It appears that issues that many of us Korea bloggers have been blogging about for years is finally getting some ink in the mainstream press:

Perhaps no place does American frustration with South Korea show up so much as among the US military services. Many officers with experience in Korea assert that the US should reduce its troops in Korea or perhaps withdraw all but a token force. One who considers that US forces are almost held hostage in Korea said plaintively: “Let my people go.”

US officers point to running quarrels with the Koreans over issues such as command of US and Korean forces, sharing the cost of US forces in Korea, US access to Korean training areas, moving US forces to new locations, and cleaning up US bases that have been vacated. A particular sticking point: President Roh insists on vetoing US deployments out of Korea to conflicts elsewhere.

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So how does it feel to be a propaganda piece?:

The North Korea colonel who served as Richardson’s guide smiled as he told the governor the ship was an example of continued U.S. aggression toward his country. Richardson and his traveling companion, former Veteran Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, were then shown bullet holes circled in red paint and a video describing the maneuvering of "brazen-faced U.S. imperialists."

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Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate who is in North Korea this week to collect the remains of U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War, said the tour of the ship was "unpleasant."

Why in the heck was he touring this ship to begin with and allow himself to be used for propaganda purposes by the North Korean government?  He should have told his minders to shove the USS Pueblo tour up their collective asses. 

The seizure of the USS Pueblo was overt act of aggression against the United States with the murder of one crew member and the imprisonment and torture of the rest of the crew for nearly a year.  The vessel remains the only commissioned US Navy ship still remaining in enemy hands today.  I have always maintained that any negotiations carried out with the North Koreans should include the return of the USS Pueblo.  If the North Koreans want to make demands such as the return of the $25 million ill gotten dollars that was not in the Agreed Framework 2.0 than how come the US government cannot demand the return of the USS Pueblo?

What a disgrace to the memory of the former crew members of the Pueblo, that the only thing that Richardson can say after being used as a propaganda tool by the North Koreans is "unpleasant". 

You can read more about the USS Pueblo at my prior posting here.

HT: Ironically enough to Richardson

From the Korea Times:

Female cell phone users in their late teens or early 20s are found to be the most vulnerable when it comes to obsessive use of the handset, according to a government survey Tuesday.

The Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion said the cell phone addiction index for 1,639 respondents stood at 2.085 out of five points.

Broken down into four categories _ withdrawal symptoms, tolerance, coercion and deviation regarding cellular phone use _ females showed a higher dependence than males.

First of all who cares, secondly this is about as unsurprising as North Korea reneging on another nuclear agreement. 

Ironically enough considering recent events in USFK, April is sexual assault awareness month:

I guess these two didn’t get the memo.

Just when I think the media can’t get any worse it does:

Amid the deaths and the grim daily struggle bravely borne by Britain’s forces in southern Iraq, one tale of heroism stands out.

Private Johnson Beharry’s courage in rescuing an ambushed foot patrol then, in a second act, saving his vehicle’s crew despite his own terrible injuries earned him a Victoria Cross.

For the BBC, however, his story is “too positive” about the conflict.

The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.

Unbelievable. Here is more on the reason given for cancelling the documentary:

“It began to have second thoughts last year as the war in Iraq deteriorated. It felt it couldn’t show anything with a degree of positivity about the conflict.

“It needed to tell stories about Iraq which reflected the fact that some members of the audience didn’t approve of what was going on. Obviously a story about Johnson Beharry could never do that. You couldn’t have a scene where he suddenly turned around and denounced the war because he just wouldn’t do that.

“The film is now on hold and it will only make it to the screen if another broadcaster picks it up.”

Then at the same time you have the British sailors and marines selling their stories about being held hostage in Iran. The lone female hostage who was paraded around on Iranian TV selling out her country, is reported to be making $240,000 dollars from selling her story, yet the Victoria Cross awardee can’t even get his story told.

HT: Milblogs

Michael Breen one my favorite authors and journalists on Korea has quite a funny article in today’s Korea Times about Konglish:

Whether it’s memorable lines in the English-language papers – for example, the legendary pilot who “was reported to have ejaculated before the crash to safety…”- or the lifelong quest for the flawless menu, I find that Poor English has enriched my life.

I’m not being superior here. I know my foreigner-Korean has added to the well-being of Koreans. One should not feel humiliated when a foreigner laughs.

In fact, we laugh at ourselves more. The error that leads to an unintended association is a whole genre of humor in all languages.

Particularly in newspaper headlines. Take, for example, the story of the man who escaped from an asylum and raped two women in a laundry and fled, the horror of which was relieved in one tabloid with the headline: “Nut Screws Washers and Bolts.” That was written by a native speaker.

Read the whole thing because Breen makes another good point about how history is taught to foreigners in Korea as well that I totally agree with. 

