Category: Uncategorized

Here is a book I’m looking forward to if it comes out in English print. It is about a South Korean commando that conducted unbelievable covert missions in North Korea during the Korean War:

As the commander of a South Korean counter-intelligence military unit, called HID, Kim claims in the book that he led some 260 covert infiltration and espionage missions into North Korea during the three-year war which ended in 1953.

The book derives its title from a statement reportedly made by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who led the 16-nation U.N. forces in the 1950-53 Korean War, to express his appreciation about Kim’s successive outstanding intelligence reports: “This man again?”

Mr. Kim has actually been honored by 2ID by establishing Kim Dong-sok Day on December 16th in honor of this great veteran.

Also I think it may be a good possibly that this book will come out with an English edition because fellow Korean War hero Paik Sun-yup released his book, From Pusan to Panmunjom in English and it sells very well at the PX and is the best selling book from my Amazon.com selection on my website.

I wonder if the leftists and the Korean Teachers Union types will come after Kim Dong-suk and try to tarnish his accomplishments during the war as militarist war mongering? Never the less the guy is a hero that should be respected for his contribution to bringing freedom to South Korea.

The modernization of North Korea continues:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is urging workers to produce more bicycles to cope with the lack of transport, improve people’s health and prevent pollution just days after the country’s first bike factory opened.

“He underscored the need to significantly increase the production of bicycles, noting that the use of bicycles is very good for satisfactorily solving the problem of transport, promoting the convenience of people in their living and their health and preventing the pollution in cities,” it said.

Who says the Juche Philosophy and the Sunshine Policy isn’t working. North Korea has advanced from the nuclear age to the bicycle age in record time. Actually is there another country that has ever produced nuclear weapons before being able to produce bicycles? I guess the South Koreans can finally scratch bicycles from their North Korean extortion list.

Why in the world has the Korean government chosen one of Korea’s most cherished cultural sites, Gyeongju which is listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site, as the country’s nuclear waste dump?:

The government has named Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province as the site of a low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste repository after 19 years of decision-making and nine failed attempts to select a nuclear dump site amid strong local opposition.
The Gyeongju nuclear waste repository is a significant success story as it stands as the first state project determined in a plebiscite. The city recorded a high turnout of 70.8 percent and a support rating of no less than 89.5 percent after the government incentivized its offer and local campaigning won over reluctant locals.

Conflict arising from the controversial plan to introduce a radioactive waste dump into their backyard even spilled over into violence in Buan, North Jeolla Province, two years ago.

This just blows my mind that the government chose Gyeongju, a precious national cultural asset as their choice for this nuclear waste dump over a better geographical choice such as Gunsan.

I can just see the tours in Gyeongju now, “Here is Bulguksa Temple which is listed by UNESCO as one of the World’s Cultural Heritage sites and next on the tour we will see the progress Gyeongju has made in the last 2,000 years by touring the city’s very own nuclear waste dump! I hope everyone is excited!”

Unbelievable, one of my favorite locations in Korea is being turned into a nuclear waste dump.

Then:

Changgyeong Palace in 1950 located in Seoul during the Korean War.

Now:

Changgyeong Palace today.

After voting for a UN resolution condemning the human rights situation in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, South Korea is now receiving criticism from the country over it’s double standards for human rights in regards to it’s blind eye the government turns towards North Korea’s human rights situation:

A journalist of Belarus working in Moscow complained on October 31 about the South Korean government’s attitude by saying, “North Korea does not even have opposition parties or critical press to be suppressed.” His point was that the South Korean government should apply the same standards to all human rights resolutions.

It is true that those countries of former Soviet Union, on which human rights resolutions are passed in the U.N., have much better human rights conditions compared to North Korea, which is notorious for chronic food shortages and concentration camps for political prisoners.

The journalist from Belarus brings up a good point that South Korea has little creditability in regards to these human rights resolutions if they continue to not condemn the horrid human rights situation located just 30 miles north of Seoul. Korea if it continues to hold it’s position about human rights in Korea will only bring less creditability to the countries in North America and Europe who do care about human rights if they continue to vote for these resolutions.

South Korea maintains that the relationship with North Korea is a special circumstance. Using this logic any country that violates human rights can say they have to take these actions due to special circumstances within the country. This is why it would be better if South Korea just abstains from these human rights resolutions instead of voting for them. It makes the South Korean position more consistent and brings more creditability to the nations pushing these resolutions.

Check out this picture of Kim Jong Il meeting with Chinese leader Hu Jintao:

Is it just me or does the Dear Leader look like one of the homeless people you see hanging out near the old Seoul Station building in downtown Seoul? I’m sure President Hu was quite impressed.

The pro-North Korean groups operating in South Korea have consolidated their efforts according to this Donga article:

Gyeore Hana is a non-profit civic group created in February last year by various progressive groups members such as the National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification of Korea and the South Korean Headquarters for the Alliance of Korean People for National Unification.

