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I have to agree with the Japundit and wonder what the heck was this all about? What a way to start my morning.

The Marmot is all over the development that Uijongbu city police have decided to wave SOFA jurisdiction over two of three soldiers involved in a drunken fight that ended with one soldier seriously injuring a Korean national by hitting him over the head with a beer bottle.

Here is what the Marmot thinks on this:

Korea had primary jurisdiction over the case, given how the incident occurred when the soldiers in question were off-duty. Just because USFK asked them to give up jurisdiction didn’t mean they had to comply. USFK had primary jurisdiction over the Dongducheon incident, since it occurred when the soldier was on-duty. Did USFK consider giving up jurisdiction when the Koreans asked them to? Maybe. Did they give it up in the end? No. So there was no reason for the Korean prosecutors to give up their right to stand the two suspects before a Korean court, unless, of course, they thought trying them would be more trouble that it’s worth, in which case they need to get a bigger set of balls. The point is, these guys took part in the maiming of a Korean national during an off-duty incident, and the prosecutors owe it to the victim and the taxpayers who pay their salaries to do everything in their power to ensure justice is served on their terms. And the fact that they waived jurisdiction should in no way be read as a victory for USFK, because ultimately, it’s going to be USFK that gets blamed for the fecklessness of the Korean prosecutors who apparently have other things to do than try individuals that smash beer bottles in the faces of the people they supposedly serve.

The fact that the two were released to the US military is not uncommon. Very often I have seen myself small crimes such as petty theft, shop lifting, urinating on a building, drunken fights, etc. handed over to the US military. In this case maybe the two soldiers released were just walking down the street with the third soldier when he got in the argument with the Korean national and hit him with the beer bottle. Maybe they had no part in the attack, just wrong place at the wrong time? Right now we don’t know the extent of the involvement in the incident of the two soldiers who were released. Let’s not condemn these two soldiers when they may have not been complacent in the attack. Obviously the Uijongbu police felt that the two must not have had much involvement in the incident because it wasn’t worth their time to try them on anything.

The actual assaulter they are going to try and hopefully this idiot gets punished to the fullest extent of the Korean judicial system. I do agree with the Marmot however that the anti-USFK groups will jump on this to spread the image of “big bully USFK” pushing around the “little helpless Koreans” to further advance their own agendas.

Make sure to check out the comments discussion at the Marmot’s Hole. Some good discussion going on about the whole SOFA topic.

I can remember when the US military disposed of Saddam’s Army in Baghdad and the mass looting of the city commenced. I didn’t know it at the time, because I was there in the middle of the chaos that the media was bashing the military for not stopping the looting of the city. At that time the looting was pretty bad, but not as bad as the media made it out to be and I remember thinking, do people expect us to arrest and shoot people in the middle of a war for loading up a sofa in the back of their truck?

Watching TV today I couldn’t help but think how did people expect us to stop looting in Baghdad when we can’t even stop looting in New Orleans? So it is with a sense of irony that I watch the same media that was bashing the Army during the war is now bashing the New Orleans police department and Louisiana National Guard for not stopping the looters.

I tend to look at this realistically. The New Orleans policemen all had homes and families to were wiped out by the hurricane. Do you think the police is going to tell their families to sit on top of their house’s roof while they go off and stop people from stealing TVs. Plus the police had few vehicles to use to patrol with because their police cars were under water just like everyone elses. It is the same story with the National Guard. The guard is composed of the same community swamped by the hurricane.

It is going to take time to get the police and National Guard organized in this situation. Nobody has a perfect plan to deal with something like this and the media tends to blow every rumor way out of proportion and treat them as fact. They did the same thing in Baghdad. Yes, there was looting going on but it wasn’t as bad as the media made it out to be. I foresee the same thing in New Orleans. So please give the authorities in Louisiana the benefit of the doubt because I am sure they are trying their best to preserve order and save lives.

What I find most interesting about this is that when social controls are removed from a society, people begin to react to their most basic instincts of survival of the fittest. We saw it in Baghdad and now you have seen it in New Orleans. What I wonder is what would happen if Seoul had a catastrophic natural disaster similar to New Orleans? What would the people’s reaction be? Would they begin looting? Would gangs begin to rove and car jack people? Would rapes occur? Does anybody think that Koreans would not also act similar if all social controls were removed? If not what do you think makes Koreans different?

Recently a book titled War Trash has been released that documents the experiences of Chinese POWs held by the US military during the Korean War.

