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Here is an editorial from the Asahi Shimbun about the 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo.

March 10 marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. fire-bombing of Tokyo, an event which claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

Toward the end of the Pacific War, large and small cities across Japan were subjected to indiscriminate bombing by U.S. aircraft. The death toll from the bombings was estimated at around 300,000, roughly the same level as those for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

The raid on Tokyo coincided with commemorations due to be marked that day by the former Imperial Japanese Army. U.S. forces sent 300 B29 bombers to unload 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs over Tokyo. The carpet bombing of urban areas marked a change in strategy for the United States, which previously had pinpointed military targets such as weapons factories.

The fire bombing of Tokyo was indeed a tragedy but World War II used the rules of Total War. The major countries involved did whatver it took to win that war even if it meant bombing cities. If the Japanese military had the capacity to fire bomb San Francisco they would of.

Here is an excerpt from the article that go my blood boiling a little bit:

Also, as the number of air-raid survivors declines year by year, we must make renewed efforts to pass down to posterity the story of this uncommon tragedy. This can be done by making use of records kept by Japan and the United States and by preserving areas that were ravaged by war.

Japan must re-examine this terrible tragedy from many angles. In doing so, it can share the profound grief of Asians who were victims of Japanese military aggression. The process also helps us understand the anger of Iraqi residents who are being subjected 60 years later to the same tactics.

I find it ironic that this Japanese newspaper wants to ensure that the tragedy of this bombing is remembered by the rest of Asia while the Japanese government has just recently released their most updated history textbooks which further white washes the tragedies inflicted on the Koreans, Chinese, etc. in Asia by the imperial Japanese military. You can’t have it both ways.

Then to equate the fire bombing of Tokyo with the bombing of Iraq is just ridiculous. I have been in Iraq and contrary to what you may think from watching the news the place was not bombed into the stone age. I was in fact amazed at how precise the bombings really were. The Iraqi infrastructure was not targeted and in amazingly good shape. In my area of operations I did see some civilians targets that got hit but mostly due to military equipment being positioned near the homes. But to say the US military diliberately targeted civilians in Iraq is ludicrous. That is something a Howard Dean supporter would say. The terrorists bombings did more damage to the Iraqi infrastructure than the US air strikes ever did. And the terrorists do target civilians. Just read the newspaper every day to verify this.

The fire bombing of Tokyo was considered necessary at the time to quickly end the war to break the will of the Japanese people to resist. Just think, the Japanese didn’t surrender after having one nuclear bomb dropped on them; it took two nuclear bombs. The American government was looking to avoid having to invade the mainland of Japan which would of cost hundreds of thousands of US lives. The bombing campaign prevented that from happening. Was it right? I guess it depends on who’s perspective you take.

According to the Asahi Shimbun Japan wants Korea’s Dokto island not because of nationalistic feelings but because of fishing rights.

A century ago, Shimane Prefecture claimed Takeshima island as part of its territory. The remote island is located in the Sea of Japan. On Thursday, a Shimane prefectural assembly committee approved a bill to designate Feb. 22 as “Takeshima Day.”

It aims to formally establish territoriality over the island, which is under de facto South Korean rule. The Shimane assembly’s plenary session is expected to adopt the bill next week.

It is not hard to see why Shimane wants this bill passed. An agreement between Japan and South Korea recognizes a wide area of the Sea of Japan as “provisional waters” under joint administration, where fishermen of both countries are allowed to operate unencumbered by the dispute over sovereignty. This area does not include the 12- nautical-mile zone around the island, which South Korea claims as part of its territorial waters.

Fishing communities in Shimane and other prefectures along the Sea of Japan coastline have been worried for some time that they are not getting a fair deal. They say South Korean ships are overfishing in the area.

It was these anxieties that fueled Shimane’s move to declare Takeshima Day on the centennial of its land-grab. In short, the bill reflects the concerns of local communities.

From what I have been told is that the waters around Dokdo are filled with fish. Apparently the Shimane prefecture just keeps bringing up the Tokto issue in an effort to put pressure on the South Korean government to open up the waters around the island to Japanese commercial fishing. I don’t see any chance of this happening though. The Koreans will never give up even the slightest bit of sovereignty over Tokto; even territorial waters.

It appears that Camp Red Cloud is not the only one in Asia that is trying to ban smoking. According to Time Asia many Asian countries have begun campaigns to curb or even ban smoking. A notable exception to this trend is Korea.

