In central Iran, satellite photos revealed several tunnels being dug into a mountain near a nuclear weapons research facility. Several other nuclear research facilities have had some of their operations moved underground, but this tunneling operation is one of the most ambitious “protective” efforts yet undertaken. Iranian officials have been to North Korea, and seen the extensive underground facilities there. It’s possible, even likely, that North Korean engineers are lending their expertise (for a fee) to assist the Iranians in their tunnel construction. Tunnels for industrial facilities are not quite the same as highway, aqueduct or mining tunnels, which Iran has many of.
I did a little research and through Global Security.org I was able to locate the nuclear weapons research facility in central Iran. The facility is located 15 kilometers southeast of the city of Isfahan. The facility operates four nuclear reactors that were supplied by China. I did a little Google Earthing to locate the site. Here is where the city of Isfahan is located in relation to the rest of Iran:
Here is an image of where the nuclear facility is located in the vicinity of the city of Isfahan:
Here is a close up look at the nuclear facility:
Here is a still image of what this facility looks like:
To the northwest of the facility you can see the excavation occurring on the side of the moutain:
It appears that the center of the excavation is a possible concrete production facility to facilitate the construction of the bunker complex. I highlighted on the image two bunkers that I could see that appeared either completed or at least their entrances are completed. There is also what appears to be three possible large concrete buildings as well that may hide possible entrances to additional bunkers. I could also make out what appears to be digging for two more bunkers on each side of the excavation area where our industrious North Korean engineers are hard at work for the Iranian mullahs.
Just another example that the enemies of the United States have no problem collaborating and working together in order to undermine the United States and the world community in general.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle which means for the ruling Korean government and their leftist allies it is, Hide Your Head in the Sand Day. For those of you not familiar with the West Sea Naval Battle let me recap it for you.
On June 29, 2002, one day before the closing ceremony of the World Cup the North Koreans tried to draw attention from all the glory South Korea had been receiving from their amazing World Cup performance that year by prevoking a naval battle in the West Sea. The North Koreans planned for and executed a premeditated ambush of a South Korean patrol boat. In the ensueing clash six sailors were killed and 18 more were wounded.
This tragedy of the murdered sailors was bad enough for those left behind, but to make matters worse for the victims and their families, the South Korean government did everything possible to keep the grieving families quiet because they did not want to upset the Sunshine Policy with North Korea. So while politicians in the Korean government encouraged anti-Americanism in the aftermath of the US Army armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean school girls earlier in June 2002, the Korean government in turn did nothing to address the premeditated murder of six ROK sailors by the North Koreans.
The government even told the families to be quiet about the incident and sent no flag officers to attend a memorial ceremony or even offer any condolescences. USFK however did send representatives to the ceremony and USFK Commander General LaPorte offered the families his condolescences.
“If the indifference and inhospitality shown to those soldiers who were killed or wounded protecting the nation continue, what soldier will lay down his life in the battlefield?”
Here’s a quote from one of the fathers of one of the murdered sailors that really struck a cord with me:
The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal.
Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”
“Frankly, I hate Korea”, no those are not the words of a disgruntled expat or GI saying that, that is a Korean woman who had enough of the actions of the Korean government and left the country. She is not alone in her criticism of the Korean government over what happened in 2002.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper last year published a series of interviews from some of the sailors injured in the 2002 attack and here are excerpts of what they had to say:
Another naval gunner, Kim Taek-jung, 25, has given up his dream of becoming a civil engineer and is preparing for the civil service exam instead. “Because civil engineering requires active work at the site, I’ve made a realistic decision to become a public servant, I still have four or five pieces of shrapnel in my body,” Kim said. “One night I remembered the faces of my six dead comrades, but I couldn’t recall the name of one of them, so I sobbed all night.”
Although they suffer from sleepless nights and nightmares, those without external injuries are not entitled to benefits as “persons of merit.” Ko Kyug-rak, 25, also a naval gunner, said, “For over a year after the incident I was unable to sleep more than three hours a night.” Aboard the patrol boat that turned into a sea of flame, Ko saw his peers burned and their heads blown away and lost some of his hearing. But when he went to a military hospital to claim benefit, Ko was given cool treatment. “A doctor ignored the psychological problems and only asked me to show any external wounds,” he said. “If benefits for persons of merit are granted for this level of injuries, the doctor said, it would have an adverse effect on the state budget.”
Another wounded veteran, Kim Myun-joo, 26, has applied for meritorious benefit twice, but in vain. “I’m just sad because I feel like that post-traumatic stress disorder and efforts to safeguard the country are being neglected,” he said
Of the six victims this paper interviewed, three have office jobs and three are students, all trying hard to make a future for themselves despite the difficulties. What they want from the country is just one thing: that it remembers that many young people were killed or wounded while safeguarding the country on June 29, 2002. “I just wish they remembered the battle once a year, even if they don’t pay much attention. Nothing else,” said Lee Jae-yong, 25.
President Roh has never attended a memorial ceremony for the murdered sailors and I seriously doubt he will attend this one either. Really only the ROK Navy to their credit and USFK memorialize the event every year. The South Korean ruling party politicians hide their heads in the sand every June 29th because this incident is perfect example of the failure of the Sunshine Policy. The South Korean government gives massive amounts of aid to North Korea and what do they do? They murder Korean sailors. You give them more massive aid and what do they do? They fire a tactical ballistic missiles which further raised tensions in the region. You give them even more massive aid and what do they do? They build and test nuclear weapons.
The Korean government has learned nothing five years after the West Sea Naval Battle because they have increased the aid shipments this year to North Korea to a record of over one billion dollars while simultaneously refusing to fully fund the US-ROK alliance. Is it any wonder why North Korea is always so billigerent when they know they can continue to get away with it?
