Tag: Korea

(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.
[…]
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.

Prominent K-blog commenter and lawyer Brendon Carr offers some outstanding advice in today’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. Brendon hits on a number of potential issues with soldiers who get in trouble in Korea. Here is probably the most telling statement from the article:

Beyond language difficulties is the prospect that South Koreans who give testimony might feel it culturally acceptable to lie, especially if it will increase their chances of winning bigger damages, Carr said.

This culture, Carr said, does not place the same value on truth or view the truth through the same prism that Americans do. There is very little social disapproval of making false official statements in order to achieve an objective for your friend or relative or for a tribemate.

Once it breaks down to ˜those Americans versus us Koreans, many, many Koreans will perceive it as their duty to make sure that the Korean is the winner of the dispute. So there’s a lot of lying when witnesses come forward, Carr said.

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China has been vigorously expanding their space program which includes such successes as recently launching astronauts into orbit.  Korea has also recently begun expanding their space program including the announcement of the construction of a state of the art launch pad on the Korean island of Goheung.  Now Japan is officially announced a significant expansion of their space program as well:

Japan is building upon its past successes in space to forge a range of initiatives, from disaster warning systems, probes to Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, as well as conduct an aggressive lunar exploration campaign.

Read the whole article, but the Japanese space agenda is definitely ambitious.  All in all I’m glad to see this Northeast Asian space race because hopefully this increased competition will further push our own US space program and industries which have become increasingly stagnant in recent years.  If it takes the Chinese landing on the moon to get the US space program moving again than I’m all for it.

The Chosun Ilbo today has an editorial about a phone call placed between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President George Bush. Here is what the reportedly discussed:

According to Japanese media reports, Abe said in the 20-minute phone call that he had apologized to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II and his remarks on the issue hadn’t been accurately conveyed.

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That is the question that the Joong Ang Ilbo asked recently. The Joong Ang also called Koreans the Italians of Asia. Wait a minute I thought Koreans were the Irish of Asia? Anyway this is how the Joong Ang answered the question of why Koreans are rude:

Anti-social behavior displayed by Koreans is said to have its origin in the agricultural society of the country’s past. In close-knit communities where members care for each other like family, strangers were rare. This perhaps explains why the Korean language has limited expressions appropriate for social conversation between complete strangers.

As society modernized, companies engaged in Western-style services or retail industries had a hard time training local staff to be hospitable to customers, as they have a habit of taking professional situations very personally.

Compared with other Asians, Koreans in general are known to be temperamental.

I think to an outsider it may appear that Koreans are rude, but really I don’t think they are. For example in Seoul there is a lot of bumping on sidewalks and subways, but Seoul is so over populated people are just used to bumping into each other and think nothing of it. The locals are used to it, but foreigners new to Korea are not. Really the only non-polite tendency that really bugs me is some of the drivers of both mopeds and cars are just absolute jerks and the people who obviously cut in line. The line cutters I’m able to deal with because I will confront them and when confronted they retreat to the back of the line. The drivers, not much I can do about that, I just grin and bare it.

However, in restaurants and businesses I have more often than not received better service than what I have received in many western countries. When traveling on the subway or trains around the country and I needed assistance usually I was overwhelmed with people wanting to help. Often in Korea I also see people give up their bus and subway seats to senior citizens. There is politeness in Korea, but in a Korean way, not a western way.

This posting about memorable bar brawls over at Blackfive got me thinking about memorable brawls I have witnessed during my time in Korea.  I have seen plenty of stupid drunken beer brawls in the ville, but they usually ended pretty quick and were relatively unmemorable.  Just a bunch of drunks pushing and shoving acting tough, the whole while someone would break them up.  There was a couple of fights though that were quite memorable that I will never forget.  The first one was at the Rendezvous Club over in Dongducheon.

Back in the day the Rendezvous Club was a nice place to go to meet local Korean girls because there were no juicy girls there at the time.  The club was really the only place in the ville where locals and GIs mixed.  The locals would arrive in the club right after curfew hit because back then the vast majority of GIs in the ville were gone and back on Camp Casey because of the curfew.  The few GIs that remained in the ville past curfew had what was called a Warrior Pass.  Back then every company had a limited number of Warrior Passes that the First Sergeant and Commander could give to people to stay out after curfew.  The soldiers that had Warrior Passes were usually older, more mature, and higher ranking and not from the younger 18-21 year old age group that statistics show cause the majority of alcohol related incidents.  Plus the younger soldiers that received a Warrior Pass for the weekend usually used it to hang out with juicy girls all night and not to hang out at the Rendevous Club with local Koreans.  The locals all knew this and thus had no problems mixing with the soldiers that did go to the Rendezvous Club after curfew.

