Category: Uncategorized

I know I have some school teachers that read this blog so I am particularly interested in what they have to say about this LA Times article about teachers in a Los Angeles high school doing everything possible to ban a JROTC program at the school.  Is this acceptable behavior for teachers in America’s high schools today?:

Last year, Jesse, the 11th-grader, a master sergeant and JROTC flag detail commander, was the only student wearing a JROTC uniform in Martha Guerrero’s first-period world history class. He said that Guerrero, who often wears a "War is not the answer" T-shirt and has a flag of the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara hanging in her classroom, sometimes asked him pointed questions in the middle of class.

"Jesse, are you going to go to Iraq and die?" she asked. "Why are you wearing a uniform? Aren’t you embarrassed?" Jesse said he felt singled out by the question and told his JROTC instructor about it.

A Che Guevara flag hanging in a high school classroom!?  The Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom is not okay, but it is okay to have a Che Guevara flag?  Attacking a student for wearing a JROTC uniform?  How is this woman still employed?

This is what another teacher was doing:

 Lopez, the social studies teacher, keeps a stack of glossy brochures propped on his chalkboard titled "Don’t Die in a Dead-End Job! Information for Young People Considering the Military" that show a soldier saluting flag-draped coffins. Prominent on his wall is a poster called "Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement."  "I want to see more Latinos go to college," Lopez said.

I got news for teacher Lopez, I am willing to bet that the US military is able to get a higher percentage of Latinos a college education than what their high school is able to do.  Is it any wonder why this high school can’t get many Latinos through college when they are indoctrinating them with the teachings of Che Guevara? 

From Yonhap:

The United States has strongly indicated that it will allow South Korea to get back the wartime command of its troops, currently held by the U.S., around 2010, a couple of years earlier than the deadline agreed on between the sides, a Defense Ministry official said Monday.

Seoul and Washington agreed during annual defense talks in Washington last October that the transition of wartime control of South Korean troops will take place sometime between Oct. 15, 2009 and March 15, 2012.

The timing was a compromise between South Korea and the U.S., as the former wanted a delayed transfer, citing a possible power vacuum, while the latter pushed ahead with an earlier transition as part of its flexible troop deployment in which U.S. troops in the Korean Peninsula are supposed to be mobilized easier than before for other conflict regions.

"The U.S. side informed us during the Security Policy Initiative meeting in Seoul (this month) that three years is enough from now on," the official said, asking not to be named.

This is an issue that General Bell has been pushing hard on, that the Korean government has been hoping the US government would forget about with the departure of Secretary Rumsfeld. It seems the new Secretary of Defense has now finally started to put some emphasis on USFK related issues with this announcement.  I had hoped that October 16, 2009 would be chosen for the handover but January 1, 2010 is just as good. 

It will be interesting to see the Korean government’s reaction on this considering President Roh said the ROK Army could take operational control now if needed. As I have speculated before, President Roh is trying to drag out the handover, so that when it is implemented, he will have left office and any economic and political repercussions from the handover he will have successfully avoided.

Great article by Ralph Peters about the Congressional vote to undermine the US soldiers in Iraq.  The Dems have over reached so bad that even the Washington Post has condemned them. 

Can anyone guess who said this statement below:

"The people chose you [Democrats] due to your opposition to Bush’s policy in Iraq, but it appears that you are marching with him to the same abyss, and it appears that you will take part with him in the defeat."

Was it Cindy Sheehan or one of the other loons in the anti-war left?  You can find out by clicking here.

I guess if you are the one stuck with negotiating a sham agreement, you might as well look good doing it:

Little known in his home country, the boyish-looking U.S. nuclear envoy has become something of a celebrity in China’s capital for his role in talks on North Korea’s atomic weapons program.  "He’s so charming and attractive," said Li Kenna, a desk clerk at the five-star hotel where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill stays. "He sometimes asks me how I am in the mornings. He’s one of our nicest guests."

