UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon had a scare while visiting Iraq today:

A rocket landed near the prime minister’s office Thursday during the first visit to Iraq by the head of the United Nations in nearly a year and a half, sending Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ducking unharmed behind a podium at a news conference.

The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government said it had been negotiating with Sunni insurgents for months, and the U.S. military said that it had released a senior aide to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on al-Maliki’s request.

The rocket caused no injuries but rattled the building in the heavily guarded Green Zone, sent small chips of debris floating from the ceiling, and left a one-metre-wide crater about 45 metres away outside.

I saw the video on the news and it did appear Ban was quite rattled.  You can tell Maliki has gotten used to rockets attacks because he seemed to be quite composed and tried to continue the news conference before ending it on Ban’s request.  It is amazing the strategic consequences one rocket can have.  That one rocket attack is now being broadcast around the world, which is great propaganda for the terrorists.  That is why they continue to radomly fire rockets hoping they can get lucky and get great propaganda news coverage.  Notice none of the stories you will read about this attack will mention anything about the random rocket and mortar attacks that by far kill more civilians than any military target. 

UPDATE: The US media has once again joined the Korean media in the No Gun-ri myth making. Here is the headline on the front-page of Yahoo:

South Korea Plans No Gun-ri Massacre Memorial

Notice once again the word “massacre”. Remember what I said before that when reporting something untrue, that if you keep repeating it over and over again people will eventually believe it. That is why every No Gun-ri article contains the word “massacre” and “hundreds” killed though the evidence clearly shows that isn’t what happened.

To put the “massacre” debate to rest let me show everyone what the definition of “massacre” is from dictionary.com:

the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.

Read my series of postings and then ask your self if the soldiers planned an indiscriminate, barbarous act of revenge or plunder that day at No Gun-ri. It was a tragedy not a massacre.

Now let’s take a look at this article:

South Korea said Thursday it would build a park in memory of victims of the U.S. Army’s mass killing of South Korean refugees at the village of No Gun Ri.

The park will be built at the scene of the 1950 attack during the Korean War, said Choi Jeong-pil, an official with a government commission on the shootings.

The facility will be named “No Gun Ri History Park” and will include a memorial for the victims and a museum, Choi said.

Notice the article makes no mention that the US offered to build the memorial and had money set aside for scholarships for the children of No Gun-ri victim’s families, which they refused because they are still holding out for more money.

The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.

Notice the the mentioning of the Pulitzer Prize winning story and no mention of the debunking of that article that used fraudulent witnesses and information. Guess who wrote the article on the front page of Yahoo? The AP of course. Yahoo links only to AP News articles which means the AP is going to do everything possible to continue the myth making of No Gun-ri. Unfortunately the article does not show who the author is. Could the author of this article be one of the same authors of the original AP article tooting their own horn?

Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri, 100 miles southeast of Seoul. U.S. soldiers’ estimates ranged from under 100 to “hundreds” dead. Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.

Notice the body count mythology once again of “hundreds” killed. These two articles are perfect examples of the mythology that continues in both the US and Korean media over the No Gun-ri issue. What else I find interesting is that no park is being constructed for the Korean civilians killed by South Korean, North Korean, Chinese, or Allied soldiers during the war. Also notice no compensation claims are being made against these other countries either, only America. I wonder why?

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The North Korean nuclear negotiator has confirmed my prior suspicions that the North Koreans have no intention of giving up the nuclear weapons they currently have:

The remarks therefore suggest that the nuclear weapons Pyongyang has already built are not on the agenda at this stage, hinting that separate negotiations from the six-way framework will have to tackle them. That in turn suggests that the five countries — South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — have accepted North Korea’s position that the nuclear weapons themselves are not at issue in the talks, a position it has taken since a Sept. 19, 2005 statement of principles.

North Korea reiterated the position when it returned to the six-way talks in December. North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-kwan said in Beijing on Dec. 22 that the North wants to discuss the issue of nuclear weapons when it no longer feels threatened because the U.S. has ended its “hostile” policy toward the North and mutual trust has been built up. “

North Korea has no intent to give up their weapons.  They are just trying to get what they can from the international community without giving up the half dozen nukes they now possess.  These nuclear weapons ensure regime security from an outside attack; that is something more valuable to a dictator like Kim Jong-il than any incentive the international community could give to him.

While North Korea is trying to get what they can in these negotiations, the US side is trying to maneuver the negotiations to where the perception that is created when these talks ultimately fail, which they will, it will be clear that the North Koreans are the ones to blame.  I am very pessimistic about this because I think no matter how these negotiations fail the US both politically and in the media will be blamed even when it is not the US’s fault.

The list of critics to the current policy is growing now with the resignation of Robert Joseph from the State Department who advocated financially strangling the North Korean regime.  Keep in mind that John Bolton as well has come out strongly against the current Administration’s North Korea policy.

Only time will tell who is right.

You can read more over at DPRK Studies.

