The Korean Eco-Nazis are trying to evict two dogs from the disputed Dokto Islets:

But now, the “guardian dogs’’ of the islets _ Komi and Mongi _ are likely to be expelled as the Cultural Heritage Administration has officially requested that the island police remove the animal.

The administration has said that the five-year-old dogs are damaging the eco system of Dokdo by killing fork-tailed petrels and black-tailed gulls.

The administration discovered that the dogs have also eaten the birds’ eggs. The black-tailed gulls are designated by the government as a precious natural treasure.

I find this so stupid because there is no way those two dogs can eat all the birds on Dokto. I have been to Dokto myself and I can confirm that is going to take a heck of a lot more than two dogs to eat all the birds on those two rocks. The amount of birds that nest on Dokto was one of the first things I noticed about the place. There is definitely an impressive amount of birds that live there.

I got to give the Coast Guard credit they are not giving up the two dogs without a fight:

Despite the decision by the cultural institution, police do not have an immediate plan for the dogs’ removal.

Instead, they will ask members of the coast guard to set up stricter guidelines concerning the animal.

“They are the guardian dogs of the coast guard and part of their family. They were born on the island and were raised there, too. We will keep the dogs with us,’’ said an official at the police agency, on condition of anonymity.

“The dogs have been our friends and they are loved by tourists as well,’’ Seo Jung-pyo, a head of the coast guards, said on the phone.

Give these coast guard kids a break out there. Dokto has got to be a horribly boring assignment at least let these guys keep their two dogs.

Plus I always got to roll my eyes when I hear Korean environmentalists talk about protecting the environment here in Korea. Something that just constantly frustrates me during my travels, is all the litter left by picnickers and hikers along the Korean streams and mountain trails. I still have never read anything from Korean environmentalists condemning this, yet they go after these two dogs.

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Check out the GI Korea Dokto Photo Album for some great pictures from these infamous islets.

This is not very surprising, but Korean National Soccer Team Coach Joe Bonfrere has resigned his head coaching job:

Jo Bonfrere has stepped down as coach of the Korean national football team. The Korea Football Association (KFA) convened a technical committee meeting Tuesday and announced that Bonfrere had expressed his intention to resign. It said a new coach would be named next month at the earliest.

Bonfrere saw the writing on the wall and resigned before he got fired. I don’t really hold Bonfrere responsible for all the problems the national team is having because he is not the one missing all the open shots during the games; the players are. However, coaches always get fired before players so it will be interesting to see how this all works out with the World Cup only one year away.

Any chance you think that they may hire a Korean coach?

A highly sensitive military secret code has been leaked on the Internet:

Army investigators have started into a leak of secret military decryption codes on the Internet. A military source said Monday, a cryptographic code, a class-three military secret, was discovered on an Internet website. “We are tracking the leak and checking the accuracy of the document.”

Cryptographic codes are used to decipher encoded messages, and authorities are checking if the leaked code is currently in use by the military. If it is shared across the board, the armed forces would have to change the way they encrypt confidential communication.

The code was leaked on the Internet by using a picture of a document that contained an actual Army lieutenants name on the document with the code. Somebody is going to get in deep crap over this I’m sure. With UFL going on and so many new people on TDY here in Korea and the vast numbers of ROK Army soldiers on all the US camps, it will be extra difficult to trace who leaked the code.

In honor of Operation: Paul Bunyan I have decided to start a series called, Then and Now, to highlight the rapid changes and development of the Korean peninsula. Look for more Then and Now in the future.

The Bridge of No Return Following Operation: Paul Bunyan:

You can see the left over stump from the tree cutting in this picture

The Bridge of No Return Today:

At the bottom of this picture you can see the plaque commemorating Operation: Paul Bunyan

Here is an article in the Korea Times that really bothers me:

Last week, the Association put up a big display in the newly remodeled shopping area across from Central Station. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of independence from Japanese colonial rule, but they were looking back a little farther, all the way back to 1905, in fact, when Japan formally annexed Korea. Each signboard in the display had a little logo commemorating the 100-year anniversary: 40 years under the Japanese, 60 years under the Americans.

The creators of the signboards put them in chronological order, pulling out all the stops to blame the U.S. for just about every evil that has befallen Koreans in the past 100 years.

