In the latest issue of the Korean edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, former President Kim Dae-jung bitches up a royal storm about—you guessed it—the United States. By far the best part is this, courtesy the Chosun Ilbo:
Former President Kim said, “We give the United States everything to give, and yet we don’t hear good things.” After mentioning Vietnam, the deployment of Korean troops to Iraq, the transfer of the Yongsan Garrison, the redeployment of the 2nd Infantry Division to rear positions and the KoreUS FTA, he said, “Americans don’t talk about that, and ask why we’ve forgotten their help.”
Thankless Yanks. And to think Kim forgot all those Korean troops that died during the island-hopping campaigns in the Atlantic that freed America from British colonial rule and the 36,000 Koreans killed defending the Susquehanna Perimeter against a brutal Canadian blitzkrieg, not to mention a half-century of Korean troops patrolling the 49th parallel while we rebuilt. Or the Cold War Korean nuclear umbrella, predicated as it was on the political will of South Korea to defend New York and Los Angeles at the risk of making Seoul and Busan potential targets for Soviet nuclear strikes.
Oh, he also said U.S. neocons were most to blame for the deterioration in U.S.-North Korean relations. From the Hankyoreh:
Kim explained, “Refusing dialogue with North Korea, U.S. neocons keep pushing North Korea down a mistaken path while misusing [the North Korea issue], and this is because of China.” He added, “Neocons, thinking of China as a hypothetical enemy, is expanding its armaments like missile defense (MD) and re-arming Japan… It’s looking for an excuse to do this, and that’s North Korea.”
Poor North Korea. Well, on a positive note for Pyongyang, I guess that means we won’t be threatening their existence anytime soon, seeing how we need them to justify our military expenditures, missile defense and rearmament of Japan.
And lest I forget, he also blamed Japan, too:
About Japan, he said, “You have to solve the kidnapping issue as the kidnapping issue, and handle dialogue as dialogue, but Japanese rightwingers are boosting their popularity by attacking North Korea… North Korea should see through the meaning of the hardline policies of U.S. neocons and Japanese rightwing forces and do the opposite, but instead it keeps wrecking the situation by giving them excuses.”
Hey, give the North Koreans credit. Regardless of whether they can see through the motives of those evil neocons and Japanese rightwingers, they seem to be reading South Korea’s “Bend Over at All Costs” North Korea policy just right.
Anyway, as thankless as the Yanks may be, Kim still seems to want them around. From the Chosun report:
When asked about the issue of the transfer of wartime command, Kim avoided a direct expression of support, but expressed a negative opinion concerning the issue of a U.S. withdrawal from Korea, saying, “If the United States doesn’t want to defend Korea, it will leave, and if it feels that defending Korea is in its interests, it won’t leave… But defending Korea is in U.S. interests, and if the United States completely withdraws from Korea, North Korea will carry Chinese power and Chinese power could reach all the way to the DMZ.”
Heaven forbid we should allow that, given how much we owe Korea for Vietnam, Iraq, Yongsan, 2ID and the FTA.
UPDATE: Over at TKL, Joshua fisks the Yonhap report of Kim’s interview. I have to admit, I was thinking the same thing as I was reading this all:
Just for the record, this is the man whose life we saved three times: once from a North Korean firing squad, once from South Korean assassins, and once from a South Korean death sentence. It’s proof-positive that no good deed ever goes unpunished, because Kim would eventually buy himself a Nobel Prize with money his North Korean interlocutor would use to buy more weapons (instead of, say, more food).
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Kim Dae-Jung’s opinions carry the weight of a Nobel Peace Prize “recipient”. ‘Nuff said ’bout The DJ.
Does he mean Japan should have emulated his own policy in regard to the South Korean abductees in the North? The policy in question: pretending they don’t exist. One doesn’t want to provoke dear Jong Il, after all.
Jesus Fucking Christ. I give up.
In all seriousness, I’d like to know if there was any talk of retracting the Nobel Prize after the bribe-for-visit scandal was exposed. It was before my time here.
I’m surprised KDJ’s reputation isn’t more sullied than it is. I was full of delight earlier this year when his request for a sleepover at Camp KJI was ignored.
Kim Dae-Jung’s opinions carry the weight of someone who bought a piece of metal.
Crank up the violins:
http://www.mediamax.com/sperwe.....ntendr.wav
Between reading Rep. Jung Chung-rae’s column (see below) and then this, I was pretty much at that point.