One measure of the extent to which regional attitudes to tobacco have changed has been the readiness of Asian countries to adopt the FCTC. Since May 2003, the treaty has been ratified by 57 nations across the region, making it one of the most rapidly embraced covenants in the U.N.’s history. The FCTC requires participating states to outlaw tobacco advertising and sponsorship, to demand that tobacco firms cover at least 30% of every cigarette pack with health warnings, and to ban the use of euphemistic adjectives like “light” or “mild” to describe cigarettes. It’s the first legal initiative that attempts to control the use of tobacco on a global scale, and Asian countries are among its keenest supporters, including Japan, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Singapore and Sri Lanka. China and Cambodia have yet to ratify the treaty, but they are signatories. To paraphrase the old Virginia Slims slogan, Asia’s come a long way, baby.

Unlikely as it sounds, the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is the region’s pacesetter. Never mind tweaking regulations on tobacco advertising—the Bhutanese government has banned the sale of tobacco altogether (as well as, from last week, smoking in all public places). Tobacco has been gradually withdrawn from retail outlets in 18 of the country’s 20 administrative districts since 1994. As of December 2004, it became illegal to sell tobacco in the remaining two districts, including the capital, Thimphu. While the short-term beneficiaries of the new policy will be black-market traders—now able to charge up to $2.60 for a packet of Marlboro, up from an under-the-counter price of $1.30 before the ban—in the long term, all Bhutanese will gain.

Even the Japanese are getting in on this trend:

With the number of smokers steadily declining (to fewer than 30% of the adult population, according to a Japan Tobacco Inc. survey), social tolerance of the habit is waning. Since 2002, authorities in Tokyo’s prestigious Chiyoda ward—the heart of the Japanese capital—have been introducing outdoor smoking bans, and smoking on the street is now prohibited in more than half the district. Meanwhile, Kobe’s popular Takenohama Beach became, last summer, Japan’s first beach to restrict smoking, which can now take place only in designated areas. “We were hesitant to enforce the smoking ban too strictly, but it turned out that people were quite cooperative,” says Ritsuko Morigami, spokeswoman for the local tourism association. Likewise in Osaka, a pachinko parlor, the Shikairo, has become smoke-free in an effort to attract female clients. “People often remark how fresh the air is,” says manager Maya Ihara. “We get pregnant customers, and I believe they come here because there’s no tobacco smoke.”

I don’t see this trend catching on here in Korea but I am curious about what the reaction of the Korean general public would be if the government suddenly banned smoking in many public areas? There would probably be a lot of pissed off ajushis just like there are a lot of pissed off GI’s about the Smoke Free CRC campaign.

I have heard arguments for and against smoking. One person told me they should ban smoking because he was tired of picking up cigarette butts all the time from the smokers. I just replied that yes picking up cigarette butts all the time is annoying but cleaning up chewing gum is even more annoying and I don’t see any campaigns to ban chewing gum yet. Then I have heard the arguement that smokers expend large amounts of health insurance money when they get older due to smoking related diseases. Then insurance companies and Medicaid should have clauses that do not cover smoking related diseases.

There are plenty of worthy reasons to ban smoking but I think that if someone wants to destroy their lungs and put themselves at a higher risk for cancer then they should be able to do that. We let people drink alcohol and that is way more dangerous than cigarettes. However, banning cigarettes in public places except in designated smoking areas should be okay because non-smokers shouldn’t have to be exposed to cigarette smoke if they don’t want to. Educating people about the dangers of smoking has a gradual effect of people making their own decisions to quit smoking without big brother forcing them to which is evident by the large drop of smokers in western societies. People are less likely to quit doing something if they feel they are being forced to thus the reason why smoking shouldn’t be banned out right. It would just increasing black marketing and encourage organized crime. If the Army really wants to increase educational awareness about the dangers of smoking then maybe they should do what Singapore did:

To gauge how taut the net around Asian smokers may eventually become, look at Singapore, which has been famously tough on cigarettes since 1970 when legislation was first introduced banning smoking in cinemas and buses. Today, all air-conditioned areas except bars are smoke-free, and last November the country introduced mandatory counseling for smokers under 18 (they are nabbed by antismoking police attached to the Health Sciences Authority). Since August, cigarette packets have had to carry dreadful color photos of the damage smoking can wreak, including images of a cancerous lung, a young man on life support, and a brain oozing blood after a stroke.

