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The 3,000 soldiers of the ROK Army’s Zaytun Unit serving in Northern Iraq alledgedly came under mortar attack from Iraqi insurgents, marking the first direct attack against Korean forces since the start of their deployment.

Korea’s Zaytun Division in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil took cover late Sunday evening when four shells presumably fired by insurgents landed near the unit’s base compound, the first direct attack on Korean troops since they were deployed to the area last September. There were no casualties among Korean soldiers or civilians, but the division’s activity is likely to be curtailed for some time.

(…)

A JCS official said, “Insurgent forces are presumed to have fled immediately after launching vehicle-carried rockets and mortars about 4-5 km away from the base walls.” Kurdish militia forces have set up checkpoints and are patrolling the area 3-5 km outside the base walls.

(…)

Immediately after the incident, the Zaytun Division beefed up security and took shelter in underground entrenchments. At 11:40 p.m., U.S. helicopters started searching the area.

The incident follows suspension of the Zaytun Division’s civil operations after a May 4 car bombing of a police recruitment station in downtown Irbil and intelligence of possible attacks on Korean troops. Meanwhile, political controversy is also possible over whether to accept a UN request for Korean troops to guard an office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) being constructed in downtown Arbil.

Let me get this right, 3,000 ROK Army soldiers have been completely neutralized by four mortar rounds that landed 500 meters from their camp? These soldiers do not conduct any operations within the city because of a car bombing that occured three months ago not even directed against them, they don’t guard their own camp; the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters do that, and they don’t want to guard a UN building in Arbil. So what do they do over there?

This is something I have been wondering about since the beginning of the deployment. I have been against this deployment since it was first initiated because I have had reservations about if Korea would actually carry out meaningful reconstruction. The Kurdish people may be feeling the same way now.

The Kurdish Peshmerga keep tight security over there for the ROK Army causing me to wonder if this mortar attack is nothing more than the Kurds sending the Koreans a message to quit playing Starcraft and to get off their base and do something or get the heck out of here. The Peshmerga are tough, battle hardened, & proud group of fighters and they cannot be to impressed by these 3,000 Korean soldiers hiding inside their base doing nothing after Korea promised reconstruction and all the Kurds got to show for it is a few new toilets.

Dropping a few mortar rounds is well used tactic over there against American forces if the locals feel they are not receiving the reconstruction aid they believe they are due. I was on an airbase over there for awhile when a bunch of Iraqis that worked on the base were fired by the new incoming commander for security reasons. The base had never been mortared before but the next day the mortar rounds started coming in. Not close enough to kill anyone but close enough to send a message. Two weeks later Iraqis were working on the airfield again and the mortaring stopped. Sound familiar?

Recently there have been reports of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers left over from World War II being found in the mountains of the Phillipines. Check out Oranckay’s blog for more details on this. However, Yahoo News is reporting that the reports may not be accurate:

The astonishing claim that World War II holdouts may still be alive has attracted huge interest in Japan, where veterans are marking the 60th anniversary of the war’s end. But the Japanese government urged caution, saying the report came from somebody who had not seen the men himself. Efforts to contact the pair also were complicated by the fact that the area in which they supposedly were found is notorious for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Muslim separatists, who have waged war for three decades. Communist rebels also are active there.

Tokyo first learned of the former soldiers in January, from a Japanese trader on Mindanao who has been trying since Friday to arrange a meeting so officials could try to confirm the men’s’ identities, Japanese Embassy spokesman Shuhei Ogawa said. But Ogawa stressed that the trader had not seen the men and was relying on a Filipino contact, who himself got word of the mystery soldiers from yet another Filipino. “You should know this type of information comes in all the time,” he said. “We really have no idea if these two people exist.”

I have my doubts about this story because of the way the rumor of these two guys spread without anyone even have actually seeing them. Why would these guys come out of hiding now? Doesn’t make much sense but I guess we will see how this plays out.

According to the Japundit, the Nork ferry running between Japan and North Korea has been playing loud music causing local citizens to complain.

The Niigata prefectural government has warned the crew of Mangyongbong-92, a NORK ferry that makes regular trips between North Korea and Japan, to turn down the music when anchored at the Japanese port.