The Rendezvous Club was really a nice place back then and was operated by a guy named Mr. Han.  Mr. Han was not your average GI ville bar owner.  Mr. Han if I had to guess was about 35-40 years old back then and over 6 feet tall, well built, with really long hair.  He had a few huge Koreans working security for him at the club and he always made sure his club had the most beautiful female bartenders in town.  The local police would occasionally stop by and pay their respects to Mr. Han as well.  In short he was the perfect stereotype of a Korean gangster.

Mr. Han from what I heard was one of the head Korean mob bosses in TDC and operated a number of the juicy girl clubs in the ville.  Anyway there I was, drinking a few beers with Mr. Han with a few of my buddies at the bar counter.  We were all friendly with Mr. Han since we frequented his club so often.  He spoke good English and despite being a mob figure was actually a really nice guy to us GIs.  Anyway a fight broke out towards the front of the bar where the dance floor was at.  No soldiers were involved, it was strictly a Korean on Korean fight.  There must of been about 15-20 people going at it and then some guy grabbed a beer glass and threw it at this other guy, but missed and the glass shattered against the wall near some Korean females.

That was when Mr. Han sprang into action.  He suddenly jumped over the bar and landed a round house kick on the guy that threw the glass.  That kick could have been straight from a Korean gangster flick.  From there he preceded to kick the living crap out of him and then turned his attention to another guy and began using more kung fu moves on him.  Mr. Han and the club security got the fight under control and literally kicked the people out.  The first guy Mr. Han had kicked the crap out of could not leave the club under his own power.  The club security just grabbed him and threw him out in the street in front of the club.  After the fight we figured it was probably a good time to finish our beers and get out there.

We walked outside and the guy that got the crap beaten out of him was still laying in the street in front of the club.  A soldier I didn’t know was walking down the street and saw the guy bleeding and came over to assist him.  He said he was medic.  He started checking the guy out and one the club’s security guards that was standing at the entrance of the club came over and told the medic to leave him alone.  So that is what we did, we left him alone and walked way.  There is times where you have to let Koreans handle business their own way and this was definitely one of those times.  The guy was left to bleed in the street as a reminder to everyone else to not start any fights in the Rendezvous Club.

I haven’t been stationed at Camp Casey since then and I haven’t been to the Casey ville for years so I have no idea if the Rendezvous club is even open any more or if Mr. Han still operates the place.  If so he is a nice guy to us GIs, but whatever you do don’t piss him off.  If anyone has any interesting fights they remember in Korea feel free to comment on them.  By the way here is a link to the funniest fight I have ever seen in Korea.

Making a Stand

In the winter of 1951 the American commanded United Nations’ forces in Korea found themselves in a continuous full scale retreat from the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) that had entered the Korean War in November 1950. Prior to the Chinese intervention into the war, the American commanders and troops expected the war to be over by Christmas 1950 after General Douglas MacArthur’s successful Inchon Landing Operation in September 1950 ultimately crushed the North Korean army and moved the war into the communist north to conduct mop up operations of the remainder of the North Korean military. However, the UN advance into North Korea would be short lived as 600,000 Chinese “volunteers” charged down the North Korean hillsides, inflicting heavy casualties, and putting the UN forces into full scale retreat. Once a retreat is started it is hard to stop especially when many of the soldiers retreating are draftees fighting in a “police action” they hardly understood and had been told just weeks prior that they would be home for Christmas.

It was going to take great leadership in order to stop the retreat and regain the fighting spirit of the United States military. The first sign of great leadership would come from newly installed Eighth United States Army commander General Matthew Ridgeway. Ridgeway was installed as the 8th Army commander after the death of former 8th Army commander General Walton Walker in a jeep accident in December 1950. Ridgeway served as a paratrooper during World War II; most notably as the division commander of the 82nd Airborne Division to include jumping into Normandy with his division during the D-Day Landings in 1944. Before coming to Korea Ridgeway was the commander of the Panama Canal Zone and was thus far removed from the happenings of Korea. Once in theatre Ridgeway quickly discovered how demoralized the American forces were and aggressively began to implement a no retreat policy. He in fact relieved his G3 operations officer when he drew up retreat contingency plans for the general to review. However, it is one thing to say no more retreat and quite another to get soldiers to implement and most importantly believe in this policy. The job to both implement and get soldiers to believe in this policy would fall to a man named Colonel Paul Freeman, at a place called Chipyong-ni.

