The Chosun has a really surprising editorial condemning efforts by left wing Korean politicians who are trying to get the US to apologize for the Taft-Katsura Agreement signed in 1905:

In the secret accord, signed in Tokyo in 1905, the U.S. and Japan acknowledged the latter’s control of the Korean Peninsula and the former’s control of the Philippines. Korea was at the time already in Japanese hands as a result of Japanese victories in wars with both Russia and China. Calling for the U.S. to be held to account for the agreement is tantamount to asserting that it should have intervened on the Korean Peninsula even if that meant risking a war with Japan.

(…)

To blast the U.S. for failing to intervene in one instance and for intervening in another, for not seeing one attack on our sovereignty (by Japan) but seeing another (by North Korea) is tantamount to damning the U.S. if it does and damning it if it doesn’t. While anti-American acts may seem profitable gimmicks for our politicians and America-bashing is rewarded with popular applause, we should also think how such careless accusations make us look in the eyes of the international community.

It is hard to believe that this common sense dare I say, “pro-American” article, came out only a few days after the same paper published this piece of anti-American crap. Both articles are a great example of the love/hate relationship Korea has with the US. The left wing politicians really need to get over obscure history references that have little to do with Korea today. Stop focusing on the past and have a vision for the future. Actually the left wingers do have a vision for the future; unfortunately it involves tearing down the MacArthur statue in Inchon and replacing it with Kim Jong Il’s likeness. When that happens I don’t think anybody will care about the Taft-Katsura Agreement then.

Are the values of today’s US military becoming incompatible with Catholic teachings? Here is one opinion on this issue:

“It is therefore with sadness that I say today’s soldiers, are in general, but with definite exceptions, a disgrace to their predecessors. The world over, this once honorable institution is becoming a den of sex maniacs, sadists, and hedonists, much as the world in general is.”

My instincts have always been pro-military. My grandfather was a U.S. Army Captain and WW-II veteran, and he was one of the best men I have ever known. My great-uncle also served proudly in the same conflict. These men have been profoundly influential in my own development, and they would be shocked and disappointed to hear me say anything against the military as an institution. We need our military, and we need our men-at-arms to do unpleasant things. But I am beginning to wonder whether American military life isn’t becoming radically incompatible with Catholicism.

I disagree with the author’s point of view on this. The author believes that today’s military is over sexed, anti-gay, and glamorizes killing compared to prior generations of soldiers in the US military. I tend to think each generation of soldiers had it’s own problems unique to its times. Today is no different.

During World War II the military was still a racist and sexist institution and even had segregated military units. Isn’t this more morally reprehensible than some kid today listening to Heavy Metal music and with a Maxim picture hanging up in his room? Plus the World War II generation of soldiers also took part in their fair share of prostitution during the war and especially during the occupations of Germany and Japan. Is this not also incompatible with Catholicism?

Let’s look at Vietnam. During the Vietnam War the military made strides at improving the racist culture in the military. At least their wasn’t segregated units any more, however the civil rights movement began during this time and racial tension was still very real within the ranks. Also during the Vietnam War soldiers also had their fair share of prostitutes, foul language, nudy mags, etc. The one thing that was unique to the Vietnam War was the amount of drug abuse. Not that drugs haven’t been used before, but during the Vietnam War they were used heavily which reflected the culture of drug abuse in America at the time.

Now let’s look at today’s military. You have an all volunteer force which means you probably are not going to have to many Harvard graduates in uniform. So basically the majority of the soldiers are from the middle to lower middle class of American society. What is prevalent today in those classes: Rap music, rock music, Maxim, Hollywood movies, Playstation, Internet, etc. Is it no surprise that soldiers bring these values with them into the military?

Let’s look what we don’t have in today’s military. The Army has made huge strides against racism and sexism. There are times when I am standing in formation and looking around, I am just amazed by the different ethnicities represented in the formation all working together for a common cause. Plus each one of them has an equal opportunity to improve themselves, seek promotions, and additional responsibility not hindered by the color of their skin, sex, ethnicity, or religious background. I’m willing to bet there is not a more integrated institution in America than the US military.

Today’s military is still battling drug abuse like the rest of society, but the monthly urinalysis program has allowed the military to greatly reduce the amount of drug abuse since the Vietnam War by identifying drug abusers and either getting them treatment or removing them from the military all together. Also today’s soldiers are more educated compared to prior generations of American soldiers. The vast majority have graduated from high school and many have proficient technical and computer skills before they even enter the military. Plus once they are in the military the military offers many opportunities for soldiers to take college course and advance their education.

Today’s military does have its problems in regards to sexual assault which stems from the fact that the military is now well integrated between both sexes and that makes sexual assault a more prevalent problem today than compared to earlier generations of soldiers who served in mainly all male militaries.

