This is good news for the United States National Missile Defense Program:

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The results will help improve the performance of a multibillion-dollar shield against an attack that could target a U.S. city with a weapon of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect large amounts of data rather than shoot down the target. But in a news release sent 24 minutes after the intercept, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, the Pentagon’s missile-defense chief declared it a success, apparently even before the data could be analyzed.

Look for the US media to down play the results from the test because that has been the constant chorus by the US press that the system is to costly and a failure, not to mention President Bush has been pushing the system which only encourages the media to down play the NMD program that much more.

However, if this system is continued to be developed and tested this really decreases Kim Jong-il’s blackmail power against the US.  Especially if USFK is withdrawn from South Korea.  Without US troops in Korea, if Kim Jong-il decides to threaten South Korea with a nuclear strike, this threat would have no impact on the US.  The South Korean government would have to solely pay the consequences of nuclear blackmail from North Korea.  The South Korean government wants independent defense let them have it and enjoy it.

Kim Jong-il may not currently have the ability to strike the US which as evident by his failed missile test, but that doesn’t mean he won’t in the future, so a system to counter these limited missile attacks I feel is definitely in the US’s national interest.

For anyone that thinks that the US government’s tilt towards Japan is driven solely by Washington’s desire to contain China, here is a link that shows that Tokyo & Washington’s relationship is much deeper than geo-politics in northeast Asia:

Japan has pledged US $29 million to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) efforts to boost rural development and the disarmament of thousands of illegal armed groups in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

UNDP’s office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said $23 million of the contribution announced on Thursday would be used to support rural development projects in the provinces of Bamiyan, Balkh, Nangarhar and Kandahar in conjunction with the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development(MRRD). The remaining $6 million would be used to support the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme.

Anita Nirody, UNDP’s country director for Afghanistan, said an estimated 2,000 illegal armed groups were involved in activities designed to destabilise the government and hurt the international community¿s ability to deliver much needed practical support to residents.

Nirody said the Japanese government’s very generous contribution was essential to the DIAG process. (…)

The $29 million was part of the $60 million pledged by Japan during a Tokyo conference on Afghanistan in July. Representatives from 53 countries and 15 international organisations attended the event. Japan has been one of post-conflict Afghanistan’s major sponsors.

Major John has more here on Japan’s contributions in Afghanistan.

The US is looking for allies in the future that deliver more than words or 3,000 soldiers cooped up on a base making toilet seats and Japan is showing a willingness to step up and fill that void. Japan due to constitutional constraints cannot do much militarily in support of the US (though this could change in the near future), but they are using their money and political power to aid the US from everything from Afghanistan, deploying troops to Iraq, and taking a leading role in containing North Korea.

This close relationship also has allowed Japan to successfully broker a deal with Washington over the sensitive issue of the US Marine presence on Okinawa. Notice how this issue was handled compared to the war time control and camp consolidation issue on the Korean peninsula. Activist groups on Okinawa protested the US Marine presence, but didn’t do a Braveheart style assault on a US military installation or attack individual US Marines like in Korea. The Japanese government didn’t encourage and finance anti-US hate groups or political leaders publicly make statements encouraging anti-Americanism, like in Korea. I could go on and on but I think everyone gets the point. All the theatrics by the Korean government and their anti-US hate groups destroyed any relationship of mutual trust that existed between the ROK and US sides, while in Japan the government built a relationship of mutual trust and negotiated competently and received a security deal favorable to their long term interests. What has all the theatrics from the Korean side gained them? An overly belligerent North Korea, a revitalized Japan, a sagging economy, and Yankee with one foot out the door leaving Korea with a huge security vacuum their not going to be able to fill by 2009 even with a massive tax increase.

The world changed and Japan reevaluated their interests to change with it and be a country that matters, the world changed and Korea thought it was still 1985.