(…)

His easygoing manner has also won over the media in comparison to the stonewall public relations efforts put forward by some of the other countries in the talks.  And with the negotiations taking place for hours on end behind closed doors, the idle time fuels speculation and jokes about Hill, including his clothes sense.

The Beijing winter means Hill has been wearing a winter jacket that looks like it had been bought from a discount store, one Japanese reporter said. But he said Hill still looks good in it anyway.  The interest in Hill may also stem from the fact that he speaks to the media every morning and evening, while his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan gives only the occasional chaotic news conference.

Hill, a Boston Red Sox fan, also won over the Japanese media by turning up for meetings in Tokyo wearing a Seibu Lions baseball cap. The Red Sox just signed pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka from the Lions.

(…)

One bodyguard has been dubbed "Matrix" by Japanese reporters for his sleek sunglasses which look like they came from the science fiction movie. But even when the guard turned up in a new camel coat, he still did not outshine the boss’s jacket.

I don’t know about you all, but when I look at Christopher Hill, Keanu Reeves definitely does not come to mind.

I’m willing to bet this deal will last longer than 2005 deal that lasted only one day, but bottom line is we have been down this road before and this deal will ultimately fail:

North Korea has tentatively agreed to close down its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy aid, U.S. and Chinese officials said Tuesday.

But the proposed deal was being reviewed by officials in the negotiators’ capitals before becoming final.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead American official at the talks, said the United States will give an unspecified amount of energy assistance to North Korea in exchange for North Korea freezing its production of plutonium.

Hill said negotiators are running the agreement by their capitals and would reconvene later Tuesday.

"We feel it’s an excellent, excellent draft," Hill said. "I don’t think we are the problem."

Well the problem is that the North Koreans want massive energy assistance for just freezing their program that nobody wants to pay.  The Japanese do not want to give North Korea anything until the North Koreans fully account for all the Japanese citizens that were kidnapped over the decades by North Korea.  The Russians want anything they give to the North Koreans to be limited to forgiving foreign debt which they know North Korea will never pay anyway.  That leaves China, the US, and South Korea to pay it:

The newspaper said the U.S., South Korea, and China would provide aid under the deal. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the North would receive 500,000 tons of heavy oil and other energy and humanitarian assistance equivalent to that amount. 

At least it appears that the US will not be paying much of the energy assistance, South Korea will, but the US is giving North Korea back their frozen money in a Macau bank that is from counterfeiting US currency.  What kind of message is that sending, that you can counterfeit US currency and get away with it?

So for massive energy assistance and giving millions of dollars of ill gotten money back to the North Koreans, what is the US getting out of this you may ask?:

Left for later discussion would be what to do with the atomic weapons the North now is believed to possess — a half-dozen or more by expert estimates. The deal also reportedly fails to address the uranium enrichment program that Washington accuses North Korea of having.

Yes, the US is giving North Korea pretty much what they received in the 1994 deal that President Bush and other conservatives loved to bash the Clinton Administration over.  The big difference now is that North Korea will be allowed to keep their current nuclear weapons and not even have to dismantle their uranium enrichment program for all the free goodies given to them.  These are all considered issues that will be discussed later. 

North Korea has no intent to give up their weapons.  They are just trying to get what they can from the international community without giving up the half dozen nukes they now possess.  These nuclear weapons ensure regime security from an outside attack; that is something more valuable to a dictator like Kim Jong-il than any incentive the international community could give to him.   I recommend everyone read the Strategic Disengagement Theory that best explain this.

Former US diplomat John Bolton was holding no punches about the possible approval of this deal:

"I am very disturbed by this deal," he told CNN. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: ‘If we hold out long enough, wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded,’ in this case with massive shipments of heavy fuel oil for doing only partially what needs to be done" to dismantle the nuclear program.

"I think this deal with North Korea undercuts the sanctions resolution with respect to them, and I think the Iranians have only to follow the same example."

