Category: Uncategorized

This is pretty amazing that this family actually made across the maritime border without being detected:

A family of five North Koreans, including two children, were found adrift aboard a small barge inside South Korean water across the eastern sea border, military officials said Sunday.

A South Korean coast guard boat spotted the barge carrying the North Koreans sailing across the tightly guarded border in the East Sea on Saturday night and towed it to Goseong, a port on the east coast, they said.

The North Koreans told investigators their boat had drifted for two days before striking a rock, the officials said.

The military and the Coast Guard were jointly investigating whether the North Koreans had an intention to defect, they said.

The investigation should be short, but I’m not sure what else a family of five on a barge would be doing out in the middle of the East Sea in the cold other than defect.

Even Hines Ward is getting in on the Korean baseball wave. By the way the game is about to start. Go Korea!

So what really happened at Camp Humphreys this week?

From the Stars and Stripes:

South Korean authorities under heavy police escort Wednesday took the first steps toward sealing off a large tract of contested farmland that is to eventually become part of an expanded Camp Humphreys.

Some local residents who oppose the expansion scuffled with South Korean riot police and four female protesters were injured and taken to area hospitals, police said.

Police also made arrests but had no immediate word Wednesday night on how many.

The South Korean government has taken control of the land so the U.S. military can triple Camp Humphreys’ size and turn it into its main installation in South Korea by 2008.

Work crews Wednesday began setting up fencing and digging trenches across roads to prevent farmers from working the rice fields, something growers have threatened to begin doing Friday in defiance of the expansion plan.

“We are planning to set up barbed-wire fences,” an official at South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday.

In the S&S article the police stopped the protesters, but the Korean media had a different version of the story.

From the Chosun:

The Defense Ministry and police are not stopping them for fear of violent clashes. Police are, however, stopping any tractors from elsewhere by stationing some 4,400 officers on 11 major access roads and highway tollgates near the area since Wednesday.

“It’s illegal to work fields the Defense Ministry has already taken control of with government permission, but we haven’t used any aggressive measures to stop them because that could provoke residents and activists,” a ministry official said. Instead, the ministry says it will bring them to book for trespassing once it has collected evidence of wrongdoing.

“Collected evidence of wrong doing?” The police saw them breaking the law right in front of their own eyes and didn’t arrest these people! What more evidence do you need?! Expect more Camp Humprheys drama to come.

Here is something you will probably not hear much about from the Korean media:

A South Korean player at the first World Baseball Classic (WBC) in the United States has tested positive in a doping test, South Korean team officials said Saturday.

Park Myeong-hwan, a 29-year-old pitcher from the Doosan Bears, was tested for an illegal drug, and is banned from playing in remaining games, the officials said.

However, you will hear a lot of this:

The U.S. media has also been frank in its admiration. The New York Times cited Buck Martinez, the U.S. team manager, as praising the Korean team’s talent, spirit and preparation. MLB.com went further, hailing Korea as the best team in the world right now, a “Classic” formation — high praise in a country that has been living with baseball for more than 130 years. Thus the World Series is known as the “Fall Classic,” the All Star Game as the “Midsummer Classic” and, of course, the present competition the World Baseball Classic.

At least the US baseball team beat Korea at something, they at least had no positive drug tests which actually comes as a mild surprise considering the current steroid scandal in Major League Baseball.

Also isn’t it interesting that the US media praises the Korean team for playing well and winning against the US, where if a US team does well against Korea, the Korean media brings up the black helicopter, CIA conspiracy theories of how Yankee is screwing Korea. For example, I have yet to see a story in the Korean media about what a good speed skater the American Olympic gold medalist Apollo Ohno is. Instead he just gets tore apart by being called a cheater and needs riot police to protect him when he comes to Korea to compete. If you haven’t noticed by reading this blog, I don’t like the Korean media much.

With that said I hope the Korean team does win it all even though I will be subjected to the self congratulating media orgasm that is sure to follow.

Form American deserter to North Korea Charles Jenkins has given an interesting interview to Korea’s Oh My News International:

The ex-sergeant served 25 days in a U.S. military brig in 2004 after being dishonorably discharged for desertion and is thought to have bartered his freedom with his knowledge of the North. “I was told that they had an agent in North Korea for over 20 years that didn’t give them one tenth of what I gave them.”