The Korean government is either in total denial about the nature of the North Korean regime or they just simply don’t care. The first responsibility of any government should always be to protect their citizens. The West Sea Naval Battle is just one example that the Korean government could care less what the North Koreans do to South Korean citizens. Hundreds of South Korean citizens have been abducted by North Korean commandoes and agents over the years from South Korea. A South Korean wife of one of the abductees had to mount her own personal operation to free her husband from enslavement in North Korea while the South Korean government did nothing. Even sadder are the hundreds of South Korean POWs which still remain in North Korea against their will. If the South Korean government could care less about the welfare of servicemembers serving their country now, is it any surprise they could care less about the welfare of South Korean POWs kept in North Korea in violation of the armistice agreement signed decades ago.
Certainly the Korean government has learned nothing and if the same type of incident were to happen again the reaction of the Korean government will likely be the same, which is pretend nothing happened. Unfortunately for the sailors and their families involved in the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle, something did happen and the memory of their sacrifices should be recognized by their government and the public in general.
USFK Commander General Burwin Bell built a memorial on Yongsan Garrison in memory of ROK Army soldier, SGT Yoon Jang-ho who was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Maybe General Bell should also build a memorial to the sailors of the West Sea Naval Battle as well.
Money at the heart of a dispute that caused North Korea to delay its nuclear disarmament was finally making its way Friday to the communist nation after months of delay.
The transfer of funds previously frozen in a Macau bank could lead North Korea to start shutting down its nuclear weapons program. But the North is certain to want to count every last penny of its $25 million before fulfilling a February pledge to stop making atomic bombs.
“The transfer is in progress,” South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy, Chun Yung-woo, told reporters Friday. “Let’s wait and see how long it takes for North Korea to confirm it.”
Just to remind people the BDA money was frozen by the US Treasury Department not because of the NK nuclear issue, but because of the totally separate issue of NK counterfeiting of US currency and then laundering of the money through Banco Delta Asia.
Additionally something else that is important realize and that the the media has consistently missed is that the return of the BDA money was never part of the February denuclearization agreement. It was a condition added by the North Koreans after signing the agreement because they knew the Bush administration was desperate to keep the deal together in order to show some kind of foreign policy success. To keep this charade of a foreign policy success together the Bush administration agreed to return the money despite the fact that it compromises US counterfeiting laws.
Once the US agreed to allow NK to receive the BDA money they made further demands that the money had to be electronically transferred. The North Koreans could have simply drove a truck to Banco Delta Asia in Macau and loaded it with the money and than chartered a plane to fly it back to North Korea. They instead made the demands for a wire transfer because it would allow NK to rejoin the international banking system thus overriding the US Treasury Department sanctions.
However, the money is so tainted that no international bank wanted anything to do with NK’s money. Amazingly enough the US State Dept. then tried to enlist the US Wachovia bank to launder Kim Jong-il’s money for him. Wachovia justifiably declined and the State Dept. was forced to use our own American Federal Reserve bank and a Russian bank to launder Kim Jong-il’s ill gotten money instead:
 Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing Macau financial authorities, said the funds were expected to be transferred through the New York branch of the Federal Reserve and Russia’s central bank to a Russian bank where North Korea holds accounts.
Russia said Wednesday it would allow one of its banks to transfer the funds if Washington gave written guarantees it would not fall foul of U.S. sanctions against North Korea.
It is incredible the lengths the current US government have gone to appease North Korea. The current appeasement policy makes former President Clinton’s 1994 Agreed Framework policy of appeasement seem mild in comparison. At least Clinton never agreed to launder North Korean money.
So now the big question everyone is wondering is if North Korea is going to denuclearize. I have said this over and over again and the answer is no. North Korea may shut down their reactor for awhile at some point after it has extracted all the aid and money it can get out everyone, but it will never give up it’s nuclear weapons.
Kim Jong-il developed nuclear weapons in order to appease his military eager to join the prestigious nuclear club and to ensure regime survival. He is using the current six party talks to buy time to perfect his nuclear weapons program. Once Kim Jong-il has successfully created a half dozen nuclear weapons he will be able to fully implement what Richardson at DPRK Studies calls Strategic Disengagement.
Before strategically disengaging, Kim will get all that he can from the international community in what I call the North Korean Freeze Tactic. He has already been successful in getting his $25 million dollars returned to him along with being allowed to rejoin the international banking system. He will continue to play out this nuclear issue as long as possible in order to extract whatever other goodies the US is willing to throw in for a nuclear freeze and buy more time to develop nuclear weapons program.
When there is no more goodies to be had and his nuclear weapon program has been perfected, his regime will withdraw content with the knowledge that the Kim regime can never be forcibly removed due to their possession of nuclear weapons and if times get tough they know they can always threaten the international community to give them more money and aid. Why not it has worked every time so far. In short they have guaranteed regime survival at the expense of the US taxpayer and American creditability.
I also highly recommend you read other views on this matter over at DPRK Studies and One Free Korea. Also make sure you read this Front Page Magazine piece from notable Korean author and journalist Gordon Cucullu and OFK’s very own Joshua Stanton. A great read and highly recommended.
Sometimes heroism in warfare is not always won on the battlefield. Heroism can also occur in the rear ranks by strong leaders organizing and motivating logistical and support units to operate at full capacity to support the frontline units. Often in warfare the rear logistical units can become to complacent due to their distance from the frontline combat units. This complacency inevitably causes inefficiency that ultimately effects the frontline soldiers. This inefficiency and displacement from combat often causes tension between the frontline and rear echelon units that usually leads to colorful names for the rear troops. This has been a fact throughout the wars America has fought. Frontline soldiers today often call the rear echelon troops Foblins (FOB is a forward operating base). During the Korean War they were known as REMF’s (Rear End Motherfu****s). It was these REMF’s that would lead to one of the most embarrassing incidents of the entire Korean War.