Soldiers today also listen to rap and heavy metal music, read Playboy, hang up Maxim pictures in their rooms, and play violent video games, but they didn’t learn this by coming into the military. They got taught this by the society that put them in the military to begin with. But I will take these soldiers over a drafted, racist, sexist, and drug abusing military any day.

So is Catholicism compatible with today’s military compared to prior generations of soldiers? I think so, but those who think prior generations of soldiers were better may need to ask themselves if they are really offended by the nudy mags, foul language, and the rap music of today’s soldiers or more offended by the racism, drug abuse, and gender inequality of prior generations?

Hat Tip: Katolic Shinja

The Stars and Stripes today is running an article the Korean contracted security guards providing proper force protection for US Army camps here in Korea:

Recent news reports blasting civilian contracted security at a handful of Army bases in the States and the U.S. European Command’s decision last week to conduct a comprehensive force protection assessment of all installations and facilities in the theater should not worry base residents in South Korea, officials here said.

That’s because anyone seeking to enter an installation here illegally would be up against multiple layers of gate security controls, including Korean National Police who patrol outside the bases, the 1,400 civilian guards who work inside the gates and the soldiers and technology that round out the package.

When I read this I began to immediately think of all the Koreans illegal on post gambling away despite all the security measures. The article did address this at least:

Stuart said 99.9 percent of the (contracted guards) are top notch. But anytime you gather a large group of people, he added, you’re going to have a few bad apples.

One example is the occasional television news story in which a reporter will secretly film himself bribing his way onto a U.S. installation usually the first step in getting footage of South Koreans illegally gambling on base slot machines.

The amount of Koreans gambling away at on post slot machine areas is due also to a systematic problem of people being signed in on post by ID card holders who then allow them to go to the slots, as well as corruption. Some may remember this scam uncovered last April when a Korean woman who was an ID card holder was signing people on to Yongsan for $30 a pop. The police found her bank account containing $1.2 million dollars from the scam.

You would think somebody would have noticed this woman coming in and out of Yongsan continuously with new customers the past three years. Not to mention employees at the casino noticing her dropping people off at the casino every day. That is why I think there was probably Korean employees complacent in this scam. I am willing to bet these activities are continuing on today. Just go to the on post slots or golf course. You think everyone in there is a valid ID card holder?

Terrorists have struck again on the Indonesian tourist island paradise of Bali. Almost three years to the day the Islamic terrorists bombed Bali night clubs in 2002 the terrorists now struck a popular shopping and dining area on the island:

The blasts struck the seaside area of Jimbaran Bay and the bar and shopping hub of Kuta, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away at about 8 p.m. Saturday night (8 a.m. ET).

In addition to the 26 fatalities, hospital officials said 102 people were wounded. One of those who died was a 16-year-old Australian boy, officials said, while South Koreans, Americans, Japanese and Britons were among those wounded.

There was in fact six South Koreans injured in the blast:

Six South Korean tourists were injured in a series of bomb blasts on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali Saturday, South Korean Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

Lee also added the 28-year-old South Korean, identified as Shin Eun-jung, underwent eye surgery, but she was listed in stable condition.

It is not official yet that this was an attack carried out by Islamic terrorists yet, but it is more than likely an operation carried out by the notorious Indonesian Islamic terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah:

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned Saturday’s bombings as an act of terrorism. There were no claims of responsibility.

The 2002 bombings were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.

So why are the terrorists striking Bali? Bali is a mainly Hindu enclave in the world’s most populous Muslim country. The terrorists have no qualms killing Hindus and foreign tourists on the island. Plus terrorism on Bali dries up one of the main sources of tourist income for the Indonesian government. Less money the government has in it’s coffers means less money to keep a stable democratic government functioning.

However, not everyone thinks that the attacks may have been carried out by Islamic militants. This from Chinese Xinhua News Agency:

Saturday night’s bomb blasts in Bali could have link with fuel oil price hikes which were felt by the people as a very heavy burden, the official news agency Antara quoted a political observer as saying.

“They pressured (the government) by resorting to terrors. Their message is to lower the fuel oil price or else the terror acts will continue,” the observer added.

Sounds pretty outrageous to me to resort to terrorism because of fuel prices. Why Xinhua would even give this theory creedence is beyond me. However, it is going to be interesting to see if the Indonesian government is going to take the strong measures necessary to crack down on the Islamic militants within Indonesia. So far they have been using the kid gloves on them hoping they would just go away. It is clear now that the terrorists will not go away and will continue to strike within Indonesia to undermine and weaken the democratic government of the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

There is a very interesting interview in the Chosun Ilbo featuring Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, who was the man responsible for the vision that made the extremely popular Cheonggye Stream project in downtown Seoul a reality. The interview featured a number of interesting questions but a couple of them stood out to me. Here is the first question I found the response to quite interesting:

Have you had difficulties being Seoul mayor as a member of the opposition party?

