Tag: Korea

Korean mafia is involved in video gambling:

Adult game arcades and distribution of gift certificates were discovered to be dominated by crime organizations, which used the profit to fund illegal activities.

The market for adult only game arcades and commercial computer rooms reaches 88 trillion won annually, with tax evasion rates estimated to be 8.8 trillion won.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) submitted a report on July 11 to Cheong Wa Dae on Addressing Social Evils – Dismantlement of Commercial Game Arcades Urgently Require

According to the report, Ahn, a middle boss from the Yeonggwang crime family in South Jeolla Province, is in charge of national distribution of H Gift Certificates, the third largest producer of certificates, while Seobang crime family deputy boss Oh is operating two illegal casinos which generate daily profits averaging 100 to 500 million won.

The report stated, Tax evasion rates from illegal money exchange are estimated to amount to 4.5 trillion won for adult-only arcades, and 4.3 trillion for commercial computer rooms.

Who would of thunk it?

Via Nomad, it looks like the latest Camp Humphreys controversy has ended under the following conditions:

Bar owners objected to Taliento decision, saying the agent who ordered the alcohol was of legal drinking age while the agent who paid was underage. They called it a sting operation in which they were set up to fail.

Kim said USFK personnel on Friday admitted fault in the recent undercover investigations. Kim said future checks are to be conducted by U.S. military personnel, members of the merchant association and Pyeongtaek city officials.

And while bars are required to do everything they can to prevent sales to minors, they wont be held responsible for personnel who legally buy alcohol then sneak it to underage buddies, Kim said.

That is actually a pretty weak case for putting a bar off limits by having an underage person buy a drink for a person of legal age. If that is in fact true I can understand why the bar owners are pissed off. However, this “solution” does nothing to solve the problem of underage drinkers because the people who underage drink will now just get their buddies to buy them alcohol instead. If the command really wants to end the problem put breathalyzers at the gate and that would make the people who want to underage drink have to stay at a hotel because they can’t get in through the gate. That is an additional expense for them plus they would have to get a pass from their commander to stay out. If the commander knows this person may possibly be an underage drinker the commander could not give the soldier a pass. Plus that will keep additional drunks out of the barracks where the vast majority of sexual assaults occur because of alcohol.

Then when these soldiers are caught underage drinking they need to be slammed as in losing rank and doing the maximum extra duty in full combat gear to set an example to anyone else who may be underage drinking. That will shift the underage drinking into the barracks where it is easier to monitor if there is a leadership presence in the barracks which there should be. How come I think we will be talking about off limits bar at Camp Humphreys again in another year?

If you are new to Korea and have wondered why Korean people especially women ask you what your blood type is well there is a reason for that.  Below is a graphic I graciously ripped off from the Japundit that lists what each person’s blood type means:

The worst blood type you can have is a type B. Type B people are supposed to make poor marriage choices due to their aledgedly unpredictable personalities.  This notion of blood type influencing personalities has even been made into a popular Korean movie, My Boyfriend is Type B. So the next time you are out on the town and someone asks for your blood type they are not sizing you up for an organ transplant, but as a compatible partner instead.  However, you might not want to tell them you are a Type B if you are.  Just give them your zodiac instead.

An issue that has gained recent attention is the issue of sexual assaults in Korea. There has been plenty of recent attention in Korea on sexual assaults against minors and other Korean women. Many of the recent high profile assaults against these women have been by repeat rapists who had received lenient jail time measured in months after their first sexual assault. These cases has caught the attention of the Korean media and hopefully this attention will lead to positive change in Korean society against sexual predators by not immediately condemning women who have been raped as prostitutes for example or giving these monsters who rape women light sentences which is right now an all to common practice in Korea.

Despite the media coverage of the sexual assault problems in Korea, something that has continued to be ignored by the Korean media is sexual assaults against foreign women in Korea. I have highlighted a number of assaults against female foreigners in Korea. Here are a few examples of past assaults on foreign women in Korea. A 19 year old female soldier newly arrived to Korea from Incheon airport was raped by a cab driver bringing her to Seoul. Then there is also the Jamie Penich murder in Itaewon that should be familiar to many expats out there. Then most recently the rape of an Army officer in Taegu that was almost totally buried by the Korean media.