Who can name where and what is this building:

Here are this year’s current Korea Finder Leader’s Board:

Mark-6

Peekstr – 1

James -2

Note that who ever totals the most points at the end of the year, I will purchase for them a Korea related book or DVD of their choice using the proceeds I have accumulated by people purchasing books from Amazon.com on my website.

Here, here, & here are good roundups of the people who claim to support the troops and not the war. The shredding of US flags here and here are particularly nice ways to demonstrate your support for the troops.  Read and decide for yourself.

You would probably have to be in the Army to find this funny, but here is Great Moments in Reflective Belt history:

(HT: Milblogs)

Via OFK, is this fine report from Michael Totten about his trip to Kurdistan in northern Iraq. In his report he mentions this about the ROK Army Zaytun unit serving in Iraq:

Iraqi Kurdistan is technically occupied by a foreign power, but this occupation surely ranks among one of the most absurd in human history. Dr. Ali Sindi, advisor to Prime Minister Nechervan Barzani, told me that South Korea is the official occupier of “Northern Iraq.” Korean soldiers are stationed just outside Erbil in a base near the airport. He laughed when he told me the Kurdish military, the Peshmerga (“those who face death”), surround the South Koreans to make sure they’re safe.

Andy at the Marmot’s Hole feels that Totten is slighting the ROK Army’s contributions in Iraq. I have been posting on the ROK Army deployment since its inception and here is a roundup of my thoughts on this issue.

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For background on this posting I highly recommend you read my prior postings here and here.  Anyway, today officially marks the day the Appeal for Courage petition has overtaken the Appeal for Redress petition.  As of this posting Appeal for Courage has had 1,730 signatures compared to Appeal for Redress’s 1,727 signatures.  Courage has overtaken Redress despite Redress being covertly backed by large liberal activist groups and supported by the largest liberal public relations firm in the country, Fenton Communications, which receives George Soros money.  Additionally Redress was formed by a former Amnesty International member who was planted into the military in an effort to create a perception of a "grassroots" uprising within the ranks against the President’s policy in Iraq.

Redress was launched last October before the mid-term elections and due to Fenton Communications it has been featured in past few months in hundreds of newspapers, a CBS News 60 Minutes special, and backed by Yahoo to name a few prominent media supporters.  Despite all of this, Appeal for Courage has overtaken Redress in just 37 days with very little media publicity.  This is a real grassroots effort, much like the Gathering of Eagles this past weekend, that will receive very little media attention despite outnumbering those who the mainstream media is giving all the coverage to. 

This is great news, that General Bell plans on moving USFK bit by bit to Camp Humphreys:

Bell stressed that units will begin to move to Humphreys, as the facilities are ready.

“We’ve agreed ever since day one — and we’re going to execute this — whenever facilities are ready for a unit to move into, we’re going to move them,” he said. “So I would anticipate as soon as buildings … are completed and if we have room, we’ll begin to move units down there — small ones.”

The plan isn’t to wait until the entire project is complete in five years, he said.

“So there’s not going to be a giant movement one afternoon of thousands of Americans to Pyeongtaek,” he said. “It will be a deliberate effort, and it will be gauged against the completion of appropriate facilities.”

I said this back in January that if the Korean government is committed to delaying the USFK relocation than the command should begin moving units from either Yongsan or 2ID down to Camp Humphreys bit by bit just to show some kind of physical progress that the relocation is going to happen.  Preferably I hope that General Bell gets the 2nd Infantry Division moved off the DMZ and to Camp Humphreys first.  2ID should be moved first so soldiers in the division can take advantage of the new family housing and facilities planned for the Camp Humphreys expansion.  Yongsan already has some family housing and plenty of good facilities for soldiers.  Moving 2ID first would overall increase the quality of life for USFK soldiers as a whole, not to mention removing 2ID from their vulnerable position on the DMZ to North Korean artillery. 

Additionally like I have said before I will be amazed if all of Yongsan is turned into a city park after the relocation, and my prediction is becoming increasingly true:

“The original plan for the headquarters is clearly different now than it was two years ago,” he said. The original master plan called for the Combined Forces Command to move to Humphreys.

“Hundreds of Republic of Korea staff officers and commanders and leaders would have moved down there with that operation,” he said. “That is now not going to happen.”

South Korea will form its own new headquarters with the transfer of OPCOM.

Bell said he assumes South Korea will build the headquarters in Seoul to house what he refers to as a “Republic of Korea Joint Forces Command.”

"Build the headquarters in Seoul", any guesses what that quote means?  As was pointed out at Nomad’s place, it appears Yongsan may have some new tenants after USFK moves out.  The apartment developers are not going to like that. 

Any guesses when the first unit will move down to Camp Humphreys?  I say 2009, 2ID begins to move their first units there. 

Nomad is right, it is about time that USFK has finally cracked down on the housing scam that has been going on for years if not decades in Korea.  General Bell has taken another chip out of the USFK gravy train.