Jenkins told the U.S. he “would not be surprised” if Pyongyang has a nuclear weapon. “Close to my house was a mountain and Russia put missiles in there. Everybody knew that. Nobody goes up there or talks about it, but they’re all aimed at Japan and South Korea.”

To think that there is a minority of idiots in South Korea that want to kick out the US Army’s PATRIOT missile batteries from South Korea.

Jenkins had some kind words for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il though:

Kim Jong Il called in the World Health Food Program, “which his father would never have done. That helped a lot of people.” He claims Kim junior also investigated the camps and freed many people. “I say the son was better than the father.”

Could divorce be in the future for Jenkins?:

The subject of divorce came up between Jenkins and his wife, who is 19 years younger, after the government offered to exchange the couple’s Korean marriage license for a Japanese version.

“I told her: if you want to kick me out: do it now,” says Jenkins tearfully. “She said if we divorce, what about Brinda and Mika? That would be hard on them. So she told me she wouldn’t divorce me. I told her if you want to get married again in Japan I’ll leave. But I won’t leave Japan; I’ll stay for my daughters. She wouldn’t do it. She’ll never divorce me.”

This has to be one of the strangest marriages ever. Read the rest of the article for more.

From the Stars and Stripes:

A U.S. soldier was sentenced to five months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge during a court-martial Friday on charges he was absent without leave from his unit for more than nine months.

Kenneth H. Gore Jr., of the 8th U.S. Army, also was reduced from the rank of E-2 to E-1 during the half-day court proceeding.

So why did he go AWOL?:

During questioning, Gore told Parrish he had married a South Korean woman in early 2005 but had problems getting her a visa to return with him to the United States.

Gore said he had submitted an extension package to stay in South Korea so he could work the issue but the Army denied his request. A second request also was denied, he said, which led him to decide to stop reporting for duty so he could get her “paperwork processed.”

“I thought it would take anywhere between a couple a days and a week,” he stated in court Friday.

Instead, Gore holed up in an off-base apartment until January 2006 while his wife worked to support them, he said.

On Jan. 3, Gore said, his wife called military authorities and told them his whereabouts. A military investigator and Korean National Police who responded found Gore hiding in a closet, he said.

He goes AWOL for the wife and the loving wife turns him in. I wouldn’t say this has the makings of a healthy marriage. Yes he is an idiot and he now has 5 months at Camp Humphreys to think about it.

This case is a perfect example of why I say it is better to get a Fiance’ Visa instead of getting married in Korea if your time in country is short. Bring the significant other over to the US before getting married to see how she adjsuts, plus the paperwork drill is much easier and doesn’t require you to go AWOL like this dumb soldier.

Here is a good link for those who want to learn more about the history of St. Patrick’s Day:

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for thousands of years.

On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink, and feast—on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland, but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City on March 17, 1762. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers to reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.

The Marmot has a good posting on the “Irish of Asia” the Koreans that is worth checking out as well.

From Yonhap:

South Korea on Thursday launched its fifth 4,000-ton-class destroyer with a radar-evading “stealth” function here amid a fanfare of trumpets and fireworks as sailors celebrated the new addition to their fleet.

The 4,200-ton ship, equipped with a range of sophisticated weapons systems, was set afloat in a shipyard on the country’s second-largest island, about 406 kilometers south of Seoul.

(…)

The new destroyer, which has camouflage and stealth coatings on its surface, is equipped with SM-II ship-to-air missiles, Harpoon
anti-ship missiles, RAM-guided supersonic missiles and other naval guns as well as two anti-submarine Super Lynx helicopters, according to Navy officials. It can sail at a maximum speed of 30 knots per hour.

Cool boat, but what would Korea use it for? To sneak up on Japanese fishermen?

This is interesting, that MGM is making it’s first overseas theme park in Busan, South Korea:

MGM and Busan City plan to jointly build the ‘MGM Studio Park’, with Busan City providing the land — one million square meters (10.76 million square feet) — and infrastructure, the company’s publicity agent said here Monday.

“It is MGM’s first overseas theme park and will be the model of a future theme park,” the agent said, adding that MGM film content and South Korean IT technology will be combined for the project.

The first phase will require some 600 million dollars by 2010, including the park, a hotel and other facilities, it said, adding that a memorandum of understanding on the deal would be signed here Wednesday.

