Anyone familiar with the villes in South Korea outside the US military bases knows that these areas are pretty seedy and filled with questionable characters.  Most of these questionable characters are some of the bar and business owners looking to fleece as much money from USFK servicemembers as possible.  However, there are times when some of the USFK servicemembers are just bad as some of these questionable business owners and there is no better example of this than the 2005 Osan Shakedown Scandal.  In March 2005 news broke that the leader of the 51st Security Squadron town patrol 1st Lieutenant Jason D. Davis was regularly shaking down local club owners in the Songtan entertainment district outside of Osan Air Base.  Davis was accused of accepting bribes, gifts, and sex with women at the clubs in exchange for not putting the clubs off limits.  Here is a picture of Davis from his days as a cadet at the Citadel, which he

Davis as the head of the 51st Security Forces Squadron’s town patrol had the ability to put the clubs outside of Osan AB off limits for 24 hours before being reviewed by his leadership for further action.  Davis used this power to threaten club owners with being put off limits if they didn’t provide him with free drinks and prostitutes. He would do this by executing unauthorized sting operations:

He said Davis also had him take part in unauthorized “sting” operations in which Dooge and other airmen would enter clubs and try to buy alcohol or try to arrange sexual liaisons with bar girls — a process known as “bar fining” and a violation of U.S. Forces Korea policy.  [Stars & Stripes]

Davis would then go on to strike up a relationship with the daughter of a club owner.  The Korean woman Kim Mun-hui would then go on to give Davis a number of gifts such as a Chrysler Sebring, a Rolex watch, Louis Vuitton slippers, cash, free drinks, and even a vacation to Guam.  Kim however would go on to become the person responsible for the ultimate down fall of Davis.  However, during Davis’ corruption spree he rented out an apartment outside Osan AB just so he could have a place to have sex with all the various women he was hooking up with in the clubs.  He was doing all this while he was still married to a woman back in the US.

On top of all of this 1LT Jason Davis was a bully to the people that worked underneath him:

Airman 1st Class Nathan D. Dooge, formerly of the 51st Security Forces Squadron, said Davis pressured him to house-sit Davis’ dogs without pay.

Davis encouraged him to drink alcoholic beverages although he was 19 and under the legal drinking age, Dooge testified.  (…………)

In addition, Dooge testified, Davis fired plastic pellets at him from an airgun, locked him for about 30 minutes in the squadron’s women’s dressing room and refused to release him.

1LT Davis’ world of corruption would come crashing down in February 2005 when his Korean girlfriend Kim Mun-hui contacted Osan authorities to say she had been raped by Davis.  This likely wasn’t true because according to unconfirmed rumors this was probably an attempt by Kim to get back at Davis for cheating on her when she found out Davis took a trip to Russia to meet up with one of his Russian girlfriends there.  The Korean police would also go on to charge Davis with keeping a firearm in the off post apartment he kept.  The Korean authorities would ultimately pursue only minor gun charges against Davis, but nevertheless the cat was now out of the bag and authorities at Osan AB were going to have to do something about it.

What is really amazing about the whole Osan Shakedown Scandal is that who knows how long Davis would have been allowed to get away with his corrupt dealings without the rape charge?

The court martial of 1LT Davis was handled very carefully with it being executed during Chusok to probably avoid Korean press coverage.  There was also a pre-trial agreement put in place that assured that the court martial would be over quickly. Also the Korean girl that Davis had a romantic relationship with that exposed his activities to begin with didn’t testify assuring that possible juicy details not already made public was not exposed during the court martial. Davis faced up to 21 years in jail if he was convicted of all the charges he was faced with, but due to the pre-trial agreement this is what 1LT Davis ended up being convicted of:

Davis pleaded guilty to running illicit police undercover operations, accepting gifts and cash from club owners, maintaining illicit sexual liaisons with bar girls, breaking the U.S. military’s curfew that the town patrol had the duty of enforcing, being drunk and disorderly, having sex with women who were not his wife, illegally possessing weapons, illegally keeping an off-base apartment, using racial and ethnic slurs, filing a leave request with false information as to his intended destination and maintaining an improper relationship with a subordinate airman.