These sign boards were put up in the blue collar city of Ansan by the People’s Solidarity Association blaming America for everything within the last 100 years of Korean history which coincidentally enough mirrors Unification Minister Chung Dong-young historical allegations against the US last month.

The signs first of all blamed the US for annexing Korea to the Japanese in 1905 As I have stated before, the US was protecting its colonial interests in the Philippines at the time and had no responsibility in defending Korea against Japan. The people that should have been defending Korea at the time, this may shock some of the revisionists, are the Koreans! Koreans have the responsibility of defending their own country. The lack of modernization and internal bickering caused by the ineffective leadership of the king and the corrupt yangban class is what made Korea easy pickings for the Japanese.

Also America in 1905 was not the America of today. We did not have an Army and a Navy that could just pickup and go to Korea and defeat a competent military force such as the Japanese. The US did not even have the ability to defeat the Japanese if they attacked the Philippines much less Korea. This was proven true decades later in World War II.

The US made the right decision for its own national interests at the time. The ultimate responsibility for national defense relies with the nation itself. The Koreans have defeated past Japanese aggression before with competent leadership which is what they lacked in 1905 and that is not America’s fault.

The sign boards were also blaming America for the division of the peninsula. It is true that America divided the peninsula by occupying South Korea, I can’t argue that. I guess the People’s Solidarity Association would have rather had the Russians occupy the whole peninsula so that Korea could be united. How many people are willing to bet the Russians would of packed up and left and that Korea would have the economic might it has today? Eastern Europe should serve as an example of what Korea would have been. It would have been a Soviet client state with an authoritarian government, low living standards, and a stagnant economy. Not the dynamic Korea of today.

An additional sign board of course blamed the US for the Korean War, which once again the United States came back and freed the southern half of the peninsula after the South Koreans could not defend themselves once again in part to poor leadership from the Korean President and internal strife between capitalists and communists in the south. Then of course no anti-American display would be complete without the Nogun-ri incident being brought up, which I have already previously posted about.

The final example from the article I will provide of the historical revisioning going on, is that the US gets blamed for the Gwangju Massacre. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that tragedy involve Koreans killing Koreans? The US military does not control the ROK Army in peace time only in war time. Plus does Korea really want the US military taking an active role in their internal affairs?

I fully agree with the columnist’s closing points regarding this revisionism going on in Korea:

I saw two problems with the display in Ansan. One is that it was an effort to whitewash history, a subject that Koreans ought to be particularly sensitive to. When I walked by it, the display was crowded with school children who had just gotten out of class. What the Solidarity Association is doing is teaching these impressionable youth to hate America without giving them the full historical picture or the capability to judge for themselves.

The second problem is that _ and you won’t hear me making this argument too often _ the Americans are being mistreated in what should otherwise be a civil democratic debate.

These same groups that accuse the Japanese of whitewashing history are the same people whitewashing Korean history to fit their own distorted political agendas against the United States. Plus they are focusing their propaganda on the Korean youth. Many in the younger generation do not have the life experience to decipher propaganda from fact and take much of the propaganda to be the truth.

Finally this whole topic of the USFK withdrawal from Korea should be a civil debate. The US obviously wants to have a smaller footprint here with the continuing troop withdrawals from the peninsula and the plan to relocate USFK forces away from the DMZ to the Pyongtaek area south of Seoul. If the US forces are not wanted here than Korea should have a national referendum on whether to withdraw USFK forces from the peninsula. The problem is that no ROK political leader wants to put themselves out on a limb pushing for a USFK withdrawal because the economy may suddenly collapses afterwords which they would be blamed for. A strong leader would push for this referendum none the less but the current ROK leadership doesn’t even have the political leadership to get a land deal in Pyeongtaek done right now.

Liberation after World War II, 36,000 lives lost during the Korean War, and over 50 years of stability and economic development on the Korean peninsula provided by the United States should be worth at least a face saving withdrawal off of the Korean peninsula instead of this crap we are going through right now.

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If you haven’t had enough anti-Americanism for one day read this additional article in the Korea Times. I can always count on the Korea Times to provide me the latest in anti-Americanism.