COL Freeman was the commander of the 23rd US Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division (Yes the same 2ID of taxi cab related incident fame). The regiment had just come off a minor victory over Chinese troops at a place called Twin Tunnels three miles south of the village of Chipyong-ni. After the battle COL Freeman moved the regiment to the village that was located in a flat valley of rice paddies surrounded on all sides by steep hillsides. The regiment’s success at Twin Tunnels followed by their advance to Chipyong-ni had left the regiment ultimately at a tactical disadvantage because the friendly units to their east and west had retreated from the prior Chinese assault, leaving COL Freeman’s flanks exposed to Chinese attack. Once COL Freeman realized his tactical situation he radioed to the 2ID commander that he wanted to withdraw 15 south to secure his flanks with the remainder of the US forces. The 2ID commander approved his request along with the Corps commander, but once the request for COL Freeman’s withdrawal reached General Ridgeway he simply said said something to the equivalent of “F–k No!”

The village of Chipyong-ni was of strategic value to Ridgeway due to the fact it was a key road intersection for all vehicular movement in the area. If any future American offensive operation was to be launched Ridgeway needed to hold on to Chipyong-ni. Most importantly Ridgeway needed to set a tone. The 23rd INF’s earlier success at Twin Tunnels showed that the unit had fighting spirit and good leadership. Ridgeway needed someone to make a stand against the Chinese and show the rest of the US and UN forces that the Chinese were not the unbeatable adversary that most of the demoralized troops thought they were. He was counting on COL Freeman and the men of the 23rd INF to be ones to make that stand.

Next Posting: Preparing for Battle

A recent topic of dispute among commenters at the Marmot’s Hole is the alleged American sell out of Korea to Japan with the mutual signing of the Taft-Katsura Agreement. This piece of history, little known to everyone else in the world, is treated with almost Dokdo like reverence in Korean society. This agreement is often used by Koreans to blame the US for the Japanese colonization of Korea. You think I’m exaggerating? Let me remind everyone what the South Korean Unification Minister had to say on this subject:

A hundred years ago, the Philippines became a U.S. colony and the Korean Peninsula a Japanese one owing to the Taft-Katsura Agreement” of 1905, Chung said. The division of the nation and Korean War were not our will either, nor was the failure of the Gwangju Uprising. A century later, Chung promised a hot summer in which our fate will be decided not by North Korea, China, the United States, Japan or Russia, but by our own pride and self-determination.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, July 2005

I will focus this posting on just the Taft-Katsura Agreement, though much of the rest of Minister Chung’s comments are just as equally ridiculous as blaming the US for Japanese colonialism. This view is so indoctrinated into Koreans that many foreigners in Korea end up believing it as well because they hear it so often from Koreans they work with. So is this Korean claim true? To determine this you have to first look at the historical context of the era.

The Japanese had been effectively interfering with Korea’s internal affairs since the 1880’s, but China continued to wield the most influence over the country due to it’s protectorate status over Korea. The Japanese were eager to gain a main land Asian colony to where natural resources could be accessed in order to continue the Japanese modernization of both it’s economy and military. The Japanese felt quick modernization was needed in order to prevent the western powers from exploiting and colonizing Japan like they had China. Gaining control of Korea’s natural resources was critical along with securing strategic territory that had long been used as an invasion point into Japan. Plus acquiring a Korean colony would send a huge international message that Japan was a nation ready to colonize, and not be colonized by anyone.

Map of Sino-Japanese War troop movements

The Sino-Japanese War (June 1894-April 1895) between Japan and China was Japan’s first attempt to forcibly wield it’s new power. It is important to note the long time Korean ruling class, the Yangban, did not want to lose their privileged place in Korean society and had long tried to keep Korea isolated from the rest of the world. Thus the term the “Hermit Kingdom“. They feared that the opening up of the country and the economy would dilute the power they wielded within Korea.

Plus the Yangban suspicious of a military coup that would end their power, had not raised and funded a strong national military and had instead relied on their long time protectors the Chinese for national security. The strategic incompetence of not forming a strong domestic army became quite evident when in 1871 American Marines defeated Korean defenders of Kangwha-do island at the mouth of the Han River and occupied it for a short time. This embarrassment of the Korean military eventually led to the signing of the 1883 Jemulpo Agreement between the US and Korea. This treaty confirmed friendly relations between the US and Korea. The easy defeat of the Korean military by the US Marines is probably what began to give the Japanese rulers ideas of an easy conquest and colonization of Korea.