If there was any doubt where DJ’s sympathies lie, they’ve been laid to rest in this interview. Likewise with the other article by the Urinal idiot. These guys are just not in the same corner as the US. I’m surprised the alliance hasn’t gone even furhter to the dogs than it already has. Either Rumsfeld et al don’t really know the true sentiment of this government, or the wheels of change move very slowly. More troop withdrawals on the drawing board (I hope)?
Pretty interesting that Kim’s and Jung’s comments come out while Pres. Noh is “summiting” in the States. Oh the pomp and ceremony of a state visit that isn’t one. Lincoln’s bed cuffy, isn’t it?
Expect some disconcerting news to be coming Korea’s way shortly.
After this (well, after the money-for-summit scandal, really, but this kind of cements it), I can see that Kim Dae-jung is not one tenth the elder statesman he’s often portrayed as being.
Maybe I’m misreading what he says about the kidnapping issue between Japan and the Norks, but between the lines, he seems to be implying that Japan should play it low-key (no-key, really) like the ROK these days. Well, there are some things about Koizumi that bug me (Yasukuni first and foremost—that’s just my personal opinion; I don’t want to get into a debate here), but he’s definitely been doing the right thing by pressing the Norks loudly and publicly on the issue of abducted Japanese citizens. No one should expect or accept anything less. That South Korea has been lowballing this issue as much as it has is scandalous.
This SOB and his Jolla Commies wrecked Korea. Korea has become a Taliban nation to the US and soon the US will label the entire Korea as a Terrorist nation.
Who changed Korea? Commies. They gave the wrong idea that Korea was split by America. What an idiot! Korea had enough Communists by the fall of Japan to make the entire peninsula a Communist nation.
It was so lucky (by providence) that the US interfered and saved the half of Korea to be a free country.
Now, this stupid jerk says that it was better for Korea to have been a unified Communist country. He even says Kim IlSung did the right thing to unite the country under Communist rule. A fucking Commie, he is.
Korean people are lied to by these Jolla Commies. As the result, Korea has to fight NK,China and Japan all by itself. There will be no help from the US this time.
Fight and die, Koreans. Stupid people who follow liars like Kim DaeJung and Rho Muhyuen deserve to die.
Only death waits for these ignorant people.
I guess DJ forgot that Ronald Reagan and his nefarious neocon advisors saved his life by inviting Chun to as the first state guest of the Reagan administration.
Wait, I too forgot for a moment: This is the same lying, two-faced maggot who went around demonizing Reagan for legitimizing the Chun administration throughout the 80s.
There’s plenty of out in the open neo-con evil to attack. Why make conspiracy theories?
Whitey wrote:
Actually, the Wolgan Chosun did publish a few years ago a series of correspondence between Richard V. Allen (a Reagan National Security Advisor and a Republican foreign policy heavyweight) and a former South Korean National Assemblyman Lee Dong-bok where Allen broached the very topic of starting a campaign in the U.S. to dispossess Kim of his ill-gotten prize. I do not know what came of it, however.
Just for the record, this is the man whose life we saved three times: once from a North Korean firing squad, once from South Korean assassins, and once from a South Korean death sentence.
We also “saved” Saddam Hussein back in the 80s when Iraq and Iran were going at each others throats.
What a troublesome hassle this democracy thing is turning out to be, huh? Palestinians voting for Hamas, South Koreans turning anti-American. I think if America had a choice between a South Korea,under a so-called “benevolent” dictatorship but clearly aligned with America (as in the past) versus a democratic, free South Korea that happens to go through phases of anti-Americanism, I think America would choose the latter.
So what exactly were the accomplishments of America in handling NE Asian geopolitics? Are things better or worse than they were 10 years ago? Has Bush’s Axis of Evil rhetoric and pre-emptive policy made things safer or worse?
Koreans want peace in their own peninsula. America wants war and/or regime change. America jeopardizes peace and security in NE Asia and Koreans are expected to just shut up and blindly follow America’s lead? I dont think so.
“I think America would choose the latter.”
choose the former, I meant.
I guess DJ forgot that Ronald Reagan and his nefarious neocon advisors saved his life by inviting Chun to as the first state guest of the Reagan administration.
Wait, I too forgot for a moment: This is the same lying, two-faced maggot who went around demonizing Reagan for legitimizing the Chun administration throughout the 80s.
