The hypocrisy of the response to this incident when compared to the 2002 US military tracked vehicle accident that killed two South Korean junior high students is so obvious:

A court has upheld a decision to cancel the driving license of a South Korean citizen who killed one soldier and wounded two while driving under the influence in North Korea.

The Seoul Administration Court Thursday ruled against a man identified as Chung, who filed a suit against the Seoul Police Agency chief after his license was canceled. Chung, an employee with a subcontractor of Hyundai Asan, was prosecuted in July this year and sentenced to one year in jail with a two-year stay of execution. He killed and injured three North Korean soldiers in Mt. Kumgang while driving a passenger car in December last year.

In the event of a car accident at Mt. Kumgang and Kaesong Industrial Complex, North Korea has investigation rights over the case and South Korea decides on the punishment, according to the Justice Ministry¿s directives. The bench affirmed that the cancellation of Chung¿s driver¿s license was right, given that he drank immediately before the accident and drove at an inappropriately fast speed, although the victims could be blamed to some extent.

In the 2002 accident, the two soldiers involved were not speeding, were not drunk, and committed a legitimate accident that unfortunately killed the two girls.  Candle light protests, demands that the SOFA be changed so the US soldiers could be sent to Korean jail, violent protests including the infiltration and storming of Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu, the kidnapping of US soldiers from a subway, stabbing of the USFK public relations spokesman, banning of Americans from many restaurants and businesses, along with ultimately President Roh Moo-hyun being elected by running on a anti-American platform followed this tragic accident.

Now compare the 2002 accident to the above incident.  A South Korean man kills one person and injures two others while speeding and driving drunk and complains because his license is taken away.  No candle light vigils and no calls for justice from the Korean people and not even a stiff jail sentence from the government.  I’m willing to bet the average Korean probably doesn’t even know about this incident.

The greatest hypocrisy has got to be the SOFA agreement with North Korea that the South Koreans have.  Under the US SOFA agreement a soldier on duty cannot be tried by a Korean court such as what happened in the 2002 accident.  Only soldiers who commit crimes while off duty can be tried by a Korean court which has happened since the 1960’s.  The US SOFA is something of continuous complaints from many quarters of Korean society but yet the SOFA they have with North Korea allows a South Korean civilian driving around drunk to be tried in a South Korean court where he ends up losing his license?

Well at least he got more punishment than when a Korean civilian rapes a US soldier.  In that case no one received any punishment at all.

I have to agree with Nomad on this one:

“I am not a successful president and I am sorry to the people about this. I think it’s due to my lack of political capacity.”

It took 4 years, a sagging economy, the slow motion rupture of the US-ROK alliance, North Korean missile and nuclear tests, a spy scandal, and a 5.7% approval rating before South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has finally admitted the obvious, he is a failure.

Now since he has admitted he is a failure let’s see if he will make any course corrections over the last year of his presidency like holding the North Koreans accountable for anything, strengthening the US-ROK alliance by helping to complete the USFK relocation that has been delayed by North Korean sponsored anti-US groups, and completing the Free Trade Agreement with the US. If he is able to do those three thing over the next year he could earn some respect for his presidency in the long term though currently he is quite possibly the worst president in the short Korean presidential history.

Is it possible President Roh can score lower than a 5.7% approval rating?

From CNN:

What James Kim, 35, encountered searchers would later describe as rugged, steep, snowy terrain with sodden branches, slick rocks, downed trees and poison oak nestled between sheer cliffs.

Despite those conditions, authorities said, he covered an estimated eight miles before rescuers on Wednesday found his body in a ravine.

“It seems superhuman to me that he was able to cover that amount of distance given what he had and also that he had nine days in the car” before setting out, Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson said.

“I’m amazed,” searcher Robert Graham told reporters. “We spent hours down there and made very little distance. … The conditions were very rough. It’s been cold, the terrain is so rugged, just spending one day out here is very exhausting.”

Keep the Kim family in your prayers today.  More over at the Marmot’s Hole.

UPDATE: OFK and the Marmot’s Hole has more on the billion dollar tribute to North
Korea.

___________________________________________________________________

US and Korea conclude USFK cost sharing agreement:

South Korea and the United States on Wednesday struck a deal to increase Seoul’s share of the cost of maintaining American soldiers here in 2007 and 2008 by 6.6 percent, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

Korea will contribute a total of 725.5 billion won ($780 million) next year, up 45.1 billion won from its share this year, and its share in 2008 will be 725.5 billion won plus the rate of inflation in 2007, ministry officials said.

“We could conclude the agreement with the U.S. side on the phone,’’ a ministry official said. “Both sides are not totally content with the result of the negotiations, but I think it is the most reasonable result based on the spirit of the Seoul-Washington alliance.’’

The deal was struck after six rounds of negotiations between Seoul and Washington.

South Korea is going to contribute $780 million dollars to USFK next year which is still less than half the overall USFK costs. Prior to this agreement South Korea payed roughly 40% of USFK’s costs; this new agreement means they are paying roughly 46% of costs.

Let’s compare the $780 million dollar cost sharing agreement to the amount of money Seoul sends to North Korea. While North Korea was busy creating international instability with their ballistic missile and nuclear bomb tests, the South Korean government was busy sending them a record amount of humanitarian aid. The South Korean government sent $227 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid while private donors in South Korea sent $70 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid for a grand total of roughly $300 million dollars in humanitarian aid to North Korea.

On top of the humanitarian aid, the Korean government this year sent 650 billion won or about $690 million dollars in inter-Korean economic aid to North Korea to finance joint Korean ventures such as the Kaesong Industrial Project the and Kumgang Tour operations.

