With college kids apparently having little else better to do this weekend, antiwar (or perhaps, as SEB suggests, we should call them “prowar”) protests took place in about 30 spots around the country today. In a nice bit of Korean-Japanese cooperation, some of the protestors drew up a joint statement with Japanese antiwar activists that read:
To put a true end to this war, what must be brought about is not a multinational force, but the immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq… The Korean and Japanese masses join hands and go forth to resolutely reject the Japan’s accelerating process of becoming a militarily powerful nation, a process which has hitched a ride with America’s war policy.
How nice. And in another one of OhMyNews’s “editorials posing as a newspiece,” Lee Yu-jin (who sports a Green Korea e-mail address - so much for journalistic objectivity) writes:
Korea’s dispatch of troops to Iraq may or may not win the heart of “I still hate North Korea” and “my approval ratings are nosediving” President Bush, but we’ll be thoroughly ostracized by the world’s Muslim nations, whose populations make up 300 million people.
Those who support the dispatch of troops to Iraq based on economic national interest argue that by sending combat troops, Korea can improve its position to participate in post-war reconstruction and secure oil recourses. Why do they only look at the crumbs that have fallen in Iraq, and fail to think of the damage incurred by the loss of the whole Middle East?
If you say that “national interest” - which credits the economic gain from participation in Iraq - is important, then who will pay pack the loss of “national interests” incurred by the cultural and emotional hostility that we earn from the Muslim countries as a result of sending our combat troops to Iraq? To send combat troops to Iraq is only to incur international isolation.
Fine. If joining France and Germany in the “Axis of Irrelevancy” means that much to you, then ask Pakistan to send troops to Dongduch’eon. And I’m sure the Indonesian Navy will be happy to take over the duties of the US 7th Fleet.
3 Comments
RE: “OhMyNews’s ‘editorials posing as a newspiece,’ Lee Yu-jin (who sports a Green Korea e-mail address - so much for journalistic objectivity”
I don’t think Yi Yujin is a regular staff reporter. You may know this but just for others’ benefit, everyone who submits articles to Ohmy has reporter, or “gija,” after their name, so the confusion is understandable.
If the email address isn’t “dude@ohmynews.com” then they’re contributions that were written and submitted and finally not rejected for inclusion by Ohmy. You’ll find that the majority of the more outlandish “editorials posing as newspieces” are written by any of these thousands of “gijas.” Articles that grow out of Ohmy staff planning meetings may have their faults from time to time but always feel more like journalism.
I’m very glad to read your translations from the Korean language press. I like most of us that pay attention to what goes on in Korea get my information from the English language news sources. I found by teaching Korean adults it seems those sources do fall somewhere close to what is going on in the Korean language media, but I really like seeing the translations. I can translate some, but it takes too long and is especially unproductive when I can’t skim an article to tell if it is worth translating or not.
Thanks a bunch.
I also add for you and anyone else. If you run across juicy articles like this one and would like to add it to the newsletters I put together at http://www.areastudies.org/usinkorea
The comment about the “300 million Muslims” in the world goes a long way to explain the motives of the protestors in Korea (there are more than 1.3 BILLION). These kids are not anti-American. They do not really oppose Korea going to Iraq. They are simply, traditionally, xenophobic Confuscian Koreans. I recently pointed this out to a class of very advanced students and they looked at me first with puzzlement and then shocked recognition. These kids could not give a rat’s fanny what happens in Iraq. What they really want is a waygook free Korea. They see this in the North and this seems to be preferrable to South Korea to them
PING:
TITLE: Korean Friction
BLOG NAME: Barking Moonbat Early Warning System
The US is pulling troops out of South Korea to send to Iraq and the South Koreans are getting nervous. They are entering into negotiations with the US Government to try to convince us not to withdraw our troops. One…