Korean female golfers continue their recent surge of success with Kang Soo-yun bringing another LPGA title home to Korea:

Five years after debuting, South Korea’s Kang Soo-yun finally claimed her first LPGA title, also marking the 15th Korean _ South Korean or of Korean descent _ winner in the tour, at the Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore., Sunday.
Kang scored a 3-under 69 in the final round, to a three-round total of 15-under 201, four strokes ahead of compatriot and British Open winner Jang Jeong to earn the fifth Korean title of the season. With $210,000 in prize money, Kang jumped to 13th place on the Tour’s money list at $633,417.

It marked a memorable tournament in Korean LPGA history as the top five spots of the leaderboard were all occupied by Koreans for the first time. Gloria Park followed Kang and Jang in third at 10-under 206, leading Kim Joo-mi by two strokes. Yim Sung-ah shared fifth place with Beth Daniel of the United States at 7-under.

Of course, Nomad has plenty of good pics of the latest sexy Korean female golfer.

South Korea’s newest heart throb is not even Korean; he is, get this an American from Michigan:

A somber crowd at Tom Ford’s ready-to-wear fall 2005 Gucci collection in South Korea erupted into cheers as 25-year-old Daniel Henney strode into the spotlight in a tight fitting, all-black outfit earlier this month.

“Women gushed and sighed all night as they peered — again and again — into their digital cameras and mobile phones that captured the distant image of Daniel Henney in three impossibly sexy Gucci suits.”

Henney’s mom was also at the event and learned full well what Korean mobs, or what I like to call ajumma rugby is like:

“It was unbelievable the things they asked him to sign — shoes, clothing, pictures, ultrasounds of their babies…” she said.

“There had to be at least 500 people there,” Christine said. “We walked in and all of a sudden we just heard everybody scream, cameras going off. It’s unbelievable the way everybody recognizes him. We almost got smothered and had to run out the back without eating.”

His mom is actually an interesting story as well because she was left at the doorstep of an orphanage when she was an infant:

A highlight of the trip for Christine was visiting an orphanage she had been adopted from by Americans in 1958. This was the first time Christine had been in Korea since she was an infant. She and her son visited the site of the former Isabelle Orphanage in Pusan, where her parents had left her on the doorstep.

“I wanted to get the feeling of the sense of the orphanage and how the children were cared for and what they were like,” she said. “It was quite emotional. When I got out of the car and saw the building that they had searched and found for me, I was just overwhelmed.”

She was adopted at 1 years old by American parents and moved to America. Her son hopes to become a spokesman for mixed race orphans here in Korea. He should contact the American USO because they run good programs that support many orphanages around Korea. I’m sure they would appreciate his help.

I think more ROK Army soldiers will be ready to commit suicide if this plan goes through:

In a campaign to boost the morale of its conscripted soldiers, the Defense Ministry released four new rap and pop songs that were recorded by soldiers who are also famous performers.
Among the performers are Private Yoon Kye-sang, former member of boy band g.o.d., Private Hong Kyung-in, a former actor, and Private Park Kwang-hyun, a former actor and singer.

An official who participated in the project said, “Using these songs will show the Army’s effort to improve its image.”

Only in Korea.

29 years ago today, Operation Paul Bunyan was launched in response to the brutal axe murders of two US Army officers stationed on the Korean demilitarized zone at Panmunjom.

The two officers, CPT Arthur Bonifas commander of the security company at the JSA and his executive officer 1LT Mark Barrett on August 18, 1976 led a 5 man Korean Service Corps detail along with a six UNC soldier guard force to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of a guard shack located at the Bridge of No Return.

Here is an account of the incident from the book Hazardous Duty:

At 10:30 that morning, the KSC workers set up two ladders and started pruning branches. Five minutes later, a North Korean truck rolled up and disgorged two North Korean officers and nine enlisted men. The senior Communist officer was First Lieutenant Pak Chol, a veteran JSA guard known to have provoked scuffles with UNC personnel in the past. He asked Captain Kim what work was in progress and was told that the KSC team was only pruning branches. Lieutenant Pak muttered, “That is good.”

In their normally officious manner, the North Koreans began to coach the South Korean workers on the proper method of branch pruning. This was an obvious attempt to usurp the authority of the American officers, so Captain Bonifas told the men to simply get on with their work. Twenty minutes passed, and then, for no reason, Lieutenant Pak marched up to Captain Bonifas and ordered him to halt the trimming.