Koje-do is a large island located in the southeast of Korea. It covers some 383 squared kilometers and is the second largest island in Korea only behind Cheju-do Island. The island has much historical significance with it’s links to the legendary Korean Admiral Yi Sun-shin. Today the island serves as a holiday destination for people from Pusan and as the home of the Daewoo ship building industry. However, probably the most infamous incident in the island’s history has to be the Koje Island communist prisoner of war (POW) camp constructed on the island during the Korean War. Long before there was Abu Graib there was Goje Island. What happened at Abu Graib totally and utterly fails in comparison to the incompetence and horror of Goje Island during the Korean War.
During the increasing combat on the Pusan Perimeter the US and allied forces found themselves with increasing numbers of North Korean POWs. It was decided that a camp had to be constructed to house the POWs. Goje Island was chosen as the site because of the fact that it was an island making it difficult to escape and it was far from the front making rescue attempts impossible. Additionally it was away from Pusan thus preventing the vital port in Pusan being clogged due to the amount of POWs held there, if the allies had to withdraw from Korea. The area chosen on the island to build the site a flat valley near the center of island that had access to a seaport to resupply the island from. Hap hazard housing and facilities were constructed on the site and very quickly POWs began to fill the camp. After the successful Inchon Landing Operation the amount of POWs increased greatly as even more North Korean troops were captured by the allies. With the entry of the Chinese into the war the camp continued to fill up well past it’s maximum capacity.
The following facts should give you some idea of how overcrowded the POW camp was. The facts are from March 1952, in the article “Prisoner’s Island: Tension and Tedium Rule Koje’s Barbed-Wire World”. This was an extensive story about life for the prisoners on Koje island off the east coast of South Korea. The story appeared in Vol. 32, Issue Number 13, pages 92 to 98 in the March 31, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Here are the facts:
Koje had 3,000 Prisoners of War under the age of 17
170,000 prisoners lived there
38,000 of the POWs were Korean civilians pressed into Red armies
21,000 were Chinese POW’s
111,000 were North Korean POWs of both sexes between the ages of 6 and 63
60% of the Chinese POWs were illiterate
24% of the Koreans were illiterate
Messages were sent from compound to compound via dragonflies
Each arriving prisoner received about $50 worth of GI uniform
Compound 66 had 2,600 North Korean officers who believed in communism
6,000 Koreans and 13,000 Chinese signed anti-Communist petitions, sometimes in blood
In February of 1952, 69 POWs in Compound 62 died in a riot
Prisoners of War on Koje studied language, history, manual crafts, modern farming, and the difference between democracy and totalitarianism.
To put the massiveness of these numbers into perspective, Abu Graib never held more than 4,000 prisoners at its peak in 2004.
Overcrowding and Incompetence
The overcrowding combined with an ideological battle within the camp made living conditions increasingly unbearable. The POWs segregated themselves into gangs that either believed in communism or capitalism and even further divided themselves by religion as Christianity was increasingly accepted by the prisoners. The gang like atmosphere in the prison bares a striking similarity to America’s prisons today by how prisoners segregate themselves into gangs based on ethnicity. The different gangs regularly fought for turf and influence in the prison camp.
The guards that secured the compound rarely if ever went inside the compound. Most of them were rear echelon troops bored and uninterested in duty on the island. The prisoners pretty much ran the prison themselves with the American soldiers standing guard outside the wire.
Due to the lax security within the compound the communist block was able to intimidate and crush opposition and when they had accumulated enough strength within the camp, they decided it was time to start waging war against the Americans from within inside the camp as well. They knew they couldn’t begin a conventional fight against the Americans because they would all just eventually be shot and killed. They decided the best way to open up another front against the Americans was to begin a propaganda war from inside the camp. This campaign would have better results than they ever could have imagined.
North Korean POW camp leader Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
On the morning of May 7th, 1952, the commander of the communist faction North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku requested that the commander of the prison, Brigadier General Francis Dodd urgently come and meet with him for an important reason. BG Dodd had met with COL Lee before and didn’t expect anything unusual from this request. In a well rehearsed and coordinated move COL Lee’s men surrounded the General and his guards and quickly subdued the guards and pushed them out of the compound and grabbed the general and moved him deep within the compound. The prisoners all pulled out their home made weapons and threatened to kill the general if any attempt to enter the compound was made. The seizure of the American general made instant headlines. Americans woke up to headlines of torture and abuse at Goje Island because the prisoners made demands that the US stop torturing, abusing, and starving them if they wanted their commander back. This was of course nonsense but to other nations around the world who didn’t know any better they of course began to wonder, “What the heck are the Americans doing on Goje Island?”
Additionally the communist block had a field day with the propaganda value of the Goje Island uprising. Here is what Pravda in Moscow wrote in response to the uprising:
Koje Island! Again the gloomy shadow of Maideneck (a Nazi extermination camp in Poland) has come upon the world, again the stench of corpses…… the groans of the tortured…… we learn that “civilized” Americans can be yet more inhuman, yet more infamous than the bloody Hitlerites. Dachau was a death camp, Maidenek was a death factory; Koje is a whole island of death. The American hangmen are torturing, tormenting, and killing unarmed people here. They are experimenting with their poisons on them….
This Kind of War
Page 398
To echo the communists claims the Red Cross condemned the treatment of prisoners on Goje Island as well. They condemned the over crowding, violence in the camp, and the lack of food reaching some prisoners because the communist leaders would store the food for themselves and only hand it out to prisoners loyal to their movement. The Red Cross also would not condone any force to put down the uprising and regain control of the camp in order to meet acceptable humanitarian standards. The Red Cross could provide no advice on how to meet acceptable standards, but was quick to criticize the Eighth Army forces guarding the prison for not meeting those standards.
