Category: Anti-American Crap

More evidence that Americans are the biggest anti-Americans. Koreans protesters do not even come close to crap like this I have seen in the states

One of my commenters fortunately pointed out this article in the Christian Science Monitor about the controversy surrounding the General MacArthur statue in Incheon. The article talks about the generational gap between older Koreans who respect the US-ROK alliance and younger protesters who want to end it. Here is an excerpt of some of the usual propaganda put out by the anti-American crowd:

“General MacArthur is a maniac for war,” says one professor, Kang Jeong Ku, whose comments are handed out in fliers at demonstrations.

That remark has the full support of the quasi-governmental National Human Rights Commission, which fueled the protest with a statement condemning MacArthur as “a war criminal who massacred numerous civilians.”

Indeed, the commission adds, “To induce or force children to respect such a person by erecting a statue of him and teaching them that he is a great figure is a national disgrace and greatly injures the dignity of our people.”

If this National Human Rights Commission is connected to the government it seems that President Roh has an obligation to comment on policy being put out by this government agency. However, President Roh is continuing to keep quiet on this issue:

Leftists deny disloyalty to South Korean leaders as the South pursues reconciliation with the North. In fact, they say the protest against the statue supports government policy – and view it as a symbol of much more strenuous demands for US troops to leave South Korea altogether.

Neither Roh nor local authorities have publicly opposed the campaign against the statue, but policemen guard it round the clock with reinforcements ready to rush in when protests get unruly.

Both the protesters and a government affiliated agency are claiming they are supporting national government policy and President Roh or anyone else has yet to comment on this issue.

The Mayor of Incheon has at least released a statement:

Inchon’s mayor, Ahn Sang Soo, who recently visited North Korea promoting Incheon’s role as a regional hub serving both Koreas, prefers not to speak out, but a spokesman says, “We’re going to keep the statue as it has historical meaning.”

It is still kind of cowardly to not come out and speak for yourself about an issue that is having such an impact on the city, but at least a representative gave a statement. Why hasn’t a spokesman for President Roh released a statement yet?

The US Embassy here should be demanding a comment from the Korean government about the policy regarding the General MacArthur statue. With so many other people making claim they are supporting government policy the Korean government should at least speak up and let people know where they stand on this. The US Embassy should make an official request demanding answers to if the official Korean government policy is that General MacArthur is a war criminal and responsible for many massacres. The US government should put them on the spot for a change.

There was a quote in the article from the legendary Korean War General Paik Sun Yup I liked:

For Korean War veterans, any affront to the statue is a national disgrace, stirring the passions of patriotism that match the leftist convictions in intensity. Retired General Paik Sun Yup, who rallied, organized and led fledgling South Korean troops in some of the toughest fighting of the Korean War, talks about MacArthur’s legacy as a hero in his own time and an example for the future.

“We have to preserve the statue for peace in our country,” he says, reminding veterans that the statue was erected in 1957 with funds collected by a Korean committee. “Many people in the United States and our country were worried about the Inchon landing. The tide was very severe, and the landing seemed impossible, but General MacArthur made one of the greatest decisions in world history. As communism was in danger of taking our country, he rescued us.”

I have actually met General Paik before, he speaks English, has a sharp memory, and is a real hero who played a key role in saving this country from communism. He is also a strong supporter of the US-ROK alliance. It is good to see him speak up for the General MacArthur statue. Anyone know if General Paik is being quoted in the Korean language press? He is the type of person that can sway public opinion for USFK.

With the Korean government still trying to buy the land near Pyongtaek for the Yongsan and 2ID move there, expect these protests and the highlighting of all the GI crimes in the Korean media to continue. The anti-American crowd’s agenda is to have the general population in Pyongtaek to turn against the US forces moving there.

To do that the protestors want to revise history to stoke Korean pride and anger such is the case with the MacArthur statue and the Nogun-ri controversy, plus continue to beat the image of thug GIs, followed by blaming the US for anything else like the failure of the six party talks to whatever else comes up. It will continue to pile up until a decision is made to buy the land.

The anti-American crowd actually want the land to be bought because when it is bought and the people have to be forcibly removed, trust me this will be when all hell breaks loose down there and we will see if the anti-American crowds efforts now at stoking the passions of the general Korean population come to fruition.

