A U-2 ultra-high altitude reconnaissance aircraftlands at the the U.S. air force’s Osan air base, south of Seoul, after a mission on April 24, 2017, one day ahead of the anniversary of the foundation of the North Korean army. Concerns are mounting on the possibility of the North’s sixth nuclear test on the occasion of the anniversary. (Yonhap)
According to the article the conclusion of the land transfer to USFK allows the US military to expedite preparations to deploy the THAAD missile defense system to the site:
Heavy equipment from USFK enters a THAAD deployment site in Seongju, southeast South Korea, on April 20, 2017. Some local residents protested the move. (Yonhap)
South Korea and the United States completed the regulatory process needed for Seoul’s provision of a base site for a U.S. missile defense battery, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
A bilateral committee on the status of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) approved the plan for land transfer, allowing the U.S. military to begin work for the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in the some 300,000-square-meter land in the southeastern county of Seongju.
The land was formerly owned by a Lotte Group affiliate and used as a golf course. [Yonhap]
What would be an interesting piece of information is what is the pollution to the ground water in other areas of Seoul around Yongsan Garrison? I find it hard to believe that Yongsan is the only place in Seoul with polluted ground water:
Yongsan Garrison
A contaminant detected in groundwater beneath a U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) garrison in Seoul was above the permissible level, a government report showed Tuesday.
The U.S. Army base in Yongsan, central Seoul, has long been suspected as the source of oil that has contaminated the nearby water and land.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has been conducting a purification project since 2001, but petroleum-based contaminants above the standard level have continued to be detected in water near the base.
According to a joint probe conducted by the environment ministry and the USFK in May 2015, 2.440 milligrams per liter of benzene was found at an observation well at the base, which is 162 times higher than the allowable level of 0.015 milligrams per liter.
Among 14 monitoring wells of 15 to 20 centimeters in diameter, four had benzene levels some 20 to 162 times higher than the standard, the report showed. A total of seven wells showed above standard levels of benzenes. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this pollution issue has long been one that South Korean leftists have used to stoke anti-US sentiment and the Korean government uses to get additional money out of USFK for clean up expenses which according to the SOFA they don’t have to pay.
We will see how this all plays out just like when the camps in Area 1 closed out back in 2004.
There is a reason that Northeast Asia has been stable since the end of the Korean War after decades of conflict and that is the US military presence in the region. Doug Bandow from the libertarian Cato Institute disagrees:
But that world disappeared long ago. The Korean Peninsula has lost its geopolitical significance, South Korea its helplessness, and America’s Korea commitment its purpose. While there is much to criticize in the approach of Donald Trump’s administration to the rest of the world, the president correctly sees the need for a foreign policy that more effectively protects America’s interests. A good place to start shifting course is the region home to the world’s newest and least responsible nuclear power.
The Koreas are no longer a proxy battleground between superpowers. There was a time when U.S. withdrawal from a confrontation with a Soviet ally in Asia would have, analysts believed, signaled weakness a continent away in Europe. But the Soviets are long gone and the cause for American commitment with them. An inter-Korean war would be tragic and the body count enormous, but absent American involvement the fighting would largely be confined to the peninsula. The continued presence of U.S. forces, by contrast, virtually guarantees the spread of conflict.
South Korea’s defense no longer requires Washington’s presence. The South’s economy began racing past its northern antagonist during the 1960s. Democracy arrived in the late 1980s. By the 1990s, when mass starvation stalked Pyongyang as Seoul’s economy boomed, the gap between the two Koreas was already huge and growing. The South’s military potential is correspondingly great though as yet unrealized — in part because dependence on the U.S. presence has affected strategic choices. [Foreign Policy]
You can read the rest at the link as well as read my prior analysis of why USFK withdrawal will not happen any time soon at this link.
The Sea of Japan/East Sea issue has come back up again:
Shortly after North Korea’s ballistic missile launch on Wednesday, the U.S. military issued a statement that may add to the anger of Koreans over the naming of the waters between the peninsula and Japan.
In a five-paragraph document posted on its website, the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), headquartered in Hawaii, confirmed the North’s firing of a missile, saying it flew nine minutes before falling into the “Sea of Japan.”
Almost simultaneously, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) here uploaded a statement on its own homepage with mostly the same content.
The only differences were the time, as PACOM’s version is based on Hawaii time and the USFK’s notes Korean standard time, and the name of the waters, which Koreans call the East Sea.
The USFK’s statement said the missile landed in “waters East of the Korean Peninsula.”
Some South Korean journalists stationed at the defense ministry’s press room complained about PACOM’s use of the Sea of Japan alone in the official document directly involving Korea and read by many people in the key regional ally. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but USFK admitted they modified the naming in their statement which makes sense since their statement is directed more towards a Korean audience. PACOM on the other hand makes statements directed towards a regional audience that includes Japan, so of course they are going to use the internationally recognized naming convention for the body of water between the two countries which is the Sea of Japan.
The activist group Green Korea United has launched another attack on USFK:
At least 90 incidents of oil leaks have taken place inside U.S. military installations in Yongsan, civic groups said Monday, suspecting U.S. Forces Korea of concealing massive contaminations of bases located in central Seoul.