I am in total agreement with Bolton on this.  President Bush hasn’t given this deal an okay yet, but it appears that the Bush Administration so eager for the appearance of a foreign policy success they are willing to go the way of President Clinton and trust the North Koreans to uphold to this deal and work towards future disarmament.  I have said before I credit Clinton with trying diplomacy even though it failed, but if President Bush agrees to this deal he has no excuses for when it ultimately fails. 

The thing is President Bush will probably be out of office when this thing fails just like Clinton was.  The North Koreans will uphold the deal and shut down their reactor, but they will continue to use their discussion and delay tactics to hold up the talks to dismantle their half dozen nukes they have now.  While all the discussion is going on, North Korea will use the influx of cash they will be receiving from the international community for their "freeze" to advance their ballistic missile program to be able to handle a nuclear warhead that can reach the US mainland. 

Mark my words if the US agrees to this "freeze", in 2010 under the next US president we will be discussing this same thing again when North Korea kicks out the inspectors and demands more blackmail, but by this time they will be able to threaten the US and neighboring countries with nuclear weapons that can be launched on one of their ballistic missiles.  The blackmail will be much steeper than it is now and it won’t be the future president’s fault, it will be this one. 

Read a whole lot more on the latest NK developments at these sites below:

The Marmot

One Free Korea

DPRK Studies (particularly good)

Lost Nomad

My recent postings here and here concerning the anti-war movement in America has drawn some heated comments.  It has also drawn the attention of Korea blogger the Metropolitician who has a couple of posts here and here about this topic that I encourage everyone to read. 

Let me make this very clear in my postings I am drawing my criticism towards the face of the anti-war movement which is people like William Arkin, Cindy Sheehan, and their ilk who were out in front of the US capitol a couple of weeks ago.  Like it or not the Sheehans and Code Pinks are the face of the anti-war movement, just as much as President Bush is the face of the movement to stay the course in Iraq.  The people that are the face of the anti-war movement hated the military long before President Bush even came around and I’m calling them on it.  They didn’t just rise up because of the Iraq War, they have always been there as I mentioned in my post and are now just getting the media attention they have been craving for all these years.

If the US never invaded Iraq they would be protesting the war in Afghanistan just as hard as they are protesting Iraq now even though they claim otherwise.  If the US was not in Iraq now, the jihadis would be in Afghanistan trying to kill infidels and incite ethnic violence there instead of in Iraq.  The US would be taking much more casualties in Afghanistan now if the US military wasn’t in Iraq.  If the US was losing 2-3 soldiers a day in Afghanistan and Al Qaida was car bombing mosques and beheading infidels, would people in the anti-war movement still be saying they support the war in Afghanistan?  I think not. 

All the people that now benefit from hindsight as Richardson pointed it out quite clearly, love to practice historical revisionism.  Just look at all the Senators that voted to go to war doing everything they can now to recreate history in order to explain their vote.  They are cowards and that is why I respect politicians like John McCain who make no excuses for their votes.  He is holding himself accountable for what he believes instead of holding his finger in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing.

With that said, the war in Iraq was clearly a war of choice.  This I have no doubts about.  Since this is a Korea blog let me use a Korean War reference for an analogy. Did Truman need to send soldiers to fight in Korea in 1950? No, it was a war of choice that Truman decided to fight, to the communists total surprise, because he wanted to take a stand against communism. After initial setbacks it appeared after the Inchon Landing that Truman was right to send troops to Korea, but once the Chinese got involved it was clear that Truman had overreached and thus was stuck in stalemate against the Chinese Army in order to not provoke the Russians to become involved in the war.  The dismal approval rating of Truman due to the Korean War ultimately led to him not running for reelection in 1952 and Eisenhower taking over and roughly 7 months later he signed a cease fire ending hostilities. 

Now let’s look at Iraq.  Bush fought a war of choice in Iraq because he wanted to send a message to all the tyrants in the Middle East that things weren’t going to be business as usual in the Middle East after 9/11.  He wanted to force change.  Iraq was the easy target to enforce change in the Middle East, because there was already troops in Kuwait including most importantly a logistics system, plus everyone hates Saddam right?  Just because people hated Saddam didn’t mean people would support going to war to remove him.  WMD was used as the primary reason because the administration knew they would get little support from the UN to remove Saddam or spread freedom and democracy to Iraq. The UN is more about protecting tyrants not bringing them down.