COL Lee had scored a massive propaganda victory by claiming torture and abuse after capturing the general that was repeated and endorsed in newspapers across the globe. He even scored a bigger victory when another General, BG Charles Colson arrived to take charge of the camp and agreed to demands made by the prisoners to stop torture and abuse in exchange for General Dodd. Before releasing Dodd, the North Koreans put him on trial for war crimes and forced him to the statement that Colson had approved earlier.
After the release of General Dodd, General Colson retracted the signed statement made by Dodd, but by agreeing to the demands in the first place it had the effect of legitimizing the North Koreans’ claims of torture and abuse to the world’s media. The global media was having a feeding frenzy over the Goje Island story and it began to directly effect the truce negotiations being waged at Panmunjom. The US military brass was furious at what was going on at Goje Island and at General Colson for agreeing to the prisoner’s demands.
There were problems on Goje Island, but the prisoners were always fed and did what they wanted in the camp. The biggest problem on the camp was the overcrowding, because no one expanded the camp because everyone thought the war would end any day and all the prisoners would go home. The problems in the camp was not from torture or abuse, but from incompetence of the people running the camp. This incompetence would end once a man named Brigadier General Haydon Boatner.
The New Commander Takes Charge
Brigadier General Haydon Boatner was an old China hand for the US military. He served in China during World War II and spoke fluent Mandarin. He was serving as the assistant division commander of the Second Infantry Division on the frontlines of the Korean War when he went on leave for R&R in Japan. It was while on leave in Japan that he was notified that he was taking over the Geoje Island POW camp. The camp had been commanded by rear echelon troops and the Eighth Army commander General Mark Clark wanted a proven combat leader to fix the mess that the rear echelon commanders had created on Goje Island and General Boatner conveniently on leave in Japan was just the man he needed.
General Boatner soon arrived in Pusan and received a debriefing from General Colson on the situation on Goje Island. While in Pusan he even ran into the recently released General Dodd who was visibly a shaken man after being held hostage and was on his way to Tokyo to report to his superior there over the incident. Dodd would go on to be reduced one rank to colonel and forcibly retired from the military. While meeting with General Colson, Boatner was amazed how oblivious he was to the media frenzy over Goje Island. There was little access to the media in Korea, but in Tokyo the media frenzy in the newspapers could not be missed and Colson would soon find out about the frenzy after meeting with Boatner and returning to Japan where he was also disciplined for his part in the Goje Island mess.
Boatner found the lack of information reaching Korea to be even worse once he arrived on Goje Island. The first thing the command staff on Goje wanted to do once he arrived was to throw him a cocktail party. General Boatner couldn’t believe that the staff on Goje was more concerned about cocktail parties than ending the uprising and the subsequent propaganda beating the US was taking due to the mess on Goje Island. The priorities of the soldiers on Goje Island became only more evident as Boatner looked around the camp. He found soldiers in different uniforms and some soldiers carrying weapons and others not. The reason he found for the lack of weapons was the fear of accidental discharges. For a commander that had fought on Heartbreak Ridge, Boatner could not believe the attitude of the soldiers he found on Goje Island. General Boatner immediately ordered one standard uniform and put everyone under arms to the objection of the staff he inherited. They were an absolute disgrace and he was going to fix it.
Internationalizing the Problem
Boatner discovered that this attitude was allowed to manifest because many of the officers and soldiers that the Army found unfit for combat had been sent to this island instead of the frontlines. General Boatner decided it was time to start a purge to rid the camp of the unfit soldiers and leaders. He relieved over 400 soldiers from the island and now had to replace them. To replace them Eighth Army sent him combat team from the 187th Airborne from Japan, a Canadian company, a British company, a few Greek soldiers, and a Turkish company. The Eighth Army commander General Clark received a lot of criticism from the governments of the soldiers sent to Goje because these countries wanted nothing to do with what was going on with Goje Island. It was a political kryptonite that everyone wanted to steer clear of, but General Clark felt the problem on Goje was a UN problem and not solely a US problem and by sending foreign units there it internationalized the problem.
Expanding the Camp
After General Boatner had successfully conducted his purge and refocused the attention of the camp on regaining control of the prisoners and not holding cocktail parties, he then focused on expanding the camp in order to break up the organized groups of prisoners. Boatner know that he had to expand the compound quickly because the camp was not only making international headlines that were disgracing the country, but was also being used for political fodder during the negotiations at Panmunjom.
One of the most sensitive issues being discussed during the negotiations was the return of POWs at Goje Island. The allies wanted to give the prisoners an option of either staying in South Korea or returning to North Korea or China. The Chinese and North Korean negotiators wanted all the prisoners sent back to North Korea and China. When challenged that many of the prisoners wanted to stay in South Korea the communist negotiators would counter that the prisoners only say that because they are being inhumanely tortured on the island and would hold up western media reports that had sensationalized what was going on at Goje Island to prove it. Additionally images of the daily protests at the Goje camp complete with prisoners chanting communist slogans and holding up pictures of Marxist leaders were filling the daily newspapers across the globe feeding the perception of torture, abuse, and the fact that all the prisoners wanted to be returned to North Korea and China.
An engineer unit was sent to Goje to help expand the camp. Initially the engineer commander was more concerned about building a new PX for the soldiers than expanding the camp, but General Boatner set him straight and ordered his men to work 24 hours a day building the new barracks to house the prisoners. The PX could wait.
Breaking the Enemy’s Will
Along with Boatner’s efforts to restore discipline in his troops and expand the camp he also needed to break the will of the enemy. Boatner felt that since the prisoners’ commander North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku had successfully brought massive media attention on the island that at anytime he could order his men to attempt a massive prison break that would end in the deaths of many prisoners further causing disgrace to the US military and the condemnation of the world. Boatner had to work on breaking up the loyalty of the prisoners to Colonel Lee.
