Category: Uncategorized

One of the bigger news items this week was the announcement that General Peter Pace would not be recommended for a second term as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.  The reason given was that the Democrats would fight his nomination:

On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the stunning announcement that he would not recommend Pace to serve a second two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine Corps four-star general had not been a target previously of Democrats’ ire on the war, but Gates said lawmakers made it clear the confirmation process would be ugly.

“It would be a backward looking and very contentious process,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

What is interesting about this is that the Democrats are trying to spin this as that they are against Pace’s nomination because of the handling of the Iraq War.  This reasoning is highly flawed when the Democrats overwhelmingly voted to confirm the current US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and also voted to confirm General George Casey as the Chief of Staff of the Army.  Both of these generals have much more to do with Iraq War policy than General Pace and yet they were overwhelmingly confirmed.

So obviously there is another reason for the Democrats vowing to fight any nomination of General Pace and at the very tail end of this AP article is the real reason why the Democrats would fight Pace’s nomination:

Tauscher, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Pace lost standing among members in March when he said homosexual acts were immoral and that the military should not condone the behavior by allowing gays to serve openly. He later apologized, including in a personal letter to Tauscher, for expressing what he said were his personnel views.

Tauscher said his comments on gays “showed his ignorance” and “had to be deeply discounted because they came from a man who had presided over a war that we got into on a lie and what I consider to be a serious dereliction of duty in having our troops and our readiness so destroyed by the policies of this administration.”

This is just another further example of the politicization of the military I have been talking about.  Now if an Army general says anything against gays that is reason to lose their job; who cares how competent he is, what matters is if he is on board with members of Congress’s homosexual agendas.

The news of an expansion to the Kunsan Air Force Base may become another front in the anti-US movement in Korea:

U.S. Forces Korea and South Korea are planning a large expansion of Kunsan Air Base.

A final decision on what will fill that expanded base has not been made, a USFK spokesman said Monday.

South Korean Ministry of Defense officials, however, expect two Army helicopter battalions to move there, and an Army Corps of Engineers Web site mentions past planning for such a move.

The 8th Fighter Wing currently is using South Korean relocation funds to build a fence around land bordering the base, USFK spokesman David Oten said Monday.

The defense ministry is clearing 315 acres for the expansion, a South Korean ministry official with the USFK relocation business division said Thursday.

92 Korean households need to be relocated due to the expansion with 31 families already agreeing to move.  However, the remaining home owners want an increased compensation package because they claim the government is offering them $65 per pyong while the land is supposedly worth $108 per pyong.   If this doesn’t get worked out it will be interesting to see if the anti-US hate groups will mobilize to oppose the Kunsan expansion just like they did to oppose the Camp Humphreys expansion. 

It is about time these camps were finally handed over:

South Korea has concluded its negotiations with the United States on the relocation of nine U.S. military bases in its country, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

   The process was concluded Thursday as a joint committee under the South Korea-United States status of forces agreement (SOFA) approved and signed the agreement on the relocation of the bases, the ministry said.

   “After taking necessary steps for the efficent use of the land at an early date, the government plans to consult with local autonomous bodies to map out how to use the returned land,” the ministry said in a press release.

   The relocation of the bases are part of a long-term, multi-billion dollar project to realign and move the U.S. forces in South Korea further south to the rear of the inter-Korean border.

   The bases to be relocated include Camp Edwards in Paju, just north of Seoul, Camp Sears and Camp Essayons, both also just north of the South Korean capital, according to the ministry.

As OFK has rightfully pointed out the North Korean stooges usual suspects are complaining about environmental damage and cost sharing for the USFK transformation.  The pollution argument is of course bogus as I have pointed out before and the cost sharing is even more laughable considering the property value of the land being returned to the Korean government that the closed out USFK camps occupy is of much greater value compared to the price of land for some rice paddies outside Camp Humphreys.  If anything the Korean government is going to turn a profit on the land especially when it aquires the Yongsan Garrison land in the heart of Seoul. 

Here is one of the more amazing and unusual defections from North Korea I have read about:

Japan is likely to offer temporary protection to four people believed to have fled North Korea who are seeking asylum in the South after they arrived by boat at a Japanese port, Japanese officials said on Sunday.

The three men and a woman, who were taken into Japanese custody on Saturday, claimed to be a family, a police official said. They told authorities they had been out at sea in the small wooden boat since May 27 after leaving North Korea for the South.