The Bush administration felt WMDs were a slam dunk case to win UN approval and thus didn’t bring up anything about freedom and democracy because doing so would cause even more UN disapproval.  Remember before the war everyone wanted Bush to play the UN game.  To this day I have not seen anything to change my mind that Bush knew there was no WMD in Iraq.  I believe Bush legitimately believed there was WMD in Iraq, but he didn’t decide to wage the war simply for WMD.  The more important reason was sending a message to the despots in the Middle East that America was committed to change in the Middle East, just like Truman was committed to standing up to the communists in Korea. 

I think Bush like many people around the world was surprised that no stockpiles were found, however what is little reported is the fact that Saddam kept the capability to produce chemical weapons through stock piling dual use material.  For example during the war my unit secured an Iraqi airbase and on it we found stockpiles of industrial chemicals like chlorine and pesticides.  Why would a military airfield need stockpiles of these industrial chemicals?  They must of had a heck of an insect problem and the chlorine wasn’t for the pool because there was one pool and it had no water in it.  Guess who was selling Saddam all these dual use items in violation of UN sanctions?  Many of our so called allies, especially the French according to this CIA report on the post-war findings of Iraq WMD programs. Actually I didn’t need a CIA report to know which countries were violating UN sanctions because all of us there during the war in 2003 saw for ourselves who was violating UN sanctions. 

Now I’m all for debate about the merits of going to war, but what I don’t like is people using this debate as reason for pulling out of Iraq now.  In my opinion the two are not related.  If the US pulls out now Iraq will crumble and our enemies will be emboldened and will be heading to Afghanistan next, not to mention the massive ethnic cleansing and possibility of regional war breaking out between Iran and the Sunni nations trying to protect Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.  It would be a total disaster that the face of the anti-war crowd and opposition politicians are not providing any answers to solve.  Their arguments continue to be the war is illegal, Bush lied, we need to retreat from Iraq.   This doesn’t solve the problem in Iraq the United States is facing today. 

Let’s go back to the Korean War.  In 1954 should the US have pulled out of Korea because the Korean War was a war of choice?  Look at the post-Korean War years following the 1953 cease fire.  A communist insurgency was still active in the southern mountains of South Korea, the ROK Army was not ready to assume security of their own nation, the political situation was extremely unstable which ultimately led to military coup a few years later, labor strife, mass poverty, and little economic development.  In the early post-war years it was easy to call the US intervention into Korea a total failure especially after 36,000 US soldiers died during the war compared to just over 3,000 in Iraq today.  In 1954 was 36,000 US lives spent in Korea worth it?  The hindsight in 1954 looked way more negatively on staying in Korea compared to hindsight in 2007 in regards to staying in Iraq. 

However, the US stayed the course with Korea despite all the setbacks over the years and Korea is now a model country that rose up from the devastation of the Korean War due to it’s alliance with the US and the hard work of it’s own people to become an economic power and a vibrant democracy.  With the benefit of hindsight today, the US won the Korean War in 1988 when Seoul hosted the Olympic Games.  Who would have thought that in 1954?  It is going to be the same scenario for Iraq, we won’t know if the US "won" the war until 30 years from now if Baghdad is hosting the Olympic Games for example.  It is going to take continued US assistance and hard work from the Iraqis to do it.  For anyone who thinks the Iraqis aren’t doing enough for their own freedom needs to read this and this.  I think soldiers feel so strongly about the Iraq War because the Iraqi people are more than just statistics to us, they are real people that will really die if the United States pulls out.  We in the military don’t have the luxury of staying home and debating the merits of going to war and playing the "I told you so" game.  We are less concerned about the justifications of the war and more concerned with doing the job at hand, which is to help the Iraqis rise up from the grips of despotism and terrorism.  We in the military can’t do that from Okinawa like the Murtha plan advocates just as much as the soldiers in Korea after the Korean War couldn’t help the Koreans rise from the ashes of war if they were left to sit in Japan. 

