President Roh is saying he won’t be anyone’s doormat.
Note to President: Too late. You already are.
Seriously, even I think the guy has been treated unfairly in some respects, but it doesn’t help matters that you have to cringe each and every time he opens his mouth. This mess with Goh Kun is only one recent case in point. The dispute he’s engaging in with the retired generals is even worse. Again, I state for the record that some of the 70 former military leaders slamming Roh for his defense policies and his handling of the Korea-U.S. alliance are a bit dodgy, to say the least. But how does Roh choose to defend himself? By saying even more asinine things.
I’m really starting to wonder if he’s going to make the end of his term.
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“Roh said Seoul and Beijing agreed that Korea will be wary of any hostile action against China the U.S. might contemplate.”
Of course, there will be no hostile action by China against SK (US)interests. The Chinese (and the Norks) are our friends after all, unlike those evil Yanks, our main enemy. Yes, gotta protect that ROK-China military alliance after all.
Please remind me again as to why we have an alliance with SK.
In regards to you wondering if
RohNoh will make it to the end of his term, I wonder if you mean to question whether or not he will voluntarily quit before his time is up or if perchance, he becomes “victim” of a successful coup?It was pretty amazing synchronicity to have Roh blathering on so loudly and nonsensically at the exact same time Brendon launches a great discussion of the Korean legal system and its lawyers — especially the parts about how Korean lawyers are not well trained in “logical argumentation.” It is like President Roh’s only goal is to prove Brendon right (and handsome).
Really, though, is there a logical connection between anything two thoughts that diarrheicly gush out of Roh? On Thursday, he slams Goh Gun, and then a couple of days later says, “I’ve refrained from responding to outside criticism.” What the hell? When has Roh ever taken the high road in the face of criticism? He is one of the most thin-skinned and idiotic public officials I have ever encountered.
It did seem ironic that Mr. Carr posted on Korean lawyers right when el gran jefe went off the deep end. Roh is all grievance and no responsibility–he’s another dinosaur of Korean politics who needs to be sent away, along with the rest on both the left and right.
he’s the laughing stock of asian leaders.
much unlike that handsome carr fellow.
I looked at him today on MBC nine o’clock news.
He looks like a man who is going crazy. He is definitely not happy and rather is filled with thoughts of vengence.
He will not last. The weight of presidency is too heavy for him.
He thought he could lie to Korean people and continue his “appeasement” policy (or it is a conspiracy to subjugate SK under KJI?). However, when NK did a nuclear test, the cat is out of the bag.
He screwed up; he helped the enemy to develop nuclear bombs. He is saying that Kim Jongil will never use the bomb against SK. What a fool! Even elementary school kids will not fall for his lie.
He is losing touch with average Koreans and is going mad.
I don’t know whether it is more funny or sad to discover that Roh still insists on describing himself as the Korean Abe Lincoln.
I think Roh is the Korean Abe Vigoda more than Abe Lincoln.
I believe Brendon is also much more handsome than Roh. :-!
A guy in my office thinks Goh Kun will be a spoiler for Lee/Park from the GNP and whoever Roh endorses will be the next president as a result. Now, you’d think an endorsement from Roh would be the kiss of death, but the longer I live in Korea the less anything like that surprises me–if it seems counterintuitive to you, it’ll probably happen. Hwighting!
Roh didn’t attend university. In any case, his advisers need to remind him that in a democracry, the opposition is expected to criticize the leadership. Had he been doing a good job, they wouldn’t have much to complain about.
Curiouser and curiouser…maybe next week (or tomorrow!) he will stamp his feet and wave his fists while his face turns red.
Be it Bushie or Roh, everyday promises a new float in the parade of plug-dumb.
If another leftist/commie like Roh somehow gets in for the next 5 years, it’ll have some serious consequences for Korea. Would the ROK-US alliance survive? How about the economy? Even with Roh’s incompetent administration mucking about, it continued to grow at between 3-5%, but could it keep that pace with another anti-capitalist in power? I think the economy did reasonably well, not because, but despite Roh, but 5 more years would be harsh, especially with China coming up fast. Korea has to act deftly in coming years to handle all the challenges coming her way and having another completely incompetent fool ‘running’ the place would be disastrous.
The signs I see in some banks, the streets, ticket sales, etc. tell me that Korea is coming up on a long, sluggish period of economic difficulties — all this despite the hopeful announcement that the projected growth for next year is around 4.4% (they hope . . .). The country needs someone with mad skilz to do better.
Uri Party would-be successors are no better.
And in a country where they burn tires and violently riot at a drop of a pin, being a leader of this democracy to build concensus amongst this type of mentality is really difficult, if not impossible.
Oh come on.. He has done more damage to the US-Korea alliance in couple of years then anything put together in decades since the Korean War. WTF??
He can’t open his mouth without offending somebody. It must suck to be a Korean soldier at the DMZ. ‘They’re wasting their lives away’ for serving their country. Why should any young man not dodge the draft when you have the commander in chief, the top leader, declare serving in the military is a big waste of time?