Davis only received a two year sentence for all of these crimes.  Servicemembers convicted for something as simple as BAH fraud have received sentences similar to what Davis received. Most interesting is that Davis did not have to forfeit all pay and allowances, which meant he would still be getting paid as a lieutenant while in prison.  The only reason I think of the judge did not impose this penalty is that he wanted to make sure that Davis’ wife back in the US still had income to take care of herself.  Something else that is strange about what he was convicted of was the fact that despite admitting to having sex with various bar girls he was not convicted of any prostitution and human trafficking charges.  Even more strange was the fact that the ROK authorities pursued no real charges against Davis for his crimes.  Not pursuing the rape allegation I understand considering how Kim would not cooperate with authorities.  However, why wasn’t Davis pursued in Korean courts for thee shakedowns he was conducting off duty?  If the anti-US groups want to complain about US servicemembers getting away with crimes here is a perfect example of this, but it has nothing to do with the SOFA and everything to do with ROK authorities not pursuing the case.  Probably to at least create the appearance of doing something the ROK authorities did fine Davis $4,800 for keeping an illegal firearm in his apartment:

But according to testimony in a June 10 pretrial hearing into the Air Force’s charges against Davis, Korean National Police officers found firearms when, armed with a warrant, they searched an off-base apartment Davis was accused of keeping illegally. Agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations joined in the March 1 search, according to hearing testimony.

Police allegedly found various weapons and ammunition. Air Force special agent Etai Shpak testified at the June hearing that police found two pistols and one shotgun, a rifle, and various types of ammunition.

Among other weapons allegedly found during the raid, Shpak said, were brass knuckles, thumbcuffs and pepper spray. Korean officers seized the weapons, he testified.  [Stars & Stripes]

Where did these weapons come from?  Are they Air Force weapons?  If so what type of weapons accountability did the 51st Security Squadron have?  If they are not Air Force weapons then how did Davis get them into the country?  If he smuggled them into the country shouldn’t he have received far greater punishment for weapons smuggling?  Additionally what was he using these weapons for?  The amount of unanswered questions regarding the weapons charges is really amazing.  This guy is able to shake Koreans down for sex, money, and gifts and have a number of illegal firearms in his apartment and only gets a $4,800 fine.

Anyway despite the light punishment Davis received from the US court martial he appealed the conviction and tried to get his sentence reduced.  If you can believe it the appeals court actually dropped the negligent dereliction of duty charge against Davis:

An issue not raised, but addressed by this Court, concerns Specification 5 of Additional Charge I. The appellant was convicted, in accordance with his plea by exceptions and substitutions, of negligent dereliction of duty. The specification at issue, after exceptions and substitutions, states “…was derelict in the performance of those duties in that he negligently conducted ‘sting operations’ against Songtan-area business establishments, as it was his duty to do.” (Emphasis added). This Specification fails to state an offense, and is therefore dismissed.  [USAF Court of Criminal Appeals]

Ultimately the light sentence Davis received has only fed into the conspiracy stories surrounding this case that he received the light sentence in order to keep him quiet about higher level corruption at Osan AFB.  It seems to me that if no one in 51st Security Squadron or the Armed Forced Disciplinary Control Board (AFDCB) was aware of what Davis was doing then at the very least they were derelict in their responsibilities.  I’m not saying his chain of command was in on the corruption, I’m saying they may have been told what was going on and decided not to believe it or were too lazy to investigate it thus leading back to my theory they were derelict.  Davis deserved to go to jail and should have received more time then he received, but I would hope the leadership in his chain of command at Osan AB were at least administratively held responsible for what happened.  Maybe that was done I don’t know, however the only thing that was done publicly was that most members of the town patrol were reassigned to different jobs.  Considering all the unanswered questions and lack of accountability for those involved, is it any wonder why the conspiracy theories surrounding the Osan Shakedown Scandal have never gone away?

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

Last month ROK Drop readers may remember that the Lowy Institute was offering to have reader provided questions answered by Chinese Professor Zhu Feng.  I offered a number of questions and two of them were presented to Mr. Feng to answer.  Here is the answer Professor Feng gave in regards to the repatriation of North Korean refugees:

What does Professor Zhu Feng think of the forced repatriation of refugees back to North Korea where they are either imprisoned or executed?

