Category: Uncategorized

I really hope the election of Nicolas Sarkozy does lead to positive change in the US-French relationship: 

The victory of Nicholas Sarkozy of the right-leaning Union for a Popular Movement may be a sign that French society is moving to the right. Observers note the country’s economic stagnation, with a yearly growth rate is 2 percent and has had 8 percent unemployment for 20 years, is the reason. Sarkozy ran his campaign promising changes towards a market-oriented economy, including a more flexible labor market, tax cuts, and a reorganization of the 35 hour work week. His opponent, Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal, defended welfare and the 35 hour week, but she was still more pro-business than traditional leftist candidates. Even within the Socialist Party many saw economic growth as the biggest issue. This time around France’s independent foreign policy, which likes to stress that it is different from that of the United States, was not a point of contention.

Here are some more economic numbers that were a big reason for his election:

Among European nations, France was the most tenacious in hanging on to the old-style welfare state model. As a result, its gross national income slid to 19th place from eighth in 1982, while contracting the so-called “French disease” manifested by a youth unemployment rate of more than 22 percent. Government expenditures, which accounted for 54 percent of gross domestic product, damaged private sector competitiveness and pulled down France’s share of the global export market from 5.4 percent in 1999 to 4.3 percent in 2005.

Pretty grim numbers.  Here is what he had to say about the US, via Big Hominid:

"Certain people in France call me Sarkozy the American. I’m proud of this. I am a man of action; I do what I say and I try to be pragmatic. I share many American values." In 2004, during a lunch with the American Jewish Committee, the minister speaks out against those who attack him for being an Americanophile. There is a great deal of sincerity in the admiration Nicolas Sarkozy has for the United States. He believes that, across the Atlantic, everyone has an opportunity, regardless of "their name or their face," as he said one day. He then cited the examples of Arnold Schwarzenegger, elected governor of California, and Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State under George Bush, who is of Jamaican heritage.*

You can read more about Sarkozy via the Big Hominid here as well.

Is it just me or did these guys get off really light:

A U.S. soldier was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in prison for assaulting a South Korean taxi driver without any specific reason, Yonhap News Agency reported.

"The accused people were sentenced to jail term because they assaulted the victim without any specific reason and caused serious damage," Judge Han Yang-seok of the Seoul Central District Court said.

The judge, however, suspended the jail term for the soldier, identified only by the initial of his surname B, for two years, saying he had compensated the driver and that the U.S. military demoted the soldier and cut his pay.

The private first class belongs to the honor guard unit of the Eighth U.S. Army.

A U.S. army private who was also involved in the assault was ordered to pay a fine of 2 million won ($2,164).

No jail terms for these two and really their fines aren’t all that steep either considering the brutal attack they launched on the cab driver in an Itaewon bathroom last year for no reason. 

Just when you thought you had seen it all in regards to taxi cab related incidents you find out you in fact haven’t. From the Stars and Stripes:

A nude U.S. soldier was struck and killed by an off-base taxi Saturday night, officials said Monday.

U.S. and South Korean officials are investigating the incident in which Spc. Vang B. Her, a 22-year-old fire control repairman with Company B, 302nd Brigade Support Battalion, was killed around 10:30 p.m. near Mount Soyo, about 3 miles north of Camp Casey.

The 46-year-old taxi driver is being held in South Korean police custody because he waited about 30 minutes before reporting the incident, Yangju police said Monday.

Police said the driver reported that a naked soldier dashed in front of his taxi and that he was unable to stop before hitting him.

Witnesses, however, gave conflicting reports that Her was lying in the roadway when hit, according to police.

This is really weird because the area around Mt. Soyo has no clubs or drinking establishments that would attract a GI. The only thing around Mt. Soyo are a few hotels and stores for tourists going to visit the mountain. Possibly he was riding on the subway and fell asleep and woke up at the last stop which is the Soyo Mountain station. He would need to cross the street from the station to get on the sidewalk that would lead south back to Camp Casey.

The only way I see the cab driver getting in trouble is if he was speeding which on that portion of Highway 3. Cab drivers and other vehicles are notorious for speeding and running red lights in that part of town because of the light traffic at night due to it not being a night life area. So you may have a case (if he was drinking) of a drunk soldier walking across the street being hit by a speeding taxi cab running a red light. How the heck he got naked though is anyone guess. Whatever happened it is definitely very weird and hopefully the toxicology results and a full investigation will uncover what happened.

In response to this USFK Commander General B.B. Bell issued this Bells Sends message in regards to this accident. General Bell emphasizes the battle buddy policy and the dangers of over alcohol consumption. However, I know the General means well, but do you have to include in the message reminders to look both ways and check for traffic before crossing the road to a bunch of grown adults? Anyway, no matter what happened the loss of life of a soldier is always tragic and I wish this deceased soldier’s family all the best.

You can read more over at Lost Nomad.

I don’t smoke and think dipping is pretty disgusting but I do think it is a slippery slope when I read about bans like this that the Air Force is contemplating:

Air Force officials said Thursday that a widespread ban on tobacco products is possible, but not imminent. 

Specialists are working on such policies and they appear to be a likely option in the not-so-distant future, according to Lt. Col. Steven Pflanz, chairman of the Air Force’s Integrated Delivery System, an arm of the service’s Community Action Information Board. The board, which meets quarterly, is designed to identify and resolve concerns from a variety of sources throughout the Air Force.