If you don’t believe me that these stories are buried go ask the nearest Korean if they have heard about the rape of the US Army officer. They will probably tell you they never heard about it. Now ask them if they heard about the drunk idiot GI in Uijongbu who hit a beer bottle over a Korean guy’s head, they will probably tell you that they have heard of that, however. I just find it sad that a ville incident such as the beer bottle case would draw more publicity then a rape in Taegu, especially since the rapist wasn’t caught and could be still out there in Korean society raping more people. It just seems to me a rape case should draw as much media attention as possible in order to identify the rapist to ensure they are caught and cannot rape more women.

In an effort to educate people more about sexual assaults in Korea, I was contacted by a young lady who was sexually assaulted and beaten while teaching English at a hagwon in Seoul. For those familiar with prior assaults on foreign women in Korea you will see many similarities in this case with those prior cases in as far as how incompetent the Korean police are. The important thing is to learn from her story things that you can do to help yourself if you find yourself in a similar situation or maybe you are helping someone that unfortunately was assaulted because the Korean police are not there to help you.

With that in mind here is a story of a sexual assault in Korea that no one has probably heard of, but should of:

I came across this blog in doing my own research about the incidents of foreign females in Korea being assaulted and saw the story from back in July when a female military officer was assaulted by a cab driver. I am so lucky that I have found this blog and can spread the word about the dangers of being a foreign female in Korea and how biased the Korean media, police, hospitals, etc. might be to you if something horrible were to happen. I, too, was a victim and want anyone who wants to hear my story to listen up and spread the word.

I came to Seoul in February of last year to teach English. This was not my first time in Korea, having visited Korea in high school with my Korean friend and having also studied Korean language at Yonsei University in 2000-2001.

I was living in Seoul in what is considered to be one of the safest (aka richest) areas: Chungdam. I am sure you know the 24 hour McDonalds, Hard Rock Cafe, etc—I lived across the street from those places. On July 31, 2005, I arrived to my one room when around 11:20pm, my window slides open and a man is in the window. In the second that I sat frozen in my computer chair in shock/surprise/disbelief, he hopped down from the window and lunged at me and began to hit me with his fist repeatedly, while choking me with his other hand. After hitting me for a few minutes to where I was going unconscious, he ran over to my bag, grabbed my wallet, and in Korean, said the first word “Don, don, don”, which translated means “Money, money, money”. Being a Sunday night, I had just spent the last cash I had and I told him that in Korean. At this point, he began hitting me again. After only a few hits, however, he decided to begin choking me.

He gave up choking me and began hitting me more until I again was drifting in and out of consciousness.

He then decided to rape me. He first tried covering my bloodied face with a shirt but I quickly bled through it so he told me in Korean, “Wash your face”. He went into my kitchen to get a knife and I knew it was my chance to get away. In that instant I found my cell phone and locked myself in the bathroom.

Once locked inside, I called the police. According to their police report was at 11::40pm. They did not arrive to my apartment until well after 12am despite a police station being only 5 minutes by walk from my house. I didn’t trust that the police believed me and understood to come so I also called my friends, but they too, were all far away. When the 2 policemen showed up, the man was gone. I told the police what happened and that I need to go to a hospital right away but their first words to me was to say “Where are your panties and give me your Alien Registration ID card”. I managed to find my ID card and I gave it to him and then ran out my door to try to get someone else to get me an ambulance. The police came out and told me to sit in the back of their police car, which I did. Soon after, the ambulance came and they did not help into the ambulance on a stretcher. They opened up their sliding side door and told me to walk in. I did and lay down on the stretcher, unattended by anyone

The first place I was taken was called Samsung Medical Center. When we arrived there, again I was not taken in on a stretcher, but instead the two ambulance workers opened the door and told me to get out. As we were walking in, they did not assist me in walking and wouldn’t even open the hospital doors for me until I pulled up the back of my running pants which had slipped down to reveal the top of my panties. I was laid on a stretcher and someone came to clean my face and photograph my injuries. Within a short amount of time a number of my friends and coworkers began arriving and immediately we worked together to recall what I could of the attack while the hospital workers were deciding where to send me. I explained to them first of all what happened and asked them to please test my fingernails for his DNA because I probably scratched him. My friends (no police were to be found now) then got a pen and paper and were asking for his description and also began listing the places I could remember he touched: My window, my wallet, my bag, my refrigerator, my door lock, my sink faucet—all places that could be tested for fingerprints. This first hospital also took pictures of my injuries which now are LOST. The hospital has told the US Embassy that they do not have a camera to even take pictures; while they told my friend who inquired about them that they just don’t have record of my name for that date.