Goh Kun seems to be an expat blog favorite because of his “centralist” views. I’m not so sure about that. The man’s likable, but if it’s true and remnants of the lefties from Uri are going to join him, what’s the difference? I’m not sure the man is strong enough to rein in all the lefties from becoming another Roh, and his centralist party could well veer left.
Korea’s safest bet currently is the Grand National Party. They have a lot of work to do to bring back stability, law and order.
R. Elgin,
Don’t knock “Fish” from Barney Miller. Or, are you thinking about Vigoda as the turncoat in GodFather.
“The one who approaches to make peace with the enemy is the mole”. And, Vigoda came to Pacino to make peace with the opposing clan. Pacino ushered him to a car where sat the IcePick.
Rho? Maybe he is the character Vigoda played in the movie, GodFather.
Remember the Chinese guy in Barney Miller? Sue or something. He ate Chinese food with his penciles.
I remember one Christmas episode where he lures an Asian hooker with the line, “in holidays,you want to be with your own kind”.
Was he a racist?
Nah, he was just being pragmatic.
I mean to question whether he’ll stay or whether he’ll quit early. I think Korea’s moved past the point when a coup would be a feasable possibility (fingers crossed).
As regards a possible military coup:
In my opinion (stateside conservative anti-Communist observer with no personal involvement in Korea), it would be politically impossible for a US administration to support in any way a hypothetical future military coup in the ROK, similar to the ones that have occurred in the past (and I’m not necessarily saying the US “supported” these either).
Even assuming the “Bushie” administration would be secretly rubbing their hands together in glee over the prospect (which I don’t for a moment believe).
A current precedent is the aftermath of the recent (2001?) coup attempt against Chavez in Venezuela. In various leftie forums I keep seeing implications that that was “US-inspired” or “US-supported”, an accusation that cuts a broad swath without really saying much of anything specifically.
Indeed some “foreign-policy-prominent” Democratic US Senators/Congressmen seem to do a lot of “eyebrow raising” about US policy towards VZ when they find themselves in a forum when it might be politically convenient (I’m thinking in particular of Sen Dodd, D-Conn).
Because of this tendency, my guess is that for at least the last 25 years (and under both Democratic and Republican US administrations), the Commander USFK and all of his subordinate generals have been under drastic standing instructions to be severely discouraging to any possible “sounding out” attempts made to them by their ROK general officer counterparts, as to possible US “support” (meaning acquiescence) in another military coup.
And to report any attempts at starting such a conversation to the US ambassador immediately. Since my experience is that general officers usually don’t rise to their ranks by being stupid, one imagines that ROK GO’s are now resigned to making their political arguments to their civilian leadership through authorized channels.
In fact, I’ll speculate even further. I wouldn’t be surprised if the USFK commander and/or ambassador makes it a point to periodically tell his ROK counterpart (speaking of course in tactful hypotheticals, about some vaguely imaginary future) that any successful coup attempt against a duly elected ROK civilian government would immediately start the beginning of the withdrawl process for USFK.
from the last sentence, above:
“…any successful coup attempt against a duly elected ROK civilian government would immediately start the beginning of the withdrawl process for USFK.”
change that to read:
“…any successful coup attempt against a duly elected ROK civilian government would BE LIABLE TO immediately start the beginning of the withdrawl process for USFK.”
A severe faux pas on my part. Heavens, what was I thinking? These diplomatic nuances are so important.
Sorry for the all caps in the correction, I don’t know how to manipulate the little gray blocks to make my comments do the strikeover/block quote etc etc.
A set of instructions for these would be useful; also one still longs wistfully for the repeatedly-wished-for (but never granted) “preview comments” opportunity.
I just now noticed one of the “google” ads at the bottom of the Chosun article linked above:
“Apocalype Soon”, http://www.foreignpolicy.com
“Robert S. McNamara says US nukes are illegal, immoral, and dangerous”.
Without looking at the link to see exactly what it was McNamara said — presumably McNamara wasn’t saying it back when he was the US Secretary of Defense (1961-68 (?), longest ever, beat out the newly-departed Rumsfeld by a couple of weeks(?)).
At that time US nukes were even more explicitly part of the US security guarantee for the ROK than they are now; I guess McNamars’s changed his mind.
Quite an interesting editorial decision by some online staff person at the Chosun, to include that particular ad there. I can imagine him/her talking to me right here in this forum
“Hey, McNamara used to be your US SecDef, the longest serving ever, so he must know what he’s talking about, right?”
I didn’t post on Brenden’s post, because I really didn’t want to rake up the muck. But if I keep seeing people bring up the issue of Korean legal profession by people who just nod their head along…
Well, let me just say that, Korean legal system is screwed up in their own unique way. Unlike in the US, where lawyers must convince a group of jury as to whatever would be in the best interest of their client (defendent or state in criminal law), a Korean lawyer has to convince a panel of judges.
