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UPDATE #1:  Was it really 200,000? From the Donga:

As many as 50,000 members of conservative groups gathered in front of the Seoul City Hall on September 2 at 2:00 p.m. They held an emergency gathering for South Korea and urged the government to postpone the transfer of wartime operational control and revision of the private school law.

How the hell do you confuse 50,000 from 200,000?  From the picture it is hard to tell but it is a lot of people and looks similar in size to the anti-US protests held there in 2002 that allegedly had 200,000 people attend those.  So who knows.

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This is actually an amazing number of people the conservatives have been able to rally in Seoul against the Roh Moo-hyun administration:

Seoul saw a massive combined protest on Saturday against the government¿s plan to take over wartime operational control of Korean troops and controversial private school laws, two issues that however disparate have galvanized conservatives here. Some 200,000 members of about 200 groups including the Korean Veterans Association and the Christian Council of Korea braved sweltering weather to gather in front of Seoul City Hall.

¿Both national sovereignty and pride are important,¿ said Park Seh-jik, the president of the Korean Veterans Association in a speech. ¿But if we fail to prevent war and the nation is annihilated and turns Communist, where will we find that sovereignty and pride?¿ Park demanded an immediate halt to the wartime control plan.

This is actually the largest number of people I have ever personally seen the conservatives able to rally.  These numbers are on par with the numbers the anti-US groups drew after the 2002 armored vehicle accident.  However, I think it is going to be to little, to late to be able to stop the wartime control from happening.  The conservatives probably realize this and may be showing Washington that a large number of Koreans are for a strong US-ROK alliance and that the problem is President Roh.  This may convince the US government that pulling all the troops from Korea may not be good thing because a pro-US government may come into power in Korea after the next Korean election next year and soldiers on the ground does give the US influence within that government.  So this may ultimately just be a play from the conservatives to at least keep some kind of ground presence in Korea even after the hand over of wartime control.  A ground presence of some sort assures Korea of war time reinforcements from the US in case of hostilities.  This would ensuresthe national security of South Korea, which is ultimately what the conservative want.

Either way I think the debate going on within Korean society over the wartime control issue is very healthy.  To long USFK has been taken for granted and used as a punching bag for variety of groups and politicians in Korea looking for any issue to demagogue and blame on USFK in order to draw attention from the Korean public.  Also many Koreans falsely believed that the US was getting more out of Korea from the alliance than what Korea was getting in return.  Not anymore.  I think it is starting to sink into many people in the country that Korea is not as important in the grand scheme of things to America as they once thought it was.  I think it was a real shock to many that America would be willing to pack up and leave so readily and this massive protest is a response to that.  Like I said before this will be a healthy debate within Korean society that is way over do and hopefully it doesn’t get lost in a wave of slogans and accusations, but turns into a real debate between leaders in Korea about the future of the country and it’s relationship with America.

Remember all the stories a couple years ago about the “difficulties” in US Army retention?  Well here is another update on those “difficulties”:

The active Army reached its fiscal 2006 retention goal one month early today when a Fort Campbell Soldier reenlisted.

Staff Sgt. Michael Obleton, a truck driver assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, became the 64,200th reenlistment since Oct. 1, 2005. Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Richard Cody presided over the ceremony.

¿What a commitment. Our Army has been at war longer than we fought in World War II. Soldiers still reenlist knowing full well the dangers, knowing full well the sacrifice,¿ said Cody.

Obleton, of Columbus, Ga., joined the Army in 1997 at age 27. “I had a job, but I was looking for more,” he said. “I was looking for a challenge.¿

Obleton’s wife, Sheila, is also a Soldier serving with the 101st Abn. Div. She is a sergeant first class and career counselor. Both Obleton¿s hope to make careers of the Army.

Obleton has deployed to Kosovo, Bosnia and twice to Iraq since his enlistment. He reenlisted to attend the career counselor course, and received no bonuses.

¿The Army has met its retention goals for the past nine years in a row and making this year’s goal shows that once people join this team, they stay with the team,” said Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne, director of Military Personnel Management.

