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Slightly interesting article in the Korea Times about Bruce Cumings’ wife, a professor at the University of Michigan, being featured on ABC’s Prime Time Live. Here are some of her views regarding the Korean peninsula:

Woo expresses her passion for Korean studies in her praise of Korea’s potential.

“The country has excellent human capital with people so energetic and intelligent,’’ said the professor. “Korea had many geopolitical conditions starting in 1945 that had to be resolved before becoming a truly developed country.’’

“North Korea is undoubtedly an important country,’’ she said. “It can choose to be a country of peace and stability or go the other way and become a tremendous problem to East Asia and the world.’’

On the matter of the North’s nuclear detonation in October, Woo said, “It was unexpected because North Korea is always in a guessing game, but after the test took place, the anticipated thing was done.’’

I agree with her about South Korea, but she is kidding herself if she thinks North Korea as long as Kim Jong-il is alive, will ever be interested in “peace and stability”. Kim Jong-il brings in all the international aid money by being a threat. Plus he has to keep the US and South Korea as the boogeymen of the North Korean state in order to validate his juche ideology. So it isn’t in his interest to suddenly want peace. So that is why I say plan around them being a threat to the region for some time.

I can’t tell from the few above comments and I’m not saying she does, but I do wonder if she shares any of the views of her North Korea apologizer husband?

Taxi Cab Related Incident at Camp Humphreys, but it doesn’t involve GI’s this time.

From CNN:

What James Kim, 35, encountered searchers would later describe as rugged, steep, snowy terrain with sodden branches, slick rocks, downed trees and poison oak nestled between sheer cliffs.

Despite those conditions, authorities said, he covered an estimated eight miles before rescuers on Wednesday found his body in a ravine.

“It seems superhuman to me that he was able to cover that amount of distance given what he had and also that he had nine days in the car” before setting out, Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson said.

“I’m amazed,” searcher Robert Graham told reporters. “We spent hours down there and made very little distance. … The conditions were very rough. It’s been cold, the terrain is so rugged, just spending one day out here is very exhausting.”

Keep the Kim family in your prayers today.  More over at the Marmot’s Hole.

This is still a major story in the US:

A mother and children who lost their way in a blizzard have been rescued after more than a week in freezing temperatures, but the Korean American father is still missing, AP reported Tuesday.

James Kim (35) and family, from San Francisco, disappeared after visiting a friend’s house in Oregon and heading back along the coast. Oregon police conducted an intensive search for the family that involved helicopters equipped with heat sensors and search dogs to the scene. They eventually found Kati Kim (30) and her two daughters Penelope (4) and Sabine (7 months) holding on inside the family car.

The three were rushed to a local hospital, where they are recovering. But the husband, who struck out on his own to find help, remains missing. At around 7:45 a.m. last Saturday, James Kim left the family, saying if he could not find help he would head back to the vehicle by 1 p.m., but he never returned.

Seachers still have not found Mr. Kim but feel they are closing in on him as they have found articles of clothing he left behind.  It is unclear if he left them behind as a signal of his where abouts or if he is suffering from hypothermia.

The Korean Teacher’s and Educational Workers Union is at it again:

The students went up on stage and told participants they had distributed anti-war badges around the nation in protest against the Iraq war and said they felt unifying the two Koreas was a way to create “a world without wars.” They also joined the former communist guerrillas in the shouting of their old slogans against “imperialist Yankee soldiers” and the “puppet regime of Syngman Rhee.” Kim, who also instructed his students to operate an online group that opposes the U.S.-led war in Iraq, now serves as an official with the KTEWU’s North Jeolla Province chapter.

Only in Korea are communist guerrillas teaching anti-Americanism considered part of a school’s cirriculum. Any bets if North Korean spies are behind this as well? OFK has more.

A Japanese court has forced the Japanese government to pay individual compensation claims to Japanese war orphans from World War II:

A court Friday ordered the government to pay millions of dollars in compensation to dozens of Japanese who, as children, were stranded in China at the close of World War II.

The 65 plaintiffs claimed the government was responsible for their delayed return to Japan and upon their return, had failed to provide adequate support to help them reintegrate into Japanese society. They were each seeking $285,000 in compensation.

The plaintiffs were the children of Japanese military officials, bureaucrats and private businessmen who were sent to settle in China’s remote northeast. They were left behind by their fleeing parents as Soviet troops closed in at the end of the war in 1945.

About 6,300 people came back after ties between the two states was normalized in 1972, including 2,500 who were under age 12 when they were abandoned in China, according to Health Ministry official Hayato Igarashi.

Raised by Chinese who adopted them, most of them were too young to remember their Japanese names or those of their natural parents. Only some have been able to reconnect with their families.

This ruling makes me wonder if a Japanese court could make the Japanese government at least apologize for their “comfort women” policies of World War II? It just seems like a way to settle at least one thorny issue between Japan and it’s neighbors.

It is about time:

The government and ruling Uri Party agreed Thursday to withdraw all South Korean troops from Iraq by the end of next year, government officials said.

The agreement was made during a meeting of party lawmakers at the National Assembly. Earlier, the party called on the government to set a specific timetable for the withdrawal of troops from the Middle Eastern nation in the first half of next year.

I have long felt that if the ROK Army was going to be allowed to do anything in Iraq than they shouldn’t be there. The ROK Army is great organization and it is a shame that they have been reduced to being global plumbers.

I’m not the only one who believe this way either, as at least one ROK Army officer agrees with me:

The original purpose of sending Korean troops there was to rebuild Iraq. But we went there and spent most of our time in maintaining our own living facilities. We are too withdrawn and I think it’s problematic. The people high up in the ranks are so concerned about our safety. For them, a safe return is more important than accomplishing anything.