The prisoners would challenge General Boatner’s authority on just his second day on the job. A Chinese faction of soldiers loyal to Colonel Lee began to cause a commotion in the camp. General Boatner went to the camp to see what was going on. He was amazed to see 6,500 Chinese soldiers in perfect formation chanting slogans and holding propaganda signs. Outside the wire the American soldiers were gathered hooting and hollering back at the Chinese. It was a chaotic scene that Boatner was quick to get control of. He ordered his aid to bring the commander of the US soldiers to him and the Chinese commander. Boatner proceeded to scald the US commander to take control of his men. The commander, a lieutenant colonel had served under General Boatner on the frontlines of the war and quickly responded and got control of his men and stopped the hollering at the Chinese.
Boatner than turned his attention to the Chinese commander who was a colonel in the Chinese Army that spoke a northern Chinese accent that Boatner understood completely. The colonel not realizing Boatner could speak Chinese brought an interpreter with him that reiterated demands about the Geneva Convention, Panmunjom, and the usual communist talking points of the day. General Boatner, to the Chinese commander’s shock, responded in perfect Mandarin that he was full of crap and then proceeded to tell him the names of respected Chinese generals he had fought with during World War II. The fact that he could speak Mandarin combined with his association with prominent Chinese commanders impressed the Chinese commander. The Chinese commander agreed to end the protest and through small acts of Chinese cultural understanding over the proceeding days Boatner was able to win the respect of the Chinese commander. In just a few short days General Boatner had already eroded support for Colonel Lee Hak-ku’s uprising in the prison.
Next Boatner turned his attention to eliminating the communist propaganda such as signs and statues that had been erected around the camp. Boatner wanted to avoid one large operation that the prisoners could organize against and cause a massive incident that could turn into blood shed which would be reported around the world. Boatner decided instead to use well timed raids that featured tanks backed with soldiers trained in riot control. Boatner’s men raided one compound at a time over a series of days to slowly destroy all the propaganda around the camp thus avoiding one large operation. Slowly but surely General Boatner was able to eliminate the communist propaganda inside the camp. In the first week of Boatner’s command it was clear to all the prisoners that there was a new boss in town and it wasn’t Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
Isolating the Prisoners
It was long known that villagers outside of the Goje POW camp were helping the prisoners inside the camp with supplies and the sending of messages back to their masters in North Korea and in turn influencing the on going negotiations at Panmunjom. Many of the villagers on Goje were actually North Korean civilians relocated from Wonsan and Hangnum in North Korea. Among the evacuated civilians were many North Korean agents that were aiding the prisoners in the camp. General Boatner knew he had to stop this rat line running from Goje to Panmunjom and the only way to do that would be by forcibly moving thousands of villagers away from the camp.
The problem with doing that was that with the Red Cross and media hanging around would condemn such an act. However, the problem with the civilians supporting the prisoners got so bad that Boatner had to do something about them before he could move on fully ending the uprising in the prison. Boatner sent trucks to the village to move the villagers. The military in two days was able to move the entire village and burn the huts down. It brought some bad headlines in the short term, but in long term it totally isolated the North Korean leadership within the prison.
Ending the Revolt
It took 30 days for the engineers to complete the expansion of the prison and during this time General Boatner was able to restore discipline among his own troops, divide loyalties within the prison, and end the rat line of communications from and to the prison. The last thing that had to be done was to end the revolt and restore order.
With the new camp constructed the time was now here to begin moving prisoners into the new and more secure compound. There was tens of thousands of prisoners total on Goje divided in separate camps of 6,500 prisoners. General Boatner chose the most violent camp with the head communist leadership, including Colonel Lee Hak-ku in Camp 76 to begin the movement of the prisoners from. Boatner felt that by crushing opposition here first, it would set an example to the rest of the prisoners. Using crack paratroopers from the 187th Airborne Brigade, Boatner had his men completely surround Camp 76. The men were under very explicit orders to use non-lethal means to move the prisoners and could only shoot to kill with the permission of the commanding officer only. It was imperative that the operation didn’t turn into a blood bath for the world’s media to report. The paratroopers had trained for weeks for this operation and were ready to put down the uprising by chopping off it’s head at Camp 76.
Weapons found hidden within the Geoje Island POW camp.
All at once on June 10th, 1952, the soldiers cut down the wire around the camp and moved in. The paratroopers moved in slowly and deliberately subduing prisoners. As they moved further into the camp the prisoners set fire to the buildings creating a smoke screen to fight the paratroopers in. The paratroopers began throwing concussion grenades into the smoke which had the effect of breaking up the frontlines of the resistance. As prisoners fled the impact of the grenades they were quickly captured by the paratroopers. The last 150 holdouts made one last ditch effort to fight off the paratroopers by hunkering down in trenches they had dug. As the paratroopers closed in on the trenches some of the prisoners panicked and ran towards the paratroopers to give themselves up. However, as they ran from the trenches the hard core communist cadre chased after them and killed some of the defectors. The paratroopers quickly moved in to stop the slaughter and a melee ensued. You can watch historic video footage of the operation at this link.
Once the operation was over 43 POWs had been killed and 135 wounded with half these casualties coming from the communists attacking their own people. Only one paratrooper who had been speared to death was killed in the operation. The paratroopers searched through the compound and found corpses hanging from inside the buildings to serve as an example to anyone that did not resist the Americans. They also found detailed plans by the communist to conduct a mass prison break on June 20th and slaughter anyone in there path in order to make maximum headlines against the Americans.
