Here is an interesting article that speculates on whether North Korea would have invaded South Korea back in 1983 if the assassination attempt on President Chun Doo-hwan was successful?:

On October 9, 1983, a bomb exploded at the Martyr’s Mausoleum in Rangoon, the capital of Burma. As part of an official visit to the country, then-Republic of Korea President Chun Doo-hwan had been scheduled to visit the mausoleum to pay respects to Aung San, one of the founders of Burma. The results were devastating – 21 dead, 46 injured. Among the dead were prominent members of the South Korean government, including the deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Fortunately, the South Korean president survived.

Chun Doo-hwan was a career Republic of Korea Army officer who came to power under contentious circumstances. His predecessor was Park Chung-hee, another Army officer and father of the current South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Chung-hee was assassinated on October 26, 1979. During an unclear political situation, Chun and military forces loyal to him executed a successful coup on December 12, 1979. Afterwards, Chun established martial law, squashed dissent, and ruled South Korea through 1987 as a military dictatorship, until the democracy movement brought the country its first truly free elections.

In part, President Chun owed his life to his American advisers. Assassination attempts and terrorism on the part of North Korea was a real threat at the time and concern for the president’s safety prompted the Americans to suggest Chun’s flight route be placed further away from the coasts of China and Vietnam. This caused a delay in his schedule, forcing him to arrive later than the rest of his entourage. North Korean agents confused the arrival of the South Korean ambassador with that of the president, resulting in a premature detonation. Had President Chun ignored the advice of his foreign advisers and maintained the original schedule, it is very likely he would have been present at the time of the explosion and would have been killed or maimed.

The possible implications of Chun’s assassination attempt in Rangoon would not be fully known, however, until over a decade later. Kang Myung-do, son-in-law of then-North Korean Premier Kang Song-san, defected to the South in 1994. As he changed allegiances, he brought with him stories. What a story he had to share about the Rangoon bombing.

Kang told the late professor and writer Don Oberdorfer, who was conducting research for a book, that North Korea had been anticipating civil unrest on the scale of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, which was pacified through the brute force of the South Korean military. The “massacre,” as it has been described, was a day of infamy for South Korea, and resulted in well over a hundred dead and thousands injured. Kang specifically noted that discharges from the North Korean military had been “slowed or stopped” in preparation for what might occur.

It does not take much knowledge or imagination to reasonably assume that North Korea may very well have intended to invade the South in the event of mass civil unrest. With a nation reeling from its second presidential assassination in four years, the South Korean government in crisis, and the military with its hands full in bringing order to chaos, there would probably be few scenarios better for Pyongyang to exploit in its eternal quest to reunite the peninsula.   [National Interest]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think even if Chun was killed that the North Koreans would not have invaded unless they were given support by China.  The US has the nuclear trump card that can be played to defeat any North Korean invasion.  Without the support of the Chinese nuclear deterrent I don’t see how they could have won a conflict on the peninsula.  It seems the assassination was more for trying to create massive internal unrest within South Korea that could eventually lead to a more Pyongyang friendly government.  Maybe one day when the Kim regime finally falls their national archives will shed light on what their true intentions were.

8 Great Korean Restaurant Franchises (and bad ones) https://t.co/a9evV3MRgc

— ZenKimchi (@ZenKimchi) October 24, 2016

South Korean honor guard carrying the portrait of the late French Korean War veteran Andre Belaval and a box containing his ashes enter Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on Oct. 24, 2016, followed by his bereaved family members. Belaval, who took part in the 1950-53 Korean War, died at 87 in July 2015 and left a will expressing wish to be buried in South Korea. Soldiers from France and 15 other nations fought for South Korea against invading North Korea under the U.N. flag during the war. (Yonhap)

This seems to be much to do about nothing and simply partisan politics:

President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday apologized to the nation over a leak of dozens of presidential speeches to an acqaintance who has been at the center of an escalating corruption scandal that has roiled politics over the past month.

“Regardless of the reasons involved, I am sorry that (the scandal) has caused national concerns,” she said. “I deeply apologize to the people.”

Park’s apology came a day after local broadcaster JTBC revealed that Choi Soon-sil had received dozens of presidential speeches, including Park’s election campaign remarks, before they were delivered by the president.

The broadcaster said it found the speeches from about 200 files obtained from a computer that was left to be thrown away in Choi’s office in southern Seoul. Among the speeches was Park’s so-called Dresden address on reunification delivered in Germany in March 2014.

The president acknowledged that Choi had helped her prepare for public speeches during her presidential election campaign and the early part of her presidency.

“During the last presidential election campaign, she (Choi) has offered me personal comments about my campaign activities, mostly speeches and publicity efforts,” Park said.

“For some period of time after my inauguration, I had asked for her opinion over some materials, but after the secretarial staff at Cheong Wa Dae was fully established, I stopped (asking for her help).”  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but Park’s political opposition wants her cabinet ministers who gave Choi the speeches to resign and possibly face prosecution.  According to the legal experts quoted in the article the speeches were drafts and thus not official Presidential correspondence thus no legal ramifications.