“There were major traffic problems with construction going on in the heart of the city. Authority over traffic rests with the central government and police, but there were difficulties owing to poor cooperation. When we had to remove 1,500 stalls, not one policeman helped.

This just doesn’t sound right, that the police did not do their jobs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the mayor in charge of the local police in Korea? Mayor Lee should of fired all those policemen that would not have helped.

Here is the second question I found the response interesting to. The question was about what he would do if he was the President of Korea:

“The biggest problem facing our society at the moment is employment; the most basic thing to make the people happy is to create jobs. One cannot create jobs through cutting-edge IT and BT industries alone. In a country of 50 million people, you can create jobs only by appropriately endowing the country with high-tech industries, financial services and manufacturing. In order to foster national competitiveness, we must cut prime costs by decreasing distribution costs. Transport costs from Seoul to Busan are similar or greater than those between Busan and Los Angeles. The Seoul-Busan Canal plan I announced during the 14th National Assembly is a comprehensive plan to foster national competitiveness and create jobs. A leader is someone who endlessly gives the people vision and hope.”

Building a canal from Seoul to Pusan would have to be one of the greatest engineering feats ever. It is hard enough to make highways here in Korea due to the mountainous terrain much less a canal. I don’t know if I was him if I would run for President based on this idea alone because this would be highly controversial. However, the recently completed Cheonggye Stream project was also controversial initially and now is considered a widely popular accomplishment. What I like about Mayor Lee is that he is a visionary and a leader. Isn’t it refreshing to hear a politician in Korea talk about doing great things in the future instead of focusing on rewriting past history?

Anyway, with all the fan fare over the opening of the stream I had to take a trip down to Seoul and see what all the excitement was all about. I was pleasantly surprised that the Cheonggye Stream project really has beautified this once dingy part of Seoul. I really hope that this will be a continuing trend to beautify Seoul and create a better international image for the city.

I do have some concerns about the Cheonggye Stream project, however. The stream is very clean and beautiful right now, but will the city authorities be willing to take the necessary measures to keep it that way? Will this stream after a few months have garbage lieing in it from picnickers, and cigarette butts & soju bottles scattered around from pedestrians? Will people walking along the stream have to dodge moped drivers using the stream as a shortcut to beat traffic?

Judging by the current performance of the Korean police force in upholding traffic and littering laws, I really have my doubts that the stream will remain in it’s current state. I am willing to bet that in the future the entire stream will have to be shut down for periodic cleaning and maintenance due to visitors polluting the stream. I really hope I’m wrong on this and that Mayor Lee does everything possible to keep the area beautiful but I have seen to many times before, while hiking in Korea, how people here pollute their own natural streams in the mountains, why should people treat an artificial stream in the middle of the city any differently?

I was reading Nomad’s post about Army recruiters not making this year’s recruitment goals and I began to think that the Army was the only branch of the military that was tasked to expand by 30,000-50,000 soldiers so not meeting the recruitment goals is not at all that surprising. All the other branches of the military that were not required to expand, met their recruitment goals. If the Army was not tasked to expand it would have met it’s recruitment goals as well.

Then I read this post from Greyhawk that tipped me off to this great post from the Big Lizard that explains that the Army is not yet in a recruiting crisis much more elegantly than I ever could:

So let’s review the betting: among people who have never been in the service, and who therefore probably get nearly all their knowledge of the military from news and entertainment shows on TV and in the movies, recruitment is slightly down from expectations, though probably enough to maintain the level of troops we have now.

But among soldiers who have actually fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who therefore know what is really happening on the ground from personal experience, re-enlistment rates were met. In fact, since the goal is to retain more people than normal (to meet the goal of increasing troop strength by 30,000 — right?), it’s safe to bet that the re-enlistment goals were higher than in previous years… which means there are more veteran troops in the Army than before, which would partially mitigate the lower numbers of raw recruits.

Since one experienced soldier is worth several kids straight out of boot camp, I’d say we got a bargain.

I agree that combat veterans are worth much more to our Army than just raw recruits and the Army is keeping their veterans in the service.

Let me give this issue some ancient historical perspective to better understand the importance of combat veterans. In 331 B.C., Alexander the Great brought 45,000 seasoned combat troops into battle against roughly 250,000 Persian soldiers during the Battle of Gaugamela located ironically in Northern Iraq near Mosul. This battle would decide who would rule all of the vast Persian Empire. The Persian King Darius was over confident that his vastly, numerically superior force would crush Alexander’s army. He let his numbers deceive him because many of his soldiers were peasants given a spear and little armor and put out on the battlefield against a harden Greek army with the best armor, weapons, and tactics available during those times.