I can’t say I’m impressed with the short-sighted view (to say the least) of Kim’s views quoted above, but you seem to be implying that, since the US ‘bought’ his freedom (by allowing Chun’s visit to Washington), Kim should have overlooked the US’s support for Chun’s regime? Even after the Kwangju uprising ended, people were still being arrested there; as Linda Lewis (who lived in Kwangju at the time) wrote in Laying Claim to the Memory of May “[...]people kept disappearing, making a cruel joke of the martial law authorities’ assurances in May that there would be no reprisals. [...]in late July, when Valerie Steenson, the new director of the ACC (American Chamber of Commerce) in Kwangju, tried to organize a dinner party to meet “friends” (largely professors and civic leaders) of the ACC. She kept having to alter the guest list as her invitees were, one by one, taken into detention; finally she was forced to cancel the party altogether when there were not enough people still free to come (field journal, July 24-31, 1980).”
So Kim should have said, “You saved my life so I’ll overlook your support for the regime that was trying to end my life?” In that case, I would consider his criticism of the US (at that time) to be living up to the ideals that he professed to believe in.
“America wants war”
Yes, America surely wants a war with North Korea. Never mind that they are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and that Iran is heating up. Those evil neo-cons are spoiling for a fight with KJI. Ridiculous.
“So what exactly were the accomplishments of America in handling NE Asian geopolitics?”
Gee, does more than 50 years of peace count as an accomplishment?
“America jeopardizes peace and security in NE Asia and Koreans are expected to just shut up and blindly follow America’s lead?”
Yeah, it’s not the guy with the missiles and the nukes who keeps threatening to turn the place into a lake of fire who is causing the problems, it’s those damn Americans!
As for shutting up and blindly following America’s lead, what are you talking about? Nobody said anything like that anywhere on this thread as far as I noticed.
Bulgsari,
I don’t think you are getting the nerve of my criticism. Let me clarify myself.
DJ in the past has demonized Reagan specifically for inviting Chun for a quasi-state visit to the White House. As everyone in the know knows–and as both Richard Allen and Richard Holbrooke hve written– that visit was an explicit trade-off Reagan made to save DJ’s life. Furthermore, DJ likely knew the nature of the deal, though he has denied knowledge of the deal until former Reagan officials supposed confronted him about it. (By the way, Richard V. Allen has put the nature of the deal in print in the NY Times, and Richard Holbrooke, a former Carter official, has also verified Allen’s version of the story in print.)
In this context, for DJ to demonize Reagan is morally repugnant.
But then, I suppose deliberately obfuscating or outright lying about the truth is characteristics of the Left when it comes to events in South Korea.
Bruce Cumings, DJ’s buddy and a man who certainly knew better, has this wonderful nugget from his history of the peninsula (p. 385):
“Above all, why did President Reagan invite this person to the White House… providing him with so many visible signs of support? There was no good answer…”
No good answer, eh? Fucking mendacious excuse of a scholar.
It’s sad. A brilliant, even mesmerizing public speaker in his prime, a man who had the courage to be a leader (and make no mistake, at the time it took your-life-on-the-line courage - he limps from an assasination attempt to this day) when Koreans needed and were ready to take the next step from military government to elected government, a president who came into office with the Korean economy crippled and sinking, and left with the ship re-floated and the IMF loans repaid, and the engineer of the moment the Presidents of the two Koreas actually met, looked each other in the eye and talked. (As Toby once shouted about Northern Ireland on an episode of West Wing “It’s talking. What’s better than talking?”). It’s minor in the scheme of things, but I will always have a bit of fondness for him because as President he once said in a speech “Confucianism has been a cancer on the history of our nation”.
So much of the stuff of greatness…but finally he disappoints. Instead of being upfront about the half-billion dollar fee to meet KJI as he should have been (”I’m sending this much aid to the North before I go, and if anyone doesn’t like it, then tough because the President of Korea has the power to do that”) which even if you disagreed with it you could respect for being honest with the nation’s money…no, the sneaky ajosshi instincts kicked in and he had his staff bullshit the nation/steal the nation’s money.
I agree generally with Bluejives that ‘gratitude’ does not mean that one then has to follow and obey America on all matters forever. But… he could have showed some gratitude and more important contributed to a maturing of Korean political culture in non-policy ways - for example, in confronting the most rabid “hate waygooks” and “America tried to kill DJ and our democracy” wing of his supporters and de-legitimatizing them. He knows that is not what happened, but chose instead to coast on their deluded hate rather than speak up about it. It’s easy to stand up to your opponents when they’re wrong - political guts mean standing up to your friends when they’re wrong.