Here are some excerpts of the book from Far Outliers:

The audience remained silent for a good minute after he finished speaking. I knew the medic and didn’t think he had made up the story. Wang Yong broke the silence: “The Reds used us like ammo. Look at the GIs, they all wear flak vests on the battleground. The U.S. government cares about their lives. How about us? How many of our brothers could’ve survived if they’d put on the vests like the GIs? Recently I came across an article. It reports that General Ridgway says the U.S. forces could absolutely push the Communist armies all the way back to the Yalu, but he won’t do that because he doesn’t want to sacrifice thousands of his men. Just imagine: what if the People’s Volunteer Army could drive the Americans down to the Pacific Ocean? Wouldn’t Mao Zedong sacrifice every one of the Volunteers to accomplish that goal? You bet he would. Didn’t he already send us here to be wasted like manure to fertilize Korean soil?…

Yes, Mao would of killed as many people as needed to accomplish his twisted goals. After the war, The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution killed far more Chinese than 3 years of fighting in the Korean War.

Wang’s analogy of us to human fertilizer revived thoughts I had been thinking for a long time. True enough, as Chinese, we genuinely felt that our lives were misused here, but as I have observed earlier, no matter how abysmal our situation was there were always others who had it worse. By now I understood why occasionally some Korean civilians were hostile to us. To them we had come here only to protect China’s interests–by so doing, we couldn’t help but ruin their homes, fields, and livelihoods. From their standpoint, if the Chinese army hadn’t crossed the Yalu, millions of lives, both civilian and military, would have been saved. Of course, the United States would then have occupied all of Korea, forcing China to build defenses in Manchuria, which would have been much more costly than sending troops to fight in our neighboring country. As it was, the Koreans had taken the brunt of the destruction of this war, whereas we Chinese were here mainly to keep its flames away from our border. Or, as most of the POWs believed, perhaps rightly, we had served as cannon fodder for the Russians. It was true that the Koreans had started the war themselves, but a small country like theirs could only end up being a battleground for bigger powers. Whoever won this war, Korea would be the loser.

The Chinese were to an extent cannon fodder for the Russians, but Mao Zedong was eager from the start to jump into this war but Kim Il Sung wouldn’t let him due to concerns about the Chinese wanting to subjugate Korea like the Chinese have in the past. Kim Il Sung only invited Chinese troops into the war once it was clear he had no chance of winning. If China had joined the war earlier the Pusan Perimeter would have never held and Korea would be a very different place today.

I also realized why some Koreans, especially those living south of the Thirty-eighth Parallel, seemed to prefer the American army to us. Not having enough food supplies or money, we had to press them for rice, sweet potatoes, any edibles, and sometimes we stole dried fish and chilies from under their eaves, grabbed crops from their fields and orchards, and even dug out their grain seeds to eat. By contrast, the Americans had everything they needed and didn’t go to the civilians for necessities. Whenever the U.S. troops decamped, the local folks would rush to the site to pick up stuff discarded by them, such as telephone wires, shell boxes, cartridge cases, half-eaten bread, cans, soggy cigarettes, ruptured tires, used batteries. We thought we had come all the way to help the Koreans, but some of us had willy-nilly ended up their despoilers.

If you ask some Koreans now a days, the US GI’s during the war only rounded up civilians and shot them underneath bridges. I will need to get this book soon and read it. I haven’t read a book yet on the Korean War from a Chinese soldiers perspective. So it should be interesting reading.

Oh My News has a good article about the candidates to fill the now vacant Korean soccer team coaching position:

It’s been a week since Jo Bonfrere “resigned” as South Korea’s coach and while the Korean Football Association hasn’t had much to say about who will be the Dutchman’s replacement, the media has had plenty to speculate about.

Some say the “big name” coaches haven’t been to South Korea and that with the World Cup only months away, the only option is to look closer to home to a coach who can hit the ground running and won’t head back to Europe as soon as the last ball is kicked next summer.

The article goes on to provide some good analysis of each candidate for the coaching job. However, what I find interesting that for a country as nationalistic as Korea, there is only one Korean coach being considered for the job. Former coach Joe Bonfrere was often criticized for his lack of communication with the players. Wouldn’t a Korean coach that speaks Korean be able to better get his point across to the players. Plus if the KFA is so concerned about a “big name” coach from Europe coming here and leaving right after the World Cup then they should hire someone here in Korea so you don’t have to worry as much about the coach running off after the World Cup. Anyway it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Whoever is hired I do not envy. They will be under intense pressure to turn things around here.