The 1894 Donghak Rebellion, a peasant uprising in the Cheolla province of southern Korea, was used by the Japanese government as an excuse to deploy 8,000 combat troops to Korea to quell the uprising. Before quelling the uprising the Japanese troops seized the Korean capitol of Seoul and captured the Korean emperor. Obviously the Chinese government was not happy about the Japanese power play to gain influence over Korea and began to deploy a force of soldiers to Korea. While this was going on the Japanese installed pro-Japanese Koreans to run the government who legitimized the Japanese use of force to protect Korea from the Chinese. Thus this began the Sino-Japanese War.

The Chinese ultimately lost the war and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 that effectively granted Japan imperial influence over Korea and parts of Manchuria without Chinese objections. With the Chinese military weakened after it’s bitter defeat by the Japanese; the European powers took advantage of the situation by occupying strategic areas of Manchuria before the Japanese could move in. Most notably the Russians who occupied a huge area of Manchuria and the entire Liaodong Peninsula. The occupying of strategic areas of Manchuria by the Europeans enraged the Japanese rulers who felt the plunders of their hard earned victory over China was stolen from them. The deployment of over 100,000 Russian soldiers into Manchuria after the 1900 Boxer Rebellion only furthered caused tensions to raise because the Japanese felt that the deployment meant that the Russians were there to stay. A series of treaties were signed between the Japanese and the Europeans in an effort to quell the building tensions in the area. These treaties gave Japan recognized control of the Korean peninsula to Japan while the Europeans would continue to control Manchuria and other areas of China.

Russian controlled Manchuria in dark red.

However, the tension did not subside and open warfare would break out between Russia and Japan. The Russo-Japanese War (Feb. 1904 – May1905) ended with the defeat of the Russian military and the destruction of nearly the entire Russian navy by the Japanese. This victory gave the Japanese undisputed control of not only the Korean peninsula but all of Manchuria as well. This victory had also showed the world that the Japanese were a country to be respected as the equals to any western nation with their defeat of the Russian military.

The Russo-Japanese War was officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the United States between the Russian and Japanese representatives. It was few months before this treaty was signed that the Taft-Katsura Agreement so remembered today by Koreans was agreed upon. This agreement effectively recognized that the US would not interfere with Japanese ambitions in Korea and Manchuria and that Japan would not interfere with American ambitions in the Philippines. The US leaders wanted official recognition of this reality from the Japanese so they would not have to spend the money fortifying the US colony in the Philippines from possible Japanese attack.

Plus this agreement and the following Treaty of Portsmouth would ensure regional stability after a decade of constant warfare in northeast Asia. All this agreement did was recognize reality at the time. How is recognizing reality a sell out?

Russian and Japanese delegates meet to sign the Treaty of Portsmouth

Also Koreans often site the 1883 Jemulpo Agreement as not being a mutual friendship treaty, but as a defensive pact between Korea and the US. They feel that the US was obligated to come to the defense of Korea against Japan. Here is the passage in the treaty they try to argue is a defensive pact:

Article I.

There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between the President of the United States and the King of Chosen and the citizens and subjects of their respective Governments. If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings.

Only in Korea is “exert their good offices” considered a defensive pact. Here is the meaning of “good offices” from dictionary.com:

1. influence, esp. with a person in a position of power: He got the job through the good offices of his uncle.

2. services rendered by a mediator in a dispute.

No where in this definition do I see defensive pact, but this is what many Koreans believe “good offices” means though the definition of it is quite clear. The only obligation the US had was to speak on Korea’s behalf if requested; no where in there does it say the US is obligated to deploy the 7th Cavalry to Korea to take Japanese scalps. However, this didn’t stop Koreans leaders after the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty to try and argue this same point that “good offices” meant a defensive pact with then President Teddy Roosevelt, but Roosevelt refused to meet them and discounted their claims. Can you blame him? Maybe he wasn’t showing “good offices” by refusing to meet them, but no where in the agreement does it say either that the Koreans have exclusive access to the American President. If the United States didn’t come to the aid of Korea during both the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War what made the Korean leaders think that the US would be willing to go to war with Japan now?

A defensive pact would be a formal document all in itself much like what the US and Korea has today, that lays out clear responsibilities of each side. Almost certainly if Korea wanted a defensive pact with the US at the time the US would have requested a military presence within Korea which the Yangban rulers did not want. The US did not have the naval ability that it has today or nearby colonies from which to quickly move troops to defend Korea from external attack thus the signing of a mutual defense pact would be pointless without a forward deployed American troop presence. Even if the Yangban rulers allowed a US troop presence I don’t think the US military could have supported it with it’s already large deployment of forces in the Philippines to put down the insurgency there from Moro guerrillas.