Finally, the Nobel Peace Prize winner dinner in Kwangju a while back. The Dalai Lama was not allowed to enter the country - apparently China grumbling a day or two is the terror of the Korean government. But I was more disappointed with the Nobel PP winners who came, and more so in DaeJung because it was his country the dinner was posted in. Did these PeacePrize winners complain, protest, demand that their fellow winner be allowed in the country to take his rightful place at their tables? Did KDJ use any of the national moral authority he still has with many Koreans to publicly pressure the government to give the Dalai Lama a visa? Did he use his contacts and influence to the same end?
No. Cowardice perhaps, or simple callow selfishness (”Why should I care about the Dalai Lama? I’m Kim DaeJung - playing the big man at dinner with world big shots in my base of Kwangju is more important than what’s morally right”). The dinner story above sums it up for me - the potential and power to be a great man, and yet… an arsehole and theif in the final sum-up.
Some kind of mistaken double entry there - could you delete the first of the two above, Marmot?
That was very interesting reading, Hugh, even if the comment did show up twice!
Damn! Just when I was thinking that the truth must lie somewhere between Baduk’s and Bluejive’s views, Hugh weighs in. A deep bow of respect, sir!
Hmmm…while I disagree with President Bush’s policies overall, as an American, I’m pleased when other nations fall in line with America. I think that’s quite natural.
And as far as saving Kim’s life from the fellow co-ethnics who planned to murder him, the U.S. literally did save his life, so it would show some grace at that advanced age to remain silent. I’m not talking about Koreans having to be eternally grateful for the U.S. not allowing them to end up like North Korea, but personal gratitude for having one’s life saved.
Apparently not, according to Kim Dae-jung. We need North Korea to justify our defense spending, MD program and re-armament of Japan. All that would go down the tubes if we invaded/overthrew North Korea. Or so is the logical conclusion of DJ’s arguments.
This can be real problematic at times. Half the time, the Bush administration (and the U.S. in general) is supposedly driving the peninsula toward war because it’s hell-bent on crushing North Korea. At other times, it’s supposedly conspiring with the Japanese to keep the peninsula divided to justify Washington’s hegemonic military presence in East Asia and Japanese rightwingers’ remilitarization plans. Hard to keep track of which dastardly strategy Washington is supposedly employing in the region.
Ironic, isn’t it, to remember the decades during which South Korea railed at the rest of the world - and Japan and the US in particular - for being too soft on North Korea. No pleasing these people, is there?
Very timely of DJ to come out with this tripe on the eve of the anniversary of the Incehon Landing:
http://www.sperwerslog.com/ind.....iversary1/
To be fair, though, we do need to acknowledge that
a) the Koreans have gained no brownie points from the US for sending troops to Iraq, though this has undoubtedly rendered Korea a more attractive target for terrorists and
b) the US can indeed be thankless even to a good ally, i.e. Britain, which has got no face-saving benefits from the US for its faithful support over the decades(see: Suez, Falklands, IRA terrorist extradition, Brits in Gitmo etc.)
To be really fair, it would be necessary to stop approaching these questions like hagglers in Namdaemun and recognize that the issue is whether, e.g., Korea and Britain, have self-interested reasons, which also may happen to coincide with the self-interested reasons of others, incl. the US, for participating in the defense of shared (at least ostensibly so, in the case of Korea) values.
Won Joon Choe:
Ah, you meant that KDJ criticized the summit that saved his life - I’d agree that that’s pretty low.
William Gleysteen also wrote about the deal (in fact, here is a pertinant page from his book, for the curious). Gleysteen criticized the speed with which Reagan ‘uncritically embraced’ him, as it ‘tarnished the image of the US in Korea’, but otherwise had been involved in the earliest stages of the attempt to save KDJ’s life and thought the deal a good one.
DJ is on a relatively shortlist of people (Arafat, any others?) who have defrauded the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
Kim Dae-jung: Our Nobel fraud, our pride!
Not too long ago, I had an interesting conversation with a fellow kyopo. We both live in Northern California and describe ourselves as conservative. So, by normal American standards, were probably a little left of center.
Anyway, we both agreed that the South Koreans keep appeasing the North because they’re not willing to pay for confrontation. Considering the situation they’re in, they should be spending at least 6% of GDP on defense. The last number I saw was something like 3%. So, really the South should be kicking in another 20-30 billion USD into defense — an amount that would certainly cut into the left’s desire to build an anti-work, anti-initiative welfare system. The leftist’s aversion to accountability definitely extends to the individual.
