Category: Uncategorized

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. 

From this Milblogs post is an excellent link to an Atlantic Monthly article that is the best reporting I have seen yet on the reality of US military recruiting.  The article tends to confirm my thesis that  fatter, momma’s boys are being allowed in the military compared to past years, not an influx of gang bangers as some want to believe. 

For additional reading I direct everyone to my prior post that lays to rest the other myth that the Army is recruiting uneducated low lives and exploiting minorities as conventional wisdom suggests.  In fact military recruits are smarter, increasingly middle class, (even the numbers of wealthy enlisting is up) and the number of poor and minority recruits are dropping with more whites joining and the overall numbers are nearing the make up of the average US population.

Facts are hard for the demagouges, the race baiters, and class warfare specialists to accept, but longer the War on Terror goes on, more the demographic make up of the US military is becoming a direct reflection of American society itself.  

From this Milblogs post is an excellent link to an Atlantic Monthly article that is the best reporting I have seen yet on the reality of US military recruiting.  The article tends to confirm my thesis that  fatter, momma’s boys are being allowed in the military compared to past years, not an influx of gang bangers as some want to believe. 

For additional reading I direct everyone to my prior post that lays to rest the other myth that the Army is recruiting uneducated low lives and exploiting minorities as conventional wisdom suggests.  In fact military recruits are smarter, increasingly middle class, (even the numbers of wealthy enlisting is up) and the number of poor and minority recruits are dropping with more whites joining and the overall numbers are nearing the make up of the average US population.

Facts are hard for the demagouges, the race baiters, and class warfare specialists to accept, but longer the War on Terror goes on, more the demographic make up of the US military is becoming a direct reflection of American society itself.  

From the Chosun:

North Korea’s immediate banking troubles will likely be resolved this week, as chances are high that the U.S. will accept the North’s demand to transfer its assets in Macau to a third country via a U.S. bank. Diplomatic sources on Wednesday said the U.S. is inclined to allow a U.S. bank to play an intermediary role in transferring the recently unfrozen US$25 million. Quoting a U.S. official, AP reported the U.S. Treasury was expected to make a decision by as early as Thursday. The official told the news agency, “The North Koreans want to use an American bank because they think the transaction would help secure their continued access to the global financial system.”

Let’s see the North Koreans counterfeit our money and then we agree to launder the $25 million dollars worth of money for them and give them access to the world financial system in return for them to implement an agreement they have already violated and we know they have no intention of ever implementing on top of all the goodies the South Korean government has already given the North Koreans.  That is what the US North Korea policy has been reduced to. 

There is only one catch:

Before President George W. Bush leaves office, he hopes to sign a formal peace treaty putting an end to the Korean War, the top U.S. envoy to Seoul said yesterday.
It is all contingent, however, on North Korea taking steps to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

If a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War is contingent on Pyongyang giving up their nuclear weapons it is never going happen.  First of all Pyongyang has no intention of ever giving up their nuclear weapons and secondly the North Korean regime cannot agree to a peace treaty with the US because they need the threat of an American attack to legitimize their military first policy that has lead to widespread poverty and famine of the North Korean people.  A peace treaty removes the very reason for the siege mentality over their people that the North Korean regime promotes.

There was a suicide bombing in Irbil, Iraq today which is the city located a few kilometers from where the Korean Zaytun Division is located:

According to the Associated Press (AP), a suicide truck bomb struck at 8 a.m. on Wednesday in Irbil, the northern Iraqi city where Korea’s Zaytun troops are stationed.

At least 19 local police and civilians were killed in the blast and another 80 were wounded, the AP report said. Officials from the Zaytun base said no Koreans were injured.

The explosion occurred outside the Interior Ministry of the local Kurdish government, which is about six or seven kilometers from the Zaytun base.

According to witnesses, a truck disguised as carrying cleaning products exploded as it drove by the building, seriously damaging the building and scattering wreckage as far as 100m.

The Kurdish government blamed the attack on Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida-linked Sunni Islamist group.

Apparently the Kurdish government had known an attack was imminent due to arrests made last week of a terrorist cell that admitted that they received training in Iran.  Anyone surprised?

I really hope the election of Nicolas Sarkozy does lead to positive change in the US-French relationship: 

The victory of Nicholas Sarkozy of the right-leaning Union for a Popular Movement may be a sign that French society is moving to the right. Observers note the country’s economic stagnation, with a yearly growth rate is 2 percent and has had 8 percent unemployment for 20 years, is the reason. Sarkozy ran his campaign promising changes towards a market-oriented economy, including a more flexible labor market, tax cuts, and a reorganization of the 35 hour work week. His opponent, Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal, defended welfare and the 35 hour week, but she was still more pro-business than traditional leftist candidates. Even within the Socialist Party many saw economic growth as the biggest issue. This time around France’s independent foreign policy, which likes to stress that it is different from that of the United States, was not a point of contention.

Here are some more economic numbers that were a big reason for his election:

Among European nations, France was the most tenacious in hanging on to the old-style welfare state model. As a result, its gross national income slid to 19th place from eighth in 1982, while contracting the so-called “French disease” manifested by a youth unemployment rate of more than 22 percent. Government expenditures, which accounted for 54 percent of gross domestic product, damaged private sector competitiveness and pulled down France’s share of the global export market from 5.4 percent in 1999 to 4.3 percent in 2005.

Pretty grim numbers.  Here is what he had to say about the US, via Big Hominid:

"Certain people in France call me Sarkozy the American. I’m proud of this. I am a man of action; I do what I say and I try to be pragmatic. I share many American values." In 2004, during a lunch with the American Jewish Committee, the minister speaks out against those who attack him for being an Americanophile. There is a great deal of sincerity in the admiration Nicolas Sarkozy has for the United States. He believes that, across the Atlantic, everyone has an opportunity, regardless of "their name or their face," as he said one day. He then cited the examples of Arnold Schwarzenegger, elected governor of California, and Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State under George Bush, who is of Jamaican heritage.*

You can read more about Sarkozy via the Big Hominid here as well.