It appears Koreans are having a gas crisis of sorts. The Marmot provides this report:

According to the JoongAng Ilbo (Korean), Koreans fart a lot. Hey, don’t blame me for this one — blame the JoongAng. Anyway, the piece said that while it might be hard to draw a hard and fast conclusion, one could guess that Koreans break wind particularly often due to the large amount of gas-producing foods they consume — beans, veggies, fruits and raw foods. The rising consumption of milk doesn’t help matters, and those with trouble digesting lactose and the elderly with weakening digestive power are particularly susceptible to becoming, in the colorful choice of words by the JoongAng, “gas shells” (like in the WWI artillery round). For Koreans, it’s normal to cut the cheese between 15 and 25 times a day, although Kyung Hee University Hospital’s Kim Hyo-jong said it’s OK to occasionally expel gas more than that as long as it’s not accompanied by other symptoms. Frequent farting accompanied by other symptoms like abdominal pain, loss of appetite, weight loss and irregular bowl movements, however, may point to intestinal diseases.

Those whose frequent farting is cramping their style are advised to reduce their intake of foods like beans, veggies and milk and avoid gum, sugar and carbonated drinks. Eating slow, drinking little water and not talking during eating also helps, according to the JoongAng.

I’m glad to know that I have a healthy and happy colon.

USFK has finally made the decision to not hand over the PFC involved in the fatal accident in Dongducheon this past June:

U.S. Forces Korea on Tuesday declined a request from the South Korean government for criminal jurisdiction in the case of a U.S. soldier who was driving a military truck that struck and killed a South Korean woman in June, according to USFK.

Instead, the investigation of the case will remain within the U.S. military justice system, USFK spokesman David Oten said.

I’m glad to hear this because if he was given to the Korean court system he would of been sent to jail for something no Korean would of been sent to jail for. It has been my impression that Korean courts when US soldiers are involved are more concerned about satisfying public opinion then rendering justice. So it is good to see that USFK has finally made the decision to not throw this private to the wolves.

The soldier was on duty doing his job when the victim jaywalked in between cars on a busy highway when she was struck. This is a tragic accident, not a homicide as some people want you to believe. The driver has already apologized for the accident along with the USFK leadership and compensation payed. The family is satisfied with USFK’s response:

The victim’s family has told Stars and Stripes they believe it was an accident. They also said they hope that the incident would not draw protests and attention.

I do not think that this will cause to much of an uproar because I would think most fair minded people would understand this was a tragic accident. However, I’m sure the usual suspects (anti-USFK groups) will use this to further try and create the image of US soldiers getting away with crimes against Korean citizens.

Then:

1951 North Korean Worker’s Party Building in Chorwon

Now:

The Worker’s Party Building Today

Deceased ROK soldiers were honored yesterday in a ceremony in Seongnam. The soldiers drowned during training near the Imjim River near the DMZ. This isn’t the first time soldiers have drowned in the Imjim and probably won’t be the last. The training areas near the Imjim River are very vulnerable to flash flooding and extreme caution this time of year needs to be used for units training up there.

USFK commander General Leon LaPorte also attended the ceremony. General LaPorte is a big backer of the ROK military so this is no surprise that he attended to offer his condolescenses. Anyone know if President Roh attended or any other high government official outside of the Defense department attended this ceremony? I looked all over the available Korean media sites and couldn’t find anything. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one did attend considering how the Roh administration didn’t care to attend a ceremony honoring sailors killed in combat during a North Korean naval ambush in 2002. If that isn’t a big deal, what’s some soldiers drowning in the Imjim to them.

Here is an article by Yonhap that chronicles a visit to Korea by a group of California college students who during their trip visited the site of the Nogun-ri Tragedy during the Korean War. Here is the background history provided in the article:

More than fifty years ago, the actions of a group of U.S. soldiers in this small village some 230 kilometers southeast of Seoul led to the deaths of hundreds of refugees, who were being escorted from their homes on the pretext of finding a safer hiding place. The troops later sprayed the refugees with bullets while they waited under the village’s cement bridge, with reports claiming hundreds died including scores more in subsequent air raids. The incident took place about a month after the outbreak of the Korean War when the country was in a state of extreme turmoil.

Yonhap of course is pushing the established mythology of the incident prevalent in not only the Korean media but also the US media. Yonhap provides no context in the report such as the fact that North Korean soldiers were often dressed as civilians and regularly ambushed US soldiers especially during the early phases of the war that this incident took place.

Read T.R. Fehrenbach’s This Kind of War for multiple examples of soldiers being attacked by Korean “civilians.” Plus the situation at the time was extremely desperate. The small contingent of US forces on the peninsula were ill prepared for combat and in full retreat trying to delay the North Korean advance while reinforcements continued to arrive in Pusan. In fact the soldiers from H company 2-7 Cavalry Regiment involved in the shooting were in complete disarray at the point of the shooting. They were on the run in a total state of panic when they found themselves in Nogun-ri.