As a result, US trial attorneys are trained to use logical arguments that is designed to influence jury members. In Korea, attorneys are trained to navigate through some bizzare legal maze like some sort of an accountant, because his audience is the equally myoptic Korean judges.
The result in Korea’s case, is the screwed up system where literally poor people can’t hire proper lawyers. This is in contrast to United States where you get special perversion of justice like the OJ Simpson case. (that is unless you really really thinks OJ is innocent, and the trial is an example of the beautiful justice system at work.)
In the United States, the legal system is built to insure that the innocent are not found guilty, and uses a ton of checks and balances. Lawyers are often times rewarded for showmanship alongside with logic.
In Korea, the legal system is built to be cheap and expedient. Traditionally often used to “rule by law” instead of “rule of law” that statement mister carr likes to point out. Lawyers are created by your typical Korean contest of pain endurance to prove their worthiness.
It’s a great to have logical people. But sometimes it’s nice to have human mentats who have memorized the dictionary like Rain Man–like the korean lawyer. If you see a Korean lawyer, you can’t say that he is smarter than you in a “logical” sense. But it is guaranteed that he/she has a far higher pain tolerance than you will ever have. Also this individual is probably far more driven and ambitious than you. He’s probably also an a^&hole. But then again, if you take a look at the highest wage earning lawyers in the US, in corporate law or in class action lawsuits or whatever, they probably are what we would consider a&*holes–highly ambitious, driven, anal, etc.
The difference between the Korean lawyer and the US lawyer is, as Mr. Carr points out, in Korea they really make the point of weeding out people through the bar exam. This insure that the group always remain an “elite” group, modern day mandarins, and they will always attract Korea’s most ambitious cut-throat people.
In the end, I think lawyering anywhere is not really about being logical, but being persuasive. If you can win any argument by playing the “dirty american” card, then you are very persuasive. I wouldn’t blame this on the korean legal system. You can say Roh Moo Hyun is retarded on his policy decisions, but you can’t say he is retarded about using his political savy to implement his disasterous policy goals. The man may be “illogical”, but he beat his electoral rival and survived an impeachment attempt. Lawyering probably helped him convince and politic with the right people. Just like lawyering helps the US politician.
Let me just add, so people don’t get confused, when I write, “In Korea, the legal system is built to be cheap and expedient.” I mean cheap for the State, not necessarily for the people who live under the system.
Heh heh, heh heh, heh heh, Marmot said “tool.”
So, Prez Roh fisked a huge bunch of semi-fascistic retired generals, who pocketed altogether enough bribing money to live comfortable lifes and served proudly and dutiful as footmen and errand boys of U.S. generals?
What’s their fricking problem of transferring wartime command & control to the elected Korean Commander-in-Chief over his own troops instead of leaving it to an albeit allied, but foreign force? As an independent country you need also an independent military club to smash someone’s head, if he glares at you not in a friendly way.
And 2 years of mandatory duty in the ROK ain’t the funniest time in life… Roh has told them some blatant negative facts about the long-term compulsory military service in Korea , which make sense to me.
Yeah, Korean lawyers like Prez Roh maybe miss the refined logical showtime talents of their American colleagues in front of a jury of naive John and Jane Does, but they know sure as hell how to f*ck the judicial system rightfully.
By the way, I always wondered about the usual grim mugs of the generals: do they keep that style of hardcore stare also during non-public activities like while they’re shitting in privy or something like that?
Sugar, you realize that Roh is proposing to cut ROK military forces as a direct result of DPRK’s successful detonation of nuclear bomb?
That in itself should be reason enough to declare Roh a traitor.
Don’t you think it’s a tidbit f&8ked up that Roh is now attacking these men, the same men who did what they had to do to reach military parity with DPRK (oh how quickly we forget that DPRK had stronger military than us). Not only that, they were largely responsible for economic growth AND eventually giving power back to the people. If it wasn’t for them, ROK would have per capita GDP somewhere in the vicinity of India. Nor would we have 88 tanks, F-16k, KDX-III, Hyunmoo missiles, etc etc.
But more importantly, a good leader doesn’t shift blame to people who work for him. But if Dick Cheney does it to the CIA, you probably think Dick is an A&*hole. If Roh does it, well, he is a hero. But to make matters worse, Roh does this by simultaneously pissing off ROK’s most important ally. Roh’s great super human ability–he’s ability to piss off as many number of people including his own political base as possible. Does this man still look like the epitome of leadership to you? Does he still look like the military commander you want to have when sh17 hits the fan?
You need to do some serious soul searching my friend.
If DPRK artillery shell explode next to your mom’s head, I wonder if you will still say, “At least I have my pride, and the president of ROK can unilaterally make policies without US support.”
“served proudly and dutiful as footmen and errand boys of U.S. generals”
It’s laughable to claim that the Korean generals merely lived to kiss up to the big bad Yanks. The past dictators were certainly no patsies of the Americans and if I were Korean, I would take it as being offensive to even claim such. These generals may not have perfect records when it comes to their past endeavors, but Roh is a complete fool who is playing games with his nation’s security.