Bonifas refused, adding that his men would complete their job and leave. Lieutenant Pak shouted that anymore branch trimming would bring “serious trouble.” Captain Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett had heard such threats before. They ignored the Communists. Still strutting and shouting, Lieutenant Pak sent away for reinforcements. Ten more Communist guards arrived by truck, and six more came trotting up from nearby guard posts. There were now thirty North Koreans surrounding the thirteen UNC soldiers and five KSC workmen. Lieutenant Pak was screaming now that any additional trimming would mean “death.”

The UNC Quick Reaction Force was monitoring the situation by radio and photographing the scene with a telephoto surveillance camera.

Captain Bonifas turned his back on the angry Communist officer to make sure the workers continued the pruning. He did not see Lieutenant Pak remove his watch, wrap it in a handkerchief and stick it into the pocket of his trousers. Nor did he see the other North Korean officer rolling up the sleeves of his jacket. An American NCO strode forward to warn Captain Bonifas.

At that moment, Lieutenant Pak screamed, “Chookyo!” Kill!

North Koreans Attack the Tree Trimming Detail

What proceeded to happen after that is the North Korean soldiers attacked the two American officers with their own axes and mattocks. The two officers were bludgeoned to death and the attack was only stopped when the driver of a two and half ton army vehicle drove at the attackers and over the mutilated body of CPT Bonifas dispersing the attackers. The North Koreans then quickly proceeded to run back across the Bridge of No Return. Overall two US officers were killed, 4 US soldiers injured, and 4 ROK Army soldiers were injured in the melee.

The North Koreans at the time had been committing a series of aggressive attacks on US and ROK soldiers. The North Koreans were trying to provoke a war by creating a US backlash. In 1976 the US had by then down sized the US commitment of soldiers to defend Korea by withdrawing the 7th Infantry Division leaving only the 2nd Infantry Division which remains today to help protect Korea. Plus the US was just coming out of the humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam that had greatly sapped the morale of the military and the American public. All during this time the North Koreans had undergone a large build up of forces themselves to the point where they had a two to one advantage over the UNC forces.

Kim Il Sung felt he could militarily defeat the UNC Army at this time, but he needed the UNC to attack him first to secure the backing of world opinion. If the US conducted a bombing campaign or any other direct show of force on the North Koreans war would of broke out and Kim Il Sung could blame the Americans for it and legitimize his invasion.

Kim Il Sung got his response from America which demonstrated America’s resolve in protecting Korea’s freedom with Operation Paul Bunyan.

Something substantial had to be done in response to the North Korean aggression but war was something the US did not want to be responsible for starting. However, if the North Koreans wanted war the US was making preparations for it. All the forces in Korea went to the highest state of alert DEFCON-3. Soldiers in the both the US and ROK Armies moved North to their battle positions, extra naval power was brought in, SR-71 flights were increased over North Korea to monitor troop movements, and F-111 bombers capable of dropping nuclear munitions were flown overnight from the United States to Korea.

This massive show of force by the United States had the desired effect of causing the North Koreans to take a defensive posture. SR-71 reconnaissance photos showed the entire North Korean country preparing for invasion. This had to have a psychological effect on the North Koreans because they had always trained and prepared for an offensive against the South Koreans and now here they were back on their heels.

With the military build up complete something had to be done about that tree. That tree stood as a challenge to all free men. It was decided that the tree must go. Here is more from the book Hazardous Duty:

Every operation needs a name and General Stilwell’s was appropriate: Operation PAUL BUNYAN. The key elements were surprise, speed of execution and withdrawal, and avoidance of direct engagement with North Korean troops. Our forces would include soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division, as well as ROK Special Forces and Recon troopers of the 1st ROK Division. Altogether, a force of 813 men would be involved. Task Force VIERRA (named for Lieutenant Colonel Victor Vierra, commander of the USASG) would conduct the actual tree cutting. The unit would include sixty American and ROK guards, divided in two platoons, armed with sidearms and pickax handles. The ROK men were Special Forces; each man was a Black Belt in TaeKwonDo. They would guard two eight-man engineer teams who would actually cut down the tree with chain saws. A truck-borne ROK reconnaissance company, armed with M-16 rifles, mortars, and machine guns, would be prominently deployed just outside the JSA: crack South Korean troops defending their own soil. They would be beefed up with American tube-launched optically tracked wire-guided (TOW) anti-tank-missile teams.