Present Day Bridge at Nogeun-ri

The time this incident took place was during one of the most critical points of the Korean War. If the US forces failed at this time this whole controversy would be null and void because North Korea would of conquered South Korea. A full context of the situation is appropriate before we just condemn these soldiers as heartless killers of civilians.

These soldiers at the time did kill civilians at Nogeun-ri. Everyone seems to be agreement on this as the joint US-ROK report on the Nogeun-ri incident concludes. The only difference between the US and Korean views is that the US officials believe that about 50+ civilians were killed while the Korean officials believe it to be upwards of 250 people. To determine the actual truth of what happened is extremely difficult as soldiers and civilians allegedly at the scene of the incident have been proven to be liars. Take the case of Edward Daily as an example. He was the lead witness that started the entire controversy and he was proven rather easily to be a phony yet he was put on all the networks at the time to bash the US military over the incident:

Edward Daily, first mentioned as a principal source in a Pulitzer-Prize winning Associated Press story about the killings at No Gun Ri during the Korean War, has now told the AP he couldn’t have been there and probably learned details of the alleged incident from GIs who were present. In the original AP story Daily gave a chillingly graphic account of the incident at No Gun Ri – an incident in which he insisted he had participated, machine gunning hundreds of Korean civilians huddled under a railway underpass. The AP story, quoted him as saying: “On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries, the little kids screaming.” He added: “The command looked at it as getting rid of the problem in the easiest way. That was to shoot them in a group. Today,” Daily concluded, “we all share a guilt feeling, something that remains with everyone.”

Nobody bothered checking this guy’s background. A simple background check through the military archives could of found him to be a phony. Yet he was all over the news bashing the army:

As reported in NewsMax two weeks ago, NBC’s Dateline flew Daily to Korea to visit the No Gun Ri site. Daily told Tom Brokaw about receiving the order to fire on the refugees under the railroad trestle. “Just shoot them all,” Daily quoted the order. Brokaw: “You heard that order?” Daily: “Yes, sir.” Brokaw: “Kill them all?” Daily: “Yes, sir.” In February, the Washington Post Magazine put Daily’s picture on the cover and said he “was in charge of the lone machine-gun post” on one side of the railroad culvert. The Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News all published stories citing Daily’s account of No Gun Ri.

How can a major network like NBC and Tom Brokaw along with major publishers make such a huge mistake as believing Daily and putting him on the air and on the cover of magazines like this? Simple background checks exposed this guy as a liar and Robert Bateman the author of the book No Gun Ri, actually informed Charles Hanley, the head AP reporter of the original AP article on Nogun-ri, about the unreliability of Daily and other veteran witnesses the AP quoted and Hanley even concurred that he had his doubts about them but used them anyway in his article.

NBC later retracked their report on Daily but the damage had already been done. Who knows how many people saw the original report and have taken it to be the truth about what happened at Nogun-ri, sliming not only the soldiers of the 7th Cav but all Korean War veterans. Why did the US media jump all over this story like this without doing extensive background checking? It is very similar to the CNN Tailwind scandal that the media jumped on and then CNN had to later retract. The story fit what many in the media wanted to believe, the military is evil.

This instant aversion to the military comes in part to the natural checks and balance of the media of the government and the military. However, many people currently in the US media are from the Vietnam generation and remain suspicious and unsupportive of the draft time military they once knew. They still equate the military with what they remember from Vietnam not realizing how different the all volunteer military of today is. That is why when the military is portrayed in popular culture cliches and stereotypes from Vietnam are used.  Many in the US media never miss an opportunity to criticize the military and Nogun-ri was just another example of this.

The Korean media on the other hand is a whole different beast. The objective for many people in the Korean media is pure and simple anti-Americanism. Feel free to comment if you disagree with me but how else do explain the misinformation about Nogun-ri, every little USFK incident turning into front page news, and the constant misinformation about GI crimes and the SOFA agreement. If you disagree with me about the disinformation about GI crimes and the SOFA Agreement you need to check out the USinKorea site that chronicles this issue in great detail.

I’m all open to fair criticism about the US, but the Korean media seems to rely more on mythology and stereotypes than facts. What bothers me so much about the Nogun-ri criticism in particular, by the Korean media it is an effort to down play the significance of the US military in the Korean War because some people feel the US did not have noble intentions in defending Korea during the war and should not feel a debt of gratitude to the US for saving this country. Creating a stereotype of these veterans as war criminals is just another way to slowly degrade the Korean public’s image of America. What is further troubling is that many of these veterans from the war are passing away and cannot defend themselves as this new revisionist history is being created about them. It is a shame and no one seems to be speaking out against it. That is why I found it so important to start this debate about Nogun-ri and hopefully restore some honor to the Korean War veterans that have been tarnished by this tragedy by both the US and Korean media.