Author: GIKorea

Here is an analysis piece in the Stars & Stripes about what the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis means for the US-ROK alliance:

Mattis didn’t mention South Korea, but his departure will deprive officials in Seoul of somebody they considered a voice of reason in the Trump administration. It also comes as the president’s surprise decision on Syria earlier this week underscored the unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy.
“It’s certainly going to cause concern, I think, in South Korea,” said Jenny Town, a Korea specialist at the Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center. “Mattis is one of the few people they looked to for direction and reason in an administration where it has been often difficult to decipher what our policy is and where our relationship is going.”

She noted that Trump has said he may be willing to pull troops out of South Korea to save money.
“It’s hard to see where this goes until we have a better sense of who’s coming next, but it’s also hard to see that this move is going to improve relations both with our friends or our adversaries at this point,” Town said.

[Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but trying to equate withdrawing troops from Syria with withdrawing USFK is quite a stretch as speculated on later in the article. The US has treaty obligations with South Korea that cannot cause a quick troops withdrawal like what is expected in Syria.

Something that could lead to a partial US troop withdrawal in South Korea it is the ongoing US-ROK cost sharing negotiations. Another possibility to save money as well as send a message to North Korea if denuclearization talks are not going well, is restricting US military dependents from South Korea:

The friction escalated in January when Trump ordered Mattis to end the practice of allowing the family members of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to accompany them during their deployments. But Mattis, with the assistance of chief of staff John Kelly, put off implementing the directive, say one defense official and one former administration official, angering Trump.
Trump repeatedly said he wanted to sign an order changing the policy on military dependents in South Korea, but Mattis and other officials, including Kelly, tried to stall him, according to three former officials. “It was kind of like a game of tag. There were plenty of other people, in addition to Mattis, who slow-walked that,” the former official said. The order was never implemented.
“He knows that he told them to do it and they didn’t do it,” another former senior White House official said.

NBC News via a reader tip

I guess we will see how all of this plays out over the next year.

Here is an article by a ROK Drop favorite and historian Robert Neff about how a US military unit in 1954 brought Christmas cheer to a group of Korean kids in post-war Korea:

For a soldier, Christmas is one of the hardest seasons to be away from family and friends but the military does its best, not only for its service members but also for the local community, to provide holiday cheer.

Through the lens of Corporal Marburger’s camera, we get a glimpse of what Christmas was like for an engineer unit and a group of Korean children in Seoul in 1954. 

Santa Claus’ arrival naturally drew a large crowd of children. For many of them, this was their first encounter with the jolly old man. Some were thrilled but others seemed terrified. 

Korea Times

You can read the whole thing and view many more historical pictures at the link.

However, I would imagine seeing a big fat foreigner dressed in red trying to grab you would be a pretty traumatic experience for a young Korean kid back then.

Korea’s smokers will now have even more gruesome images to look at every time they buy a pack of cigarettes:

Tougher anti-smoking warnings will be applied to cigarette packages from Sunday.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it is replacing all the eleven graphic warnings on cigarette packs starting from Sunday. Tobacco companies will now have to insert new warnings on the packaging of cigarettes including electronic cigarettes.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

"Art" display in Seoul–#KimJongUn
with a gun pointed at Trump, who is on the floor. Is this "artist" Lim Young-sun on #MoonJaein admin's "white list," receiving #SouthKorean tax payers money? https://t.co/88G8uowoC3

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) December 22, 2018

Here we go with more of the Yongsan Garrison is contaminated articles:

Benzene, at levels 1,170 times the government-set safety limit, has been detected among other toxic chemicals in groundwater near Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, the former site of the headquarters of the U.S. Forces (USFK) in Korea, Seoul metropolitan government said Friday.

The government said the levels of toxins above the allowable limit were detected in 27 out of 62 observation wells, or monitoring points installed to observe changes in groundwater over a specific time period.

At 16 out of 41 monitoring points near Noksapyeong Station near the garrison, toxic substances from groundwater samples was found to exceed environmental safety limits. Free-floating oil was also detected.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what the article does not tell you is that last year on-post soil samples at Yongsan Garrison did not show dangerous pollution levels. The fact that these readings are near Yongsan Garrison does not necessarily mean it is coming from the base.

However, expect more of these articles because it helps to mobilize public opinion against USFK at a time when the US government is trying to get the Moon administration to pay more for USFK upkeep. The Moon administration can use the pollution issue to claim they are already paying more money to clean up Yongsan Garrison and shouldn’t have to pay any more.

Here is another example of South Korea needlessly raising tensions with Japan:

Japan’s defense minister protested to South Korea Friday after one of Seoul’s warships allegedly trained a weapon-guiding radar on a Japanese patrol plane over the Sea of Japan.
The incident, which took place the day before, resulted from “extremely dangerous behavior that could create unexpected consequences,” Takeshi Iwaya said.
He said that Tokyo would “strongly urge” Seoul to prevent it from happening again. The Japanese government lodged a protest with South Korea through diplomatic channels.

This is the first time the Japanese government has publicly leveled such accusations at South Korea. The incident could exacerbate already-strained relations between the neighbors, after a string of South Korean court rulings ordering compensation for citizens who were forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II.
At about 3 p.m. Thursday, a South Korean Gwanggaeto the Great-class destroyer locked its fire control radar on a P-1 patrol craft belonging to the Maritime Self-Defense Force, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry. The plane, based out of the Atsugi Air Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, was patrolling inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone off the Noto Peninsula and was “at a distance” from a disputed set of islets called Takeshima by Japan and Dokdo by South Korea, the ministry said.

Nikkei Asian Review

You can read more at the link, but I doubt this was a mistake considering that South Korea has been busy executing a Dokdo defense drill this month against the imaginary Japanese invasion of Dokdo while ignoring the very real threat of a North Korean invasion.

It's out of the news cycle & off most people's radar screens at the moment. But the failure to conclude the U.S.-ROK Special Measures Agreement (SMA) negotiations is an opportunity for Trump to drop another chaos bomb & shred the U.S.-ROK alliance. Don't say I didn't warn you.

— Daniel Pinkston (@dpinkston) December 21, 2018

For any North Korea apologist out there reading this, can you tell me why the Kim regime cannot afford Tamiflu, but they can afford a nuclear weapons program?:

South Korea will send the flu medicine Tamiflu to North Korea as part of an inter-Korean cooperation project on influenza prevention.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry unveiled this plan on Friday and said it will notify the North on related plans in the near future and begin working-level talks to dis​cuss details.

Speaking to reporters after working group discussions with the U.S. held in Seoul Friday, chief nuclear envoy Lee Do-hoon said the issue of providing Tamiflu to North Korean residents has been settled.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.