First you have a Korean defense official saying the Korean government plans on reducing their yearly contributions to USFK and now the Chosun is reporting a Korean politician saying that the Korean government actually gives to USFK more than is reported:

The U.S. is refusing to acknowledge some US$300-400 million the Korean government gives to the U.S. Forces Korea every year, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan said Wednesday. The minor opposition party lawmaker came up with the figure by comparing materials from Korea’s Defense Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense, concluding that Seoul in 2002 gave the U.S. Forces Korea US$1.19 billion which the U.S. recorded as $843 million. That is a difference of US$349 million. For the year 2000, the gap between the two calculations stood at 388.12 million and for 2001 at 316.57 million. “The Korean government counted the funds provided to maintain the Korean Augmentation To the United States Army (KATUSA) program, but the U.S. didn¿t, and there were discrepancies on real estate rental fees as well,¿ Roh said.

Roh also said the amount Seoul pays for USFK upkeep should decrease if the wartime military control is returned to Korea since the USFK¿s role will diminish as well. Ahead of negotiations on the handover of sole wartime operational control, the U.S. is instead asking for an ¿equitable¿ divvying up of the upkeep. Roh commented it would be ¿ridiculous¿ for Korea to pay more once it has sole control of its troops.

First of all KATUSA soldiers are ROK ARMY SOLDIERS, let me repeat, ROK ARMY SOLDIERS not US soldiers. That is why USFK doesn’t count what little the Korean government pays these soldiers, which is about $40 bucks a month, as contributions to the alliance.

The Korean government for some reason seems intent on keeping the Zaytun unit in Iraq for whatever reason:

The Korean military¿s Zaytun Unit stationed in the Northern Iraqi town of Irbil has decreased by 890 troops since its original deployment, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced Wednesday. Additional cuts of about 100 will bring their number down to 2,300. With their mission also to end in December, the Defense Ministry is looking into submitting a bill to the National Assembly to extend their peace-building mandate there.

Troops of the U.S.-led coalition will most likely remain in Iraq next year, and the Ministry of Defense is investigating how to keep the remaining Zaytun troops there until late 2007. A contingent of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force conducting reconstruction work over the last two-and-a-half years in the southern Iraqi city Samawah was completely withdrawn last month.

Send them home already, you can only install toilets for so long.

From Yonhap:

South Korea will provide free physical checkups for all its conscripts starting in 2008 as part of efforts to improve their welfare, government and ruling party officials said Thursday.

In their plan, the military and the private sector will establish a cooperative medical system, and a military medical center will be built to help research and education.

Shouldn’t the military being giving physicals to the soldiers to begin with? They act like they are doing these soldiers a favor for something they should have been doing in the first place.

Just for everyone’s info, I have updated the GI Korea albums, What I Like About Korea, What I Don’t Like About Korea, and Only in Korea.  These albums continue to be popular with commenters, but just for the record just because I post something about things I don’t like about Korea that doesn’t mean I’m anti-Korean.  There is a lot to like about Korea which I have also listed, but only a fool would say Korea is a perfect paradise on Earth with nothing wrong with it.  I bring up things that I don’t like about Korea, not because I hate it but because I want to make it better than the great country it already is.  If I was so anti-Korean why would I waste my time upkeeping this site?  I spend the time upkeeping this site because I have a deep interest in Korea and try to provide a window into Korea from the perspective of a GI for people coming to Korea for the first time.  I often receive emails from soldiers coming to Korea for the first time with questions and hopefully these albums and the archives of this blog helps others with their transition to Korea as well.

If you don’t agree with something in my lists feel free to comment and share your two cents, but at least try to keep it civil.  You wouldn’t believe how many comments I have to delete because people go way over board with their language and slander of me, Koreans, Japanese, Americans, or whatever they have a grudge against.  Enjoy.

Hat tip to Nomad for pointing out this dandy, Kim Kyu-hyun, a Defense Ministry official claimed on a radio program that the Korean government is going to try and reduce the amount they pay per year for the upkeep of USFK:

A senior National Defense Ministry official said Wednesday that Korea will try to reduce its share of expenses for keeping U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula in the upcoming negotiations with the United States.

Appearing on a KBS radio talk show, Kim Kyu-hyun, a Defense Ministry official in charge of international cooperation, attributed the move to the reduced size of the U.S. Forces Korea and increased burdens on Korea for financing the relocation of the U.S. Forces Korea headquarters.

Referring to reports that Washington wants to link Seoul¿s plan to regain wartime operational control with the defense cost-sharing negotiations, the official said that the Korean government has no intention of doing so.