I think it’s a controversial issue, but the problem is that if China refuses to repatriate that would signal that Beijing wants to bring down the North Korean regime. So I know such repatriation is cold blooded, and it’s a big embarrassment for China’s policy on North Korea. I have to say, China’s policy implementation in this regard always keeps one eye open the other eye closed. Officially, we will repatriate, but in practice we keep the net quite loose.  [The Interpreter]

You can read more at the link such as what Mr. Zhu thinks of the “Glans Plan” as well as current Chinese policies towards North Korea.  By the way thank you to the Lowy Institute for hosting this as well as to Professor Zhu Feng for agreeing to answer questions from readers.  I recommend ROK-Heads check out the Lowy Institute’s website The Interpreter which provides some good reads for those interested in Asia-Pacific issues.

Here is an update on the Chinese fishing boats that continue to violate South Korean waters that is getting worse every year:

Some 294 Chinese fishing boats and 2,905 Chinese fishermen have been caught so far this year illegally fishing in Korean territorial waters.

The number of Chinese trawlers caught illegally fishing in Korea’s Exclusive Economic Zone rose from 79 in 2007 to 91 last year, while the number of Chinese boats that trespassed into Korean territorial waters almost doubled from 27 to 53 over the same period.

Chinese fishermen are becoming increasingly brazen in their methods, and the scale of their activities is expanding. In the past, Chinese trawlers would only fish on foggy days or at night and slink away at daybreak. But these days they group together with ropes to create small armadas and resist arrest by using violence, or gang up against police wielding makeshift weapons.   [Chosun Ilbo]

ROK-Heads may remember the violent incidents these Chinese fishermen have caused when the Korean Coast Guard tries to take them into custody to include murdering one Coast Guard officer. The violence has continued as recently 5 more Coast Guard personnel were injured by the Chinese fishermen:

Five Korea Coast Guard (KCG) officers sustained injuries while rounding up Chinese fishing boats illegally operating in South Korean waters Saturday, according to the KCG Sunday.

This is the latest in a series of recent incidents in which officers enforcing the law were injured by violent Chinese fishermen. There have been growing calls for the Korean government to take a tougher stance against these trawlers unlawfully fishing in the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

According to the Jeju Coast Guard, a 1,500-ton patrol vessel seized a Chinese boat illegally fishing in the waters 12 kilometers northwest of the resort island at 4:25 a.m. Saturday. While towing the trawler to Jeju, about 25 Chinese boats illegally operating in nearby waters approached the ship and demanded the release of the captured trawler.

Soon after the patrol vessel called for reinforcements, 12 more Coast Guard vessels and two helicopters arrived at the scene and began rounding up the Chinese trawlers. Two more Chinese boats were captured but in the process, five officers were wounded by sailors resisting arrest with sharp objects. It is unknown how many Chinese fishermen were taken into custody.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link but these Chinese fishermen are even being caught in the East Sea now and are active in sabotaging the nets and intimidating South Korean fishermen.  Well now the Coast Guard has launched a new campaign to crackdown on the illegal fishing boats:

Stick-wielding Chinese fishermen illegally working in South Korean waters tried to evade arrest – by using rope to band their boats together.

The dramatic scenes unfurled on the Yellow Sea, off the South Korean coast near the south western city of Buan, during a three-day crackdown on illegal trawling in the area.

South Korea’s coastguard mobilised 12 ships, four helicopters and an elite team of armed soldiers to raid 10 boats.  [Daily Mail]

When these Chinese fishermen are detained they are let go after paying a $27,000 fine.  I still think they should confiscate their boats and send the fishermen back to China.  They won’t be doing any illegal fishing any more if they don’t have a boat to fish with. 

It is looking more and more like the Mapo GI rape case doesn’t have much evidence to support it considering how long it is taking to get an indictment.  Here is an update on the case provided by the Marmot’s Hole:

According to the Herald Gyeongje, Women Corea released a statement today demanding that Seoul Seobu prosecutors quickly indict the GI accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Mapo and steeling her notebook computer. They noted it’s been over half a month since police turned the case over to the prosecutors to decide whether to indict, but prosecutors have not indicted the GI. This means the prosecutors, who hold “absolute power,” is minding USFK.

They also warned—perhaps unaware of the impact such a warning could have on any future discussions over amending the SOFA—that if the prosecutors didn’t quickly indict the suspect, they would run up against public resistance.