They told Japanese officials they had left Chongjin on the east coast and headed south, but then changed course due to heavy security and ended up at Fukaura in Japan’s Aomori prefecture, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the east, the police official added.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out considering the issue of the kidnapping of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans is still a hot topic in Japan. 

This is actually the first defection by sea by North Koreans to Japan.  This feat is quite impressive considering they survived in a small wooden boat for nearly a week to cross the Sea of Japan which is well known for its rough waters. 

You can read more over at DPRK Studies where a map of the approximate route of the defectors is posted.  Just by taking one look at that map you can see what they did was no small feat.  Hopefully Japan grants them asylum and they can find a better lives for themselves away from the hell of North Korea.

It has taken CNN over six months before they decided to report what is going on in Anbar, but at least they are now reporting it.  It is amazing how good the reporting can be if the reporters leave their hotels.  Nevertheless, a very good report by CNN.

I think this goes into the category of something I have to see to believe:

The Defense Security Command has unveiled a kind of cyborg future Korean soldier. At the Defense Information Security Conference 2007 at the Air Force Club on Tuesday, it revealed plan to arm Korean soldiers with a versatile helmet, a cutting edge airburst munition rifle and camouflage combat fatigues by 2020. The helmet is equipped with a video camera, a display and a headphone allowing soldiers to see, hear and record information and send it to other soldiers immediately. The airburst munition rifle has a laser distance measurer and target designator, a video camera and a scope.

Color-changing combat fatigues can detect biochemical weapons, radioactivity and land mines. Korean soldiers can also expect to be outfitted with wearable PCs that help them distinguish friend and foe and locate other soldiers. A military source said the Army Training & Doctrine Command had been demanding the upgrade in equipment for several years. But due to a budget problem, it will take until 2020 till they can be fully kitted out.

I wonder if the wearable PC will have Starcraft 2 installed on it or not?

From the Chosun:

North Korea used political prisoners from a concentration camp to prepare for its underground nuclear test on Oct. 9 last year, a federation of North Korean refugee organizations in South Korea alleged Monday. In a briefing in Seoul co-sponsored by the U.S. rights watchdog Freedom House, the Committee for Democratization of North Korea said it has testimony that North Korea was able to keep its nuclear test secret even from citizens because it used prisoners from a concentration camp in Hwaseong, North Hamgyeong Province.

Not that Amnesty International or other major human rights groups really care. 

From the AFP:

A 27-year-old army lieutenant, identified only by his family name Oh, was found shot and dead inside the South Korean military camp in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.

He sustained a shot under his jaw at an army barber shop, with his own rifle and an empty cartridge found nearby, it said. There were no signs of him being attacked, it added.

The situation appears to likely be a suicide or an accidental discharge, but we won’t really know until a full investigation is conducted. 

Could this ever happen in the Army?

The Corps-wide drinking age has been lowered from 21 to 18 for Marines on liberty overseas and for leathernecks taking part in official on-base command functions — including the birthday ball.

The rule change was effective April 19, not long after Commandant Gen. James Conway and Sgt. Maj. John Estrada, then-sergeant major of the Marine Corps, returned from a visit to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Middle East.

[…]

“The minimum drinking age overseas will be based on the host nation’s drinking age … and on the local situation as determined by the local installation commander … but in no case shall it be below the age of 18,” the message states.

This decision only gets better, check this out:

(more…)

That Korea and Japan dislike each other, imagine that, I’m shocked:

According to a survey by Gallup Korea and the Japan Research Center, 20 percent of Koreans have friendly feelings towards Japan and 36 percent of Japanese felt the same towards Korea.

In a 2002 survey by the Chosun Ilbo and Mainichi Shimbun, 35 percent of Koreans and 69 percent of Japanese had friendly views of the other country.

When asked the reason for their antipathy, most Koreans cited the territorial dispute over the Dok-do Islets, while most Japanese said they’re turned off by anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea.

Here is something though that may surprise some:

When asked which country Korea should be close with, Koreans chose the U.S. (37 percent), North Korea (28 percent), China (20 percent), and Japan (5 percent). Japanese said Japan should be closest to the U.S. (42 percent), China (17 percent), South Korea (6 percent) and North Korea (3 percent).

It would have been a more interesting survey if they asked why they think they should be close to each of these countries.