This cost sharing issue may really end up being the straw that broke the camels back in regards to if USFK under goes a complete pull out from Korea.  I find it totally hypocritical that a country that demands equality with the US won’t put their money where their mouth is.  The Koreans are only paying 40% of the costs of USFK and want to pay less even though Donald Rumsfeld has already publicly said he intends for Seoul to pay an equal amount.  The whole base relocation excuse for not paying an equal share is getting old because the South Korean government will make more than enough money to cover the relocation costs by selling the land from the vacated USFK bases being handed over to them.  So much for being equal partners in peace.

If anyone thought the English teacher bashing in Korea recently was bad it is nothing compared to what is going in China.  The Peking Duck reports about an internet man hunt currently under way in China to uncover the owner of this blog Sex in Shanghai who is an English teacher who had the audacity to blog about his sexual exploits with his students.

For months over at the China Blog List, I noticed that one blog always seemed to get good play, perhaps because of its curiosity-inducing name, Sex and Shanghai, and its subtitle, “Western scoundrel in Shanghai tells all.” I visted the site once, and that was more than enough. The last thing I need to do with my time is read an expat’s sex diary in which he describes in occasionally graphic detail his sexploitation of willing Chinese girls, many his former students. (The writing is excellent and the blogger offers some keen insights into the Chinese psyche, but all of that gets lost in the unending stream of pornographic reminiscences.)

China is still a conservative country, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that as this blog gained traction it would also gain controversy. So I read with great interest an account over at ESWN of how the Shanghai sex blog has been denounced by a Chinese blogger who’s also a psychology professor, leading to one of those famous Internet-generated “manhunts,” like the search for the deranged stiletto-heeled kitty killer.

Doesn’t this all sound familiar?

Anyway the translated portion of the said Chinese blog post announcing the man hunt can be read here.  The site owner now being hunted down had this to say in response to the man hunt.  What I found amusing in the comments sections in between all the comments wishing him death were the other comments bashing America and of course Korea.  This guy is not even an American he is British and yet this has opened another forum to bash America.  I’m sure this is only going to get more interesting.

Tags: china, english teacher

There is probably more to this story but I find this sentencing very strange:

A U.S. soldier was sentenced to five months¿ confinement Friday after being convicted in a court-martial of raping a close friend¿s wife.

Pfc. Jason R. Warder, assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, was allowed to continue his five-year career in the Army after admitting in court that a platonic relationship with the wife of one of his friends turned into a sexual relationship earlier this year.

One night when both he and the woman were drunk, he forced her to have sex, according to Warder¿s statements in court.

This is the first time I have seen a rapist allowed to stay in the Army or receive such a light sentence.  That is why I say there is probably more to this story because the sentencing is very strange for someone convicted of rape.  However, his command could still chapter him from the Army under other articles, but usually rape convictions lead to bad conduct discharges.

Anyway, the key thing to take from this story is once again a young soldier drunk on alcohol committing a crime.  I always hear young soldiers complain about USFK policies and regulations targeted against them, but is it any wonder when stories like this committed by young soldiers are a dime a dozen?

Here is an interesting article for fellow bloggers out there to see how much money some bloggers out there are making:

With Internet-like speed, blogs have gone from self-indulgent hobbies to flourishing businesses. Real businesses, with real revenue streams from real advertisers.

Boing Boing, a four-person operation that bills itself as a directory of wonderful things, is on track to gross an estimated $1 million in ad revenue this year. The digital-media news site PaidContent.org, headquartered in the second bedroom of a Santa Monica apartment, is set to post even more than that.

And Fark.com, a site packed with sophomoric humor run by a lone guy in Lexington, Ky., is on pace to become a multimillion-dollar property. In short, some of the most popular blogs, long the bane of the mainstream media, are themselves becoming mainstream. (…)

In recent months, big-name companies like Banana Republic and Coca-Cola (Charts) have for the first time run ad campaigns on blogs, in the belief that blog communities often consist of concentrated numbers of the passionate and influential people all marketers want to reach. Intel bought its first blog ad in March; now all its ads run on blogs as well as traditional outlets. Says Thom Campbell, head of media strategy for Intel (Charts), “The audience on blogs is the cream of the crop.”

Amazing, making a million dollars a year blogging.  I have a long ways to go before I make any money like that with this site, not that I blog for money anyway.