There is going to be a lot of firepower in the Korea area of operations this week so it will be interesting to see what North Korea’s reaction to this will be:
This photo, provided by the U.S. military Oct. 13, 2017, shows the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Michigan (SSGN-727) arriving at the southern port of Busan in South Korea. (Yonhap)
The United States is poised to show off its military might this week through joint drills and a defense exhibition in South Korea, deploying an aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered submarine, stealth fighters and other strategic assets.
The show of force comes amid growing tensions on the peninsula, with North Korea expected to engage in additional provocations in protest against the South Korea-U.S. military drills (…..)
The allies’ militaries are set to hold a joint exercise in the East and West Seas from Monday to Friday, during which the U.S. will deploy its nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).
It is one of America’s key power projection means of countering military threats in a volatile region.
The 333-meter-long, 100,000-ton Nimitz-class flattop is stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, as part of the Seventh Fleet in charge of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. The Reagan has a deck the size of three football fields, with some 70 aircraft on board, ranging from fighter jets to helicopters.
During the maritime drills, the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, the airborne battle management aircraft, is expected to be deployed. It is capable of monitoring North Korea’s ground force movements and coastal artillery.
The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Michigan (SSGN-727) has already arrived at the southern port of Busan as part of a regularly scheduled deployment to the Western Pacific, military officials said. [Yonhap]
Here we go again with the Korean left pushing propaganda about the US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA):
Rep. Park Byeong-seug (left) of the ruling Democratic Party shakes hand with Chinese State Councilor for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi. (Yonhap)
Nearly 7 in 10 criminal offenses committed by members of US forces stationed in South Korea end up with no one being charged by South Korean authorities, a lawmaker said Tuesday.
According to government data released Tuesday by Rep. Park Byeong-seug of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, the nonprosecution rate for crimes committed by US military personnel here stands at a whopping 70.7 percent as of July this year, up from 58.2 percent in 2014.
The figure for violent crimes, including murder, rape and robbery, is even higher at 81.3 percent, meaning 8 out of 10 offenders do not go through the Korean system. This proportion is higher than in 2014, when the number stood at 63 percent.
As for illegal drug use, which is strictly punished in South Korea, 42.9 percent of the accused members of US forces avoided indictment this year, up from 33.3 percent in 2014.
Rep. Park pointed to the Status of Forces Agreement between the US and South Korea as the main reason behind the leniency. [Korea Herald via a reader tip]
Can someone name the last Korean that was murdered or even raped by a US soldier? I can’t even remember the last murder committed by a US soldier because it has been so long. The last rape accusation was back in February and guess what the soldier was charged by Korean authorities. Since then nothing has come out about this case which people can draw their own conclusions about. Bottom line there is not a rash of rapes and murders going on in Korea as Representative Park leads people to believe. That leaves violent crimes being mostly assaults and robberies. So why weren’t these servicemembers not charged by Korean authorities like Rep. Park Byeong-seug wants? Because ROK authorities gave up jurisdiction to the US military:
He did not give details on how the US military dealt with those crimes it took under its jurisdiction, or what proportion of nonprosecutions were prosecuted by the US military.
“When such crime is committed by US soldiers, the US Army sends a request to South Korea’s Justice Ministry to give up the jurisdiction, and in most cases, we accept their request,” the five-term lawmaker explained.
“SOFA should be revised immediately to protect our jurisdiction rights and lives and property of our citizens.”
So what is Rep. Park complaining about the SOFA when it is working the way it is supposed to? If Korea wants to handle every assault and robbery case involving a USFK servicemember they can. However, they choose not to. Why is that? It could be because local authorities do not want to deal with the paperwork and the need for translators to properly handle a SOFA case. Instead of complaining about the SOFA Rep. Park should take measures to ensure local authorities are better resourced to handle SOFA cases if he wants more servicemembers tried in Korean courts.
However the real issue here is not the SOFA, but instead this is just another area where the Korean left is trying to draw a wedge between the US and the South Korean public. Remember the Korean leftists want the US military out of Korea because they feel this is what is hindering reconciliation with North Korea. However, the majority of the ROK public wants the US military to stay because of the threat from North Korea. So the leftists have to demagogue these fake issues like the SOFA to change the public’s opinion of the US military. They have for decades pushed this narrative that US troops are running around Korea committing all these crimes and getting away with it. This is of course proven by data to be untrue. This latest SOFA claim is just the continuing of this drum beat.
