(Note: Prior posting and update here and here)
UPDATE: I highly recommend everyone read this posting from Michael Hurt. As always he offers some good food for thought about the “Alms Race” in Korea.
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The latest on the Korean missionary kidnapping is that the Taliban are now offering to hand over 8 of the female hostages in return for 8 Taliban hostages. After such a hand over talks for exchange of hostages for more prisoners would be initiated. Afghan President Karzai has already ruled out a prisoner exchange and Korea has little to offer Karzai to change his mind thus making this option appear unlikely.
The next option to free the hostages would be to launch a rescue operation. A rescue operation would be extraordinarily dangerous and likely lead to the deaths of some, if not all of the hostages. Would the US forces be willing to conduct such an operation knowing the outcome might be messy and that the Korean government in turn could blame the US military for the deaths of the hostages to deflect blame from their own failings? That is why if a rescue operation is to be launched it should be launched by a Korean special operations force not American. Since the current Korean President has an aversion to military operations this option seem highly unlikely. Any American rescue operation at least in the near term seems very unlikely as well.
Since a prisoner exchange and hostage rescue operation are both unlikely, than paying a ransom appears to be the most likely avenue that Korean negotiators will go next. The kidnappers are already demanding $100,000 just to allow the Korean negotiators to speak to the hostages. If that is the price just to speak to the hostages, you can imagine what the ultimate price for their release will be, probably in the tens of millions of dollars. Paying the ransom would probably have a chilling effect on the relationship between the Korean and Afghan governments because the money would do wonders to finance Taliban operations that would undoubtedly lead to more kidnappings and the deaths of even more Afghans and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. The Korean government probably would be willing to risk this relationship in order to pay the ransom and free the hostages; after all this is the same government that finances an even worse gangster operation in North Korea to a tune of over $1 billion a year, so what’s a few million to the Taliban?
With the likelihood of this issue being protracted and possibly even messy the leftist political parties and press in Korea have already began to create a narrative that this crisis is all America’s fault. Yes, the fact that ruthless, religious fanatics kidnapped 23 Koreans that were devoid of any common sense, and that their own government allowed them to travel to Afghanistan is now all some how America’s fault:
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has, until now, remained silent, despite the ongoing hostage crisis involving 23 South Koreans who are being threatened with death by their Taliban captors in Afghanistan. The U.S. government’s leading role in the war on terrorism and its decisive influence on the release of Taliban prisoners, one of the key demands of the current captors, has increasingly brought attention to the meaning behind the silence. Though the U.S. Department of State has finally commented on the recent events in Afghanistan, the timing of the comments still leaves many unanswered questions about what role the U.S. government will take.
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As an allied nation, it may be difficult for the United States to intervene in negotiations between South Korea and the kidnappers. However, if this is the case, anti-American sentiment may rapidly spread throughout the nations with which it is allied.
Note the term “decisive influence” in the above citation. In other words if the captives are not released it is America’s fault for not using it’s “decisive influence” to make the Afghan government release Taliban killers that would go on to kill, rob, and rape more Afghan civilians just to release the Korean missionaries. It isn’t just the leftist media creating this current narrative in Korea either, the Democratic Labor Party is echoing the same sentiment:
Appearing on CBS, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan expanded on yesterday’s Hankyoreh Shinmun’s theme, saying, “Because the United States hopes Korean troops will remain in Afghanistan and has wanted Korea to even send combat troops, it won’t say anything about the hostage situation.” He also said another reason why the United States was keeping silent was that if Washington told Seoul not to accept the Taliban’s demands, it could be read as meaning the United States thought it would be good even if the hostages died, and if it told Seoul to accept the demands, it could cause problems for the US occupation policy in Afghanistan.
Make sure to read the rest here. So who is the Democratic Labor Party? Well just the same guys that were linked to a Ilshimhoe North Korean spy scandal last year. The fact they are exploiting this hostage crisis to further the anti-American aims of their North Korean puppet masters is not surprising, neither is the fact the leftist Hankyoreh newspaper is maneuvering to do the same thing. What will be interesting is if Korean President Roh Moo-hyun will use the anti-Americanism angle to pressure the United States to in turn force President Karzai to release the Taliban prisoners.
United States Forces Korea (USFK) is in the midst of a major force transformation on the peninsula and the Korean government has already done many thing to stop it by allowing anti-American activists to attack soldiers, trespass on USFK land, and wage almost Braveheart like battles against authorities.
Additionally the Korean government has cut agreed upon funding to USFK and refuses to pay their fair share of alliance costs while sending over a billion dollars to North Korea this year. After much delays and ultimatums from USFK leaders the Korean government finally agreed to the transformation plans, but at a much delayed schedule.
President Roh could quickly unleash the anti-US activists once again on USFK in order to delay the transformation which has finally picked up momentum after all the drama surrounding it over the last two years. Would he do it? Who knows, but remember this is the guy that was elected on an anti-American platform and with the Presidential election coming up this year the leftist political parties may see this hostage crisis as an opportunity to ratchet up anti-US sentiment for domestic political reasons.
Over in the US, the hostage crisis is getting little media attention and Michelle Malkin wonders why? She makes an excellent point that if these were journalists or drunken celebrities taken hostage it would make more headlines. I have a better example, how about 23 gays taken hostage? That would be non-stop headlines. She speculates that the fact that these are Christian missionaries has caused the MSM to shy away from this issue. That and the fact they are Koreans and not Americans is probably why the hostage crisis has garnered little US media attention. If it was 23 American Christian missionaries I don’ think the MSM could ignore that.
Anyway these missionaries shouldn’t be bashed for their beliefs as some have been doing, but I think they are fair game to be criticized for their actions for riding on a new bus on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar with no security or notifying the local Afghan government. Stupidity should not be a death penalty and I hope this turns out alright for them, but right now all the options are either bad or worse.
