Once again due to Korean media lies we have mad cow 2.0 happening over the THAAD deployment to South Korea. Fortunately this is happening in a rural area of Korea and not Seoul where the Korean left would be able to mobilize huge crowds more easily. We will see what happens when the usual suspects such as the KCTU will likely get involved in this. I would not be surprised if the Korean left tries to makes this look like Camp Humphreys back in 2005 to get this battery installed in Seongju. If the US military was smart they would wait until after the summer protest season to deploy this battery to Korea. The Korean left will not be able to mobilize huge crowds in the freezing cold of January in rural Korea:
Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo and other government officials are trapped in a bus in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, on Friday as an angry mob of residents protest the deployment of the Thaad system in their hometown. Hwang was also pelted with eggs and doused with water. [NEWSIS]An angry mob of Seongju residents besieged the prime minister for more than six hours on Friday during his visit to the southeastern rural town to explain the government’s recent decision to place a controversial U.S.-led missile defense system in their neighborhood.
Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, accompanied by Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo and Vice Minister of Interior Kim Sung-lyul, traveled to Seongju, North Gyeongsang, in the morning to meet with residents after Seongsan-ri of Seongju, a village with about 2,800 people, was selected Wednesday as the site to host the U.S. Forces Korea’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system.
After arriving in Seongju by a helicopter, they met with North Gyeongsang Governor Kim Kwan-yong and visited the artillery base in Seongsan-ri. A Korean Air Force artillery unit currently stationed there will be relocated and the U.S. military will install the Thaad system by the end of next year.
Hwang then arrived at the Seongju County Office and met with Kim Hang-gon, head of the county, who has been on a hunger strike in protest. About 3,000 angry residents were waiting for Hwang and pelted him with eggs and poured water on him.
The quiet farming town of Seongju, with a population of about 45,000, has become extremely volatile since residents fear the deployment for security and health concerns. North Korea warned of a physical response to the Thaad base, while concerns were also raised that the electromagnetic waves emitted from the Thaad radar are harmful to humans. The government said the radar poses no harm to humans outside of its 100-meter (328-foot) radius. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying repeatedly the safe keep out zones for the THAAD radar are well known, but leftists in the Korean media continue to publish articles claiming THAAD is going to make people sick. What seems lost to these people is that US soldiers work around this radar every day, so using their logic US soldiers must have some magical immunity to these scary electromagnetic waves that can some how magically make only Koreans sick.
I would a lot of them are not even residents. Most of the people in the town are old farmers. All of a sudden we see strapping young men in the violent protest. They don’t look like locals to me. I would not be surprised if the professional protestors hired by the left are already involved.
The difference between this and mad cow protests is that the mad cow was due to the FTA and fear of driving out farmers due to cheap beef. Those protests attempted to deter Koreans from buying US beef since they could argue that US beef had diseases, was driving farmers out of business, and that Korean beef somehow ‘tasted better’?!? That affected the exports of the beef industry in the US, which is quite formidable, but eventually failed since most people vote with their wallets.
These protests are directed at an agreement between the govt’s of Korea and the US, which are not as reactionary. It’ll be like Camp Humphreys, only worse, and I don’t see it having any affect, but it’ll be fun to watch.
@Bob Smith, what makes this similar to the mad cow nonsense is that it is all about politics not health or China concerns as what is publicly stated by the politicians and protesters. The leftist opposition is trying to use the THAAD issue to create voter momentum for the next Presidential election. What makes this worse than the mad cow nonsense is that they are doing this at the expense of national defense.
I would a lot of them are not even residents. Most of the people in the town are old farmers. All of a sudden we see strapping young men in the violent protest. They don’t look like locals to me. I would not be surprised if the professional protestors hired by the left are already involved.
The difference between this and mad cow protests is that the mad cow was due to the FTA and fear of driving out farmers due to cheap beef. Those protests attempted to deter Koreans from buying US beef since they could argue that US beef had diseases, was driving farmers out of business, and that Korean beef somehow ‘tasted better’?!? That affected the exports of the beef industry in the US, which is quite formidable, but eventually failed since most people vote with their wallets.
These protests are directed at an agreement between the govt’s of Korea and the US, which are not as reactionary. It’ll be like Camp Humphreys, only worse, and I don’t see it having any affect, but it’ll be fun to watch.
@Bob Smith, what makes this similar to the mad cow nonsense is that it is all about politics not health or China concerns as what is publicly stated by the politicians and protesters. The leftist opposition is trying to use the THAAD issue to create voter momentum for the next Presidential election. What makes this worse than the mad cow nonsense is that they are doing this at the expense of national defense.