The government said that the music played through the ship’s loudspeakers during its last visit was too loud, and that future port calls may be denied if “the volume of sound emitted from loudspeakers, etc., at Niigata Port [is not] kept within the socially acceptable range.”

Maybe the Norks party like South Koreans on their ferry boats too.

The Chosun has an article about the sexual attitudes of Koreans in college. If find it a little surprising that only a quarter of students have had sex while in college among some other interesting findings:

Only 354 of the 1,276 — 27.7 percent — said they were sexually experienced. About half of them — 46.3 percent or 164 respondents — had their first sexual experience when they were 20-21, but a third of the group had their first sexual experiences in middle or high school.

Of the 175 that said they are having sex, 30 said they thought of their bedfellow as “just a sexual partner.”

Overall, students appeared fairly liberated in their attitudes, with a robust 61.1 percent (780 respondents) saying they were against the idea of chastity before marriage at least in theory, while 40.9 (522 respondents) said it was possible for men and women to live together without getting married. An overwhelming 85.3 percent (1,088 respondents) said they did not think it necessary for two people to get married if they have slept together.

Asked if prostitution helps prevent sex crimes such as rape, most men or 51 percent said yes, but most women or 65.5 percent said no.

This article in the Korea Times thinks that if the US disarms its nuclear arsenal all the world including North Korea will be good neighbors and get rid of theirs:

Since the U.S. has the lion’s share of the world’s armaments, both conventional and nuclear, it is incumbent on the U.S. to lead the rest of the nuclear nations in disarmament. After all, the U.S. is the main reason for North Korea’s current nuclear ambition. They are noticeably concerned that they are next on the U.S. hit list, and can anyone really blame them for thinking this way?

Only after the U.S. promises to start doing something about this ridiculous escalation of armaments, then, and only then, can Iran and North Korea be called to the negotiating table. Let’s remember that when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. outspends the rogue regimes of Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Cuba by a ratio of 22-1.

The US could probably decrease some of its nuclear arsenal but to get rid of it would be ridiculous. The writer thinks that the main reason the North is pursuing nuclear weapons is because they fear being attacked by Washington. Yes, they fear an attack from Washington but they could destroy Seoul with or without nuclear weapons many times over with just their conventional weapons. This fact is what has been the biggest deterent to war on the peninsula since the Korean War. The human cost of war on the peninsula is to costly. It is better to keep the peace.

The North Koreans want to build nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip for international aid (money, oil, electricity) since their economy is so horrible. The US has never attacked them (they started the Korean War) and would never attack them due to the threat to Seoul if it wasn’t for the nuclear weapon issue. The US would just assume to sit back and let them implode. So to think that if the US got rid of its nuclear arsenal and the North Koreans would just suddenly stop their nuclear program and be good neighbors is at best naive.

It is additionally naive to think that other countries would stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons if the US got rid of theirs. Imagine how different the Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo wars would of been if those countries had nuclear weapons. The international community would have never intervened if a dictator threatened nuclear weapon use, thus leaving these dictators in power to further ethinically cleanse their own people and seek additional military ventures.

Countries will always seek military superiority over other countries. It has been that way since the beginning of time and the US disarming itself will not change that. It will only encourage people to pursue more aggressive and hostile policies. If the US greatly cut its military and got rid of its nuclear deterrent do you think China would cut theirs? Heck no, they would invade Taiwan. Many other nations would feel free to attack their neighbors as well. The strength of the US military is what has prevented large scale warfare the likes of World War II from happening.

Now these rogue elements in the world have turned to terrorism because of their lack of conventional military power. Terrorists will never inflict the amount of casualties large scale warfare inflicts unless they get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. Thus the need to do something about North Korea.

Last month’s elephant “rampage” in Seoul has allowed one restaurant owner to try and capitalize on this strange incident:

The restaurant that serves barbecue and other traditional Korean foods was closed for a month for repairs after three elephants rampaged through its plate-glass front. It has just reopened with a new name: “Restaurant Where Elephants Have Been”. Owner Keum Taek-hoon said on Monday she had used the 18 million won ($18,000) insurance money to remodel her eatery.