Vierra’s troops were backed up by other elements of the division, including a reinforced composite rifle company from the 9th Infantry Regiment, which would be orbiting aboard twenty Huey helicopters a few hundred meters south of the DMZ, supported by twelve AH-1G Cobra gunships. Tank-busting F-4 Phantoms would be prowling at a slightly higher orbit. F-111 medium strategic bombers would orbit still higher, and be clearly visible to North Korean radar.

To complete the demonstration of firepower, three batteries of American 105mm howitzers were to be moved across the Freedom Bridge north of the Imjin River. Another three batteries of ROK heavy artillery would be positioned just south of the river in clear view of North Korean positions. The gunners, Stilwell said, would have “rounds in the tube and hands on the lanyards.”

Operation PAUL BUNYAN was scheduled to begin at exactly 0700, the morning of Saturday, August 21, 1976.

At that precise moment, a massive flight of B-52 bombers from Guam would be moving ominously north up the Yellow Sea on a vector directly to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. In the Sea of Japan, Task Force 77.4’s aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Midway, would launch forty combat aircraft that would vector north above international waters.

The ROK Army Tae Kwon Do black belts were specifically selected by South Korean president Park Chung Hee himself to deal with any possible North Korean interference in the tree cutting.

UNC Soldiers Trim Tree Near the Bridge of No Return

A total of 13 chainsaws wielded by soldiers from the 2nd Engineer Battalion were used to cut down the tree. The first branch of the tree was cut at 07:18 and the entire tree cutting was complete by 07:45. Saving face is a very important social factor in Asia and after the tree cutting all that remained was the stump to remind the North Koreans of the extreme loss of face that had just received by the US and ROK soldiers.

In fact days later the North Koreans would offer a statement of regret for the incident and a plan was worked out to remove four North Koreans guard points south of the Military Demarcation Line. The massive US and ROK show of force had made the North Koreans back down, make concessions, and lose face. This was definitely not the result Kim Il Sung had expected.

Today where the stump once stood is marked with a plaque and the part of the tree that was cut down was once housed in the 2ID Engineer Brigade headquarters which this summer has deactivated and the tree was planned to be moved to either the Ft. Leonardwood Engineer Museum or the 2ID Museum on Camp Red Cloud.

Though today tensions may not run as high as they were on the DMZ in 1976, however the Panmunjom Axe Murder Incident should still serve as a reminder of the nature of the North Korean regime and the commitment of the United States military and the ROK Army to protect freedom and democracy on the Korean peninsula. The sacrifice by CPT Bonifas and 1LT Barrett is just another example that freedom is in fact not free, especially here in Korea.
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For more on Operation Paul Bunyan check out the following books:

This is interesting, that the US is still deciding whether to turn over the PFC involved in June fatal traffic accident to the Korean authorities:

U.S. Forces Korea has filed for a two-week extension to decide whether it will release criminal jurisdiction to South Korea in the case of a U.S. soldier who was driving a military truck that struck and killed a woman.

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice requested a “release of criminal jurisdiction,” on July 26 and USFK had 28 days to respond or to request a 14-day extension.

USFK legal officials requested the extension on Aug. 18, said command spokesman David Oten, and must make a final decision by Sept. 1.

U.S. officials have said they “will thoroughly review the matter and give full and sympathetic consideration to this request.”

Now the family of the deceased Korean civilian has already said they don’t want to have the driver punished for the unfortunate accident yet the local police submitted a request for trial of the PFC never the less. I find it surprising that USFK hasn’t made a decision on this matter yet. The only thing I can think of is that they are seriously considering handing the PFC over as a sacrificial lamb to quell anti-US sentiment.

Can you imagine if this soldier goes to jail over this even though the family has already said they don’t want him too? I think what may be happening is that there may be a pre-trial agreement in the works between the Army, the family, and the local court to possibly try the soldier in Korean court and offer a plea bargain that includes no jail time but an apology and hefty compensation from the Army to the family. This would be an arrangement that would make everyone happy.

Once again this is just speculation on my part, but I guess we will see what happens on this issue by September 1st.