Outside the paratroopers found Colonel Lee hiding in a ditch and dragged him to his new compound. The leader of the communist uprising had gone down without a fight. The 6,500 prisoners in the notorious Camp 76 had been broken down and moved to the new compound and divided into more secure compounds of 500 prisoners per camp. The smaller number of prisoners per camp made it harder for them to organize and easier for the guards to manage. After this operation the rest of Goje’s prisoners voluntarily moved without confrontation to the new camp. By June 12th all the prisoners had been moved and General Boatner was firmly in charge of Goje Island. Colonel Lee and the rest of the prisoners of the Goje POW camp would never give General Boatner and his successors anymore problems for the rest of the war
Lessons Learned from the Geoje Island Incident
The US forces during the Korean War had been completely unprepared for the detaining of massive amounts of enemy prisoners. During World War II the US military dealt with few prisoners because very few Japanese ever surrendered. In the European theatre the allies didn’t start taking massive amounts of German prisoners until the war was just about over and the Germans had lost their will to fight. During the Korean War the US had taken massive amounts of prisoners and the enemy was far from being vanquished. Additionally these prisoners came from an alien culture and ideology that US commanders understood little about. Enemy prisoners looked at using prison as just another front in their war against the US and its allies.
To compound the problem the US commanders were so consumed with fighting the immediate war little emphasis was put into the handling of prisoners and possible propaganda value to the enemy for any mistreatment. Additionally the assigning of poor soldiers and officers to manage the prisoners combined with the inadequate facilities to house the prisoners would lead to strategic consequences later in the war.
The mistakes made during the Korean War in the handling of prisoners would repeat itself to a much smaller degree during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Abu Graib prison abuse controversy, but the propaganda value was just as valuable to not just the immediate enemy, but all the interests opposed to America in general as well.
Here are some of the big lessons learned I think the military can take away from these two very big historical blights on the image of the US military in the last 50 years. First of all, plans need to be made to house prisoners before going to war. Before the war even started there should have been an engineer unit designated to immediately begin building a compound to house prisoners. The Korean War was an unexpected war, but the Iraq War had plenty of prior planning and unfortunately the prior planning did little to plan for the amount of prisoners the US would end up holding. One engineer company during the Korean War built a camp to hold tens of thousands of prisoners in one month. What if the US military built a camp of similar size in the desert some where in Iraq to hold prisoners instead of Abu Graib? This would have easily prevented the overcrowding of the prison.
Secondly, Abu Graib should have never been chosen as a place to hold prisoners to begin with due to its notorious image from the Saddam Hussein era of power in Iraq. What if during the Korean War the US military started holding prisoners within Soedaemun Prison in Seoul? What kind of message would that have sent to the general Korean population during the war? During the Korean War Goeje Island was actually a well chosen location for a prison that planners during the Iraq War could have learned a lot from.
Next thing is that a mission as politically sensitive as handling prisoners of war at a detention facility should be handled by only highly professional soldiers. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to have people like Charles Graner and Lynndie England to have such authority over prisoners? Janice Karpinski was just a female version of Francis Dodd. Abu Graib was surrounded by just as much incompetence as Goje Island during the Korean War. It wasn’t until competent leadership backed by crack troops were conditions in the camp able to improve on Goje Island. The lesson learned is that highly professional units with excellent leadership that deal exclusively with handling prisoners of war should be formed before a war is even initiated. The adhoc nature of soldiers and agencies thrown together in Abu Graib caused an environment ripe for abuse.
Finally, internationalizing the Goje prison by General Boatner was a brilliant idea because it shares responsibility for anything that happens within the prison. The international media glee over Abu Graib would probably have been much more tempered if more countries were involved in the management of the prison. This is something that should become a standard practice in future conflicts.
These were all painful lessons learned in the aftermath of the Goje Island Incident that would unfortunately be forgotten 50 years later in Iraq. Military planning requires more than just maneuvering infantry and tanks and hopefully in future conflicts the US military properly plans to deal with the handling of prisoners of war. Especially when such an issue can have such strategic impact, which in the case of Abu Graib is still being felt today. The painful lessons learned from Abu Graib could have been avoided with a close study and appreciation of the experiences of General Haydon Boatner on Goeje Island.
Start here and here with the DPRK Studies postings.
Then read here and here for the related OFK postings.
Both of them ask some fundamental questions which Albright continues to avoid in his comments. I believe Albright’s views on North Korea are motivated more by his own personal political views than real factual analysis. He has already put himself in a position of a North Korea apologist and isn’t about to change his position no matter how much he is challenged with facts saying otherwise, thus the evasive answers. It will be interesting to see if he ever provides any real answers to the specific questions posed to him.
This article from the Asia Sentinel is a must read for anyone remotely interested in the North Korean counterfeiting of US currency. The reporters travel to China to see if they find North Korean supernotes. This is what they found:
These days there is also a reasonable facsimile of another famous American crossing the river in the opposite direction Benjamin Franklin. If you’ve got the connections here, and they aren’t hard to find, you can easily encounter Franklin’s enigmatic face for about US$50 on a reasonable copy of a US $100 bill. These presumably Pyongyang-printed Big-Head Benjamins are known worldwide as “supernotes.
We know. We bought one.
So where did these reporters buy these supernotes, right in the open of course:
Our supernote purchase $100, US Series 2003, serial number DI03120777A (acquired strictly for purposes of this story) took place literally within the shadow of the China Bank of Communications. The bank is directly across the street from the Dandong office of China Customs, which in turn is next to a People’s Liberation Army facility as is the Dandong Police headquarters. Coincidentally, the transaction also took place on the afternoon of Kim’s 65th birthday, February 16.
So where did the supernotes come from you may ask?:
At first he said he got them accidentally from various foreign tourists who were changing them for yuan. Were the tourists from North Korea? He shrugged and smiled and said perhaps some had relatives or friends over there across the mighty Yalu. But after asking if he could sell one or two more, he quickly left on his bicycle after taking a brief mobile phone call.