The Green Korea United, an environmental group, Minbyun, also known as Lawyers for a Democratic Society, and a group of Yongsan residents held a joint press conference on Monday and made public their analysis into reports of oil leaks inside the Yongsan military bases from 1990 to 2015. They obtained the reports in November last year by demanding disclosure by the U.S. Defense Department in July last year using the Freedom of Information Act.
They said a total of 84 oil leaks at the main post and transportation division of Yongsan Garrison and nearby Camp Kim and Camp Coiner were documented in the Pentagon records. The number is far larger than the 13 oil leaks so far made public by the National Assembly and media. The Korean official record says there were five oil leaks between 1990 and 2015.
The civic groups also said the Pentagon data was missing six oil leaks that were made public in Korea. Adding them up, at least 90 oil leaks took place, they said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
So Green Korea has had this information since November and decided now to publish it? Were they waiting until after President Park was impeached to push this issue? Additionally how many of these leaks are just small scales leaks such as someone doing maintenance on a vehicle and having oil accidentally spill out? According to the article only 7 of the 90 leaks were major. It seems Green Korea is inflating the leak number just like in the past the USFK crime rate in Korea was inflated by activist groups by including parking tickets.
Using environmental groups to attack USFK is something that has long been used by the Korean left. The most outrageous example has to be the ridiculous 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Incident. These environmental groups have primarily focused on stopping the relocation of US bases from the 2nd Infantry Division area and Seoul. Of interest is that the 2006 Il Shim Hue spy scandal uncovered that North Korean operatives were infiltrating the ROK environmental movement to inspire more anti-US sentiment. After the spy scandal was uncovered the environmental groups kept a lower profile with their anti-US activities especially with the election of President Lee. I guess we will see in the coming months if the anti-US activist groups will feel more emboldened to attack USFK over issues like this.
Great job by this soldier in Daegu who climbed a water pipe to assist a family during an apartment fire in Daegu:
A routine trip to the commissary turned into a lifesaving mission, Feb. 5, outside of Camp Humphreys. Staff Sgt. Victor Gomoimunn and his wife, Nicole Lysiak, were on their way to do their grocery shopping when she noticed smoke coming from a building just down the street from their home.
Gomoimunn, a petroleum supply specialist from Waterford, New York assigned to 339th Quartermaster Company, immediately ran towards the smoke filled building asking the gathering crowd if there was anyone left inside. Upon receiving reports that there was a woman and her young child still in their apartment on the third floor he ran into the building through the front door searching for a way to get upstairs to them.
“I saw the children standing outside and I was worried about them,” said Lysiak. “We know many of the residents in the neighborhood and when I looked up he was gone.”
“The building was filled with black smoke,” said Gomoimunn. “I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t breathe.”
Knowing that someone may still be trapped inside he began searching for another way in, explained Lysiak. He ran around the side of the building searching for another entrance before spotting water pipes going up the side of the building. They happened to run near a third floor window. [Army.mil]
You can read the rest at the link, but Gomoimunn climbed the water pipe and helped a family get on to a balcony and was prepared to help them down the water pipe when the fire department arrived to fight the fire.
Considering how the Korean left went irrationally crazy about 20 gallons of formaldehyde that went through not one, but two water treatment plants before entering the Han River I can only imagine what they can dream up with 600 gallons of fuel dropped into this lake outside of Kunsan:
A U.S. fighter jet jettisoned its auxilliary fuel tanks into a lake near Kunsan Air Base after suffering an in-flight emergency during a training mission.
The pilot of the F-16, which was assigned to the 8th Fighter Wing, released the drop tanks Wednesday after receiving an indication of an oil system malfunction, a spokeswoman said
“The pilot safely executed the established emergency procedures, which included releasing the fuel tanks before landing unharmed,” Lt. Col. Michal Kloeffler-Howard said Friday in an email.
The tanks fell into a lake in an area owned by the Saemangeum Regional Environmental Office under the Ministry of Environment, about two miles west of Kunsan Air Base, the 7th Air Force public affairs officer said. [Stars & Stripes]
These idiots just never learn that Korean customs inspects the military mail and many people have been caught and arrested for mailing drugs into Korea:
Prosecutors on Wednesday arrested U.S. soldiers and their Korean accomplices for smuggling bags of philopon methamphetamines worth 13.6 billion won ($11.9 million).
Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office arrested an American private, 20, and two Korean-Americans for infringing Korean narcotics laws. Prosecutors also booked without arrest another American private, 20, stationed at K-6 base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, for providing an address to where the contraband could be sent.
They are also searching for four Korean-Americans.
An accomplice in California sent the drugs to Korea in December, prosecutors claim.
They weighed 4.1 kilograms ― enough for 130,000 users. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I hope they are sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by Korean law.
This is the first time I have heard of something like this happening:
A 57-year-old South Korean security guard was found dead in an apparent suicide at a U.S. military base in Ujeongbu, South Korea, on Thursday, police said.
The officer, identified only by his last name Cha, was found with a gunshot wound in his head by a colleague at a guard post in the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, at around 1:20 a.m.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead.
In the 3.3-square-meter sentry post, a 45-caliber revolver provided by U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) for security purposes was found, they said. Cha was working alone when the incident took place.
He left what was seen as a suicide note at the site, referring to debts he was suffering from, according to police. Police said they will investigate the details of the incident based on testimonies from Cha’s colleagues and the bereaved family. [Korea Times]
