What Does USFK and Nuclear Waste Have in Common?
Apparently USFK and a nuclear waste dump have a lot in common in Korea now a days according to this Joong Ang Ilbo article:
The Pyeongtaek problem has in many ways the potential to become another Buan incident. The residents of Buan also had confrontations over the choice between the livelihood of the residents and the economic gains from the construction of nuclear waste disposal facilities. However, with the intervention of outside forces, the logic for environmental protection and the development logic collided each other and the problem was expanded to a national level and became a political issue, making it more difficult to solve.
We shouldn’t leave the Pyeong-taek situation alone so that it can become another Buan incident. In order to stop this, the government and local autonomous organizations must actively mediate friction among the residents over their livelihood and business interests. The greater the friction among the residents is, the more room there is for outside organizations to intervene. Therefore, minimizing the chances of internal friction is the shortcut to keeping the problem from expanding to the national level. After that, the government must make an effort to find a contact point where those parties to the Pyeongtak issue who emphasisze the importance of the alliance and those who emphasize the importance of peace can compromise.
Maybe a nuclear waste dump is a good analogy for USFK. A nuclear waste dump is something no one wants in their back yard but the pay off of cheap electrical power is worth the annoyance of keeping the nuclear waste dumps around. Maybe USFK is the same way; an annoyance but useful to keep around.
However, I think the USFK “nuclear waste dump” that is trying to be expanded in Pyongtaek is being held up by the local farmers, not because people don’t want it in their backyards, because Camp Humphreys is already in their backyards, but because they want more money from the government for their land. The anti-USFK parasites are just jumping on to this issue to try and make it look like the big American bullies are pushing around Korea again to further their own political agendas. They could care less about the farmers. However, once the farmers get their pay day from the government the majority of them will happily move out to greener pastures.
Here is something in the article I need to point out that just annoys me:
For the sake of our alliance with the United States, they want the Pyeongtaek issue to remain a non-political and local problem. They think that the Pyeongtaek problem can be solved by efforts to improve such procedural matters as eliminating unequal elements in the Korea-U.S. alliance, not by the demand to withdraw the U.S. forces from Korea.
Quick somebody name these unequal elements in the US-ROK alliance? This is a common quote I hear over and over again but never see anything to substantiate it. It is just something people like to throw out there because they hear it over and over again and just assume it to be a fact. If you know of any of these inequalities in the US-ROK alliance please feel free to comment.
I think if we have a possibility of seeing USFK out of Korea almost totally within the next 10 years, Pyongtaek and other southern bases being expanded will be perhaps one of a few key issues bringing it about. As you noted, the anti-US groups will be all over it. They have a long time to think it over and think of strategies.
And I don't imagine it will be hard for them to delay construction. I think if I were making the plans and had 50 to a 100 dedicated people, I could do it.
This is really going to be a test of what Korea wants and thinks about the US-SK relationship and USFK.
In order to prevent the anti-groups from delaying construction and driving construction costs up to a point USFK starts talking seriously about withdrawing more troops out, which they might want to do anyway, the South Korean government is going to have to mobilize the police effectively and that will mean with force because these groups are ready to apply their own.
An equal factor will be how the rest of Korean society deals with it. Will they follow the routine and sympathize basically with the anti-US forces — thinking they are fighting the good fight but a little carried away and perhaps harmfully naive? If they feel like this, the heat of the clashes could pull in regular Koreans. Or, will the regular Koreans, who like to share the same basic negative ideas about USFK but fear a withdrawal and an anti-Korean backlash, decide to do what we sometimes see the buisness groups near major US bases and veterans do — mobilize to meet the anti-US radicals stone for stone, steel pipe for steel pipe?
I think the business and veterans have also been thinking about this coming storm and probably preparing too. The MacAuther statue thing is like a warm up.
I don't know how this will go. Roh will be in a spotlight he won't like. In 2002-2003, in the base protest that saw the fence cut and slabs of concrete thrown over the gate, 9 US soldiers were injured, as well as riot police and protesters, but the head Korean prosecutor ordered the local ones to scold the riot police and see if any needed to be prosecuted. With this Pyongtaek thing, I believe Roh won't have the chance to cut a middle path. To prevent the delays the protesters can do, he'll have to mobilize the government power, and with that and a good bit of help from regular Koreans, maybe the base construction can get under way and keep close enough to schedule.
But if the government and average citizens don't have the stomach or desire, I see this grinding to an unacceptable halt.
And with US bases also finally coming to the chopping block, the more South Korea looks bad when the US is actually doing something Koreans have long stated they demanded as a way to lower anti-US feeling — giving back Korean land and moving out of the major urban areas and shitty "camp towns" up north.
This is starting to become an interesting time…..