Make sure you read the whole article, very interesting read about this illegal activity happening quite openly in China with little effort by Chinese authorities to stop it. Maybe it is time someone starts printing Chinese yuan to start spreading around and see how the Chinese government likes that.
UPDATE #1: YouTube has pulled Inside North Korea from their site due to copyright reasons. For those interested you can click the link to buy the Inside North Korea DVD from Amazon.com.
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Living overseas I wasn’t able to watch Lisa Ling’s National Geographic Explorer’s, Inside North Korea, but fortunately Nomad posted links to two You Tube postings here and here of the show. Lisa Ling travels with a Nepalese eye doctor and secretly films what she can of life inside North Korea during her trip. It was amazing to watch the eye doctor restore eye sight to people who had been blind for years and they immediately walk up to pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to thank them for giving back their eye sight without a word of thanks to the Nepalese doctor. The most chilling scene was when one old woman pledged to work harder in the salt mines for the glory of Kim Jong-il for returning her eye sight.
Lisa Ling rightfully points out how a system of fear governs the country. If these people didn’t give thanks to the Kim regime they and their whole families would have been sent to one of the massive concentration camps that Lisa Ling spent plenty of time covering. The funniest portion was when Lisa Ling visited a North Korean family and asked them if there was anything wrong with Kim Jong-il. The North Korean interpreter kept pretending he didn’t understand the question. Overall, definitely a must see documentary about life in North Korea. I’m definitely going to purchase a copy of the complete program once it is available on DVD.
Looking on the National Geographic webpage for purchasing information, I began reading through some of the comments left by people about the show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised about this, but there was people comparing North Korea to what America is today under President Bush. There were also people condemning Lisa Ling for filming the show because the Nepalese doctor could never be allowed back into North Korea to help more people and the North Korean minders with them would probably be sent to labor camps for not clamping down on the filming. I for one thank Lisa Ling for presenting an accurate picture of North Korea which is a personality cult that many people just don’t understand. It is one thing to read about it in a book or newspaper, but when you see what North Korea really is staring you right in the face on television, it is hard to ignore.
North Korea expressed its readiness Thursday to discuss initial steps of its nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at international talks on Pyongyang’s atomic weapons program since they began more than three years ago
“We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures,” the North’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations set to start later Thursday.
Media reports have suggested the North may agree to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors in exchange for energy aid as a starting step to disarm.
But Kim said any moves by North Korea would be determined by the United States’ attitude.
“We are going to make a judgment based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence,” he said, adding that Washington was “well-aware” of what it had to do.
This statement from US chief negotiator Christopher Hill is a little comforting:
On arriving at Beijing airport on Wednesday, the chief U.S. delegate Christopher Hill told reporters, “I want to emphasize the real success is we complete the joint statement of 2005” whereby the North agreed to dismantle the program in return for aid and security guarantees. “So we are not going to finish that this week. We will maybe just make a good first step,†he added.
I have said this before and I will say it again, Kim Jong-il has no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons. He developed nuclear weapons in order to appease his military eager to join the prestigious nuclear club and to ensure regime survival. He is using the current six party talks to buy time to perfect his nuclear weapons program. Once Kim Jong-il has successfully created a half dozen nuclear weapons he will be able to fully implement what fellow K-blogger Richardson at DPRK Studies calls Strategic Disengagement. Before strategically disengaging, if Kim can get the US to drop its financial sanctions and return the $24 million dollars frozen in a Macau Bank and any other goodies the US is willing to throw in for a nuclear freeze Kim will take it. Why not when he already possesses the weapons?
That is why I advocate that US negotiators should only accept nothing but verifiable nuclear dismantlement in return for any financial incentives that may be offered. The only way the Kim regime would accept total dismantlement is if they don’t have as much nuclear material or their nuclear program isn’t as advanced everyone thinks. Last year’s low yield nuclear test by North Korea suggests that maybe they don’t have much material to build a nuclear program around. I sure hope someone in the government much smarter than me has figured that one out.
At any rate I’m just getting the feeling that the Bush Administration is eager for the appearance of a foreign policy success and a nuclear freeze by North Korea would appear to be one, when in actuality it would be a defeat if Kim is allowed to keep the weapons he already has. Kim will in one year have gained everything he wanted if this nuclear freeze deal is signed. Kim will have his nuclear weapons which ensure his regime’s survival, his frozen $24 million will be given back, and North Korea will international energy assistance. Don’t forget the over one billion dollars worth of assistance Kim is getting this year from South Korea and his fifth column in South Korea has successfully stopped the USFK transformation in that country. Is it 1994 all over again?
USFK has come out now and put it quite clearly that once operational control is handed over USFK will not be responsible for maintaining the armistice agreement:
The U.S. Forces Korea on Tuesday said the UN forces commander here €œcannot be responsible for maintenance of the Armistice Agreement and potential crisis escalation once he has no further control of South Korean forces after their full operational control has been handed over to Seoul. USFK Commander Gen. Burwell Bells statement came in a press release aimed at clarifying reports on Bells recent remarks about the changing role of UN Command.
It was Bells first official statement of his position that the largely nominal UN forces, which are headed by the USFK chief, will no longer be responsible for maintaining the armistice treaty once Combined Forces Command is dismantled. The remarks as good as say the UNC’s duty of maintaining the armistice and dealing with violations will be left to South Korea.
General Bell felt the need to respond to media reports that falsely claimed that the General was trying to keep command of South Korean forces after the operational control hand over with his UN title. The CFC will no longer exist which has been discussed at length before. This is just nothing more than people in South Korean government doing everything possible to delay the inevitable.
