Below is an interesting update on the controversy surrounding the now three women who have graduated Ranger School based on a media interview with the command team at Ft. Benning. Like I have maintained based on what I have read, it appears the special treatment for the females was that they received extensive pre-training and unlimited recycles like most infantry officers receive for Ranger School. Soldiers who are not infantry do not get the same pre-training and amount of recycles, so the inequity for Ranger School did not begin with the female graduates which no one is talking about:
Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commander, Maneuver Center of Excellence, shakes hands with Capt. Kristen M. Griest, one of the latest Soldiers to earn the Ranger tab, Aug. 21, 2015, at Fort Benning, Ga. PATRICK A. ALBRIGHT/U.S. ARMY PHOTO
Maj. Gen. Scott Miller’s voice held frustration late Friday afternoon during a quickly arranged media roundtable on the fourth floor of McGinnis-Wickam Hall, headquarters of the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence.
The commanding general of Fort Benning has been fighting allegations for months that female soldiers were given special treatment to pass Ranger School, the most physically and mentally demanding training offered by the Army.
Four hours after the third woman graduated, Miller sat front and center with Command Sgt. Maj. Timothy Metheny to his right and four members of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade, including the commander, Col. David Fivecoat, and Command Sgt. Maj. Curtis Arnold, on his left flank.
“There are some people who obviously have some concerns,” Miller said. “I can’t address them if they are opaque. These guys can’t address them or fix them if they are opaque.”
Among the three reporters was Susan Keating, a People magazine correspondent who has reported that multiple unnamed sources have told her there was unfair assistance given to the women.
The most telling moment came more than 50 minutes into an interview that lasted almost an hour and a half. Miller, who won the Bronze Star for Valor as Delta Force ground commander in the Battle of Mogadishu, was asked if his credibility had been damaged by the allegations.
“I have thick skin and I am a public figure, but I will tell you who doesn’t deserve this is these guys,” he said, pointing to the Ranger instructors. “They don’t deserve this. … I keep telling everybody I will put my name on anything I say or do. If they are not willing to put their name on it or come back to me. …”
That sparked an exchange between Miller and the People correspondent, prompting Keating to ask Miller, “What if one of my sources comes to me and I say, ‘You need to go tell Gen. Miller right now, you need to go knock on his door and tell him exactly what you are telling me, and give him the same specifics, dates and details that you are giving me’? What’s the push back on that? Will he get repercussions?”
“He will not get repercussions,” Miller responded.
“Will you come back and say, ‘Why did you give a go when you shouldn’t have?” Keating asked the general.
“If he says he gave a go he shouldn’t have given, then he needs to report that,” Miller said.
“So, there would be repercussions for him, right?” Keating asked. “This is part of what we are up against. I have actually asked these people, why don’t you go knock on his door? He’s been in combat. He’s been around the block a few times, right? They say, ‘No. Our careers will be over. We will be ruined.” [Stars & Stripes]
Very interesting read in the Joong Ang Ilbo about Hwang Jang-yop and his aide Kim Dok-hong who are the highest level Kim regime officials to ever defect to the South. What was most interesting was that after defecting they promised to assist the ROK with democratizing North Korea, but during the Sunshine Policy years the so called democracy advocates of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations had so effectively isolated Hwang that he feared for his life and considered defecting to the US:
Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of North Korea’s Juche ideology who defected to the South in 1997, considered seeking asylum from the U.S. government because he feared for his life in Seoul, according to his former aide Kim Dok-hong.
In an exclusive interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Saturday, the 67-year-old Kim, who left Pyongyang along with Hwang, the highest North Korean to defect to the South to date, spoke up for the first time about the defection process.
Kim recalled that Hwang, a former secretary of the Workers’ Party, claimed that he was behind the Juche, or self-reliance, ideology rather than North Korea founder Kim Il Sung or his son Kim Jong-il, and that this “slip of the tongue” led him to seek asylum.
On his way back from a trip to Japan to give a special lecture on Juche, Hwang went to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing on Feb. 12, 1997, to seek political asylum.
At the time, Hwang was the Worker’s Party secretary in charge of international affairs, and he defected with his aide, Kim, a businessman with connection to China and an official with the Workers’ party that managed resources.
At the time of the defection in February 1997, Kim described that then President Kim Young-sam in a personal letter promised to treat Hwang with the respect due a minister-level official and Kim as a vice-minister-level official, and pledged to help support activities to democratize North Korea.
“But that promise was not kept by the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations,” he recalled.