“There was general support for moving forward with a restrictive policy and evaluating carefully what that policy should be,” Pflanz said of the CAIB meeting held two weeks ago.

“There is recognition that to get anywhere near our goal, we have to try something new.”

The Air Force must obviously not have much other pressing concerns if this is what they are focusing on.  If the Army announced a ban on tobacco there would be damn near a mutiny in the ranks with the amount of people who smoke and dip which often includes senior leaders.  I don’t use tobacco which means any tobacco ban in the Army wouldn’t effect me, but I’m not for this because where do you draw the line?  If tobacco is banned than what is to stop someone from banning alcohol next?  Then what will be banned after that?  Additionally how many good airmen that do smoke are going to get in trouble under this policy if imposed that ordinarily would not?  Should the military be possibly ruining careers over someone sneaking in a smoke during lunch? 

Military Policemen have been making plenty of headlines recently and this incident in Iraq has to be the most outrageous misconduct by an MP I have seen yet:

Lt. Col. William H. Steele was commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment and is being held in Kuwait, an Army spokesman in Iraq said.

The charge of aiding the enemy involved providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees at Camp Cropper, a military prison in Baghdad where — at times — Saddam Hussein and other high-value prisoners have been held. The maximum penalty for aiding the enemy is the death sentence.

A second charge, of conduct unbecoming an officer, alleges that Steele “did … knowingly and wrongfully fraternize with the daughter of a detainee,” according to a military news release detailing the charges.

Additionally, Steele “did … knowingly and wrongfully provide special privileges to and maintain an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter,” the release read.

In all, Steele faces nine counts of four different violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Among the others: unauthorized possession of classified information, storing classified information in his living space, improperly marking classified informatione, failure to obey a lawful order from the 89th Military Police Brigade Deputy Commander, violating General Order Number 1 by possessing pornographic videos and mishandling military funds.

How in the heck did someone this jacked up become a battalion commander to begin with, much less put in charge of the most sensitive prison in Iraq?  If these incidents keep up I made need to add an MP related incident category to my archives.  So anymore thoughts on if MPs make the stupidest criminals.

Thailand is holding roughly 400 North Korean defectors in their jails and has threatened to return them to North Korea.  Now the defectors are all going on a hunger strike in order to draw attention to their plight and force the South Korean government to help them:

Hundreds of North Korean defectors detained in a Thai immigration detention center have gone on a hunger strike to protest an alleged delay or decline by South Korea in the process of accepting them, activists said Wednesday.

"The South Korean government refused to issue air tickets for unknown reasons, so 100 male and 300 female North Korean defectors started a hunger strike Tuesday evening," said Lee Ho-taek, secretary general of a civic group helping defectors from the North.

The Moral Bankruptcy of the Korean government continues. 

You can read more on this over at One Free Korea.

As many of you may remember, last year South Korea decided they would rather send a over a billion dollars to North Korea this year rather than properly fund the US-ROK alliance. Well now the impacts from this decision may effect the USFK transformation plans:

In a written statement to a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing on Monday, Gen. Burwell Bell said, Without more equitable allied SMA funding, we may be forced to recommend a range of fiscal measures to the U.S. government, including a review of base relocation and consolidation plans.

Commenting on a new Special Measures Agreement (SMA) on Korea’s cost sharing support for the USFK for 2007-2008 concluded at the end of last year, Bell said, The two allied nations should contribute approximately 50 percent each of the non-personnel stationing costs (NPSC) for U.S. forces in Korea.

But Korea paid 38 percent of upkeep last year and is to pay 41 percent this year. Bell said that was still short of the principle of equitable 50-50 cost sharing. He added, I cannot allow readiness to suffer, and I will not allow the quality of life of my service members or families to suffer.

In other base transformation news, if the expanded Camp Humphreys is to be built a contracting consortium has been selected to build the base expansion. There is only one problem, of one of the five contractors chosen; the company’s president is the husband of the commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers Far East District, Colonel Janice Dombi who’s department was responsible for awarding the contracts. Can anyone say conflict of interest?

Here is my nominee.  Unbelievable.

The Party Pooper has the scoop (here and here) of one of the biggest news stories of this year, the showdown between King Bhumibal and Rain.  Funny stuff, and yes we all do owe a debt of gratitude to the people of Thailand. 

Courtesy of OFK, he reminds us that North Korea is now 11 days past the agreed upon deadline to shut down their nuclear reactor. Since North Korea has once again failed to live up to their end of an agreement what penalties have they faced for this? Well not much. First of all the US agreed to give them back $25 million dollars worth of frozen funds in a Macao bank that were linked to the counterfeiting of US currency. The funds were given back to them for a “pledge” from the North Koreans to use the money for humanitarian purposes. Yeah right.

Secondly, the South Koreans went and handed over $400,000 worth of cash in a suitcase to the North Koreans to use to supposedly buy computers. Sure they will. Then to top it of 400,000 tons of rice aid was sent to North Korea despite their failure to meet the nuclear deadline. Additionally the slave labor park in Kaesong is still being allowed to operate in violation of a UN resolution.

If these are the penalties for non-compliance I would hate to see what the rewards will be.