Defense Minister Speaks Up on MacArthur Controversy
The South Korean Defense Minister defends the MacArthur statue in Incheon:
On his one-year anniversary as the head of the Defense Ministry, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung publicly opposed yesterday the removal of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur’s statue from Incheon’s Freedom Park.
He also worried over certain civic groups’ “unreasonable and inappropriate” rallies to remove the statue. “The statue of General Douglas MacArthur was erected with money donated by the residents of Incheon to commemorate the general’s feat during the Korean War,” Mr. Yoon said at a gathering of the ministry’s top-level officers. “The request for removal of the statue will cause confusion to the values Koreans share and will scar professional soldiers in Korea.”
Good to see Minister Yoon defend the statue. Now if only President Roh would do the same.
Some retired Korean generals are also defending the statue:
… around 120 retired generals rallied yesterday in front of the statue at Freedom Park, saying they will take any measure to protect the statue of General MacArthur.
I have always maintained that the Korean and US militaries have always gotten along well, it is at the political level where all the problems in the ROK-US alliance reside. The MacArthur statue controversy tends to reinforce that belief because the ROK military has taken a stand on this issue yet the leading politicians have yet to weigh in. Where is the leadership in this country?
The problem lies, in my opinion, within the heart of Korean society. The military does seem solid with the US and always has, but in education, the media, increasingly in pop culture, and longer in the literature part of pop culture, as well as in politics, Korea has long enjoyed cultivating anti-US and USFK feelings to put pressure on the US and make Korean society feel better about itself.
This goes way, way beyond a group of politicians and a group of NGOs that represent a small minority of Koreans.
The majority of Koreans are not radicals or as naive in thinking as the radicals, but they share most of the same basic conclusions about how bad the US-SK relationship is for Korea. A cancer on its society. A necessary evil at best, and they can't wait until it becomes unnecessary….
The point I am making it is at the political level where this negative image of America begins and then it filters into the media and soon it becomes collective fact in the Korean public.
"The military does seem solid with the US and always has"
Really? Don't you feel the cold suspicion that creaping from your back? In the case of second Korean War, can you sleep well in the herd of young drafted South Korean soldiers?