One of ROK President Moon’s top priorities after taking office was to push for the early transfer of OPCON to ROK forces. The US government has pretty told him if he wants it he can have it, but the US side of the command will be downgraded to a three-star general:
Gen. Kim Byung-ju, deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, answers a question during lawmakers’ audit of the defense ministry affairs on Oct. 12, 2017. (Yonhap)
The South Korean and U.S. militaries will soon formalize a plan to create a new combined command, which will become effective when Seoul regains its wartime operational control (OPCON) of the country’s troops, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
The allies plan to approve the scheme in their annual Military Committee Meeting (MCM) and Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) later this month, it told lawmakers.
The MCM is an annual session involving the chairmen of the allies’ Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). This year’s meeting will be held in Seoul on Oct. 27, a day before the ministerial SCM.
“(The two sides) will authorize the creation of the future command of combined forces during the MCM and the SCM,” the ministry said in a report for a regular parliamentary audit of its affairs.
The allies will then draw up a specific scheme to establish a system to have a South Korean commander and a U.S. deputy commander, it added. (……..)
But the U.S. is reportedly negative about the idea of a four-star general serving as a South Korean commander’s deputy in the envisioned command. The Pentagon is expected to pick a three-star general for the position.
The left-leaning Moon Jae-in administration, which took office in May, has pushed for an early OPCON transfer.
It’s considering a three-stage road map: laying the groundwork for strengthening the country’s own defense capabilities, joint military drills organized by the future combined forces starting in 2019, and an actual OPCON transition in the early 2020s. [Yonhap via reader tip]
You an read more at the link, but I find it interesting that President Moon wants the OPCON so bad, but is willing to let it be pushed off until the early 2020’s when Moon will likely be out of office. There is enough time between now and then for this to once again be delayed by the ROK government.
As far as the structure of the US Forces under a three star general it appears that the old KORCOM template from nearly a decade ago will be used:
Oten said KORCOM will have “many similarities” to USFK, but eventually will become a supporting command after South Korea becomes responsible for wartime operational control of its troops on April 17, 2012. On that date, the Combined Forces Command, the joint warfighting command now led by a U.S. general, will dissolve.
In its place will be what USFK calls two complementary but separate commands — the Republic of Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by a South Korean general, and KORCOM. The CFC commander, Sharp, will remain responsible for leading forces until that time if war breaks out, USFK officials said. Both nations will retain control of their own troops during peace and wartime, but KORCOM will support the South Korean command during wartime, USFK officials said.
South Korea has had armistice control of its troops since 1994, but its forces would fall under the command of the CFC during a war.
Sharp said in recent speeches that KORCOM will reach full operational capability in 2011 and will become a supporting command to its South Korean counterpart the following year.
As part of the transition, the 8th Army will transform from an Army service component command into an “operational, warfighting headquarters” called field army, Sharp said Monday in a speech at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
“This headquarters will have the ability to command and control U.S. and multinational corps-equivalent units in combat,” he said.
Maj. Jerry Pionk, 8th Army spokesman, who described an Army service component command as “basically a force provider to a theater commander,” said the transformation to a field army is ongoing and will continue for several years. A lieutenant general will continue to command the 8th Army after the change is complete, he said. [Stars & Stripes – April 13, 2010]
Considering how much can change between now and this “early” OPCON transfer I put this all in the category of I will believe it when I see it.
Here is how the North Koreans were able to get access to OPLAN 5015:
A South Korea lawmaker recently disclosed that hackers suspected to be North Korean gained access to Seoul’s highly secured military intranet in September 2016 and made off with the US and South Korea’s secret war plans.
North Korean personnel reportedly attacked a South Korean cybersecurity firm and embedded themselves in the software. South Korea’s military used the software on its military computers, but the North Koreans still shouldn’t have been able to get in because Seoul keeps its internet, or outwardly connected network, separate from its intranet, or private network.
