops off a couple more nukes, the NIMBY crowd may dial back their protests. They seemed to dial it back a bit once the supposed miniaturized warhead was detonated.
There’s also the “We already did it, so quit your sniveling” approach to problem solving.
“The second issue they face is that the citizens of Gimcheon plan to launch full scale protests to stop the THAAD deployment.”
I don’t think the locals will protest nearly as much as they did at the last site. The last site was visible to a lot of the local residents. This new site is tucked away up in the hills and not visible to the locals. It’s hard to make the radiation argument this time because now you have to convince people that it can pass through the solid rock masses that make up the mountains to get to you and your melon patch.
Another factor is that the locals have very pointedly told the professional protesters that they are not welcome, and “It’s our issue – we can handle it just fine on our own.” When the Seongju locals went to Seoul to protest, they actually hired their own security to keep the professionals out of their crowd. Someone in their community must have convinced them early on that in order to keep their credibility and as a matter of personal pride, they needed to handle this on their own. And they took this idea and ran with it.
@MTB Rider, it does make me wonder if Lotte’s current legal troubles will play any role in the golf course acquisition.
@Guitard, thanks for the info about the protesters. That is an interesting data point that the Seongju crowd hired security to keep the professional protesters away. Likewise I don’t think the Gimcheon protesters are going to have much success because Gimcheon is not right below the golf course, looking at Google Earth it would radiate over some small village homes. However, the mountain is much higher than the Seongju location which does make the dangerous electromagnetic wave argument even harder to sell to the Korean public.
And you thought the water hazard on 2 was tough… Wait until your golf balls are being shot outta the sky on 16!!
I suspect local leadership has been privately given assurances from Seoul that as long as things go relatively smoothly with this THAAD deployment, you will be compensated very nicely in the way of new roads & schools, special programs (free hakwons, senior centers …), etc.
Now whether they really need new roads and schools is a discussion for another thread.
But I strongly suspect there’s a you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours deal happening behind the scenes …
I don’t think there’s a single USAF base in the CONUS that still maintains a golf course.
Just thinking further, maybe Maxwell.
Hm….just looked it up and Mother Jones lists a few. Not sure how they are able to maintain those, but I guess I stand corrected.
Oh, CONUS! I was about to make a remark about the awesome courses at Hickam AFB (Now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam).
I guess I’ve always ended up near an Air Force GC. Eisenhower GC at the Air Force Academy, Apache Mesa at Holloman AFB, and of course Hickam.
Still, Navy-Marine GC at Pearl Harbor and the Army course at Leilehua were my favorite courses for me to get mad and throw my club further than I hit the $^%# *&%%$ &^%^&%!!! ball!
I’m glad there are still some around. I know it’s an expense (maybe they have some sort of agreement with the community so they can keep it up?).
But there’s something very Soviet Unionesque about the ambiance of a base that has let its golf course go back to nature. 🙁