“Former Secretary Hwang was deemed an ‘enemy’ by the Kim Dae-jung government’s National Intelligence Service,” said Kim. “And feeling threatened that the NIS may kill him, he even requested asylum from the U.S. government.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) and his wife Ri Sol-ju view a joint performance given by the State Merited Chorus and the Moranbong Band, a popular all-female music band, to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, in this photo released by the North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Oct. 19, 2015. (Yonhap)
It is a bit amazing how popular the Apple iPhone continues to be in the land of arch rival Samsung:
Despite a price tag as much as $100 higher than previous models, the popularity of Apple’s latest iPhone 6s and 6s Plus appears hotter than ever in Seoul.
The country’s three major mobile carriers said on Monday that preorders of the entire first batch of the two mega-popular phones, with guaranteed shipping on Oct. 23, ran out in less than 10 minutes after they were made available on the carriers’ respective websites at 9 a.m. on Monday.
Top player SK Telecom presold the latest iPhones in two groups, using the date customers are guaranteed to receive the phone and launch a subscription – on Oct. 23 and on Oct. 24.
The first batch sold out in seven minutes and the second in half an hour, according to an SK spokesman. He refused to disclose the number of phones the company released on preorders.
The seven-minute record is the fastest for any iPhone model, given iPhone 6’s first preorder in October last year was done in nine minutes and its predecessor 5s, in 10 minutes in October 2013. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is a small example of one of the illegal scams the Kim regime has operating around the world to bring in foreign currency:
Two North Korean diplomats have been caught smuggling a large stash of top-end Cuban cigars into Brazil.
The two were arrested at Campinas International Airport in São Paulo, according to the Brazilian daily O Estado.
Both are trade attaches at the North Korean Consulate there.
They had come from Cuba via Panama carrying 3,800 cigars worth W90-150 million in six travel bags (US$1=W1,133).
Cigar smuggling is apparently a common sideline for North Korean diplomats in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela who are under growing pressure from Pyongyang to earn valuta.
Top-end Cohiba Cigars sell for W40,000-50,000 apiece, but the North Koreans can buy them for 1/10 of that money in the Cuban black market. [Chosun Ilbo]
That is the question a lot of people have been wondering for years since it was first unveiled and analysts at NK News share their opinion about the KN-08 after its recent reappearance at a North Korean military parade:
The KN-08 mobile missile system on display at the October 10, 2015, parade in North Korea is significantly different from the KN-08 missiles displayed at all previous parades. The changes visible in the KN-08 design include a shortened missile, either a new nosecone or a shroud, and indicate a possible basis on the Russian R-29R missile. It is apparent that North Korea is continually researching and upgrading its ballistic missile designs.
Assuming these differences are real and not simply models or deceptive false alterations, the KN-08, appears significantly shorter, indicating the elimination or redesign of later stages. Additionally, it has a radically different nosecone that could be indicative of guidance systems based on Russian technology. In the best case scenario, it is either a cosmetic cover for the purposes of the parade or a shroud for protecting the reentry vehicle (RV, colloquially referred to as the warhead) during ascent. The data cabling along the side has also changed, though this is a much more minor data point than the previous two.
The differences between early and current KN-08s are so great that, if both sets have been functional missiles, they should and will likely receive a different common designation from the previous KN-08 (such as KN-08 Mod 2 for example). Alternatively, since the KN-08 is not fully operational, it may be that the previous versions end up waved off as prototypes and KN-08 becomes the standard for the final product. [NK News]
I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but I don’t think it is a mock up and is instead a prototype that the Kim regime is continuing to develop.
YONGSAN GARRISON, Republic of Korea – Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea commander and Col. Yancey S. Cowen, Assistant Chief of Staff J1, present Ms. Yi, Chi Yong a community relations specialist with the Korean Service Corps Employee of the Year award during the 2015 USFK Civilian Employees of the Year award ceremony October 8, 2015 at the Dragon Hill Lodge. (Photo by CPL Choi, Woo Hyuk, USFK Public Affairs)
If there is one thing the Kim regime is persistent in pursuing is a peace treaty with the US to end the Korean War. The reason they are persistent is that a formal peace treaty would then call into question the continued existence of the US-ROK alliance. The North Koreans have tried for decades to drive a wedge between the ROK and the US and a peace treaty is one way they try and do this:
North Korea has called on the United States to sign a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, without commenting on the summit talks between President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted the North’s Foreign Ministry as saying in a statement that Pyongyang and Washington could remove the source of war and put an end to the nuclear arms race by building trust.
The ministry reportedly said that one way to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula is for the North to bolster its defense capability based on nuclear weapons, while another way is for Washington to abandon its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and accept the North’s call for a peace treaty to replace the armistice agreement.
The statement came 20 hours after the South Korea-U.S. summit, in which Park and Obama called for the North’s denuclearization. [KBS World Radio]