Gyeore Hana gathered 3,847 members in South Korea and sent them to Pyongyang 16 times in one month starting September 26. They watched the mass gymnastics show “Arirang” in Pyongyang, performed in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the North Korean Workers’ Party, and visited the birthplace of Chairman Kim Il Sung in Mangyongdae, Pyongyang.

The number of people sent by Gyeore Hana, 3,847 is over half of the 7,203 that visited North Korea and watched Arirang. It is the largest number of visitors sent to North Korea by a single organization. South Korea’s visits to watch the Arirang performance ended in late October.

Gyeore Hana officials started to reside in Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, since late September, opened direct phone lines to South Korea, and coordinated the visiting schedule of South Korean visitors. It is very rare for North Korean authorities to permit the establishment of phone lines to South Korea for individual groups.

That’s right folks those hate groups from the Inchon MacArthur Statue and the Camp Humphreys land deal protests are taking their marching orders from a direct phone line straight from Pyongyang.

The group even claims support from the Korean government:

There are rumors among groups that engage with North Korea that the South Korean government its friendly to Gyeore Hana. It is reported that Gyeore Hana’s Standing Representative Choi Byung-mo, a lawyer, is a close friend with key members of South Korea’s ruling party.

Why am I not surprised? I wonder if the Unification Ministry are all card carrying members of this group?

The aid that South Korea is giving to North Korea is now reaching the point of ridiculousness which is evident by this latest request:

North Korea at a meeting of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee on Friday asked the South to provide it with raw materials for 60 million pairs of shoes, 2 million formal suits (30,000 tons) and 200 million bars of soap (20,000 tons). That is enough to wash and dress the North’s entire population of 23 million. In return, Pyongyang proposes to let us mine its underground resources and take minerals — not much of a deal, since Seoul has to supply all the mining and transport equipment.

So it really is a demand for aid, and a preposterous and potentially bottomless one. The rice and fertilizer the South supplied this year alone are worth over W1.4 trillion (US$1.4 billion), and like the rice, once you start giving the clothes and shoes, you have to keep giving them year after year. Having handed the responsibility of feeding its people to the South, North Korea now also wants us to clothe them, and if anything is to come of the nuclear arms negotiations, we have to supply their electricity. Maybe next time they will ask us to build their houses.

Maybe next time they won’t just ask for houses but a Hyundai for everyone in Pyongyang and the military as well and offer North Korean sand in return which of course the South Koreans would have to provide the equipment to North Korea to dig up.

The Korean government is planning on hiring a US PR firm to help improve the country’s increasingly bad image with Americans:

The Foreign Ministry is hiring an American PR firm to put a positive spin on its U.S. policies in a nation that has been reading them as increasingly hostile.

The Foreign Ministry recently wrote to the parliamentary Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee asking for an extra budget of W1.2 billion (about US$1.2 million) next year to pay for the plan, which would take PR work off the hands of the Korean Embassy in Washington.

In the notice, the ministry said the plan aimed to improve understanding and correct misconceptions of Korea’s diplomatic and security policies vis-a-vis the U.S among Americans.

This would be the first time Korea has hired a private firm for the urgent task of improving its image in an alliance many Americans perceive as increasingly strained.

I really don’t think it is a bad idea that Korea is hiring a PR firm. However, something I do have problem with; is when the Foreign Ministry releases a statement like this:

“There are limits to what embassy staff can do to deal with U.S. opinion leaders like journalists, academics and lawmakers in a systematic way. Local PR firms know the internal situation in the U.S. best and have the necessary connections,” the ministry said. “We have to turn around U.S. public opinion about Korea’s diplomatic and security policies and relations to the U.S., and we are going to look for ways of countering smears and attacks against Korea.”

I would like the foreign ministry to define what these smears and attacks against Korea are exactly? Is he referring to the US Congressional Letter to President Roh as a smear attack? I would really like to know what all these smear attacks are. Is televising and writing articles about the anti-American protests at Camp Humphreys and the MacArthur statue a smear attack against Korea? Last I checked these were factual events that happened. Reporting the truth is not a smear.

I hope Congressmen Hyde picks up the phone and calls the Korean Embassy in Washington to ask them what all the smear attacks are. That would be an interesting phone call to listen on to.

American golfer Michelle Wie recently got to hang out with Bill Clinton after donating $500 thousand to charity:

Michelle Wie added a round of golf with Bill Clinton to her precocious resume on Monday when she donated US$500,000 to a fund for victims of hurricane Katrina co-administered by the former U.S. president. The sporting summit took place at the Southern Highlands Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wie presented a check to the charitable foundation created by Clinton and fellow ex-president George Bush Sr.;I just saw clips of; the devastation, she said. And I really wanted to help out. I really do hope it helps a lot of people…. Compared to all the disaster, it’s such a small amount of money.”

At least the article didn’t call her “Korean golfer Michelle Wie” for change. However, I do find it comendable that she donated such a huge sum of money. It is amazing when you think about it, that a 16 year old girl donated more to the hurricane relief then most foreign countries.