In response, a high-ranking prosecutor said prosecutors will still conducting additional investigations, and that the indictment wasn’t coming any later than it would in other cases. He also stressed that the suspect and USFK was cooperating fully with the investigation and that he and his office were not carrying out a lazy investigation or minding USFK.  [Marmot’s Hole]

This case reminds me of the policewoman rape case where the evidence didn’t support what happened but the GI was indicted and convicted anyway likely due to public pressure at the time.  After the media sensationalism died down the GI appealed the sentence and his conviction was overturned by the appeals court.  I can see the same thing happening here.  The prosecutors may just be waiting to see if the media attention dies down or not before making a decision to indict him.  If the media attention doesn’t die down they will probably go ahead and indict and convict him despite the lack of evidence and then let the appeals court let him go after the media attention dies down.

I get asked quite often by people not familiar with North Korea what book I would recommend they read to become more familiar with the country?  I have always believed that , “The Two Koreas” by Don Oberdorfer is the best book to read for those wanting to learn about the contemporary history of the Korean peninsula.  However, after reading “The Two Koreas” I would highly recommend for those wanting to get a deeper understanding of North Korea to then read, “The Cleanest Race” by B.R. Myers.

This book I believe is currently the best read about North Korea simply because of the analysis done by Myers in regards to interpreting North Korean propaganda that has provided a whole new perspective on why the country behaves the way it does.  Something else I liked about the book was that it was a quick read.  Unlike other books about North Korea that can be quite an effort to read due to the huge amount of information cited, Myers’ book to me appeared to be written to where the author figured that people reading his book have already read up quite a bit on North Korea so he doesn’t add a whole bunch of additional pages to his book rehashing in depth North Korean history.  Instead Myers keeps the book centered around his analysis of North Korean propaganda that explains why the regime behaves the way it does.

Myers makes it quite evident early in the book that he despises the left and right ideological battles that often encompass debates about North Korea.  Myers believes that people fall back on these ideological biases to explain North Korea simply because so few analysts can understand Korean to be able to read relevant official texts put out by the regime.  I think Myers does have a valid point here that many people who do opine about North Korea do not have the language skills that he has used to develop his views on the North Korean regime.  I don’t think that not being able to speak Korean completely invalidates someone’s opinion, but I do think it enhances the creditability of the viewpoint of someone who does have a deep understanding of the Korean language.

That is why I think that Myers’ viewpoint that North Korea is not a hard line Stalinist or Communist government should be taken very seriously.  By the way I don’t believe North Korea is a Stalinist or Communist state either, I have viewed it more of a Soprano State.  Anyway instead of using these common terms to describe the government in North Korea, Myers instead believes that the country is a military dominated society led by a racist and maternal regime.  Myers’ then goes on to provide example after example of North Korean propaganda and other anecdotes that show how the regime brainwashes its people to believe that the:

“Korean people are too pure blooded and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader. “

That parental leader was at first Kim Il-sung and after his death in 1994 his son Kim Jong-il began to fill that same role.  Myers even goes on to write about how the North Korean regime’s racist propaganda efforts are actually very similar to those of the old Imperial Japanese government that once colonized the Korean peninsula.  As much as the North Koreans proclaim to hate the Imperial Japanese they have in fact perfected their racist policies.  The bottom line is that outside observers need to realize that the North Korean regime uses paranoid race based nationalism to guide their policy decisions.  When looking at North Korea in this context then much of their belligerent actions makes sense.

Something else Myers comments on in the book are that he believes the North Korean refugees in China are “economic migrants” because half of them voluntarily return to North Korea.  I disagree with this because the North Koreans he is referring to I don’t believe should be considered under the term refugee.  That is because it is well known that many North Koreans shuttle back and forth across the border due to the poor economic and food situation in North Korea.  The term refugee should apply to those who want to defect to South Korea or some other nation like the US.  He also claims that the rest of the refugees that do defect remain admirers of the Cult of Kim.  This is not true of all refugees that come to South Korea, though there has been plenty of refugees who have said that due to the brainwashing they have received their entire lives it is hard to let go of the Cult of Kim especially when they hear someone criticizing Kim Il-sung.  I guess it would be like hearing someone criticize George Washington with facts that you believe to be untrue simply because of what you have been taught about the man your whole life.  I think the fact that North Koreans are often treated as second class citizens in South Korea and are not accustomed to a capitalist system that rewards hard work may cause some of the refugees to long for their home land as well.