I don’t know how South Korea’s sending troops has contributed to the national interest. I get the feeling that we didn’t offer something really useful for Iraqis. We did so for the sake of our national image in the outside world. American soldiers in Korea enjoyed a good reputation in the past because they gave chewing gum and chocolates to the locals. Perhaps my government is thinking about something similar. Personally, I believe that if we had sent actual combat troops to Iraq, we would have gotten a lot better deal from the United States.

I agree with the major that if the goal was reconstruction than the deployment was an absolute failure. The Zaytun unit couldn’t defend a USAID team providing direct reconstruction assistance to Iraqis, they couldn’t protect multiple South Korean aid convoys filled with expensive aid including computers that were meant for Iraqis that ended up being hijacked by criminal gangs, plus one car bombing in Irbil and 4 mortar shells kept the soldiers locked down on their camp for months doing nothing. How you do reconstruction when you can’t leave your camp is beyond me.

In fact the Mongolians have done more dangerous work in Iraq than the Koreans.

As I advocated before, the Korean government is going to simultaneously withdraw troops from Iraq and deploy troops to Lebanon:

The two sides also agreed to dispatch a battalion of 350 soldiers to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission, as well as to extend the presence of medical and engineering units in Afghanistan for another year.

Don’t expect them to do anything in Lebanon though. The Korean government really doesn’t want to send troops there, but they have to since Ban Ki-moon is going to be the UN Secretary General and they want to save face for him. So look for them to find a nice peaceful area, preferably one with great internet access for Starcraft gaming, just like in Kurdistan, where they can base some troops who will do nothing, but it will appear that the Koreans are doing something; much like all the other UN troops in Lebanon.

So the only thing left for the Korean government to figure out now, is what kind of toilet seats are needed in Lebanon.

I want to emphasise that I have nothing against the ROK Army because I think they are a fine organization, I am just against the policy that makes them nothing more than a window dressing army. The ROK Army deserve better than that.

This is like something out of a low budget Korean crime flick:

A 26-year-old male IT employee known as Lee, enjoyed working alongside a 32-year-old woman identified as Park, and the pair began dating back in 2004. They were on again off again for a while, but in July of this year, Park confessed to being three months pregnant. Lee was in shock, as for the past two months he’d been seeing another woman secretly and had even promised to marry her. Lee asked Park to get an abortion, but she refused, leaving him in a deep hole. It was then that he decided having Park murdered was his best option and took up the search to find a willing hit-man on the Internet in October. Lee found the required serviceman and wrote him an email explaining that he should “Kidnap her and bury her in secret.” If the job was carried out successfully, the agreed price was W11million (US$1=W930). Lee borrowed W12 million from his new girlfriend telling her that he had his reasons.

However the hit man had a heart, and instead of executing the plan, he called Park and told her the whole story. The two put their heads together and came up with a plan of their own that would trick Lee into believing Park had indeed been killed. Park returned home and poured red dye on newspapers to resemble horrific blood shed, took a photo with her cell phone and sent it to the hired killer. With picture in hand the hit-man showed Lee that business had been taken care of and received his money as per their agreement. After getting an abortion, Park reported the incident to the police. Bangbae Police Station, Seoul, issued an arrest warrant for Lee Thursday and is in pursuit of the hired killer, who is still on the run.

This hitman sounds more like a clever conman.

I’ll have to see this to ever believe it. From the Chosun:

U.S. President George W. Bush told his South Korean counterpart he is willing to sign a document declaring the end of the Korean War with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il if Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear program. A diplomatic source in Seoul on Wednesday said Bush made the offer during a meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun in Hanoi, Vietnam on Nov. 18. “President Bush made remarks while talking about building a permanent peace framework on the peninsula,” the source said. “As far as I know, he made remarks to effect that he is willing to sign an agreement with the two Koreas.” That means Bush could meet with Kim, the source added.

I believe President Bush would be willing to sign a peace agreement with North Korea in exchange for dismantling their nuclear program, but I have a hard time believing he would actually sit down with Kim Jong-il and sign anything with him much less a peace treaty considering how much he despises the Kim regime. This is probably either sensationalism by the media or a product of mistranslation.

None of this matters anyway because Kim Jong-il has no intentions of ever giving up his nuclear weapons. Kim figured North Korea would get hit by increased sanctions, but China would keep the oil flowing and the South Koreans would keep the food and fertilizer coming in because neither country wants to deal with a collapse of North Korea. China doesn’t want a possible war or a humanitarian crisis to threaten their hosting of the 2008 Olympics and the South Koreans do not want to pay both the financial and social costs that reunifying with North Korea would cost plus the possibility of war would devestate the peninsula.

Plus Kim also figured correctly that he would be allowed to keep bringing in hard currency through North Korean weapons sales, counterfeiting, and other illicit activities without a naval blockade, which means that the Kim Jong-il regime will survive with more time to develop and perfect their nuclear weapons, while our political leaders aided by the irresponsible US media continue to play politics and blame each other for the crisis, which is just what Kim Jong-il counted on. He will keep playing the diplomatic game as long as possible to make it appear he is considering giving up his nuclear weapons, but he won’t because it is not in his interest to do so.

By keeping his nuclear weapons he ensures his regime’s survival, further consolidates power within North Korea by winning the domestic praise of his military for becoming a nuclear power, while simultaneously making the foreign aid coming into North Korea from neighboring countries appear to be tribute rather than the voluntary assistance that is keeping the country afloat. Kim Jong-il is playing his hand brilliantly. Anyone out there still think Kim Jong-il is stupid?

Just when you thought Bae Yong-joon’s hair couldn’t get any worse it does:

This picture pretty much sums up his fan base:

Can anyone spot one hot woman in that whole mob?