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By the way if you haven’t read General Paik’s book from Pusan to Panmunjom you should. This is the only English language book I have read that gives a description of the Korean War from the Korean perspective. I developed a new appreciation of what the ROK Army did during the Korean War from reading this book. Highly recommended.

I am issuing an idiot alert in the Western Corridor after reading this in the Stars and Stripes:

The Yankees already had gone home or at least farther south when two buses carrying about ninety South Korean protesters arrived outside several U.S. bases near the Demilitarized Zone Tuesday.

The Western Corridor bases targeted by the protesters were vacated by 2nd Infantry Division units last year and soon will be returned to the South Korean government. So when the protesters mostly university students who were trailed by a few Korean National Police officers arrived, they found only empty buildings, rusting barbed wire and uninterested South Korean security guards.

Seth Robson hit that one on the head real well

Isn’t empty American bases what these people wanted to begin with?! That the Yankees go home, or in the case of the Western Corridor, go to Iraq?

Here is an idiot comment for you:

The lowest form of American culture spreads out from the bases,âsaid Lee Yongnam, 50, claiming that the soldiers bring crime and prostitution.

Okay, if the soldiers bring prostitution to Korea than how do you explain all the “barber shops” and “sports massage parlors” everywhere in Korea not to mention Paju? Shouldn’t have all these establishments in Paju closed down after the soldiers left? How come they are still there? Prostitution is a Korean problem not an American one. American MP’s cannot enforce Korean law. If this guy is so concerned about prostitution then get your own country’s police force to arrest the bar owners.

Here is another idiot comment:

Lee said the group was aware that the bases they visited had been vacated, but they chose to stage the protests to highlight their effect on the local community. The presence of the bases puts building restrictions on surrounding areas, he said, stunting industry and growth. The economies in areas outside the installations were fueled by bars and other businesses geared toward soldiers, so the soldiers departure had hurt the areas as much as their presence had, Lee said.

So does he want the US military to come back then? Plus the business owners in Dongducheon aren’t complaining about the soldiers. Just people like this.

These students came from Kyeonggi University and interestingly enough I met a student from Kyeonggi University when hiking up Pukhansan today. A good guy and former KATUSA who had obviously better things to do then hang out with idiots from his university at vacated camps.

I wonder if they visited the vacated camps because they got attacked by the business owners in Dongducheon the last time the idiots came up here?

The Korean media is slowly but surely starting to speak out against removing the General MacArthur statue in Incheon. Here is the latest editorial from the Korea Herald that condemns the removal of the statue:

Professor Kang at Seoul’s Dongkuk University, who stirred a controversy by eulogizing the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung on the guest book at his birthplace during his visit to Pyongyang in 2001, said in an article he contributed to an Internet newspaper that U.S. forces were responsible for the 4 million deaths during the Korean War and Gen. MacArthur should be condemned as their commander.

(…)

Thus, Kang helped the anti-MacArthur demonstrators articulate their cause. They regret that the Republic of Korea was saved from being communized through the North Korean invasion and its liberal democratic system was preserved by the American-led U.N. Forces. His idea, epitomized as “unification over everything,” does not deserve any more space in this newspaper, but the problem is that he must be trying to indoctrinate his students with this gross historical distortion. Or, should we not be worried too much because our young, sensitive students must know better?

(…)

Whether they like the American general or not the statue is part of history, a memorial of a war that saved tens of millions from sharing the misery which befell their brothers and sisters now in the North.

I think the author is naive to think that Korean students know better than to listen to the crap these professors put out because a lot of them do. However, it is good to see at least some in the Korean media are at least speaking out against these revisionist leftists.

The revisionist history of the Korean War continues:

A Korean professor’s web-based newspaper column is causing controversy after he wrote on Wednesday that without the U.S.’s intervention, the Korean War would have ended earlier and suffered fewer casualties.

Kang Jeong-ku, a sociology professor at Dongguk University, wrote on an Internet newspaper that casualties during the Korean War were so high because U.S. military forces intervened unnecessarily with the civil war and slaughtered innocent civilians.

“If the U.S. had not have intervened in the civil war which was intended to unite the two Koreas … the war would have ended in a month and the causalities would have reached less than 10.000,” Kang wrote on the Daily Surprise.

Anyone now wonder where the youth in this country get such distorted views of the American involvement in the Korean War? The communists have taken over the educational system here. I just love how this guy focuses on the US military’s alleged slaughter of innocent civilians with no mention of similar killings of civilians by both the ROK Army, North Korean Army, Chinese Army, and other international troops in Korea. Once again it is only America that kills civilians.