Singaporean cafe worker Polin Hadnin is already reduced to taking hurried smoke breaks beside a bleak rear entrance to her workplace. Cigarette butts are jammed in the lone ashtray and there’s no place to sit. There are probably few people more socially scorned than the Singaporean smoker. But Polin’s mental defenses are shored up with comforting thoughts—about the aged relative who has smoked all his life and is still going strong, about the fitness fanatic who never touched a cigarette but keeled over one day, and so on. “If it’s really so bad for you,” she asks, “why don’t they just ban it?”

I can just see the MP’s now grabbing people for smoking related offenses.

The way this story in the Chosun is presented you would think Korean schools are out of control.

Teachers say schoolyard gangs are organizing themselves into a nationwide network of violent youngsters who protect their patch through violence and intimidation.
At a school violence prevention workshop by the National Police Agency on Wednesday, a teacher from a middle school in Seoul warned that the gangs – known as Iljinhoe or hooligans – were growing and targeting younger and younger students.

A Seoul alliance of Iljinhoe recently organized a gathering at a local rock cafe involving about 1,000 students, during which members engaged in a public sex act known as the “sex machine.” The gangs spread a culture where violence is regarded as fun, with the “beating game” and “bullying game” overshadowed by crueler versions like the “strangling game,” in which gang members strangle a student until he or she passes out, or the “rape game.”

Some how I don’t think this problem is as big as we are being made to believe. Though I’m still wondering what the hell is the “sex machine”?

Well this is what I have been doing the last couple of weeks.

IMJIN RIVER, South Korea — The 2nd Infantry Division’s new 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team (1HBCT) completed two weeks of field training Tuesday with hundreds of vehicles and soldiers crossing the Imjin River.

The FTX tested some of the combat team’s new high-tech reconnaissance capabilities, digital information systems and tactical information exchange. They give commanders a better battlefield view of friendly and enemy forces, he said.

We did get some good training out of this and the river crossing exercise was the first time a ROK Army unit made the float bridge for US forces to cross. The prior bridging company the 50th Engineers are being redeployed back to the states as part of the draw down of forces on the peninsula. Hopefully we get to do more training in the future with ROK Army forces because I feel we don’t train nearly enough with them. So hopefully this will be a positive trend for the future.

Statistics show that overall traffic accidents in 2ID are down dramatically. But are they really?

Ground-vehicle accidents are down 48 percent within the 2nd Infantry Division, something the unit’s commander attributes to safety improvements made after a June 2002 incident in which a U.S. military vehicle ran over and killed two South Korean girls.

Second ID public affairs chief Maj. Mike Lawhorn released data Friday showing the number of ground-vehicle accidents within the division fell from 292 in fiscal year 2002 to 162 last fiscal year, a drop of 45 percent. And for the first five months of fiscal year 2005, there have been just 59 ground-vehicle accidents, compared with 112 for the same period in fiscal year 2002, a 48 percent drop.

A lot of improvement has been made in reducing accidents in 2ID but I think a 48% drop is a bit inflated for a couple of reasons. First of all much less training exercises are held now than compared to 2002. This causes less vehicles on the road which means your statistics are going to drop. Also with the emphasis on traffic accidents many times people only want to put their best drivers on the road. So the same guys get picked all the time to do the driving because the less experienced drivers are to much of a liability to be put on the roads. So they never get training to improve their driving skills besides driving on post.

Something the division has done that I think has had a direct effect at reducing accidents is the speed limit of 15mph in the city and 25mph on highways. It is tough to get in accident driving that slow. Every accident I have seen a military vehicle in was the fault of the Korean driver but the soldier always gets ticketed anyway by the police for the accident. Also the division’s emphasis on safety with elaborate convoy rehearsals and education of drivers has really created a culture of safety in drivers. This has had a direct effect in reducing accidents.

However, I wonder if any staff studies have been made that show the direct impact on reducing vehicular traffic on the division’s readiness? This whole problem can be solved with the 2ID move to Camp Humphrey’s coming up in the next 3 years. If the Army buys training land adjacent to the camp, units can train without sending convoys on the local highways. This will keep a high readiness rate and reduce accidents at the same time. This is the ideal answer.

Korea is planning on becoming a player in the space industry.

South Korea officials vowed March 4, 2005 to make space exploration a priority this year by pushing for the creation of an aerospace authority in Seoul and safety guidelines for future forays into orbit.

