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The Australian national soccer team is hoping to repeat the magic that the 2002 South Korean World Cup team used to beat Italy that year:

Few people gave the Koreans any chance of beating the Azzurri four years ago, but the co-hosts defied the odds by pulling off a miraculous 2-1 win with a golden goal.

The Socceroos are viewed as similar outsiders but coach Guus Hiddink, who was in charge of Korea in 2002, said there were some similarities.

“It’s difficult to compare these two games but from a starting point I think it might be the same in that they (Italy) are 100 percent favourites,” Hiddink said.

“The strong point about the Australian team is that even when we are down, and unfortunately we’ve been down in all our games at this tournament, the team always reacts and never gives the impression that it’s lost.

“That’s the main quality of this team.”

After watching the US play Italy I really hope Australia knocks them out.  Italy is bunch of actors and whiners who constantly flop and look for calls from the referee.  Then again most soccer teams do that too.

I posted last month about the News 21 team coming to Korea this month and speculation was made that they would write anti-USFK stories like past visiting journalists to the country.  Well they are in Korean and have been blogging way about their trip to Korea and have talked to many USFK leaders and soldiers, as well as seeing first hand last weekends protests at Daechu-ri, and even talking to anti-USFK leader Father Mun Jeong Hyeon.  Go check out their blog and draw your own conclusions.

Here is a article from the S&S remembering the World War II Battle of Okinawa worth checking out.  Over 14,000 US soldiers and Marines lost their lives fighting for that island.  Worse over 150,000 Okinawan civilians, a third of the island’s population lost their lives as well.

The Stars and Stripes is running an article featuring USFK servicemembers sharing their views of the current missile “crisis”.  Here is my favorite quote:

If it’s not on SportsCenter, I’m not going to watch it, said Spc. Travis Craven of the Special Troops Battalion headquarters company. You hear (saber-rattling) all the time. Why worry and have all this anxiety all the time when it never happens? If it does happen, then we’ll react.

You can always count on the E4 Mafia to tell it like it is.

The leftist environmental group Green Korea has now filed a lawsuit against the Korean government over the alledged USFK base pollution on the closed bases that USFK wants to hand over to the government.  Green Korea is suing to have the Korean government hand over all information concerning pollution on the closed bases.  Some of the “shocking” pollution charges are for example higher than normal lead levels were discovered on a firing range!  Can you believe it?  Higher lead levels on a firing range, who would of thought that?  Or that benzene levels in the ground have been found to be higher in areas where there a motor pools and maintenance bays.  Absolutely shocking I tell you.

Now before you starting jumping up and down and demanding that USFK should clean up this “shocking” pollution remember that the Koreans agreed to the clean up costs knowing full well that a rifle range would have higher lead levels and are now backtracking on a signed agreement:

Army officials boil the issue down to two main points: money and sticking to an agreement.

When the base handover agreements were completed by a previous South Korean government, that government agreed to take the land ¿as is,¿ including all buildings and infrastructure at no cost, military officials have said.

Further cleanup efforts beyond what the United States already has done should be handled by the South Korean government as ¿the price of peace,¿ some Army officials say.

USFK has even offered to conduct more clean up on the bases than what the military is even obligated to do:

In an interview earlier this year, USFK commander Gen. B.B. Bell told Stripes that the U.S. sought to compromise, offering to remove all underground fuel tanks on all camps and underground water table remediation on five camps. South Korean officials rejected the offer, Bell said.

This whole base pollution is issue is simply about just keeping the issue alive and simmering while the Camp Humphreys base relocation issue also continues to simmer.  It is not about the environment.  These groups are hoping that eventually if they can keep enough issues simmering that they can continue to demagogue to death to the Korean public than maybe eventually the Korean public will in mass come out against USFK and the Camp Humphreys base relocation.  These groups don’t care about the environment in Korea.  If they did they would be running a Trash Tuesday awareness program instead of Nomad.

It is all about stopping the base consolidation and the pollution issue is just a tried and true tactic to bash USFK with.  If the base consolidation is stopped, you can pretty much kiss the US-ROK alliance goodbye.  The US will not stand for the current status quo in Korea.

For those who have been stationed in Korea can tell you, the USFK camps are like an oasis of green and trees in a polluted urban jungle in Korea.  In fact there has been speculation to turn Yongsan Garrison in Seoul into Seoul’s “Central Park” once it is closed down.  I don’t think the city government would consider turning a polluted trash heap into a park.

The Korean War started 56 years ago and is being commemorated by US Forces Korea.  Also the South Korea has finally come out and debunked Bruce Cummings theory that South Korea actually started the war by invading North Korea.

The study published ahead of the 56th anniversary of the Korean War by Prof. Jung Byung-joon of Mokpo National University is titled, “The Korean War: Confrontations at the 38 parallel and the formation of the War.” It concludes that the Korean War started indeed as a sudden surprise invasion of the North in accordance with a directive from Stalin. The academic says the Haeju attack had been drawn up as part of regular defensive planning in March 1950 by the Korean Army in accordance with Operation Command 38. The directive ordered a decisive offensive to the north of Haeju to disperse North Korean forces if they attacked in the direction of Seoul but was not an order for a preemptive attack on North Korea.