Actually reading through this article this professor is actually right in part. If the US did not get involved in the Korean War, less people would of died during the war and the peninsula would of been united. Cannot dispute that. Kim Il Sung’s statue would be in Inchon right now instead of MacArthur’s and everyone could be singing their juche love songs to him right now.

However, I am willing to argue that more people would of died over the past 50 years overall since the Korean War due to increased political purges, starvations, and mismanagement of the economy. I wouldn’t call the Juche economy the most successful of economic models. I’m sure that Professor Kang would agree that; that is America’s fault some how too.

The controversy over the MacArthur statue located in Jayu Park in Inchon first raised it’s ugly head last December.

This Kim Su-nam character appeared last week promoting last weekends protest at Jayu Park:

The group’s chairman Kim Su-nam said rectifying “the vestiges of colonialism and our distorted history must begin with removing the MacArthur statue, which is a symbol of imperialism.” He said the group would form a coalition with other groups from Inchon to bring down the statue.

So originally he says that removing the statue is an effort to correct distorted history. I don’t know what is so distorted about MacArthur saving the Korean nation twice, once from the Japanese and once from the North Koreans. Heck you could even say he helped save them from the Chinese too. Anyway this guy had a different story to say during last weekend’s protest:

“The statue is part of our humiliating history,” said Kim Su-Nam, a 65-year-old activist wearing a yellow jacket inscribed with anti-US slogans.

“By dismantling the statue, we want to stoke an anti-US movement aimed at expelling US troops from the peninsula,” Kim said.

Using a loudspeaker, he rebuked the pro-US demonstrators as “followers of the US colonial master”.

Well at least Kim is now showing his true motives. He could care less about whatever history MacArthur has in regards to Korea. His real motive is to create images on American TV screens of the MacArthur statue being toppled ala Saddam Hussein, to create a strong anti-Korean backlash in the United States. He is absolutely right. If that statue gets torn down and that is broadcast across America, the US-ROK alliance is over and South Korea might as well put up this statue in MacArthur’s place:

The pro-US protesters that Mr. Kim spoke of actually greatly outnumbered his small 50 person protest group:

“We will never forget what he did for us. He is a hero who stopped the communization of the Korean peninsula,” said Lee Jin-Ho, a 74-year-old veteran who fought alongside US soldiers during the war.

But forget is exactly what some South Koreans want to do.

After laying a wreath at the memorial, Lee joined hundreds of other pro-US demonstrators, including war veterans in their 60s and 70s, who gathered in the park on Sunday to block about 50 anti-US activists intent on pulling down the statue.

Here is the money quote of the protest here:

“Instead of quibbling, they should pay attention to North Korea’s human rights situation and the dictatorship of its Kim Jong-Il regime,” Lee Phil-Han, a 56-year-old businessman in Incheon, said.

“We owe a lot to the United States which played a key role in our economic development. My notion is being supported by a silent majority of South Koreans.”

I cannot imagine the people of Inchon tearing down that statue. I have spent a lot of time in Inchon which is evident by my Focus on Inchon series of articles, and feel pretty confident when I say that Inchon is not a center of anti-US sentiment in Korea. If anything the city has always felt pro-US to me maybe due to the city’s connection with the Inchon landing and it’s long history of trade with the US and this feeling is supported by the strong counter-protest against Kim Su-Nam and his other pro-North Korean lackeys at Jayu Park last weekend. I would like to thank the people who showed up at the park and supported keeping the MacArthur statue.

Now my next question is, where is the Korean media on this? I’m getting the majority of the information on this event from Yahoo. We get wall to wall coverage of an idiot jumping on a taxi cab but very little coverage of this protest. In fact the only analysis I have seen of this protest was in the Korea Times of all places, which supported keeping the statue. Maybe the media just couldn’t bring themselves to run images like these I pulled off the Katolic Shinja site:

These pictures run counter to the anti-USFK tone the media likes to trump into the collective Korean consciousness here. Feel free to comment with links to any other Korean news analyis of this event I may have missed because I would like to read it.

Anyway, I tend to agree with the Katolic Shinja on this final quote here:

The best quote from the article above comes from former South Korean U.N. Ambassador Park Keun: “Not even dogs forget their benefactors.”