So if you add up the humanitarian aid and economic aid sent to North Korea by South Korea this year, it comes up to nearly $1 billion dollars in aid while the South Korean government payed only 40% of the cost sharing for the US-ROK alliance for a total $735 million dollars. In effect the South Korean government is willing to pay the North Koreans more money than they are willing to pay for cost sharing of the US-ROK alliance that has been responsible for ensuring the economic, political, and national security of the nation for over 50 years.

Then to make matters worse the US negotiators had to then haggle for months to get the South Korean government to raise their cost sharing contributions by a only 6.6% to $780 million dollars this year while planning on continuing to give North Korea a billion dollars in aid next year despite their provacative ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

This is still a major story in the US:

A mother and children who lost their way in a blizzard have been rescued after more than a week in freezing temperatures, but the Korean American father is still missing, AP reported Tuesday.

James Kim (35) and family, from San Francisco, disappeared after visiting a friend’s house in Oregon and heading back along the coast. Oregon police conducted an intensive search for the family that involved helicopters equipped with heat sensors and search dogs to the scene. They eventually found Kati Kim (30) and her two daughters Penelope (4) and Sabine (7 months) holding on inside the family car.

The three were rushed to a local hospital, where they are recovering. But the husband, who struck out on his own to find help, remains missing. At around 7:45 a.m. last Saturday, James Kim left the family, saying if he could not find help he would head back to the vehicle by 1 p.m., but he never returned.

Seachers still have not found Mr. Kim but feel they are closing in on him as they have found articles of clothing he left behind.  It is unclear if he left them behind as a signal of his where abouts or if he is suffering from hypothermia.

best UN ambassador in recent memory for the US has been forced to resign due to partisan politics:

Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday. Bolton’s nomination has languished in the Senate’s Foreign Relation’s Committee or more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.

Critics have questioned Bolton’s brusque style and whether he could be an effective public servant who could help bring reform to the U.N.

Bolton has been critical in getting North Korea related resolutions passed through the United Nations. Kim Jong-il can now sleep a little bit better at night because the walrus is gone simply because of partisan politics in the US. Bolton’s political critics won’t give him an up or down vote in the Senate simply because he would probably win the vote, so they have buried him in the committee.

OFK has more and I like his idea on who the next nominee for UN ambassador should be.

The Korean Teacher’s and Educational Workers Union is at it again:

The students went up on stage and told participants they had distributed anti-war badges around the nation in protest against the Iraq war and said they felt unifying the two Koreas was a way to create “a world without wars.” They also joined the former communist guerrillas in the shouting of their old slogans against “imperialist Yankee soldiers” and the “puppet regime of Syngman Rhee.” Kim, who also instructed his students to operate an online group that opposes the U.S.-led war in Iraq, now serves as an official with the KTEWU’s North Jeolla Province chapter.

Only in Korea are communist guerrillas teaching anti-Americanism considered part of a school’s cirriculum. Any bets if North Korean spies are behind this as well? OFK has more.

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward continues to be the most recognizable advocate of bi-racial children in Korea:

Eight biracial children from South Korea are visiting a famous friend of similar heritage – Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward.

The children, ages 9 to 16, landed Saturday at Pittsburgh International Airport, where Ward greeted them and local host families at the start of a four-day visit sponsored by the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation.

Ward established the foundation to help mixed-race children during a trip to South Korea earlier this year. He pledged an initial $1 million, a portion of which would be given in his mother’s name to express gratitude for her sacrifices during his childhood.

Ward was born in South Korea to a black American soldier and a Korean mother but grew up in the United States. He shot to fame in South Korea after winning MVP honors at the Super Bowl.

On Saturday, Ward thanked the Steelers and Pearl S. Buck International, an organization that promotes interracial adoption and programs to combat discrimination against children, for their support of the trip.

It is good to see Hines Ward still being active in being an advocate for bi-racial children, especially since the issue has completely dropped off the radar since his visit to Korea last spring. Since Pittsburgh has no hope of going to the Super Bowl this year, he has no chance of winning another MVP award to put this issue on the radar in Korea again.

One Free Korea has a great analysis of this Chosun article that discusses OPLAN: 5029 which as far as the ROK government is concerned is treated as if it is a dirty word:

The South Korean and U.S. defense chiefs in October gave the green light to strategic guidelines known as Concept of Operations Plan 5029, which include outlines for a joint response to sudden changes in North Korea. This will allow the two armies to cooperate in giving concrete shape to the plan, devised during the Kim Dae-jung administration in 1999, and ensure they are ready to deal with North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction.

A government source on Thursday said then-defense minister Yoon Kwang-ung and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed off on the strategic guidelines in October. “Under the strategy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command will complete CONPLAN 5029 by the end of next year,” the source added. The plan has been controversial between the two nations. North Korea, Seoul fears, will be particularly sensitive about the plan, which prepares for contingencies such as a sudden crisis in North Korea as the Stalinist country suffers tighter international sanctions over its nuclear test. Details of the guidelines have not been released, but they reportedly include ways of handling a seizure of North Korean WMD by hypothetical rebel insurgents and their attempt to take them out of the country, and a mass exodus of North Korean refugees.

The South Korean reluctance to plan for the internal collapse of North Korea, something that is just as likely to happen as second Korean War, should be looked at as ideology compromising the national security of the nation. A collapse of North Korea with no contingency plan between South Korea and the US would make the incompentent occupation planning before the Second Gulf War look like the second coming of the Marshall Plan.
The Roh administration’s incompentence to plan is clearly evident now that North Korea misbehaved any way by testing their ballistic missiles in July and their recent nuclear test.

Read OFK for a whole lot more analysis on OPLAN: 5029 controversy.