To make a long story short, Alexander’s army outnumbered 5-1 crushed the Persian Army using their experience, weapons, and tactics. This allowed the Greeks to rule the greatest empire of the time, Persia unopposed. Alexander’s army would continue to roll up victories based on the fact that he was able to keep his hardened warriors and not rely heavily on raw recruits. Alexander never lost a battle because of this .

Although today’s American Army may not be able quickly expand it’s overall numbers, it is succeeding in keeping it’s combat veterans. This fact along with arming our soldiers with the best weapons, protecting them with the best armor and equipment, plus continuing to develop innovative combat tactics will ensure that America’s military remains the strongest in the world.

A few years ago I would never would have imagined that the old 2nd Infantry Division commander, General Russel Honore’ would one day have his own clothing line based off of one of his trademark statements, Don’t Get Stuck On Stupid:

Though the comments were directed at lazy, biased reporters who keep framing things in terms of former events like Vietnam or Watergate, Don’t Get Stuck On Stupid is a powerful statement about not repeating old mistakes. It can be a political statement or an expression of personal self-growth. To celibrate Lt. General Honore’s simple truth, we are offering apparel embroidered with Don’t Get Stuck On Stupid in a military stencil font.

General Honore’ has many other trademark phrases they can make T-shirts of as well. The only problem is that many of his best phrases involve 4 letter words you probably wouldn’t want to repeat in front of your kids.

Most people that follow the whole North Korea nuclear crisis know that North Korea won’t give up their nuclear weapons just like we know the US won’t build a light water reactor for the North Koreans as well. However, for those that remain unconvinced here is an interesting article in Time Magazine by Henry Solkolski that lays out why the light water reactor proposal is doomed to failure:

Second, respecting the peaceful nuclear rights of such an egregious cheater as Pyongyang can hardly help the international campaign to dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons under the cover of an energy program. As one Indian security analyst put it, “Why should India back Washington’s effort to refer Iran’s nuclear misbehavior to the United Nations?” North Korea withdrew from the NPT, made bombs, and has a covert uranium enrichment program it denies exists—yet Washington has affirmed its right to nuclear power plants. Why not treat Iran—an NPT member with an internationally inspected, overt enrichment program—the same?

Consider his enriched-uranium-bomb project. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf testified to Pyongyang’s receipt of assistance from Pakistan’s uranium-enrichment guru, A.Q. Khan. But Pyongyang denies having a program, and U.S. intelligence agencies don’t know where or how many enrichment plants exist. It’s unlikely inspectors could operate any more freely in North Korea than they did in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. There’s no good way to locate Kim’s nukes using special technology. Inspectors will have to ask the regime to learn more, and Kim is sure to demand that the U.S. make concessions for every answer. In this game, Pyongyang’s deck will always be larger than ours.

Make sure you read the rest on your own.

Looks like the PATRIOT guys in Suwon are in trouble again. I don’t know much about Suwon Airbase but it sure knows how to air it’s dirty laundry:

The Army in South Korea is investigating an allegation that a male soldier carried out or attempted a sexual assault on a female soldier in a barracks at Suwon Air Base last week, Stars and Stripes has learned.

According to a unit member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, an incident occurred last week and led to the woman accusing the soldier of sexual misconduct toward her.

The issue of sexual assault is not just a Suwon Airbase thing but a problem throughout the Army and USFK as well. Just for whatever reason the PATRIOT guys seem to be taking the brunt of the publicity surrounding sexual assaults in USFK. I guess we will see how this turns out. I know one thing, if this guy is guilty no one will tear his rank off in court this time.

The Mayor of Seoul, Lee Myung Bak is reporting that the city government is in negotiations with the Walt Disney company to build a theme park here in Korea:

Seoul, South Korea, Mayor Lee Myung Bak says the city is in talks with The Walt Disney Co. about opening a theme park there, according to media reports Tuesday.
The park would be Disney’s third in Asia. It opened one in Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, and the company’s newest park, Hong Kong Disneyland, opened Sept. 12.

According to reports, a theme park in South Korea could boost the economy by nearly doubling tourist visits. Hong Kong Disneyland officials have said they expect the park to generate $19 billion in benefits to Hong Kong over a 40-year period. It is expected to attract 5.6 million visitors each year.

I doubt Disney will build a theme park in Korea because it would dilute the two theme parks they already have here in Asia. However, if Disney does build a theme park in Seoul it would be a major coup for Mayor Lee and would probably solidify him as a front runner for the next Korean presidential election.