After I would guess about 40 minutes-1 hour, I was moved to a 2nd hospital—Hye-Min hospital in the northwest part of Seoul. I was put into the ambulance on a stretcher but again, was not tended to by any professionals. My two friends rode with me and when I began feeling nauseous and throwing up from the bumpy ride and my head injury, my friends were helping me not any professional workers. I do not remember the emergency room of Hye-Min Hospital and what I will tell you comes from my friends who were dealing with admitting me. This comes from 2 Korean friends, 1 American friend, and 1 Canadian friend. My friends were speaking with the man admitting me, he said that the hospital would not help me unless I paid him $1000.00 in cash because I was a ‘Russian prostitute who probably deserved what I got’. Finally after convincing him I was neither Russian, nor a prostitute and having my boss show up, they decided to admit me into Intensive Care. Despite my major injuries being associated with my head and eye, there was no eye doctor even available at this hospital. However, the first hospital claimed that the bigger hospitals’ ICUs were all full and they could not take me.

At this hospital, I basically laid for 1 day on an IV —no medications were given and very little monitoring was done. My blood pressure was checked maybe 2 times per day and I was given no heart/oxygen or any other standard monitors. Besides being in pain from my head injuries, I was unable to sleep or lay without pain due to severe neck and back strains from being choked. The bed was flat in a very uncomfortable position and I was told if I needed to be moved I would have to pound on the side of my bed to get a nurses attention because they didn’t have call buttons. Of course, when I did this, nurses would ignore me for 10-15 minutes or more. I was finally moved into the ICU of Yongdong Severance Hospital where I was given good treatment and finally tests were taken. I was given an immediate CT scan, along with X-rays and an eye doctor looked at my eyes. It was decided that I had a brain hemorrhage, fractured skull and other facial bones, ocular hemorrhaging. On day 3 of my ordeal, I was visited by a deputy of the US embassy and a Korean detective, who through my best Korean friend, interpreted what happened and the suspect description. No sketch was taken, however.

While in the hospital I was thinking about who this guy might be so I gathered a list of the places I walk a lot. Based on his skin tone and build, I figured he must work outside and suggested to the police to check 3 nearby construction sites near my house that I regularly walk by, 2 car shops or local taxis. Based on the glove marks around my neck, I figured he could be a taxi driver and a taxi driver lives in my building, yet the police never interviewed anyone in my building or the surrounding buildings. My friends interviewed my neighbors on their own who said they did in fact hear screams, but were too afraid to help and saw nothing. The police interviewed no one, took no suspect sketch, no DNA, and despite claiming that they took fingerprints, there was no evidence of the traditional black soot fingerprinting would leave at my apartment. There were no police reports sent out to the media and despite me and my friends calling every Korean and English news and television media outlet, no one would cover my story or even just release information regarding the suspect’s appearance. I also remembered that because I lived in the nicest area of Seoul, for “security” they have CCTV cameras up around the neighborhoods. My Korean friend called the police with this information and all of my other suggestions about where to find the suspect and their response to us was “We do things our way, we are handling it, leave us alone”. I was never contacted by the police again. During my final day in the hospital, I finally got enough courage to look at the shirt I was wearing during the attack. The police did not collect it for evidence or DNA. Upon my examination, I found a short black hair to which I applied a piece of tape and called the police asking them to please come and pick it up—-it could be the suspect’s hair! Again, they responded, “We do things our way; we don’t have time for that”. Finally, after returning to America and complaining to the Embassy, the police agreed to look at the hair and we fed-exd the shirt to the police. It was returned “tested” with the hair still in tact. Nice, right?

I do not even want to get into my school. Of course we know how hagwons are. All I will say, is that they deemed me to be too problematic to the school because they feared I would reveal where I worked and make them to have a bad reputation. When I was released from the hospital, I had made flyers to distribute throughout my neighborhood with a suspect description and I was told by my school and the police that I could not do so because it would make all Koreans look crazy. So, despite being promised I would have a job when I was completely, recovered, I never got the offer back.

