South Korean, Iraqi Aid Seized

Aid sent from South Korea to Iraq was recently seized according to the JoongAng Ilbo:

A total of 14 South Korean vehicles carrying aid shipments for the Iraqi people have been seized by armed Iraqi militants since last month, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

However, no South Korean nationals were captured or detained during the seizures, the ministry said, adding that all 14 vehicles belonged to the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
“The South Korean vehicles were seized by armed Iraqi militants on two occasions, Sept. 19 and 21, while transporting aid materials from the Jordanian port of Aqaba to Baghdad,” the ministry said.
The KOICA is a foreign ministry-affiliated organization that provides humanitarian assistance and other support to underdeveloped and developing countries.

According to Reuters the stolen aid was mainly computer equipment:

Armed Iraqis stole millions of dollars worth of personal computers and Internet equipment donated by South Korea while it was being transported near Baghdad late last month, a South Korean official said on Tuesday.

The Korea International Cooperation Agency, a government-linked aid agency, supplied the equipment for use in Iraqi universities, the official from the South Korean foreign ministry said.

Here is what bothers me about these news articles. First of all, don’t call these thugs militants or militia they are criminal gangs. At least the articles didn’t call them Iraqi resistance fighters like many other news media articles do. Many of the so called Iraqi resistance are in fact mafia style gangs using the flag of jihad as cover for their criminal activities to make themselves rich.

These gangs need to keep Iraq unstable in order to continue their business enterprise. So these gangs that do heists like this one and kidnapping for profit will also pay “insurgents” on the side to put out road side bombs and take pot shots at soldiers in order to keep the perception of instability. Criminals thrive in an unstable environment that keeps foreign aid coming in to hijack, foreigners to kidnap, and citizens terrified.

Here is the second thing that bothers me. Everyone knows that the highway running between Jordan and Baghdad is a haven for kidnappers and hijackers; why wasn’t the aid convoys protected? Especially after the first convoy was hijacked on 19SEP, why in the world wasn’t the second aid convoy on 21SEP protected? The Korean government and media always make a big deal about how Korea is the third largest troop contributor in Iraq yet they can’t send one platoon of soldiers to defend these aid convoys? This is one of the things soldiers do, they defend convoys. If Korea is not willing to defend their own international aid it may be time to get out of Iraq.

However international aid is not the primary concern of the Korean government; the government is more concerned about preventing soldier casualties than ensuring Iraqi aid is protected and distributed. The Korean government keeps the ROK Army soldiers quarantined on their compound outside of the friendly Kurdish city of Irbil doing nothing more than distributing toilet seats and playing Starcraft in their on post PC Bang.

To be fair the ROK Army is more than capable of conducting convoy security missions. They are also capable of doing much more in Iraq than the current mission they are tasked with. So I by no means blame the ROK Army for the predicament they are in, in Iraq. The lack of political will and leadership by their own government has made the proud ROK military look like a window dressing coalition army, while criminal gangs are stealing Korean aid meant for the Iraqi people. The ROK Army deserves better then this. Iraq deserves better then this.