Academic Publishes Highly Critical Piece Against Admiral Harris Becoming US Ambassador to South Korea

Via a reader tip comes news that Kyunghee University professor Emanuel Pastreich has written something controversial in the Korea Times again.  In the past he has accused President Trump of governing like Kim Jong-un and believed that the United Nations should be moved to South Korea.  Well now his latest article in the Korea Times is an article high critical of incoming US ambassador to South Korea, Admiral Harry Harris:

Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, was slated to start work as ambassador to Australia this month. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Trump White House announced on April 24 that Harris would be assigned to South Korea.

The assignment was unprecedented at multiple levels. Assigning a military officer as ambassador to Korea when Seoul is trying to develop peaceful ties with North Korea, and the rest of East Asia, is extraordinary. Assigning a military officer who has close ties with the far-right in Japan is also extraordinary granted the sensitivity about Japan’s colonial domination of Korea.

The fact that Harris was born in Japan to a Japanese mother is not a reason to oppose his appointment. Yet his being awarded the “Order of the Rising Sun” at exactly the same moment he was assigned at ambassador to Korea was extremely odd.

And then there is that matter of his role at the Guantanamo Prison camp at the time that torture and abuse were carried out within a carefully constructed legal limbo. In normal times, Harris’ role in that blatantly illegal operation would be enough to end a career, at the very least.

But these are not normal times.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but his article reads like he received his talking points straight from Beijing.  He made sure to bring up Admiral Harris ethnicity just like Beijing and he even tried to equate that Admiral Harris was running a Unit 731 like operation at Guantanamo Bay.  Talk about hyperbole when three terrorists getting waterboarded is equated to 3,000 mostly Chinese being used as human lab rats for biological weapons testing by the Imperial Japanese.

He even made sure to call him names just like Beijing by calling him Dirty Harry in the article.  Probably the most ridiculous thing was to claim that Admiral Harris was put in charge of Pacific Command to stop global warming initiatives with China.  He even claims Admiral Locklear was replaced “unceremoniously” by Admiral Harris two months after giving a speech about global warming at Harvard.  Admiral Locklear had long been scheduled to be replaced by Admiral Harris, but was held up because of the accusations made against Locklear in the Fat Leonard Scandal.  Admiral Harris was the Pacific Fleet commander prior to taking command of PACOM making him highly qualified for the job.  He was already selected for the PACOM job before Pastreich’s claim of Locklear being “unceremoniously” removed.  Plus the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter came out to Hawaii to give remarks during the Change of Command ceremony held for Admiral Locklear.  A big ceremony with the Secretary of Defense presiding over it does not seem like something that is “unceremonious” to me.

Another incredible claim in Pastreich’s article is that he equates the 12 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around Hawaii with the artificial islands being built in the South China Sea:

“Freedom of navigation” is a catchy way of saying that the U.S. is obligated to send military vessels into the waters surrounding the islands claimed by China in the South China Sea regularly, often intentionally crossing over the 12 nautical mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone).

This is a needless provocation (imagine how the U.S. would respond if Chinese ships regularly sailed close to Hawaii) became central to the planning in the Pacific Command.

First of all it is nothing new for Chinese Navy ships to sail by and stop at Hawaii.  So his analogy is not even true.  Secondly a better analogy would be if the United States started dredging up a bunch of sand and built an island off the coast of China and militarized it because that is what the Chinese are doing to their neighbors in an attempt to consolidate control over the South China Sea.

Admiral Harris is well known for being tough on China because of this and thus why the Chinese have used everything in their propaganda apparatus to discredit him and it appears Pastreich believes this propaganda.  The Chinese government have even asked the US government to fire Admiral Harris.  However, history has shown that Admiral Harris has been right about China as they continue to bully their neighbors and intensify building artificial islands in the South China Sea in their attempt to claim the entire body of water.

Here is where out of no where Pastreich goes into an anti-military screed:

American politics is incomprehensible because, at the moment that the military is playing an increasingly central role in the administration of the global system set up by the U.S. after World War II, military officers, whether fighting for justice or indulging in corruption, are completely inaccessible to the population and almost never the subject of investigative journalism.

The guidelines issued to military officers direct them to avoid social exchanges with ordinary citizens, and even with other branches of the government, or with other branches of the military.

This is quite the accusations being made here that the military just likes to indulge in corruption and directs its personnel to avoid social exchanges with civilians or even other branches of the military.  This is beyond stupid considering that for officers to get promoted to senior ranks they have to have joint time serving with the other branches of the military.  The command Pastreich highlights in his article, PACOM is a joint command with its headquarters at Camp Smith, Hawaii filled with officers, NCOs, and servicemembers from all the branches of the military.  As far as interacting with civilians this is actually promoted in the military.  For example USFK has its own Good Neighbor program that encourages US servicemembers to help out the surrounding Korean community.  The ridiculousness goes on and on in Paestrich’s article such as calling Chelsea Manning a “legend” and Admiral Harris a Chinese “warlord”.  Overall Paestrich is extremely uninformed about the US military and how it works.

To me it seems that Admiral Harris is heading to South Korea for the simple reason that he is someone that the President fully trusts to promote his policies on North Korea.  Admiral Harris’s command, PACOM was responsible for the executing the “maximum pressure campaign” that many have credited with helping bring North Korea to the negotiating table.  Putting Admiral Harris in charge of the US embassy in Seoul, along with putting John Bolton in place as National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State signals to the Kim regime that President Trump has strong advocates of his policies across the US national security apparatus at a time of upcoming tough negotiations with North Korea.  Using Occam’s Razor the simplest reason is usually the right one instead of wild global warming, military cabal, military industrial complex, etc. conspiracy theories.