Three of them crashed through the eatery, sending staff and patrons fleeing in terror. The elephants crushed tables and stools and also munched on carrots. Keum said patrons have been heading to her newly reopened restaurant out of curiosity and sales have doubled.

I guess the anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea does not apply to race horses. The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that Japanese race horses are being bought from breeders at a record pace from South Koreans.

So why the sudden interest in Japanese race horse despite the current tensions between the two countries? Well this just goes to show that making money is more important than two rocks out in the middle of the ocean.

Hyundai last week opened an automobile manufacturing plant in Montgomery, AL. This is a big step for the company in trying to increase it’s market share in the United States.

The plant will be responsible for making both the Hyundai Sonata car and the Santa Fe SUV. The plant will also provide 6,000 high paying jobs and many other secondary jobs providing services for the plant. The plant has even taken a policy to provide locals with the first jobs at the plant. Needless to say that Hyundai is now very popular in the Deep South.

I have to thank one of my commenters for providing this link to the local WSFA Channel 12 website in Montgomery. The news channel actually has a really good webpage that features many news video segments about the opening of the Hyundai plant and the news channel even sent a reporter to Korea to provide a news segments about Korean culture and traditions. He found out though that the only thing Koreans know about Alabama is the song “Oh Susanna”. If Korea wants to improve its image in America, this is a good way to do it. Images of Hyundai creating jobs for Alabamans will do more for Korea’s image in America then people continuously seeing protestors burn the Stars and Stripes and Kim Jong Il’s puffy hair doo.

Alabama and Korea have got to be two of the most culturally different places in the world but it appears this partnership is working out. The effect the plant is having in this southern city is really phenominal. By viewing the numerous video segments you will see that the city has now offered MBC as part of their cable program, more Korean restaurants and businesses are opening up, local news webpages are being translated into Korean, locals want to buy Hyundais, and even former President George H.W. Bush has gotten into the act by saying God Bless Korea at the Grand Opening ceremony for the plant.

The Grand Opening of the plant was quite elaborate and featured many Alabama and Korean politicians. The Grand Opening also had a musical performance by the Electric Cookie Trio which is three Korean ajummas with keyboards and electric violins. Yes, that’s right electric violins. I have never heard of one before either. Anyway it was an interesting blend of music, but when they started playing “Oh Susanna”; I just wanted to cover my ears. Their rendition of Arirang wasn’t to bad, though I prefer a more traditional playing of the classic Korean song.

Hopefully this venture works out for both Hyundai and Alabama. Good to see something positive happening between America and Korea. Sure beats talking about nukes and anti-Americanism.

This gave me my biggest laugh of the day. The Japundit reports that the new Japanese professional basketball league will call itself Basketball Japan League or the BJ League for short. You need to check out some of the comments from the Gaijin Biker website for some more laughs. Here is a sample.

1) The league features an in-your-face style of play.

(2) The players really suck.

(3) League motto: “Get your head in the game.”

Will the fun ever stop with Dokto? Now comes this piece from the Japan Times about 26 Japanese claiming domicile residency on Korea’s Dokto islets.

Twenty-six Japanese have registered their family domicile origins on a group of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan under South Korea’s control, the government revealed Tuesday.
Seoul has lodged a protest with Tokyo over the move. It claims the islets, known as Takeshima in Japan and called Tok-do by South Korea, are part of South Korean territory.

The “honseki” family domicile origin is the place where the family register is recorded on paper at the local government level. Unlike resident registration, a Japanese national can choose any address for honseki, regardless of their current place of residence.

In response Korea has registered their own people:

Seoul has reportedly allowed more than 800 South Koreans to register their domicile origin on the islets.

Tokyo has demanded that the decision be annulled if the reports are true, but Seoul has refused to disclose any information, according to a Foreign Ministry official in Tokyo.

I have been to Dokto and there is only one way I can see these people fitting on the isles. High rise apartments will need to be made, one on each islet. One for the Koreans and one for the Japanese could be constructed. Could this end the Dokto dispute?

(Hat tip to the Japundit.)