Aerospace industry analysts said a domestic program could fuel a mini-boom in South Korea’s aerospace and electronics industry if the government opts to build a rocket from the ground up instead of buying the technology from nations with existing launch programs.

This announcement may actually only be a warning to the North Koreans.

John Pike, a space industry analyst in Washington, D.C., said he was skeptical about South Korea’s ability to keep pace with Japan and China, and said the announcement may be aimed at North Korea. South Korea’s space talk follows speculation this week that Pyongyang is poised to resume testing its missile program.

I doubt the Koreans would use their space program as a cover to build missiles to attack North Korea with because Korea can already rely on the US military to use their air capabilities to bomb North Korea, if hostilities were ever to break out. I also doubt that this is a legitimate business venture that South Korea hopes to make money with. I don’t thik Korea will do much with their program besides launching a satellite into orbit. Korea can feel some national pride however if they launch a satellite into orbit. This is probably what all this is about, national pride of being able to launch a satellite into space. I for one doubt Korea will ever put their own ajushi in space but I can see them maybe sending someone up to space on a NASA or Russian flight in the future. But who knows maybe one day we will see ajushi flying in the Hyundai1000 rocket into space.

Just got out of the field and once again I always find it amusing how different going to the field and training in Korea is compared to be stationed back in the US. It really is a cultural shock for soldiers who have spent the majority of their careers in the US and have never been stationed in Korea.

The first big difference is the lack of training land in Korea. This is something that can’t be helped due to the size of the country. Then there are the convoys on public roads to get from one place to another. In the states you would never have a tank driving through the middle of a densely populated city. Here it is common place. The training areas in the US are located adjacent to the army post. Here the training areas are miles away. It literally takes an hour or more to do a convoy brief here before you roll out due to the strict safety requirements. There are no safer convoys than 2ID convoys.

Then there are the civilians that just walking around the training lands picking vegetables or fishing or whatever else they are doing. Training lands in the US are strictly off limits to civilians where here it is not as tightly controlled. Because of this units at night wire themselves in triple strand concertina wire to keep “slicky boy” out which is the common GI slang term for a thief. “Slicky Boy” usually tries to steal Night Vision Goggles and soldiers gear. Especially sleeping bags and Gortex jackets because they get the most money for them. In the states you don’t have to worry about even bringing concertina wire.

Then the most notable and most welcome difference between going to the field in Korea compared to the US is “Ajumma’s Tent.” Ajumma’s Tent is always an old army tent that houses an older Korean woman that cooks food such as ramyon, fried rice, and bulgoki for the soldiers for a price. The price is usually pretty expensive. For example a bowl of bulgoki is $5 and then throw in a soda for another $1 and that is a $6 meal. Plus ajumma sells other things like phone cards and snacks for the soldiers which brings in more revenue. It is safe to say that ajumma makes a fortune in the field here. I don’t know if ajumma has a union or what but all the tents serve the same thing for the same price to ensure there is no competition for cheaper prices. Additionally ma’s tent serves as a place for soldiers to get warm and sit down and play cards and relax for a little while. Ajumma’s Tent is definitely a phenomenom unique to Korea. But I’m not complaining.

It looks like things may be getting stinky in Yongsan.

Tuition assistance money has dried up, and garbage is still piled up here as military officials face depleted accounts before the budget year is halfway over, according to the peninsula?s top enlisted soldier.

?Right now, funding is tight because of the global war on terrorism,? U.S. Forces Korea Command Sgt. Maj. Troy Welch said Friday morning during his monthly radio call-in show. Tuition money ?for the second quarter has been exhausted,? he said.

I understand budget cuts but I wouldn’t think stopping trash pickup would be one of them.

The city of Pyongtaek located near Camp Humphrey’s is now preparing for the new 2ID soldiers that will arrive at the camp in the next three years.

Last week, city officials kicked off the early development phases of “Peace City,” a massive complex that will eventually include schools for foreigners, hospitals, entertainment centers and administrative buildings.

Under deals reached between the U.S. and South Korean governments, American military bases will be consolidated into two hubs — one in Pyongtaek, the other further south in the Taegu area.

Korean developers and civic leaders are fleshing out plans on how to ensure this relatively rural city keeps pace with an expanded U.S. military hub at nearby Camp Humphreys.

Hopefully this move will be planned out well before the soldiers begin moving south.