After returning back to the USA, I am not aware of anything going on in the investigation. About 3 weeks after my attack, a Korean girl was found naked and murdered, dying from the same injuries I sustained and she only lived about 5 minutes from my house by walk. So after 1 month, the police requested I get a sketch of the suspect and started sending me pictures of sex offenders about 2 months after my attack. But of course, the mind is a great thing and tries to forget something like that, so making a sketch now is difficult. Due to the recent string of serial rapes in Korea, I have taken it on myself to try to find out anyone who is arrested in case I may recognize the guy. After seeing a picture the Taejon serial rapist who was captured in Seoul in February, he seemed familiar to me and so I contacted the Embassy. They said the police determined it was not the same man who attacked me based on a DNA mismatch. Oh, now they do have my perpetrator’s DNA? Up until this point, I was told they didn’t have anything. Suspicious is the fact that they will not give the embassy pictures of the man for me to identify.

That is my story. My goal is not to shock, not to expound hate on Korea or Korean people. My goal is to make us foreigners living in a seemingly “safe” country aware that even though these things do not appear in the papers, they can and do happen. More importantly, I am looking for ways I can help to get started programs for foreigners to provide safety education and resources. If you would be attacked, do you know enough Korean to call the police, or do you even know the police number? If you do suffer an attack, there are no rape crisis lines or centers for foreigners. Finding a psychologist who speaks English is also difficult.

We need to get together and make a positive change. Acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step. Now, let’s make a difference.

I know this post is long but I think the information provided in it is very important because I know I learned plenty from the writer’s tragic experience and hopefully others did as well.

The New York Times had nice overview article about the whole stem cell controversy involving Dr. Hwang Woo-suk. A couple of things in the article did jump out at me. First of all how much did the Roh Administration know about the forgery before the MBC report?:

An indication of Dr. Hwang’s good connections to the government was the inclusion of Dr. Park Ky Young as a co-author of his 2004 report on human cloning. A botanist by training, Dr. Park may not have contributed much scientifically to the task of cloning of human cells. She is, however, the science adviser to Roh Moo Hyun, the president of South Korea.

Did Dr. Park know what was going on and maybe this is why the government was trying so vigorously to discredit the MBC report?

Here is the other thing I found interesting:

“Clearly the scientific credibility of Korean investigators has been compromised,” said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell expert at Johns Hopkins University and a member of Science’s board of reviewers. He referred to the fact that duplicate and misidentified photos had turned up in articles by other South Korean authors besides Dr. Hwang.

This just makes me curious about what other cases of scientific fraud has been published by Korean scientists. Is this a systematic problem in Korea or are Korean cases of scientific fraud similar to the amount of fraud cases in western countries?

TIME magazine this months has a pretty good article about the Korean stem cell controversy for those who haven’t been following it very closely. TIME does try to explain why Hwang lied about his results:

But why it happened is still a mystery. By all accounts, the tales of Hwang’s dedication and personal discipline are all true.

(…)

Hwang insisted he had no interest in profiting from his discoveries; indeed, he turned over his patent rights to the university and the government.

That being the case, it seems unlikely that Hwang set out to perpetrate fraud. But it wouldn’t be surprising if he, or someone in his lab, believed strongly enough in the work to be willing to cut corners. If that’s true, the precipitating event could have come last January, when some of his stem-cell samples became contaminated, possibly by a fungus circulating in poorly shielded air vents.

Hwang claims it took six months to recover from the disaster. But it also might be that Hwang’s team couldn’t recover quickly enough and began taking shortcuts to fill the gap. Under pressure from the government and the university, and with a deadline looming for publication in one of the world’s most prestigious journals, the temptation to stretch the truth might have been irresistible. “I can only speculate that Dr. Hwang was driven by ambition. He may have thought he could manipulate the data to secure research funding and compensate for his actions with follow-up results,” says Ki Jung Kim, a political scientist at Seoul’s Yonsei University. In short, fudge it now, fix it later.

This explanation probably makes the most sense of why he committed a fraud that was bound to be uncovered. He gambled that he could get the real results before the forgery was discovered and he lost. Just makes you wonder if he wasn’t so hyped by the media and given so much money by the government in order to speed up scientific results; that maybe he would of spent the time necessary to conduct experiments ethically and more carefully so that he could have avoided the ethical violations that began the investigation and prevented the cells from becoming contaminated during the scientific process?

The Joong Ang Ilbo is reporting that the Blue House actually knew about the stem cell fraud back in November:

President Roh Moo-hyun addressed the emerging controversy over allegations of unethical practices by MBC on the Blue House Web site on Nov. 27, even before the network had aired the program. He made no mention of any doubts about Dr. Hwang’s research, not surprisingly because the doubts had only been communicated to a junior official the day before.

