Nathan over at Seoul Hero posted a rant about the amount of K-blogs with word kimchi in it. Just to poke fun at him I mentioned that there are a lot of blogs with Seoul in it’s name as well. The Big Hominid agrees and posted this hilarious post and the amount of blogs with Seoul in it’s title. There are a lot of blogs with Korea in it’s title as well including mine so maybe I should change my blog title too. Anyone have any suggestions?
I don’t know about you, but trips to Thailand to train doesn’t sound to bad to me:
Six A-10 fighters deployed at Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province recently moved to Thailand for training before returning to their base in Korea, a source with the USFK said. USFK pilots have gone to U.S. air bases in Alaska, Thailand and Japan for training before, but the duration and frequency of training outside Korea is growing due to controversy over the bomber range, he added. A total of 20 A-10 jets nicknamed ¿Tank Killer¿ are deployed in Korea.
Sources also said U.S. pilots have increasingly sought to avoid postings with the USFK since August, when the old Maehyang-ni bomber range was shut down after years of complaints from locals. Performance in aerial bombing drills has a direct impact on the promotion of pilots.
It costs plenty of time and money for USFK pilots to train elsewhere, a military official here said, and this could eventually lead to questions being asked in the U.S. press or the Congress. That in turn could mean the U.S. Air Force moves elsewhere, the official said. Rumsfeld, in the 37th Security Consultative Meeting last October in Seoul, already indicated that could happen if Korea is unwilling to provide adequate training facilities for its pilots.
I guess it does make sense that training scores do reflect on their officer evaluation reports. However, the ball is clearly on the Korean’s side of the court to do something about this bombing range fiasco. Of all things in the US-ROK alliance that the Koreans cannot afford to lose is the US Air Force and yet here they are jerking around the Air Force. It is really unbelievable.
Yes, that’s right, anti-Americanism in Korea is all President Bush’s fault because a Yale professor said so. The Joong Ang has an interview with Korean-American Harold Hongju Koh, the Dean of the Yale Law School. Most of the article is pretty much what you would expect from someone who served in the Clinton Administration and is now at Yale. Lot’s of Bush sucks, neo-cans are bad, and Christians are even worse which he is entitled to his opinion on, however at the very end of the interview he said something caught my eye because it has no basis in fact:
How do you see the current state of U.S.-Korea relations?
From our vantage point, from a journalist’s vantage point, the U.S.-Korea alliance is very shaky and Korea-U.S. relations are very tense. I have many objections to how U.S. foreign policy has been conducted, and I can understand why allies have objections. I also am very struck by the amount of anti-Americanism here. Korea is a country that has always been affectionate toward America. They were partners in the Korean War and many Koreans emigrated to the United States, like myself. I think that most Koreans have real affection toward Americans. It’s American policies that bother them and draw attention. Policies change from administration to administration.
Why a say this has no basis in fact is because the key issues of anti-Americanism in Korea have nothing to do with US governmental policy. What does the protesting of an US Air Force bombing range have to do with US governmental policy? What does the 2000 water dumping incident have to do with governmental policy? What does the 2002 armored vehicle accident have to do with US government policy? Or my favorite the “polluted” USFK base issue. The list goes on and on.
The fact is that these people are not protesting and spreading anti-Americanism due to current US policies because you don’t see masses of people protesting over the US stance on North Korea compared to a traffic accident or the water dumping incident. The reason for anti-Americanism in Korea are much more complex than that and aided by Korean politicians looking for short term political gain. So just to simplify anti-Americanism in Korea as solely Bush’s fault is intellectually dishonest at best, but I guess it is to be expected from someone looking to blame their own failed North Korea policies with the former Clinton Administration on someone else.
The DPRK on Friday blasted a planned military drill by the US and South Korea, demanding that the two countries cancel the plan.
“This is an extremely dangerous (case of) playing with fire, intended to ignite a war against the DPRK,” said a spokesman of the Korean National Peace Committee (KNPC), quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“This is a dangerous development indicating their intention to further strain the situation on the Korean Peninsula,” the spokesman added.
“The U.S. and South Korean authorities should immediately cancel their plan for the reckless joint military exercises as they will only push the situation on the Korean Peninsula to (an) extreme level of tension,” he said.
The exercise, known as Ulji Focus Lens 2006, is scheduled to take place from Aug. 21 until Sept. 1, involving 8,000 U.S. troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers.
It will be one of the two large-scale U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises to be held this year.