These so called “civic groups” are at again. They are demanding that the MacArthur Statue in Inchon be torn down:

Fears of a violent clash mounted Friday after progressive civic groups wanting a statue of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in Inchon pulled down and conservative groups determined to protect it to the very end announced simultaneous Sunday demonstrations in the city’s Freedom Park.
One pro-unification civic group told police it will hold a rally in front of the MacArthur statue from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. The gathering, which it expects to attract 100 people, will call for the expulsion of the U.S. military and the toppling of the statue.

The group’s chairman Kim Su-nam said rectifying “the vestiges of colonialism and our distorted history must begin with removing the MacArthur statue, which is a symbol of imperialism.” He said the group would form a coalition with other groups from Inchon to bring down the statue.

These are the same idiots who were protesting last winter to tear down the statue. This Kim Su-nam character thinks that MacArthur is a symbol of colonialism and imperialism? MacArthur pulled US troops out of Korea by 1948 and let Korea fend for themselves unlike the Japanese who colonized Korea for 35 years prior to the US liberating the country during World War II which wouldn’t have happened without MacArthur’s forces defeating the Japanese.

Then MacArthur saved the country again by driving out the North Koreans with his brilliant Inchon Landing Operation. Then MacArthur ultimately lost his job because he wanted to end the communists once and for all and reunite the peninsula using every means possible. President Truman fired him because he did not want a larger war.

So MacArthur saved the country twice and these people want to tear down his statue? What is really going on here is that the Korean far leftists are not just happy trying to rewrite their own history especially in reference to former South Korean President Park Chung-hee, but they want to rewrite US history as well. They want to tear down that statue as well as tear down MacArthur’s image as a liberator of Korea.

I have been accused lately of being anti-Korean by some of my commenters but I just report what is going on around here and lately I haven’t had to look to hard to find some absurd things going on and this is one of them.

Fortunately the article mentioned that a number of pro-MacArthur groups plan to protest against the leftists on Sunday. Inchon is not exactly a center of anti-Americanism in Korea and I have been to Inchon a number of times and experienced no problems what so ever. Inchon actually felt more foreigner friendly to me then Seoul. So I really do not see the citizens of Inchon giving in to the demands of these few misguided idiots. Would America get rid of the French built Statue of Liberty because we are having squabbles with the French now? Americans would never allow that to happen, no mater how much we may disagree with the French at times because that is part of our history just like MacArthur is part of Inchon’s and Korea’s history no matter how much the leftists want to deny that. However, the day Korea does get rid of Mac’s statue will be the day I never come back to this country. That is how strongly I feel about this.

To learn more about Inchon and the history of the MacArthur statue check out the GI Korea, Focus on Inchon Series.:

The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that an agreement has been struck between the US and ROK governments to build the new US embassy on the grounds of the current US Army Yongsan garrison:

Korea and the U.S. on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding to build a “diplomatic town” that will include the U.S. Embassy, staff housing and administrative facilities in front of Yongsan High School on what is currently part of the U.S. Yongsan Garrison.

The Korean Foreign Ministry’s North America director Kim Sook and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill signed the MOU ending a decade-long squabble over the embassy move. The U.S. will return 7,800 pyeong (25,785 square meters) of land near the Deoksu Palace, where Kyunggi Girls High School and a former U.S. legation’s residence used to be, while Korea will provide the U.S. with a new 24,000-pyeong site in the northwest part of Camp Coiner, in the U.S. Yongsan Garrison. The ambassador’s residence will stay where it is.

This has been an on going issue that has further strained US-ROK relations because Korea entered into an agreement on the previous location of the US embassy and the US government had even bought the land from the Korean government. Some people decide to protest and the Korean government suddenly changed their minds.

These same people also protested that they want Yongsan Garrison out of Seoul. An agreement is struck between the government and USFK to move soldiers stationed at Yongsan and 2ID to Pyongtaek to consolidate forces and lessen USFK’s footprint. Now these same people are protesting the relocation of the soldiers to Camp Humphreys. I’m just waiting for the ROK government to renege on this agreement too.

So the next logical thing to protest would be the relocation of the US Embassy to Yongsan. The protestors will say that US Embassy will be a lingering sign of colonial occupation due to Yongsan Garrison once being the old Imperial Japanese Army colonial headquarters during the 35 year occupation of Korea.