But on Dec. 5, one day after the YTN television network reported details of alleged PD Notebook threats to researchers in the course of gathering their information, Mr. Roh was quoted as saying in a meeting with his senior aides that he hoped “problems regarding verification of Dr. Hwang’s achievements could be put to rest at this point.” The science minister, Oh Myung, told reporters on Dec. 8 that those with doubts should blame Science, adding that talks of verification of Dr. Hwang’s research should no longer be brought up “for the sake of Korea’s science.”

How in the world can Korea’s science minister blame Science Magazine for Dr. Hwang’s fraud? Then he says that the allegations shouldn’t be brought up anymore? He sounds like someone more interested in a cover up than actually determining the truth.

In other stem cell news apparently about 1/2 of the Korean population wants Dr. Hwang to go back to work at Seoul National University and continue his stem cell work:

Nearly half of South Korean people still support disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who is accused of fabricating his research on tailor-made cells featured by the U.S. journal Science in 2005, a recent survey showed.
The survey conducted by The Korea Times on Dec. 27-28 last year found that 45.6 percent of respondents said it is desirable to give the former professor at Seoul National University (SNU) “one more chance’’ for his cloning work.

More than 70 percent of those surveyed were also skeptical about the government’s support for the World Stem Cell Hub at SNU, initiated by the cloning expert last October, without Hwang’s involvement, the poll suggested.

About 95 percent of respondents want the government itself to continue its financial support for the stem cell research rather than redirect the support to a private or scholar level.

As past experience has taught me, I don’t put to much credence in polls conducted in Korea. So take these results with a grain of salt, but it does tell us that there is still a sizable number of Koreans willing to overlook Hwang’s past trangression in hopes of future success. Hwang has actually played this whole crisis towards Korean nationalism very well and in the end he may still walk away with a job and research money some where. I don’t think SNU would take him back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he resurfaces somewhere else to carry on his experiments when he still has a large amount of public backing.

For those familiar with South Korea you often hear about how Koreans possess superior dexterity compared to other people due to their skill with chopsticks. Koreans skills with chopsticks are what is allegedly responsible for producing top professional female golfers, world class pottery, top table tennis players, master archers, and until recently even top stem cell scientists.

Well here is yet another reference to Korea’s allegeded chopstick superiority:

John Gearhart, also a Hopkins researcher, said another impediment is that Hwang’s lab has not shared enough details of its technology to allow other labs to duplicate it. And apart from technical acumen, few labs in the world have permission to do work that would build on the Korean report, he said.

Maybe some labs have tried and failed but kept quiet about it, Civin said, because the scientists “didn’t feel like saying they weren’t as good as the South Koreans.”

Indeed, the technical expertise of Hwang’s lab has often been mentioned as a crucial ingredient in its reported success. Hwang has attributed his lab workers’ dexterity to lots of practice with steel chopsticks.

Visitors to Hwang’s lab report “they have technical competence and abilities far beyond what most American labs have, and I think that’s true,” said Thomas Cech, a Nobel Prize winner who heads the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “People have actually watched them manipulate these cells … and say they’re really extraordinarily dexterous and skilled technically.”

So if other scientists can’t get such experiments to work, he said, they may conclude “I’m not surprised because I saw these people from Korea and they’re so much better at manipulating cells than I am.”

So how come the Japanese can’t replicate the stem cell experiments if clumsy non-chopstick using American scientists can’t replicate it? Maybe because it is a fake along with the rest of Hwang’s work. Not being skilled with chopsticks is an even lamer excuse than the appeal to Korean nationalism being used before to defend Hwang’s work.

I haven’t said anything about the whole Dr. Hwang stem cell mess that has brewing the last few weeks in Korea because I figured I would wait until the whole truth comes out before commenting on it. Finally it appears the truth has come out and Dr. Hwang has in fact faked his stem cell research:

New allegations of fabricated research by Korean scientist and national icon Dr. Hwang Woo Suk broadcast in the last hour on Korean nightly news have sent shock waves through the nation.

Hwang’s research team member Dr. Roh Sung Il told Korean broadcaster MBC, “No embryonic stem cells exist” in the research that was later published in the journal Science in June, 2005.

Roh told an MBC reporter that Kim Sun Jong, one of the team researchers dispatched to the University of Pittsburgh to work with U.S. scientist and paper co-author Prof. Gerald Schatten, said in a telephone conversation recently, “Dr. Hwang and Dr. Gang Sung Keun ordered me to fake the stem cell data.”