The U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command described the exercise features computer-simulated war games conducted at command posts and will not include field maneuvers.
In a way this really isn’t surprising; here is another scandal that makes Korea look stupid in the eyes of the Japanese and anyone else in the world that follows this stupid Dokdo issue. The Dokdo Museum on Ulleongdo Island has apparently forged an old Korean map in order to make their point that Dokdo historically belongs to Korea. On the original map in question, the island of Usando, which Korea claims as being the ancient name of the Dokdo islets is shown located to the west of Ulleongdo and closer to the Korean mainland. The actual islets of Dokdo are located far to the southeast of Ulleongdo thus making the claim of Usando actually being Dokdo impossible. Usando is actuality is probably the originally name of Jukdo Island which lies just off the coast from Ulleongdo. However, the Dokdo Museum in their infinite wisdom doctored the originally map and moved Usando to the east of Ulleongdo Island to bolster their claim that Usando is in fact Dokdo.When are the ultra-nationalists in Korea going to learn to stop their antics over Dokdo? The chopping off of fingers, eating Japanese flags, the Dokdo Riders, political pilgrimages to Dokdo, grandstanding, stabbing yourself in the gut, graffitting foreign cities, and now forging old maps does nothing to help Korea’s cause to lay claim undisputed claim to the Dokdo Islets. These antics only make Korea look like some undeveloped third world country with unstable citizens. This stereotype gives the Japanese the moral high ground on this issue since they approach it in calm, deliberate manner.
The best thing Koreans could do is to just shut the hell up about the whole Dokdo issue. Korea physically owns the islands, with a ROK Coast Guard contingent stationed there, so what is Japan going to do about that? Dokdo is like the Israel of the East Sea. No matter how much the Japanese complain, the Koreans are not ever going to leave that rock and the Japanese know it. They are not going to go to war over the islets, so they are pulling a page out of the Islamic militant playbook of creating a very negative image of Koreans over this issue through the media which if a time comes where a diplomatic solution is being brokered for the islets the Japanese have a stronger hand due to their stereotyping of their opponent. What is even better for Japan is that they don’t even have to try very hard to do it. The ultra-nationalists and the incompetent Korean government are more them willing to make themselves look stupid and ridiculous to the rest of the world in order to score some cheap political points back home domestically. All of this domestic demagoguery by the Korean nationalists and politicians only plays into Japanese hands and hurts any case the Koreans could possibly make to an international arbitrator over this issue if that time ever came.
If you want to learn more about the historical claims on each side of this issue make sure you check out these postings by the Flying Yangban and Gerry Bevers. Also check out the GI Korea Photo Archive which has recently uploaded photos from my trip to Ulleongdo as well as my Dokdo album. They are each very informative, but at the end of the day looking at all the evidence I don’t think either side has a very strong historical claim to the islets. However, the Koreans were the last ones to occupy the islets and still maintain a presence there today. That is good enough reason for me to say let them have it, but could the ultra-nationalists and politicians in Korea at least shut up about it? Some how I just don’t ever see that happening.
Like I said before, it didn’t take long for doping allegations to come up against the Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. What I don’t understand is why the doping allegations are made public before ever being proven?
Who would of thought a Tae Kwon Do match would break out at a soccer game?:
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will today investigate ugly scenes involving North Korean players after they lost their Women’s Asian Cup semi-final in Adelaide last night.
Trouble erupted deep in stoppage time when North Korean players thought they had equalised against China but the goal was disallowed for an off-side infringement.
Play continued but at the final whistle, and as the Chinese started to celebrate their 1-0 win, frustrations among the North Koreans boiled over with four or five surrounding Italian referee Anna De Toni and one appearing to push her.
Television footage also showed a player seemingly aiming a kick which missed De Toni as she and her assistants were escorted from the ground by security guards.
Korean players were also seen throwing plastic bottles which had been thrown onto the ground.
Maybe they thought it was an Aussie rules match?
UPDATE:Â The jury has found the private not guilty of rape:
A military jury early Friday morning found Pvt. Darren W. Williams not guilty of raping and sodomizing a woman last August in his barracks room at Camp Humphreys.
But the jury found Williams guilty of disobeying a direct and lawful order. He had pleaded guilty to wrongfully leaving the post after his off-post pass privileges were revoked when he became a suspect.
The soldier has a psychologist to thank for saving him from jail:
Army Maj. Matthew Cody, a forensic psychiatrist assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, said he conducted two psychiatric evaluation sessions with the woman. Cody testified she also told him that on the day of her visit she put on fishnet-thong panties and wore no bra because she thought that would increase her appeal to Williams.