Getting back to the Konglish portion of the article I have always found it amazing how Koreans are just not willing to have any proof reading of their English language material done.  If I had a dollar to fix every misspelled or badly phrased English sign, brochure, menu, etc. in Korea I would be a very rich man.  Some of the misspellings would be discovered just by doing a simple spell check on a computer, but yet somehow they make it into the public. 

The ultimate example of this has got to be the new tourism slogan being pushed by the Korean government: Korea, Sparkling!  I would love to see a Michael Breen column on this. 

Seriously, is anyone really surprised by this?:

The U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill has admitted that it is improbable North Korea will shut down its nuclear facilities by a mid-April deadline due to the delayed transfer of assets frozen in the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, AP reported. A Feb. 13 agreement reached in six-nation talks in Beijing requires the North to shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon by April 14 in return for a first shipment of energy aid.

Keep in mind that the funds in question were frozen by the Chinese bank at the US’s request due to being linked to counterfeiting and money laundering of US currency.  Also keep in mind that the return of the money was never part of the Agreed Framework 2.0 that was agreed upon in February during the six party talks.  The return of the money is something that North Korea has decided on their own to add to the agreement. 

You can read more about the latest North Korea reneging at One Free Korea.

There is an interesting series of postings and comments on both One Free Korea and DPRK Studies concerning noted North Korea apologist David Albright.

Start here and here with the DPRK Studies postings.

Then read here and here for the related OFK postings.

Both of them ask some fundamental questions which Albright continues to avoid in his comments. I believe Albright’s views on North Korea are motivated more by his own personal political views than real factual analysis. He has already put himself in a position of a North Korea apologist and isn’t about to change his position no matter how much he is challenged with facts saying otherwise, thus the evasive answers. It will be interesting to see if he ever provides any real answers to the specific questions posed to him.

There has been another incident involving a USFK soldier, which is really one of the oddest incidents I can remember seeing in recent years:

Police said Friday they have detained two U.S. Army soldiers for attempted rape of a policewoman.

The soldiers, identified only as a 23-year-old sergeant and a 21-year-old private first class from a U.S. base north of Seoul, tried to sexually assault the plainclothes officer in an office bathroom in downtown Seoul around 9:20 p.m. Thursday, a police spokesman said.

More from the Stars and Stripes here. What makes this story even weirder is that these two guys were picked up just hours before by the Seoul police for sexually harassing another woman in the same area. Reading through the newspaper reports, if true, which is often not the case in the Korean media it appears these two are sexual predators because this appears to me more than just some guy getting drunk and assaulting a female as we have seen happen recently before.

This latest incident has of course caused commenters on various K-blog sites to blame everything from recruiters, 2ID, the Iraq War, PTSD, gangs, to General Bell for recent incidents. Unfortunately none of this has anything to with what is going on. First of all, 2ID is not solely to blame for indiscipline in Korea. For every 2ID incident I can name another incident caused by another USFK unit. It just so happens that 2ID has the most memorable incidents especially of the taxi cab related kind.

Here is run down of incidents involving a USFK member and off post incidents over the past two years and I broke them down by Area 1 soldiers and soldiers stationed in Seoul or further south:

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From the Stars and Stripes:

A report of a foul odor emanating from Vail’s room led to the discovery of his body, hanging by a belt tied to a towel rack in the bathroom. The door to Vail’s room was locked, and entry was made through a partly open window. Medical personnel pronounced Vail dead at 1:30 p.m. March 28, but Mortuary Affairs personnel said his remains indicated he had been dead for five to seven days, according to information published in Friday’s Morning Calm military newspaper. They confirmed his identity through dental records. 

To answer Nomad’s question on how this could happen here is my best explanation.  I had a situation like this happen before in a unit I was in a few years ago.  A staff sergeant committed suicide after receiving a Dear John Letter from his wife.  This guy was a really good NCO, that took care of his soldiers, but the break up with his wife just made him snap.  He hung himself in his closet in the barracks on a Saturday and wasn’t discovered until Monday morning when he didn’t show up for PT formation. 

The PT formations especially on Mondays are critical to account for everyone.  Accounting for people is one of the most basic requirements of leadership.  How this guy was able to slip through the cracks for up to week is quite unusual.  I think Mark offers the most plausible explanation that this NCO in the above article was on a RSOI tasking.  It is extremely hard to track the guys on these taskings.  My first sergeant hated these taskings because he was depended on soldiers calling their platoon sergeants in the morning on the phone to maintain accountability of them.  Usually the taskings have an NCO in charge of the group which helps with tracking them.  The hardest ones to track are the soldiers tasked to be VIP drivers because they have no NCO supervision.  They just drive a VIP around and operate on the VIP’s schedule.  However, they still have to be tracked daily and if they don’t check in somebody has to track them down. 

If this NCO was not on a tasking and just slipped through the cracks within his unit that is even a much larger break down in basic leadership than losing track of a soldier on an RSOI tasking.  Either way it is not good and a systematic breakdown in leadership.  Hopefully everyone across USFK reviews their accountability policies because things like this should not and cannot happen.