Category: Uncategorized

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. 

The South Korean government is trying to smooth things over with General Bell by saying they will only delay the Camp Humphreys relocation until 2012 now:

South Korea is studying ways to expedite the relocation of U.S. bases, which is expected to be delayed about five years from the original target year of 2008, officials at the Defense Ministry said Monday.

Some have interpreted the move as an effort by Seoul to soothe the United States, which has protested the delay.

“We are reviewing ways to advance the timetable for the relocation at least one year from the expected year of 2013 under the direction of Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo,’’ an informed ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

The ministry will soon finalize the study on the relocation timetable and propose it to the United States, the source said.

You may remember USFK Commander, General Bell’s "fighting words" to the Korean government last month over the announced delay.  After General Bell’s statement the Korean government came back with this lame response.  This latest announcement it along with the cutting of funds by the Korean government for the relocation while sending over a billion dollars to North Korea this year, is a clear sign that South Korea is committed to dragging this out as long as possible and then hope a change in the US administration in 2008 will bring in a change of policy in regards to the transformation.  As much as some sectors of Korean society complain about the US troop presence in South Korea, it is their own government making sure that the status quo remains the same.  Its all about keeping the USFK gravy train rolling.

With the Koreans committed to delay tactics, I think General Bell should explore the possibility of setting a goal to either have the personnel from Yongsan Garrison or the 2nd Infantry Division move to Camp Humphreys by 2009.  This would be at least be a start to breaking the status quo in USFK.  At least move something by 2009.  If General Bell wants to see an expanded Camp Humphreys built in record time announce that only Yongsan Garrison will relocate to Camp Humphreys and that the 2nd Infantry Division will redeploy back to CONUS by 2009.  That will cause a reaction in South Korea that is sure to show that the government here that the US military is committed to transforming the force on the peninsula.

Where is Andrew Sullivan now?  I would love to hear him defend his "civilians" again after reading this.

An anti-US activists being investigated for spying?  Say it ain’t so:

The Seoul police have announced that it is investigating a photographer on suspicion of military espionage.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on January 24 that it has been conducting a investigation on Mr. Lee (40), a photographer, for several months after obtaining a wiretap warrant. The police said it launched the investigation after receiving a tip that Lee had photographed weapons at U.S. military bases in Korea and had given the photos to the media.

Lee is under suspicion of leaking military intelligence, the police said, such as revealing the U.S. Forces Korea’s chemical weapons deployment status, to the public through news articles and contributions to the media. Lee took the photos while a reporter for a progressive internet media site.

However, a representative of the progressive internet media site for which Lee worked said, "We did run an article with a picture of a nuclear submarine docked at Jinhae Port. But the picture was taken by some other environmental group. At the time, Mr. Lee was not able to take a picture of the nuclear sub." The representative also said that Mr. Lee wrote the special report under question on the chemical weapons status of the U.S. Forces in Korea being revealed to the public "based on the information the U.S. military disclosed in accordance with their Freedom of Information Act."

First of all his claims of the US having a chemical weapons stockpile on the peninsula I have found nothing to corroborate this story.  However, the South Korean government did build a chemical weapons stockpile that I’m willing to bet these anti-US groups are trying to blame USFK for.  South Korea signed a treaty in 1997 banning chemical weapons and has been in the process of slowly destroying their chemical weapons stockpile.  One more spy down and a whole lot more to go. 

I think it is great that more and more sailors are signing up to transfer over to the Army, but I have to wonder about this guy:

Guevara, who left the Navy in 2006 after eight years, said he received a $2,000 bonus to join the Army, but his major reason for switching services is the Navy made it much harder for him to advance from E-4 to E-5.

“I love my job, I love to help people,” he said. “I became a corpsman because I wanted to help injured Marines, or anybody, and the Army offered me the same job and I jumped right on it.”

I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about the Navy, but I have to wonder about someone who can’t make the E-5 rank in 8 years.  In the Army soldiers usually make the E-5 rank in 3-4 years of service sometimes even quicker.  Does anyone know if it is that hard to make E-5 in the Navy?

The South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung is now clearly with out a doubt a useful idiot.  His first signs of ascending to useful idiot status was when he claimed North Korea built a nuclear program because they are poor.  One Free Korea had the best take on this claim by Lee:

Now Lee is coming out and saying that North Korea is not using the money given to North Korea through inter-Korean projects for their nuclear program:

South Korea’s unification minister on Friday denied that North Korea has diverted cash it earned through inter-Korean economic cooperation for the development of its nuclear weapons.

Lee Jae-joung, Seoul’s point man on the communist neighbor, also stressed that North Korea earns such money "in a transparent and legal manner," saying the government will expand and deepen inter-Korean economic cooperation in the future.

First of all I would love to see Lee pull out an audit report of all the money given to North Korea by the ROK to prove his claims.  I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.  Secondly, even if the money isn’t used directly in the nuclear program, it will instead be used to buy the Dear Leader and the regime elite mansions, booze, luxury cars, etc. which are in violation of the UN resolution prohibiting this. Additionally the money given by the South Korean government to ensure the lifestyle of the regime elite means that money brought into North Korea from other sources can be used for the nuclear program instead.   To Lee Jae-joung’s credit, he still has a long way to go to reach the useful idiot status of former Unification Minister Chung Dong-young.