I wonder if in the US there are any legal ramifications for giving the text of a Presidential speech to someone to look at before it is given?

This is just another example of why these sexual assault cases are so hard to litigate and not as cut and dry as the activists and politicians want people to believe:

The Seoul High Court upheld Tuesday a lower court ruling that acquitted a former Korean soldier of raping a female American soldier, saying sexual relations between the two did not involve a physical attack or threats.

The Korean soldier, 22, whose name was withheld, was serving as a sergeant in the Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army (KATUSA) in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, when he allegedly raped the U.S. soldier, 19, in December.

He was in charge of educating American soldiers new to Korea, and he and his accuser began seeing each other frequently and engaged in sexual relations from last October. However, on one occasion, while kissing at his barracks, the man told her he wanted to have sex and she refused. He then said he would not let her leave the room, and forcibly had sex with her anyway.

During sex, he asked her if it was rape, and as she said yes, he then stopped, and knelt down to apologize. She accepted his apology but later reported it as rape to the military police.

Even though the assailant partially admitted it was rape during the investigation, the lower and high courts did not recognize it as such.

“Although sexual intercourse occurred against the woman’s will, she said there was no physical attack, swearing or anything threatening,” the high court said. “She did not call for help or resist, but rather she undressed on her own volition,” it added. [Korea Times]

Should this be considered rape even though there was no physical attack and she did not resist in any way?  The Korean courts don’t think so, I wonder what a US court would have ruled on this?  I also wonder why the ROK Army did not try this case and instead gave it to a ROK civilian court?

It seems for people with religious reasons for not wanting to conduct their mandatory service in the military could be used to do something more productive than sitting in a jail cell with other criminals:

Hopes are fading for an alternative to Korea’s mandatory military service after decades of calls from pacifists and religious groups to spare conscientious objectors the martial ordeal.

Some 6,088 young men chose prison rather than mandatory military service over the decade from 2006 to 2015, over 99 percent on religious grounds, according to Defense Ministry data Thursday. That boils down to 600 a year, or just 0.24 percent of all 250,000 annual conscripts.

They are sentenced to a year and a half in jail and must serve the time alongside ordinary criminals.  (……….)

But opponents say that South Korea is uniquely placed because it remains officially at war with North Korea, and there is insufficient public support for an alternative.

In data submitted to the National Assembly early this month, the Defense Ministry said alternative service “can be abused” as a way to evade military service, and there is “not enough consensus” seeing it as anything other than a privilege for followers of “certain religions.”   [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Waiting for intense media criticism of how words matter and this isn't helpful as done during Bush Admin…..waiting…..waiting… https://t.co/ZEOZA9UMV0

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) October 23, 2016

Lee Jung-hyun, head of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party, looks at various weapons used by Chinese fishermen against the South Korean coast guard’s crackdowns on their illegal fishing inside the South Korean waters during a visit to the Coast Guard in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Oct. 21, 2016. (Yonhap)

A Hero of the Korean War, French General Ralph Monclar will be remembered during a ceremony today in Seoul:

A publication ceremony for a book featuring photos of the legendary French Gen. Ralph Monclar will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Soorim Arts Center in Dongdaemun District, central Seoul, by the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Chipyong-ni Battle (FRCB).

Raul Charles Magrin-Vernerey, who later adopted the name Ralph Monclar, was a French soldier with over 30 years of service in the armed forces.

In order to lead his soldiers in the 1950-53 Korean War, the general famously reduced his rank from that of a three-star general to lieutenant colonel to avoid a disruption in the chain of command.

The book features some 30 photos of Monclar and his personal items as well as stories on the bravery of the French battalion Monclar had commanded at the height of the war.

FRCB was founded by veteran lawyer Kim Soung-soo, 73, in 2009 to promote a campaign to raise public awareness of the contribution made by Gen. Monclar during the war.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2006/12/heroes-of-the-korean-war-ltc-ralph-monclar/

Here is a story that is likely to get the blood boiling for many people this morning:

Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war.

Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.

Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.  [LA Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but basically California National Guard personnel were illegally giving out federal reenlistment bonuses to personnel who did not qualify in order to meet their quotas:

In 2010, after reports surfaced of improper payments, a federal investigation found that thousands of bonuses and student loan payments were given to California Guard soldiers who did not qualify for them, or were approved despite paperwork errors.

Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution.

Instead of forgiving the improper bonuses, the California Guard assigned 42 auditors to comb through paperwork for bonuses and other incentive payments given to 14,000 soldiers, a process that was finally completed last month.

Roughly 9,700 current and retired soldiers have been told by the California Guard to repay some or all of their bonuses and the recoupment effort has recovered more than $22 million so far.

The way I look at it is if the personnel who were given the bonuses did not know they were improperly given then why should they be forced to pay it back when they fulfilled their end of the contract?  This looks like something Congress needs to take a hard look at and rectify.