This is a huge blow to the morale of the entire Korean nation because so many people hyped Dr. Hwang’s research under the banner of nationalism and continued to defend him and demonize those who initially criticized his work.

When the first reports came out about him faking the data I always wondered why he didn’t let independent scientists validate his work to prove the detractors wrong. He never did and hid behind the banner of Korean nationalism by accusing foreign countries of trying to steal Korea’s stem cell technology. Now it turns out there was nothing to steal.

I can’t help but wonder why Dr. Hwang faked his research to begin with? It seems like it would be tough to maintain this lie indefinitely. Is this lie a product of the internationally low regard of Korean universities where officials were maybe eager for a ground breaking scientific achievement and may not have done enough to verify Hwang’s research? I’m sure there will be plenty of theories in the coming days and I’m sure the Marmot and Oranckay will be all over it.

What is really sad about this is that this whole situation is going to further create a negative stereotype on other stem cell scientists who are doing legitimate research in order to save and improve people’s lives.

I wonder when Koreans will learn there is plenty to be proud of in Korea and don’t need to always look for the next person who will bring glory to the Korean nation. The media built Dr. Hwang up just like they do everyone else that is some how connected to Korea and the public fell for the propaganda that Hwang was going to bring great glory finally to Korea. If this guy wasn’t so propagandized by the media and in turn the government the aftermath of this whole mess would not have been as ugly as this is turning out to be.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Korean defensive officials have agreed to “appropriately accelerate” the operation control of the ROK Army issue:

Korea and the U.S. have agreed to “appropriately accelerate” discussion on the return of wartime operational control, which currently rests with the U.S. It was one of 13 points agreed at the 37th annual bilateral Security Consultative Meeting here headed by Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and his U.S. counterpart Donald Rumsfeld.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaks at a press conference after the annual Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting at the Defense Ministry in Yongsan, Seoul on Friday.

To an official request from Korea for the return of wartime command, Rumsfeld said he agreed with Seoul but cautioned matters must proceed to ensure they help peace on the Korean Peninsula. Sources close to the talks said the joint statement pledged to “appropriately accelerate” discussions. Asked what that meant, Rumsfeld told a joint press conference after the meeting, “It’ll take place at the moment when the Republic of Korea and the United States of America decide it’s appropriate.”

Notice he doesn’t say when this acceleration is going to take place. He only says when appropriate. The whole issue of the Korean government taking operational control from the United States during war time is nothing but an empty slogan to play to Korean nationalism since President Roh Moo-hyun’s approval ratings are in the twenty percentile range.

Think about this logically. If Korea takes operational control during a conflict with North Korea do you for one minute think that the US government will allow ROK Army generals to command US stealth fighters, tomahawk cruise missiles, submarines, AEGIS destroyers, B-52’s, etc. during a war? The ROK Army generals are fine infantry, land warfare commanders for their theater of operations here on the Korean peninsula but, they are not trained or have the war time experience to properly implement the the combined arms fight that the US military can bring down on an enemy.

If Korea wants operational control they may just end up regretting it if the US military pulls out of Korea. Not that the ROK Army cannot win a war with North Korea because it most probably could, however victory is not certain without the US militaries involvement. The ROK military does not have the capability to conduct critical war time missions such as precision bombing over North Korea’s rear areas or collecting usable signal intelligence. These lack of capabilities even if the ROK military were to win a war would make any war here longer and more devastating than it needed to be. Is national pride worth the stategic consequences? For President Roh, that is a yes.

I’m actually for pushing this issue of the ROK military getting operational control because that would force them to buy capabilities they need to replace some of those currently provided by the US military. For every capability replaced by the ROK military that means a US military capability is then open to be used elsewhere to support the GWOT.

I wonder if Rumsfeld cook this whole idea up as a way to get troops out of Korea? Anyway, Korea likes to let the world know that they have the world’s 11th largest economy, so it is time to start using that affluence to buy the capabilities that they would lose once they do get operational control. If they don’t and the US military leaves, I sure hope for all the citizens here that the Sunshine Policy works because a war here would be absolutely devastating.

However, keep in mind that if a war were to occur on the Korean peninsula these same people crying about operational control now will be the same people begging the US military to come back and fight in a second Korean War. Hopefully it doesn’t come down to that.