Though I disagree with him on the refugee issue, I do agree with him on another major point in the book that the North Korean regime does not fear an external attack more than an internal legitimacy crisis.  Myers points out that many foreign observers read the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and assume it mirrors what the North Korean propaganda outlet is putting out to its domestic audience.  Instead here is how Myers says KCNA presents itself in Korean:

“……the DPRK presents itself to the outside world as a misunderstood country seeking integration into the international community, it presents itself to its own citizens as a rogue state that breaks agreements with impunity, dictates conditions to groveling U.N. officials, and keeps its enemies in constant fear of ballistic retribution.  Generally speaking the following rule of thumb applies: the less accessible a propaganda outlet is to the outside world, the blunter and more belligerent it will be in its expression of the racist orthodoxy.”

This fear of an internal legitimacy crisis is why I have long supported that South Korea and the US should fight an information war within North Korea by using defector radio broadcasts and smuggling in subversive media such as Korean dramas into the country to erode the Cult of Kim.  This eroding of the racist and paternalistic ideology of the Cult of Kim is why the regime has so strongly responded to the propaganda balloon launches by North Korean refugee groups within South Korea.

Like I mentioned earlier in this posting I highly recommend that everyone who has basic knowledge about Korea pick up and read this book.  I would not recommend this to be the first book someone reads about Korea because I really think to appreciate this book readers need to have some background in Korean contemporary history.  Once readers have that background, this book is definitely an eye-opening and informative read that will leave people interested in North Korea with a much better understanding of why the regime acts the way it does.

• Atwork
  5:22 pm on November 3rd, 2011 1

I’ve read his book and it was an eye-opening experience. I agree with your that North Korea is neither Stalinist nor Communist. It’s a kleptocracy. Murder, corruption, and theft…every one from the highest ranking official down to the lowly army private are complicit.

• Homeboy
  6:56 pm on November 3rd, 2011 2

Ya know what… Koreans have never had a nuclear weapon. North Koreans are Koreans too … if they develop ICBM pointed right at Tokyo, Washington DC,& Beijing, Moscow then wouldn’t that make NK / SK an inpregnable fortress? ^^

• Maui
  1:39 am on November 4th, 2011 3

Thanks for the review, going to pick this one up.

• PBAR
  2:05 am on November 4th, 2011 4

Yes, excellent book and he’s an excellent speaker if you get a chance to see his lecture in person. I too think he’s got nK pegged better than any of the other well-known nK experts though it is interesting to see him and Andrei Lankov debate.

• GI Korea
  6:47 am on November 4th, 2011 5

@1 – That is why I consider North Korea to be a Soprano State considering all their criminal enterprises they are engaged in. After reading Myers I now think of it more as a Soprano State supported by a race based ideology that backs the Cult of Kim which helps keep the status quo iin place for the regime elite.

@3 – Definitely pick this book up and it is available on Kindle which is how I read the book.

@4 – If I ever had the opportunity Myers does seem like a very interesting person to listen to. A debate between him and Lankov would be very interesting but I think they would actually be in agreement on most NK issues.

• Chris In Dallas
  11:18 am on November 4th, 2011 6

I’ve read this book and think Myers makes some great points. I think he disregards some factors too much such as the role of Confucianism and Kim Il Sung’s use of Protestant Christian themes. That said, his theories make a lot of sense. Personally I think we always get the stinky end of the stick when dealing with DPRK because we operate under the “Communist Oligarcy” template with these guys when it is only partially relevant!

I also enjoyed his dis-assembly of the Korean nation myth. I’ve used the knowledge gained here a couple times to shut down the “we’re a 5,000 year old country” claptrap. You want to look back to Tongun and Old Chosun? Well, I’ll just have to counter that with Pericles and Athens !

• Expat
  8:22 pm on November 5th, 2011 7

I have not read the book so the review by GI Korea is excellent and appreciated.
I could not help but think of the rise of similar race themes in the PRC’s internal propaganda. It would be interesting to see a similar analysis of China’s domestic targeted news and information. In China’s case it takes on a much bigger scope, involving far flung islands and people of Chinese “blood” born in other countries. One has to wonder if China did not learn some lessons from DPRK propaganda, considering the PRC’s history of leaving the international camp, following the break with the USSR and China’s ongoing need to mold a domestic and even off shore population in the free information age.