Cody said the woman told him she performed a sex act on Williams and that they had intercourse for what she thought could have been about an hour. Afterward, the woman did not want to go home, Cody said she told him, mainly because she feared her father would be angry she’d visited Williams against parental instruction.
The woman said that after they had sex, Williams called her ¿stupid,¿ which hurt her feelings and made her want ¿payback,¿ Cody testified the woman told him.
The psychiatrist said he asked her if she wanted payback for any other reasons. ¿I was waiting for her to say, `Rape!¿¿ Cody testified, but the woman said no, there were no other reasons.
Cody also disputed testimony Wednesday from Air Force Maj. Jennifer Chow, a psychiatrist testifying for the prosecution, that the woman had mental problems that made her unable to handle decisions about whether to consent to sex, and that she had developed post-traumatic-stress disorder after the incident.
Both Chow and Cody testified the woman has a low IQ of about 75.
Pretty convincing testimony and this is what I assume turned the jury towards the defendant’s favor in this case. However, he is still in some deep trouble with the violations of direct orders given to him by his command, which will probably end it up in a Field Grade Article 15 against the soldier. Depending on his past performance history the command may be able to chapter him out of the army if he has had past discipline problems. However, this guy ought to just consider himself very lucky that a Field Grade is all he is probably going to end up with.
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This is why you don’t have sex in the barracks:
Lawyers at Camp Humphreys made opening arguments Tuesday in the jury trial of a soldier charged with raping and sodomizing a woman in his barracks room last August.
Pvt. Darren W. Williams, a cook with the Army¿s 249th Military Police Detachment, pleaded not guilty to rape, forcible sodomy and disobeying orders of a superior commissioned officer, prosecutors said. But he pleaded guilty to wrongfully leaving the post after his off-post pass privileges were revoked when he was a suspect in the case.
Prosecutor Capt. Yong J. Lee portrayed Williams as a ¿predator¿ who took advantage of a mentally handicapped woman in her early 20s.
The defense countered that the woman had consensual sex with the soldier, then ¿cried rape¿ to deflect her parents¿ wrath.
Apparently this girl may be autistic which the defense of course disputes. Here is why these rape allegations are not always cut and dry:
Defense lawyer Capt. Jack Ko told the jury the case was one of a woman ¿who made a decision to have sex with someone her parents disapproved of¿ ¿ but ¿cried rape¿ when she realized MPs would tell her parents of her visit to Williams¿ barracks.
Ko told the jury the woman became acquainted with Williams when she reached him while attempting to phone her boyfriend.
Ko said that during further phone contact, the woman told Williams of her sexual preferences and pressed him to let her visit him at Camp Humphreys.
Showing the jury the woman¿s garments, Ko said that on Aug. 27, she ¿prettied herself up,¿ donned thong panties, a pink-and-white flowered tank top and pink skirt and traveled by bus to see Williams.
Once in his room, Ko told jurors, she kissed him, said she wanted to perform a sex act and had consensual intercourse.
Any of you all soldier out there with girlfriends, this is a perfect example of why you don’t bring them in the barracks and for women, why shouldn’t go to the barracks. Even if the defense claims are true, it is hard to disprove the prosecutions arguements when the assault happened in a barracks room. If the soldier had her agree to go to a hotel room instead and then she cried rape afterwards than the defense would have a stronger case to defend the soldier. We will see what happens, but from what I read it doesn’t look good for the soldier.
I wonder if it is at least as good as Google Earth?:
South Korea sent a satellite into space on Friday primarily for geographical surveys but also for possibly spying on North Korea, which raised regional security concerns by launching missiles earlier this month.
The 900-kg (2000 lb) Arirang-2 satellite, launched in Russia, can take high-resolution pictures of the earth’s surface, a government agency said. Experts said it would be the country’s most advanced surveillance satellite.
“The high-definition MSC (multi-spectral camera) will be able to give real-time visual data on North Korea’s missile launch preparations or military activities, which would be otherwise unavailable,” South Korea’s Overseas Information Service said.
At present, South Korea mostly relies on U.S. spy satellites and planes for aerial reconnaissance of North Korea.
Japundit has an interesting video up of former Korean President Kim Dae-jung not allowing the Japanese Emperor and his wife to pass by him during the 2002 World Cup that is worth viewing. For those of us who have lived in Korea before this should be familiar.