If this does in fact happen I propose that we build the US Embassy in the most inconvenient spot possible. I think we should build it up on some high mountain, where you have to drive up a windy dirt road with steep cliffs in Kangwon province, or even better yet build it on Ullong-do Island. Ullong-do is a small island located out in the Sea Japan that is only accessible by a ferry boat. Really nice people there, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind having the US Embassy. The hard part would being finding a flat piece of ground on the volcanic island. The majority of the flat ground on the island is the volcano’s caldera. I bet it would be the world’s only embassy inside of a volcano, which is kind of cool.

Anyway, by building the US Embassy in the most inconvenient spot possible that would mean that all the Koreans that want US Visas and citizenship will have to make that inconvenient journey to the embassy. What is most ironic about this is that the very people that are protesting the US Embassy move will probably be the same people standing in line the next day to get a US immigration Visa.

UPDATE #4: Budaechigae has got a posting on this that provides a link to a video of the protest.
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UPDATE #3: Of course the Marmot has a great post covering the battle at Camp Humphreys.
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UPDATE #2: Mark has got more on this at his site. He compares the battle to Pickett’s Charge during the Civil War. Not a bad analogy.
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UPDATE #1: Nomad has got more on this at his site. He also draws some conclusions about the hypocracy and greed of the people involved in this from this article in today’s Chosun Ilbo..

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Original Posting:

There was a very violent protest that broke out at Camp Humphreys on Sunday. The protesters were protesting the ROK governments move to buy adjacent farm land around the camp to begin building the needed facilities in order to move soldiers stationed on Yongsan and the 2ID area to Camp Humphreys by 2008. Camp Humphreys for the most part is surrounded by rice paddies on three sides which makes Camp Humphreys the ideal place to expand a camp to relocate soldiers.

However, the local farmers don’t think so and have thus begun to protest. Some of the farmers may legitimately not want to move for whatever reason but I have a feeling that many of the local farmers are protesting in order to get a sweeter deal from the ROK government to sell their land. What do they got to loose by protesting? It only helps them in negotiations with the government. These farmers have teamed up with the “peace activists” which I use this term very loosely because would real “peace activists” do this:

This wasn’t violence that just accidentally happened and got out of hand. This was obviously very well planned because the “peace activists” or for sake of clarity I will just call them thug protesters brought plenty of weapons to assault the riot police and brought wire cutters to breach the fence line.

The pictures seem to support my theory that the thug protesters out number the rice farmers at the protest. Basically it appears, I could be wrong that you got the usual suspects (ie-Hanchongryun) that show up at all the anti-American protests joining with some local farmers to raise hell and then they all go back to Seoul drink a few beers and tell their buddies how much fun they had assaulting policemen and destroying private property because that is basically all they accomplished.

Something I find interesting about the thug protesters is that they always try to make things out like they were the victims. Here is this quote from the International Action Center site.

South Korean government dispatched over six thousand police including the notorious 1001 Unit from Seoul. During the ensuing struggle, over 200 people were hospitalized from the brutal attack by the police and hundreds were arrested.

Brutal Attack?! What do you call this picture?!:

This looks scene from Braveheart. I can just picture the Hanchongryun leader yelling, “You may take our lives but you will never take our rice paddies!”

All I see is the thugs attacking the police! I saw the after action review report today and many policemen were seriously injured and one of the policemen is facing life threatening injuries because these people want to go cause trouble and be stupid.

Why should any young policemen be subjected to getting beat down by these thugs? The reason is because nobody does anything to discourage this activity. If you assault policemen you should go to jail. Why should policemen be treated as some ones private boxing bag? Policemen should be held in high regard and they are not in this country. That is why protesters feel free to seriously injure these young mandatory service draftees at these protests. I get extremely frustrated by this because I see these young men getting beat down and these young men are no different then the young soldiers I’m in charge of and I would never subject them to what the Korean policemen are subjected too.

The slogan on the left of the stage says “Drive out the US military” and the slogan on the right says “This land is our life, we will guard it to the end.”

I make a point to periodically thank the Korean police around my camp for what they do. They really do have a tough job and execute their duties the best they can which I appreciate. I wish their own government would do more to appreciate what they do by preventing them from getting injured in the first place by arresting anyone who assaults a policemen. There should be mandatory jail time for this.

Here is some more stupidity from the IAC website:

As part of the U.S. military’s strategic global realignment plan, the role of U.S. military in South Korea now encompasses all of East Asia. To support their new military role, the U.S. military plans to expand their bases in South Korea in addition to building a number of Patriot Missile Bases along the west coast of South Korea, targeting China.