Too many Koreans confuse the US military might of today with the US military of 1905. In 1905 the US military was at the most equal to, if not weaker than the major European powers. If the Japanese had so decisively defeated the Russians whose country is located adjacent to both Korea and Manchuria, how can the United States located on the other side of the world, be expected to sail over to Korea and conduct a 1905 version of the Inchon Landing Operation?

To blame the US for Japanese colonization of Korea is ridiculous. Saying that the US didn’t do anything to help Korea I could agree with, but to blame the US for the Japanese colonization is just another absurd attempt at historical revisionism so prevalent in Korea today. If Koreans are looking to assign blame they should first look at themselves.

Shouldn’t the first responsibility of a government be to ensure national security? Obviously the Yangban were more interested in their own security than national defense. If the Korean government had opened up their economy and simultaneously built up and modernized their army after the embarrassing defeat to the Americans on Ganghwa Island over 20 years prior they may have been able to prevent what happened to them. Remember during the Sino-Japanese War only 8,000 Japanese soldiers were able to occupy Seoul and capture the government. 8,000 for crying out loud. Why should the US be expected to defend a country that isn’t even willing to protect itself from an invasion force of 8,000 soldiers? If the Koreans fought a protracted war against the Japanese to keep them out of Korea maybe the US would have done more to help the Koreans. As it turned out the Koreans did very little to expel the Japanese during both the Sino and Russo-Japanese Wars thus why would the US government feel an obligation to free Korea when it appeared they didn’t want to be free themselves?

The bottom line is that the corrupt and incompetent Korean rulers created the conditions that led to the Japanese colonization of Korea. In their quest to keep their own domestic status quo they ignored the changes in the power structure in northeast Asia, mainly that China could not be depended on to defend the peninsula from invasion. China could not even defend themselves from the western powers at the time, much less Korea. However, the Korean rulers kept their heads in the sand and did little to develop international relations and build their own domestic military to defend the nation. By gambling that the Chinese military would protect them was a bet that they lost. It was an even worse bet if they thought the Americans were obligated to come save them after that.

The Taft-Katsura Agreement is just one of a long line of historical revisionism endorsed by Korean politicians like Minister Chung I mentioned earlier that seek to blame foreigners, in particular the United States, for all the failings of the Korean government. If the failures of prior Korean governments was the fault of foreigners and the big, bad United States; then all the failures of the current Korean government most also be the fault of foreigners and the big, bad United States now. That is why the Korean government finds it so necessary to create a historical context in order to blame current problems on the US. So when the North Koreans detonate a nuclear weapon, who does the South Korean government blame for it? The United States of course, while totally remaining silent about the fact the South Korean government are the ones that financed the nuclear weapon by giving massive amounts of aid and hard cash to the North Koreans.

When the economy is sagging that must be the fault of the foreigners as well, so witch hunts against companies like Lone Star are undertaken in order to shift blame for the sluggish economy when in fact all this does is create further drag on the economy by drying up international investment into the country. That doesn’t matter though because the government has officially shifted blame once again to the big, bad foreigners. Don’t even get me started on Dokdo. I and others have shown over and over again how the Korean government has demagogued this issue for their own political advantage and once again Minister Chung was leading the way on this. Heck even the lack of English language skills, drugs, and defiling of women in Korea are blamed on “low quality foreign English teachers”. The list of outrageous claims against foreigners goes on and on.

What concerns me most is these backwards views are slowly but surely making it possible for history to repeat itself. Korean politicians today are becoming more and more like the Yangban of the Josen dynasty of the late 19th century. They are more interested in keeping the status quo and cementing their own power than ensuring the national security of the country. The current leftist government much like the Yangban are highly suspicious of the military and have thus sought to limit the power of the ROK military as much as possible. Thus you see massive cut backs in soldiers, a lack of national military strategy, along with deliberately causing a complacency within the ranks towards the nation’s main enemy North Korea.

Now combine this with the simultaneous steady degrading of the US-ROK alliance which may ultimately end up with the exit of US forces from Korea and you have a country that has exposed itself to an external military attack, much like in the late 19th century. There is one main reason why for over 50 years that northeast Asia has been so peaceful, the US military presence.