Before we skewer Roh and DJ, let’s consider history. Chamberlain has his place in history because he agreed to the appeasement of Hitler. What’s forgotten is that he was the prime minister of a parliamentary democracy. If he had confronted Hitler, the no-confidence vote would have been scheduled before he even got back to merry old England. So while the current and last presidents struggle to control their oral diarrhea, the people who elected them are also responsible for this nonsense. Kind of like how I have never voted for a Bush, but as an American, I am still somewhat responsible for the actions of my country.
My family is from Cholla and, yes, Baduk, my grandparents were communists. My grandfather was a resistance fighter and the only people who sustained the fight against the Japanese for the duration of the colonization were the communists. My grandparents were also yangban, so when the Norks came strolling down south, the family moved ahead of them. Seems that the Norks had a reputation for beheading yangban, regardless of what you had actually done in your life. Anyway, I have a fondness for DJ. It seems to me that he’s gone senile– he’s what, 80? I would say that the memory centers and the connections between brain hemispheres are quickly degrading.
Thucydides documented several situations like this 2400 years ago. The South is quickly becoming Melos, with China as Athens and the US as Sparta. Without changing their path, Koreans 100 years from now could wake up and find themselves as Chinese slaves. Koreans, culturally, are more similar to Chinese than the Tibetans are. Remember that the PRC, at its founding, defined Tibetans as Chinese without bothering to ask them. The tragedy is that Koreans have it within their power to stop this, but instead are focusing on the Americans who have no designs on Korean territory, independence or existence.
i just wonder why marmot is always chnaging his format. now, the letters are so small. any way i can enlarge the print?
moving on, there’s an interesting article at the atimes.com by henry liu regarding us policy towards china and nk. liu says us policy is to prevent reunification of n and s korea. that’s what i’ve been saying all along.
As the Marmot himself said, logically speaking, the US can’t be both in favor of destroying the North Korean regime and keeping North and South Korea divided and North Korea around as an ecuse to build Star Wars weapons. Unification implies one Korea left standing, and noone outside of the Kim JOng-il family (and maybe whacko Marxist capitalist Henry CK Liu) wants that to be the DPRK.
…And Hanchongnyon, and some of the whackier unions, and some teachers, and various Uri Party types, and assorted professors…
Upon a quick read, Henry CK Liu appears to be one of those “scholars” who can’t address the question of how the Korean war began.
What else would you expect from an admitted ‘former’ communist, who many in Gyeonsang-do would suggest is an agent of the North?
Changguang - In general the communists were not steadfast fighters against the Japanese. In the early 1930s every Korean communist intellectual without exception signed a declaration renouncing communism and pledging support for the emperor, and many became very prolific propagandists for Hiro. Some of these collaborators (eg Song Yeong) scampered so fast up to Pyongyang precisely because they were being run out of Seoul. The Chondogyo followers, the Christians, the nationalists did not have sterling histories of resistance either, but taken as a group their record is better than that of the commies - presuming, of course, that there were any real communists in the true sense of the term during the colonial period (which Scalapino and Lankov both doubt).
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[...] [Updated for your pleasure, and here’s one back at the Marmot, who has much more.] [...]
[...] Next, former ROK President Kim Dae Jung has identified a bunch of ungrateful bastards. Yep, it’s the United States Former President Kim said, “We give the United States everything to give, and yet we don’t hear good things.” After mentioning Vietnam, the deployment of Korean troops to Iraq, the transfer of the Yongsan Garrison, the redeployment of the 2nd Infantry Division to rear positions and the KoreUS FTA, he said, “Americans don’t talk about that, and ask why we’ve forgotten their help.” [...]
Realities Clashing, Opportunities Fading…
Without editorial content from that side of the Pacific it’s hard really to gauge the American response to ROK President Roh Moo-hyun’s visit to the White House, but a big “YAWN” might be appropriate. Perhaps there won’t even be editorial comment….
[...] Perhaps more interesting was the discussion he had with ex-presidents Chun Doo-hwan, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung. Or the discussions said three presidents had between themselves. The two Kims, in particular, apparently ripped into each other—Kim YS called on Roh not only to officially declare the Sunshine Policy dead and buried and terminate several intra-Korean projects (Kaesong, Kumgangsan, etc.), but also to publicly apologize to the people for pursuing the policy. Kim DJ, of course, defended his baby, saying it had developed intra-Korean relations as it was supposed to and produced results. The lack of progress, said the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was due to poor relations between Pyongyang and Washington (to get a feel for DJ’s view of the world, click here). [...]