Basically Cummings believes that this contigency plan that the South Korean military had drawn up was executed on the morning of June 25th, 1950 thus provoking a North Korean counter attack.  Militaries draw up contingency plans all the time to deal with possible scenarios that may occur.  Documents from the former Soviet Union have clearly showed that Stalin ordered the attack plus military records from North Korea clearly show that the North Koreans in fact started the war with a highly organized invasion plan.  The South Korean government did try to execute the Haeju plan after the North Korean attack but it failed because the units in that area of the DMZ had already been crushed by the North Koreans.

Refugees Flee Across the Han River After the Start of the Korean War

Lost in all of this which no one should forget is the extreme loss of life from the Korean War:

In the three years, one month and two days until the armistice was signed, some 149,000 South Korea troops, 294,000 North Korea troops and 36,000 allied troops from countries including the U.S., the U.K. and Turkey died in the Korean War. The war also claimed some 244,000 South Korean and 406,000 North Korean civilians. More than 1,000,000 civilians are still missing.

If you haven’t been to Korean War Memorial in Yongsan before, now is a good time as any to see this outstanding musuem and learn more about the Forgotten War.

UPDATE:  Well Korea is officially gone, France beat Togo 2-0 and is moving on to the round of 16.

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It sucks that both the US and Korea have been pretty much knocked out of the World Cup.  Korea was just defeated by Switzerland 2-0.  They played like crap and the Switzerland goal keeper played well and I have to say that it appeared the Swiss wanted the victory more.  I’m sure people are going to whine about the offsides call that wasn’t, which led to a Swiss goal, but I don’t think it matters because the Koreans couldn’t score one goal anyway.  With all the good calls the Koreans have been getting the last two World Cups they were bound to eventually get a call that went against them.

South Korea’s only chance to advance lies on Togo to defeat or tie France which isn’t likely.  If Togo allows Korea to advance I think the Korean government ought to give the Togo players the pay raise they have been demanding.  I doubt Dick Advocaat will be making to many more trips to Korea anytime soon though if Korea is eliminated.  I’m sure Guus Hiddink comparisons are being thrown around Korea at this moment.  Speaking of Hiddink, if Korea is eliminated I guess I will have to cheer on the Socceroos for now on instead.

Korea’s Winter Olympic bid has passed it’s first test:

Three cities — two from Europe and one from Asia — made the cut Thursday as the IOC trimmed the field for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Salzburg, Austria; Pyeongchang, South Korea; and Sochi, Russia; were selected as finalists by the International Olympic Committee’s executive board.

Eliminated from the race were Almaty, Kazakhstan; Borjomi, Georgia; Jaca, Spain; and Sofia, Bulgaria.

While Thursday’s cut was made by the Olympics’ 15-member ruling body, the full 100-plus IOC assembly will select the host city at its session in Guatemala City on July 4, 2007.

(…)

Salzburg and Pyeongchang were finalists in the vote for the 2010 Olympics, which were awarded to Vancouver, British Columbia. The little-known Korean bid finished a surprising second, and the Austrian city third.

Pyeongchang, in Korea’s Gangwon Province, is hoping to build on its momentum from the first bid to establish itself as an Asian winter sports capital.

“Pyeongchang is unique in that we are located in Asia and we will be able to expand the Olympic movement in our part of the world better than the other two cities,” bid chairman Han Seung-hoo said.

The Chosun Ilbo has published some recently rediscovered photographs from the US National Archives from the Korean War that are worth a look.Here is a picture of the Namdaemun Gate in Seoul during the war:

For comparison here is what the Namdaemun Gate looks like today:

I can’t believe the Washington Post is advocating starting a war over the North Korean missile test?:

Fears have grown in recent weeks following reports of activity at a site in northeastern North Korea where U.S. officials say a Taepodong-2 missile — believed capable of reaching parts of the United States — is possibly being fueled.

An op-ed piece in Thursday’s Washington Post by William Perry, secretary of defense under former President Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, Clinton’s assistant secretary of defense, advocates a pre-emptive strike to destroy the missile.

“The United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched,” it said.

Cheney, however, told CNN that, while “I appreciate Bill’s advice,” such an action could worsen the situation.

It appears the same people that were against a pre-emptive strike in Iraq, now want the US to start a pre-emptive war with North Korea which would be a thousand times more bloodier than anything we have seen in Iraq over a missile test? Let them fire their stupid missile and once it is over they will once again retreat back into international obscurity. Bombing them is the absolutely worse course of action one could take in this matter. I think the left in America since they are perceived by the American public as being weak on defense are trying now to come out as hawks against North Korea because they know that President Bush isn’t stupid enough to launch a war against North Korea over a stupid missile test.

I fidn this picture from CNN quite interesting:

This picture is misleading to the fact that most South Koreans could care less about this stupid missile test which is a point the US media has made sure that they have avoided. South Koreans live within artillery range of North Korea, so dropping a missile on you after getting hit by a massive MLRS blast really doesn’t matter. The US media though has made sure to inform everyone though of the possibility of chemical and nuclear warheads raining down on the west coast of the United States from this missile test. Scare mongering at it’s best.