Plan to expand our bases in South Korea?! We have been shutting down bases up here in 2ID land left and right plus redeploying soldiers back to the US to cut troop numbers here. The goal is to get troop numbers here down to 17,500 by 2008 and we are well on our way to achieving that. Plus it is an out right lie that that is being passed here that the US is building PATRIOT missile bases in Korea. The PATRIOT missile batteries are located on Korean Air Force bases in Kwangju and Suwon and also on the US Air Force’s Osan and Kunsan airbases. In addition to this, the PATRIOT missile cannot be used on offensive strikes against China, North Korea, or anywhere else because they are a purely defensive weapon system. A PATRIOT missile is not a Tomahawk Cruise Missile. But these people believe their own garbage they put out.

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Is this Korea or the Gaza Strip?

I really have no problem with them protesting. It is their right to protest which I fully support. However, I do not support violence and destruction of private property. The only way to stop this is by arresting people and dishing out steep sentences.

Finally what I find most ironic about all of this, is that these same thug protesters that went down to Camp Humphreys to stir up trouble are the same people who protest outside of Yongsan Garrison demanding that it be moved. When a plan is made to move the garrison these same people protest about that. Where do they want us to move to? Out in the ocean? When the USFK says screw you guys we will just redeploy soldiers back to the US these same people complain that the US soldiers can’t go home yet because that may increase the mandatory service time which these protesters are trying to avoid. We just can’t win. So I say screw them and let’s buy land on Cheju Island instead.

Hey, way to go idiots teach the kids to hate Americans early before they even have a chance to meet an American. If the kid is really lucky maybe he will get his head cracked open like the guy below. Why in the world would someone bring children to something as violent as this?

Jeff in Busan points out this letter to the editor in the Korea Times. Here are highlights from the letter:

I was sent to Korea and I served with the 7th Infantry Division. We were to serve for nine months and 36 points. When I finally rotated home, I was in Korea over 13 months and I had 52 points, but I was one of the lucky ones, I made it home.

I have always tried to feel I did some good in helping South Korea and its people. I wore my 7th Division cap with Korean ribbons on it in civilian life, but no more!

Like many Korean War veterans, I too have tired of the TV reports showing mobs of people in various Korean cities shouting “Americans, Go Home!”

When I think of the sacrifice we made and the number of people we lost in trying to protect the freedom of the South Korean people, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and to have the South Korean people throw our sacrifices in our face is too much to take.

Jeff tends to think that Korean anti-Americanism shouldn’t be taken at face value because the majority of Koreans do not want the US to leave they just want the US to change it’s attitude.

(…) letters like those written by Mr. Gunther remind me that to Americans, who do not understand the Korean way of doing things, words mean things. Americans hear the words and take them at their face value.

We don’t do a lot of processing words through the filters of other cultures. Although there needs to be greater education and less focus on the minor events in the Western press, the Korean side must also understand that a poor choice of words or misguided actions can end up doing much more harm than good

There is definitely cultural misunderstandings about what one sees on the news compared to the actual reality here in Korea. I remember last month’s Hanchongryun protest that totaled 3,000 college students at Yongsan fighting with the riot police. Most of those college students probably could care less about the ideology of Hanchongryun but just look forward to fighting with the riot police and trading war stories that night at the bar with their friends.

This violent protest was all over the world news and my parents even called me wondering what was going on over here after seeing it on the news. I just explained to them that this type of thing is something that college students typically do here every summer. It is like a rite of passage around here to protest something.

However, the next week 4,000 USFK workers stage an even bigger, but peaceful protest in favor of USFK and for keeping their jobs and no one cares or reports it. This selective reporting by the international media only further inflames the sentiment back in America. The international media in my opinion has an agenda to push anti-Americanism probably because it sells in the international market and the Hanchongryun types only continue to feed it and to further tarnish Korea’s image in America.

The domestic media in Korea is just as bad at fueling not just anti-American sentiment but also anti-foreigner sentiment in general with biased one sided reporting. This reporting only reinforces preconceived stereotypes that many Koreans hold about foreigners to begin with.

However, the Korea Times letter writer should take pride in the fact that him and his fellow American soldiers sacrifices during the Korean War are what have allowed the South Korean media to have biased free speech to begin with. Freedom and especially free speech, if even biased 50 years later is still something to proud of having given to the South Koreans.