Let’s see this guy has deployed multiple times including twice to Iraq and reenlisted without even getting a bonus.  People on the left would call him stupid, I call him a real American hero.

Like I reported earlier this year, the military is also surpassing their recruiting numbers as well.  However, who knows this?  The MSM created this perception of people not re-enlisting in the military when in fact the military has made their retention numbers for 9 straight years!  By the way who was in office 9 years go?  It sure wasn’t President Bush.

Now also think about this, it takes about 4-5 years to make sergeant in the US Army.  That would mean that the vast majority of soldier ranks between E1-E4 who do the majority of the country’s necessary dirty work and sacrifice from the streets of Ramadi to the valleys of Afghanistan, are filled with soldiers that enlisted after the Iraq War fulling knowing they were going into combat.  This is not your daddy’s Vietnam Army anymore.

The left’s arguement that the US military is dragging kids who signed up just for the GI Bill to war has been completely proven false.  Will the US media ever call them on it.  Of course not.  These kids are signing up not only for the GI Bill but also to serve their country in the War on Terror fully knowing the risks and dangers involved.  Just like SSG Obleton, all these soldiers who have enlisted in the army during the War on Terror are real heroes that everyone should be proud of to have defending our great country, not to mention the recruiters out there working tirelessly to keep our forces manned.  It heroes like this the US media unfortunately by choice, cannot and will not ever understand.

Fom the S&S:

Military police have handed out almost 100 citations in a traffic safety campaign that began Aug. 18.

And they¿ll be keeping a close eye on the roads through the Labor Day weekend, according to a military news release.

The campaign, called ¿You drink and drive. You lose,¿ is scheduled to conclude Monday.

Military police officials had set up seven random checkpoints as of Wednesday, according to the release.

They had issued 28 citations for driving without a license and another 48 for failure to wear seatbelts, according to the release.

Other citations included violations such as expired car registration paperwork, failure to stop at a posted sign and using a cell phone while driving.

And eight motorcyclists were cited for not wearing the proper safety equipment.

Officials said they were happy by what they didn¿t find: a drunken driver.

Apparently the Camp Humphreys expansion will not be effected by possible dissolving of the Combined Forces Command:

Local media reports claiming that expansion plans for the U.S. military¿s Camp Humphreys are stalled are incorrect, U.S. Forces Korea and the South Korean Ministry of National Defense stated Friday afternoon.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper, quoting an anonymous ¿diplomatic source in Seoul,¿ reported that expansion talks are on hold because South Korea wants wartime command of its own troops. Humphreys plans have called for a Combined Forces Command headquarters building, but if that command is dissolved as the U.S.-South Korean military alliance transforms, the building won¿t be needed, according to the Chosun Ilbo.

U.S. Army Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of the Combined Forces Command, has told Stars and Stripes that officials are considering creating two independent commands that would take advantage of U.S. air and naval powers but put USFK in a supporting role. He said he hopes to have a plan ready for approval at an October security consultative meeting between the two countries.

The planning contractor briefed the prefinal draft of the plan to [South Korean] and U.S. officials Wednesday, USFK spokesman Col. Franklin Childress said in an e-mail Friday. Minor adjustments may have to be made to the plan once the details of wartime operational control are determined, but those changes are expected to be handled easily within the framework of the current plan.

Well there you go, straight from the horses mouth.

Allegedly and I stress allegedly, some undercover US news people may be out in Seoul this weekend trying to get film of US soldiers with prostitutes.  Just be extra careful this weekend and watch your battle buddies.  We all know these media vampires will ignore the 99% of soldiers doing the right thing this weekend and look for that 1% of knuckleheads.

Are the Norks about to put on an encore fireworks extravaganza for the US?:

South Korean and the U.S. intelligence authorities have detected suspicious vehicle movements in and out of North Korea’s major missile test site, a government source here said Sunday.