The Busan film festivals combined with the recent successful APEC summit must have really caused some positive publicity for Busan to land this theme park. Good for Busan. I wonder if there will be any protests about this theme park due to the movie screen quota controversy?

Prior Posting: Carter’s Deal

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With Carter going live on CNN to announce this deal the White House felt they had to circle the wagons with Carter in order to appear to the American public that they were still in control of the situation. You have to remember that at the time the Clinton administration was looked at as foreign policy novices after the fiasco a year prior in Somalia. The administration would have looked really incompetent if they were seen as contradicting against what their perceived negotiator Carter was putting out to the American public on CNN.

Just like that Clinton’s policy making team went from drawing up war plans to defend Korea, to deciding how to implement the White House’s version of a nuclear freeze in order to make it look like that the White House was in fact calling the shots, not Carter or the North Koreans. On June 17th in Pyongyang, Carter received the administration’s version of a nuclear freeze which was slightly different from what he had agreed to with Kim Il-sung on a day prior. Carter objected to the new conditions because he felt it was unlikely that the North Koreans would agree to them. However, the North Koreans quickly agreed to the White House’s version of a freeze thus saving the White House some face and still giving the North Koreans what they wanted.

The fact that Carter was so concerned about the North Koreans not accepting the White House’s version of a freeze just goes to show how little Carter understood of North Korean negotiation tactics. The North Koreans have long been masters at appearing to be overly emotional and for lack of a better term creating an impression of being crazy and unpredictable. However, the North Koreans are in fact quite rational with set goals and objectives they want to achieve and only created the persona of unpredictability in order to convince peaceniks like Carter that they were serious about going to war at a moments notice if they didn’t get what they wanted.

In fact I find it unlikely that the North Koreans would have immediately went to war even if the White House was successful in implementing sanctions. The North Koreans knew all to well that war meant the end of their regime and their way of life because they knew they had no chance of winning a prolonged war with the US and South Korea. For people like North Korea’s ruling elite the only thing they worry about is keeping the money coming in to finance their lifestyles and war was not the way to do this, but the North Koreans had to convince Carter otherwise which they were successful in doing.

When Carter returned to Seoul, South Korean President Kim Young-sam was not very agreeable with Carter’s deal because once again he felt that the future of South Korea was being decided by foreign powers without the consultation of South Korea, which those that know a lot about Korean history can tell you is a point that runs deep in Korean society. One point that President Kim was excited about however, was that Kim Il Sung had told Carter during his trip that he would be willing to hold a summit with Kim Young-sam in the future. This never did come to fruition due to Kim Il Sung’s death months later.

When Carter was making plans to return to the US he wanted to head straight to the White House to consult the administration. However, the White House was still privately furious at Carter and did not want him to go to Washington. Later the administration relented and Carter flew to Washington and met the White House officials but President Clinton decided to go to Camp David and only spoke with Carter by telephone. I think it is safe to say that President Clinton was still pretty pissed off at Carter for undermining his White House policies.

I think Clinton knew Carter had set a dangerous precedent in regards to dealing with countries with weapons of mass destruction by appeasing the North Koreans and in effect causing the world’s most powerful nation, the United States, to bow down and give into the demands of one of the world’s poorest and most destitute nations all in the name of freezing a nuclear program. What signal would this send to the rest of the world’s dictators? If you want respect from the US, build WMD. It is that simple.

Carter could care less though because he felt he had finally made his long lost legacy by bringing peace to the Korean peninsula, however as history has shown which I’m sure President Clinton knew would, the 1994 Agreed Frame Work collapsed in 2002 when North Korea was discovered to be continuing on with a covert nuclear program despite the agreement to build the light water reactors.

The North Korean nuclear crisis continues to this day but has recently been overshadowed by the more clear and present danger Iran which is unsurprisingly playing the same cards that North Korea played so well in 1994 that they only want nuclear energy not weapons. Much like Clinton in 1994 President Bush is preparing to refer Iran to the UN for sanctions which Iran is implying would mean war as well.

Wouldn’t it be something if Carter popped up in Tehran trying to broker another similar peace deal with the mullahs especially when it was the Iranians who ended his presidency in disgrace by sacking the US Embassy and kidnapping it’s diplomats. However, with Carter there isn’t a dictator he doesn’t like as long as it serves his own personal ego to attain the legacy he will probably never receive.

I wonder if the Iranian’s have a hotel room already booked for him?