Another eerie similarity is the fact that Japanese agents had infiltrated and manipulated the Korean government long before the actual Japanese occupation in order to set conditions for the eventual take over of Korea by Japan to happen. The same thing is happening today as North Korean agents have infiltrated not only the government, but South Korean society as a whole in order to set conditions for a future North Korean take over of the country. The Japanese were infiltrating Korean society 20 years before the take over of Korea, imagine where South Korea will be in 20 years if North Korea is allowed to continue to manipulate the direction of the country.

If the North Koreans ever did invade and occupy South Korea 20 years from now long after the exit of US forces from South Korea; I can picture the Korean leaders coming to Washington demanding the US to come and save them though they ended the US-ROK alliance years ago and replaced it with a friendship treaty instead. Would the US president be morally obligated to help a country that independently chose to create the conditions that allowed their defeat to happen in the first place? There is plenty that can be learned from an objective look at history and unfortunately it appears that the current Korean government is only interested in following the path of the Josun Yangban at the expense of the national security of the country. If the Korean government reaps what it sows 20 years from now, any bets they will blame America for selling them out then too?

Discrimination of foreigners in Korea is nothing new, but recently it has been getting a lot of attention because of the current Minyeodeului Suda Scandal. This scandal has caused at least one K-blogger to start an online petition to protest KBS’s racism.

Well now the Korea Times has an article about foreigners being denied access to swimming pools and saunas:

Connie Arnold, a middle-aged English teacher at Pochon CHA University in Songu-ri, began having hip pain earlier this year and went to see a doctor. He identified it as muscle strain and swimming was prescribed.

Arnold knew of only one pool in town, but when she went there she was told, “No Foreigners Allowed.’’’ She asked a Korean co-worker to call for her and explain that she had to swim for health reasons.

“I explained about you (doctor’s order) but they said no,’’ the co-worker wrote in a follow up e-mail. “Foreigner(s) cannot use the pool.’’

None of this is really surprising to me because foreigners have long been treated like second class citizens in Korea. However, the ones that have it by far the worst are the people who come from third world countries to work in Korea’s manuafacturing businesses. Korea’s Confucian thinking puts these labors way at the bottom of the class structure. That is the real reason why foreigners are denied access to swimming pools, saunas, and even internet cafes:

Arnold said that besides the swimming pool and sauna, she has been refused entry to PC bangs in Songu-ri because she is a foreigner.

A reporter asking to use a computer at the Joy PC Bang in Songu-ri was told foreigners were not allowed to use the service.

I have never been denied access to an internet cafe or even a sauna, but the denial of GI’s to bars and restaurants is quite common, but also keep in mind the denial of Koreans and other foreigners to American only bars happens as well, which I don’t agree with. This is done the ville areas outside of some of the US military installations. The bars are owned by Koreans and just goes to show that they are willing to discriminate against other Koreans in order to make a buck.
There is plenty of discrimination in Korea, but I really think it has been getting better in recent years and the netizen outrage to the KBS show is encouraging, however it is going to take a whole lot more Hines Wards out there to end discrimination in Korea any time soon.

UPDATE: The Marmot’s Hole now has a posting on this article as well worth checking out.

Here is something that is no shocker to those of us who have spent plenty of time in USFK:

One man is in custody and three more face charges in connection with a black-marketing operation that was being run out of an Army and Air Force Exchange Service store at Camp Long, near Wonju, South Korea, authorities said Wednesday.

The case was a result of a yearlong investigation and involved more than 21,000 cases of beer from AAFES, according to Kim Jong-mu, a Seoul-based South Korean customs officer who is the case’s senior investigator.

The duty-free beer was driven off base in a U.S. government vehicle and sold to middlemen, who in turn resold it on the South Korean market, he said.

The four suspects in the case were AAFES employees, he said.

AAFES employees are really the brains behind the black marketing scams in Korea. Here is how these criminals have been pulling off their scam:

The 21,300 cases of beer believed to have been smuggled over the past year was valued at 700 million won, or about $750,000. Kim said investigators believe the suspects have been involved in black marketing for many years.

The Camp Long smuggling was done by loading cases into a vehicle with USFK plates and driving the beer to a middleman waiting off base in an identical vehicle with South Korean license plates, Kim said. Then the plates were switched and the beer was delivered to liquor merchants in Seoul’s Namdaemun Market, he said.

They black marketed $750,000 in just beer, imagine how much they are making from Spam, ox tails, and other popular food items as well. I’m willing to be their black marketing ring was bringing in close to $1 million a year and they have been getting away with this for years. This is a huge amount of money and this is just from Camp Long.