But it took only one computer plugged into both the internet and the intranet for the North Koreans to break in, The Journal reported.
“They should have removed the connector jack immediately after maintenance work,” Rhee said.
Maybe someone with IT experience can tell me why an unclassified networked computers needs to be plugged into a classified network for maintenance reasons?
This alleged murdered was a one-time South Korean media darling who no one in the media did any background checking on:
Lee Young-hak
Lee, better known by the public as “Molar Daddy” for losing most of his teeth except one molar while undergoing surgery five times to remove tumors from his gums, appeared to pay tribute to his late wife in the eerie eulogy.
Viewers’ reactions to his YouTube video were cold.“A murderer,” one internet user wrote.
Lee is under investigation for slaying a 14-year-old girl identified only by her last name Kim and abandoning her body in the mountains in the eastern county of Yeongwol earlier this month.
Lee has led a double life.
He became a high-profile victim of rare disease after he and his family appeared in TV documentaries several times since 2006. In the public eye, he was portrayed as a poor but caring father who did everything to save his sick daughter A-yun, now 14, and raised money to finance her medical bills.
He is the author of the book, “A Happy Molar Daddy” (2007), in which he recounts the ordeals he and his family suffered after his daughter was diagnosed with gigantiform cementoma, a rare dental tumor.
But his public image didn’t reflect the monster inside.Lee is now a murder suspect who allegedly took the life of the 14-year-old girl.He has a criminal record of 18 incidents.He is an alleged sexual deviant who forced his wife to have sex with other men and record it on video.He was reportedly involved in the sex trade, too. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but it is also claimed this guy was living a lavish lifestyle based off the money the media was helping him to raise to assist his daughter.
This guy should have known better than to make these type of comments in South Korea:
Sunchon National University
Sunchon National University has dismissed one of its professors for making derogatory comments about Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II.
Six out of seven members of the university’s disciplinary committee in the city of Sunchon, South Jeolla Province, chose the severest level of punishment for the professor, whose name is withheld, on Wednesday.He was charged with failing to fulfill his duty faithfully and failing to preserve his vocational dignity.
University President Park Jin-sung apologized for “those hurt by the blasphemous comments made by our school professor, especially the women who had gone through the ordeal in Japan.”
He said the school suspended the professor after the incident was reported in April and formed a task force to investigate the matter.
The professor, 56, from the university’s teachers’ college, made the comments during a lecture.He said many of the women, also known as “comfort women,” “probably knew that they were going to sexually serve the Japanese soldiers and thus voluntarily left for Japan.” He also said all the women were “crazy about Japan and would not have gone there if it weren’t for their (sexual) passion.” [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but he is not the first academic fired for making comments against the comfort women dogma. Professor Park Yu-ha at Sejong University was arrested for defamation for writing a book that takes a balanced look at the comfort women issue. She was fortunately found innocent.
The Korean public likes to think that all the comfort women were girls sleeping in bed and kidnapped by evil Japanese soldiers while the Japanese rightists like to think they were all willing prostitutes. Both historical narratives are untrue if one really looks at the history.
What Professor Park wrote about is the same historical narrative that American Sarah Soh wrote about in her book “The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan“. In the book Soh provides documented evidence that most of the Korean women put into the comfort women system were sold by Korean brokers. The actual kidnapping of Korean women by Japanese soldiers would be a very rare occurrence when the broker system made so many of these women readily available. This does not absolve the Imperial Japanese from responsibility since they ran the comfort woman system that provided the demand for the Korean brokers to meet. To make even worse is that many of these girls were teenagers when sold into prostitution. I see no way that a young teenager should be considered a willing prostitute. Especially when many girls were sold by their families into prostitution for money due to the extreme poverty. This was actually a practice that was going on well into the US military era in South Korea.
It is pretty clear that the comfort women issue is not black and white, but has more nuance to it then each side is willing to admit. Ultimately the Imperial Japanese government was responsible for the actions of the Korean brokers that supplied the majority of the Korean girls. The Imperial Japanese had to have known how young the girls were and the unethical and deceptive actions the Korean brokers were taking to make them available to the Japanese military. There is no need to rewrite the history of what happened to the comfort women when the truth is bad enough.