The biggest failure of the Bush Administration has been communicating all this to the American people. 

Unlike the face of the anti-war crowd that want to silence people in the military I actually encourage everyone to read what the Metropolitician has to say.  Americans need to become better educated about Iraq and I feel if they do they will understand the danger of pulling out of there.  If not and the US military is forced to pull out of Iraq we might as well pull out of Afghanistan as well because every jihadi who was looking to kill an infidel in Iraq will be on a one way Iranian express train to Afghanistan.  After the pull out, we in the military will drive on and follow orders from the next US president, even Hillary, just like soldiers always do, but don’t come blaming us when chaos breaks out, the death count in the Middle East inflates to incredible numbers, Saudia Arabia nuclearizes to defend itself from Iran, oil prices go through the roof, economic recession hits the US, among a host of other possible disasters that can hit America from a US withdrawal from Iraq. 

Even better yet don’t expect us in the military to go back over there to clean it up. 

This story about a "Afghan Rambo" serving with US forces in Afghanistan is incredible.  A real unknown hero of Afghanistan.

William Arkin is back and this time on the John Gibson radio show.  Milblogger Blackfive was on Fox News responding to Arkin’s attacks.  This guy is totally revolting and I find it amazing that the Washington Post and NBC still want this guy to work for them.

The anti-war people who go around priding themselves on supporting the troops and not the war, have hated the US military even before 9/11 even happened.  As I mentioned before, hating the troops is nothing new as I personally witnessed these mass anti-military protests happen before 9/11 even occurred.  The only difference now is that they are getting increased media attention due to the Iraq War.  However, what the media won’t show is what these people actually stand for.  Well courtesy of Semper Gratus here is a video of wounded US military veterans conducting a counter protest last week against the anti-military types holding a rally at the US Capitol.  As you watch remember these words from the Washington Post journalist and NBC News military analyst William Arkin:

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

Sure, it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail. But even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We don’t see very many "baby killer" epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

Now watch the video and see these "peace loving" and "non-violent" anti-military types in action.  How much courage does it take to challenge a wounded veteran in a wheel chair to fight?  Well, that is the type of courage on display by the people who support the troops and not the war.   I’m sure NBC and the rest of the MSM will continue to have no interest in showing the American people who these anti-military people really are.

Just for the record some of my commenters have brought up that they think that members of the US military should not be allowed to vote or protest and remain a-political.  I tend to disagree because I think people who serve their country deserve the right to vote even more so than people who don’t because the US military is often the ones that have to implement US policy, so why shouldn’t they have a say in who is the one that creates that said policy?  Then again the Democrats have done everything they can to stop military ballots from being counted in tight races anyway, so maybe we should not vote?

As far as protesting, if soldiers didn’t speak out against the anti-military left who will?  Soldiers I talk to are becoming increasingly frustrated how one side the media coverage is and how these anti-military loons continue to get to shape the Iraq debate.  Look at this blog for example, should I stop blogging and providing a soldier’s perspective of Korea related issues simply to remain a-political and let the "citizen journalists" of media sites like Oh My News shape the views of how people view US soldiers in Korea?  I like to think that I have at least influenced some people that not all USFK soldiers are the drunken barbarians out looking to rape naive, innocent Korean women like the Korean media wants people to believe.  As long as soldiers don’t campaign for political candidates or issues in uniform, I don’t see why they should not be allowed to speak out about issues regarding the US military as a private citizen.  I am a professional and even if a political leader does things contrary to what I think is right, I will drive on.  I worked just as hard for President Clinton as I do now for President Bush and if Hillary gets elected I will work just as hard for her.  It is just like following orders from commanders in the military; not all the commanders I have had were all great, but even for the poor commanders you still follow their orders.  If you are in the military and can’t put your personal views about a superior a side you need to find a different line of work.