“Military intelligence officials have spotted movements by several large vehicles in the North’s Gitdaeryeong area,” the source spoke on condition of anonymity. “They don’t rule out the possibility that it is part of preparations for additional missile tests.”
North Korea test-launched six short-and medium-range missiles from the Gitdaeryeong site in its eastern coastal area, on July 5, along with a long-range Taepodong-2 missile from separate facilities.

If you haven’t already, check out this interview at The Korea Liberator with Chuck Downs who is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Public Policy.  He seems to confirm much of the speculation in the K-blogosphere about recent developments in Korea.  Mr. Downs is also taking questions on TKL, so if you have a burning question you would like answered by somenbody dealing with Korea in Washington, here’s your chance.

This is good news for the United States National Missile Defense Program:

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The results will help improve the performance of a multibillion-dollar shield against an attack that could target a U.S. city with a weapon of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect large amounts of data rather than shoot down the target. But in a news release sent 24 minutes after the intercept, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, the Pentagon’s missile-defense chief declared it a success, apparently even before the data could be analyzed.

Look for the US media to down play the results from the test because that has been the constant chorus by the US press that the system is to costly and a failure, not to mention President Bush has been pushing the system which only encourages the media to down play the NMD program that much more.

However, if this system is continued to be developed and tested this really decreases Kim Jong-il’s blackmail power against the US.  Especially if USFK is withdrawn from South Korea.  Without US troops in Korea, if Kim Jong-il decides to threaten South Korea with a nuclear strike, this threat would have no impact on the US.  The South Korean government would have to solely pay the consequences of nuclear blackmail from North Korea.  The South Korean government wants independent defense let them have it and enjoy it.

Kim Jong-il may not currently have the ability to strike the US which as evident by his failed missile test, but that doesn’t mean he won’t in the future, so a system to counter these limited missile attacks I feel is definitely in the US’s national interest.

First you have a Korean defense official saying the Korean government plans on reducing their yearly contributions to USFK and now the Chosun is reporting a Korean politician saying that the Korean government actually gives to USFK more than is reported:

The U.S. is refusing to acknowledge some US$300-400 million the Korean government gives to the U.S. Forces Korea every year, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan said Wednesday. The minor opposition party lawmaker came up with the figure by comparing materials from Korea’s Defense Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense, concluding that Seoul in 2002 gave the U.S. Forces Korea US$1.19 billion which the U.S. recorded as $843 million. That is a difference of US$349 million. For the year 2000, the gap between the two calculations stood at 388.12 million and for 2001 at 316.57 million. “The Korean government counted the funds provided to maintain the Korean Augmentation To the United States Army (KATUSA) program, but the U.S. didn¿t, and there were discrepancies on real estate rental fees as well,¿ Roh said.

Roh also said the amount Seoul pays for USFK upkeep should decrease if the wartime military control is returned to Korea since the USFK¿s role will diminish as well. Ahead of negotiations on the handover of sole wartime operational control, the U.S. is instead asking for an ¿equitable¿ divvying up of the upkeep. Roh commented it would be ¿ridiculous¿ for Korea to pay more once it has sole control of its troops.

First of all KATUSA soldiers are ROK ARMY SOLDIERS, let me repeat, ROK ARMY SOLDIERS not US soldiers. That is why USFK doesn’t count what little the Korean government pays these soldiers, which is about $40 bucks a month, as contributions to the alliance.

The Korean government for some reason seems intent on keeping the Zaytun unit in Iraq for whatever reason:

The Korean military¿s Zaytun Unit stationed in the Northern Iraqi town of Irbil has decreased by 890 troops since its original deployment, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced Wednesday. Additional cuts of about 100 will bring their number down to 2,300. With their mission also to end in December, the Defense Ministry is looking into submitting a bill to the National Assembly to extend their peace-building mandate there.

Troops of the U.S.-led coalition will most likely remain in Iraq next year, and the Ministry of Defense is investigating how to keep the remaining Zaytun troops there until late 2007. A contingent of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force conducting reconstruction work over the last two-and-a-half years in the southern Iraqi city Samawah was completely withdrawn last month.

Send them home already, you can only install toilets for so long.