In the Stars and Stripes they have an interesting article up about the neutral nations committee from the UN that investigates and reports violations of the cease fire agreement on both sides of the DMZ:
Maj. Gen. Sture Theolin of Sweden and Maj. Gen. Gerhad Bruegger, Switzerland, meet weekly. Polish delegate Brig. Gen. Anatol Czaban joins the meetings a few times each year. The commission reports to the senior member of the Military Armistice Commission.
The NNSCs mission is to “supervise, observe, inspect and investigate military activities outside the Demilitarized Zone and to ensure that neither side violates the armistice by introducing or reinforcing military personnel and materiel for resumed fighting, Theolin said during a news conference prior to the meeting late Tuesday afternoon.
Since the commission hasnt been allowed for decades to inspect ports for any military build-up, officials admitted their presence is largely symbolic.
But they represent the value of the international community, Bruegger said.
The UN is willing to sends millions upon millions of unaccounted for dollars to North Korea while they can’t even inspect a port in accordance with the armistice agreement in return? If this isn’t a perfect example of the irrelevance of the UN I don’t know what is. The “value of the international community”? What the heck is that? Does he mean kind of like the value of the international community in Lebanon? That has worked out great.
Wait there is more:
Most likely, the year of 2006 will not be remembered as a good year for reconciliation and cooperation on the peninsula, Theolin told a gathering of journalists. The Norths missile tests in July and the nuclear event in October cast shadows into an uncertain future.
You don’t say?
And decisions made in ongoing discussions on the future role of the U.N. Command will inevitably affect also the NNSC, Theolin said.
He declined to speculate what changes could be in store for the commission.Theolin added that the armistice is of fundamental relevance, that has allowed for a blossoming South Korean democracy and regional security and stability.
“It is important to recognize that although (North Korea) tries to undermine the NNSC and other institutions of the armistice, claiming that they no longer exist, North Korea continues to respect the cease-fire itself, he said.
Respect the cease-fire? The UN most be using the Palestinian definition of a cease fire where one side stops firing while the other one continues to take pot shots. How can the UN claim North Korea respects the cease fire when North Korea murdered 6 six South Korean sailors and wounded 18 others in a planned ambush to draw attention away from South Korea’s amazing 2002 World Cup run? Or how about the 1996 spy submarine incident that claimed the lives 13 ROK Army soldiers and 4 civilians? There has been numerous clashes in recent years in the West Sea and the DMZ due to North Korean violations of the Military Demarcation Line. I can keep playing this game, but I think everyone has got the point, North Korea isn’t abiding by the cease fire resolution and the UN is making excuses for another dictator; not that it isn’t anything new.
Former Clinton Administration Defense Secretary William Perry is once again advocating starting a war with North Korea by bombing it’s nuclear reactor:
Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry proposed Thursday that the United States should consider military action against North Korea if China and South Korea refuse to prod Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Although the move is dangerous, there is no alternative left if China and South Korea, the two key economic lifelines to North Korea, do not join any U.S.-led “diplomatic coercive’’ action against Pyongyang, he told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
AFP quoted Perry, the Pentagon chief under former president Bill Clinton, as saying that the U.S. should consider destroying a large reactor under construction in North Korea capable of making about 10 nuclear bombs a year.
Remember Perry was the same guy who co-authored a Washington Post editorial before July’s North Korean missile test that advocated bombing North Korea’s missile program. I said then that it would be ridiculous to bomb the missile sites because the US had more to gain from the North Koreans firing the missiles compared to if the US attacked North Korea. By firing the missile the US was able to accurately gauge exactly how far along the North Korean missile program was, which ended up being no where near advanced as thought. The US would have never learned this by bombing North Korea. Plus the test continued the isolation of the Kim regime with additional sanctions put on the country and Kim becoming even more of an international pariah.Â
Compare that to a bombing campaign that would have put Kim Jong-il in a more sympathetic light. Remember their were people who were sympathetic with Saddam Hussein, don’t think Kim Jong-il won’t get the same treatment. Cindy Sheehan and her ilk would be toasting Kim Jong-il in no time. The media would show images of killed civilians from the bombing campaign over and over again while ignoring all the civilians dying right now in North Korea, as I type this, due to the Kim regime’s systematic starvation program. Even more dangerous than the political and diplomatic consequences would be the military consequences of a full scale war breaking out on the Korean peninsula. Any war on the Korean peninsula would cause casualties that would dwarf the Iraq War. Especially US casualties with the 2nd Infantry Division continuing to remain located near the DMZ.Â
The consequences of bombing Kim’s nuclear program today would be the same as what I listed above for bombing Kim’s missile program. However, fear not, there will not be a bombing campaign on North Korea and Perry knows it. Remember he was the guy in charge of the Pentagon during the 1994 nuclear crisis when the Clinton Administration decided not to bomb North Korea. He knows President Bush cannot attack North Korea for the very same reasons President Clinton didn’t, which makes it easy for him to come out looking like a hawk on this issue. The Democrats have long been viewed as weak on defense so in order to build their defense credentials, they are looking to take hawkish positions on issues that they know President Bush cannot act upon. North Korea is the best example. Notice you see no one from the Democratic Party advocating bombing Iran which is a much greater danger to the US than North Korea. What’s the difference between advocating bombing Iran compared to North Korea? The only difference is that there is a very real possibility that President Bush may bomb Iran in the future compared to North Korea.Â
Many Democrats are only hawkish when they know they don’t need to act on it. Another example of this was for the past two years the Democrats have been all over TV advocating for more troops in Iraq and made sure to keep bringing up General Shinseki’s name every time they did. They did this to bolster their defense credentials because they didn’t think President Bush would ever actually act upon it. However, Bush did act and sent more troops to Iraq and what did the Democrats do? Condemn Bush for sending more troops to Iraq and threaten to cut funding for the soldiers there. Perry’s latest article is just another example of a long line of Democratic demagoguery of national security issues.
