Comments on: (MUST READ) B.R. Myers on why South Korea continues to give

By: OneFreeKorea » Here Comes the Election!

OneFreeKorea » Here Comes the Election! — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:32:08 +0000

[...] recover considerable support, and it’s the timeless appeal of nationalism, particularly in Korea (ht). The P.P. leaders, Comrade Chung and (especially) Kim Geun Tae, show no sign of any ethical, [...]

By: OneFreeKorea » 2007 Portends a Leaner, Meaner Left

OneFreeKorea » 2007 Portends a Leaner, Meaner Left — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 10:30:40 +0000

[...] There is a fourth reason why the P.P. will recover considerable support, and it’s the timeless appeal of nationalism, particularly in Korea (ht). The P.P. leaders, Comrade Chung and (especially) Kim Geun Tae, show no sign of any ethical, political, or financial restraints to stop them from setting new lows in crass appeals to those sentiments, to include anti-Americanism and racial hatred. In 2007, expect the post-Roh Korean left to get meaner and more confident in the purience of such appeals, and that will be even more true in 2008 if it becomes an opposition party. By doing so, the P.P. will survive as a major political force, but not without saddling all of Korea with the consequences of more ugly manifestations of Korea at its worst. [...]

By: Origami

Origami — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:14:25 +0000

It’s fun to see people run around in circles in this blame game,but(here’s a giant butt sticking out), nothing can be done about this whole issue of “Unification” until China agrees to go along with it. As you remember, Germany wasn’t unified until USSR decided to end their little Evil Empire thingy, and to call it something else few years later under ~~Rasputin~~ Putin, dear soul.

Personally, It’s difficult to tell if China is as rational as I think they are, or can be. If I have to be honest, I’m probably wishing more than I care to speculate. Non of what I have read about China recently gives me any reason to hope other than to speculate that they have increasing become more arrogant as their economy has clipped along at an impressive rate.

Translation? They’ll give up North Korea over their dead stinking carcase! After all, Chairman Mao lost his stinking son during the Korean War.
They have issues.

To tell you the truth, I have never seen a time when China ever shrunk? They’re like a typical fat-ass with a proverbial weight problem.
They can’t even lose weight even when they go on a diet; they’ll wake up at night sleepwalking and snack.

What’s a stinking North Korea to them when they have recently goggled up Tibet? If you were to ask these stinking Chinese they’ll probably tell you, “it isn’t the size, it’s the location.”

So much for the “venerable” Chinese and their sense of rationale.

By: yankabroad

yankabroad — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 12:20:11 +0000

U said it Koelher.

At least they didn’t sell out to “The Man.”

Hallelujah!

By: BRMyers

BRMyers — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 08:44:04 +0000

Thank you all for reading the piece and taking the time to write your comments. I need hardly point out that an editorial is aimed at advancing a clear point in a very short space. Some may choose to understand “to a large degree” to mean “to the exclusion of other factors,” but that is not what I meant. I might also add that the piece that ran in the original WSJ had “a good deal of respect for Pyongyang” and not just “respect”, which means something slightly different.
Now I see no indication that public support - I repeat, public - for the Sunshine Policy has anything to do with fear of war or Chinese encroachment. The scenario of a North Korean collapse is also something the South Koreans ponder far less often than we do. They say simply “we must help them, they are our brothers,” while at the same time expressing a) an awareness that the aid goes straight to the government and b) a general indifference to the plight of the poorest and most oppressed in the North.
Now on to the question of whether the worldview I described is indeed a majority one.
Considering the enormous loss of life incurred during a war that the North started, and considering the constant violent provocations launched by Pyongyang in the decades that followed, the very fact that South Korea’s dictatorships had to expend so much energy and expense to maintain an anti-North mood in itself serves to back up my main point.
The nature of the propaganda confirms it too. Contrary to popular belief, most of this was not anti-communist in nature. If a shared memory of the North’s invasion would not suffice to override the feeling of ethnic oneness, then anti-communism could hardly be expected to do the trick either. The propaganda was thus aimed at denying the Koreanness of the North Koreans. The DPRK was referred to as the North Monster (북괴), anti-North children’s cartoons showed Koreans fighting monsters, teachers encouraged students to believe that the people there were reds in the pigmentary sense too, and so on. In more sophisticated contexts it was the North’s subservience to a foreign power and an alien worldview that was made most of.
Now, we tend to exaggerate the extent to which the Sunshine Policy gang has spread pro-North propaganda. For the most part it just turned off the spigot of the anti-North stuff, and let ethnocentricity take its course. This is borne out by what South Koreans themselves say. “We grew up believing they had red skins and horns. Then we found out that they’re Korean, just like us. How could they mean us any harm?” That’s all it took!
Bear in mind recent polls indicating that support for the Sunshine Policy now transcends generational and political lines. At most, people want to see a few conditions attached to the aid.
I admit that there are still conservatives with a deep-seated aversion to the North and to the Sunshine Policy - but this is the minority view. I find such an aversion to be stronger among New Right intellectuals, who for the most part are internationalists, than among the Old Right, which has always had an ethnocentric and anti-American streak, as anyone who watched KBS under the Chun or Park regimes will remember.
This raises the question of whether the dictatorships themselves loathed the North Koreans as much as they claimed, or whether they were not primarily using the anti-North mood, like the anti-Japanese mood, for their own ends. The so-called Red Cross talks of the early 1970s - conducted at the absolute peak of anti-North rhetoric! - speak for themselves. Let us not forget that Roh Tae Woo announced his own version of the Sunshine Policy - declaring his intention to treat the North as a partner and not an enemy - less than a year after the North Koreans blew up a South Korean airplane. Never mind how sincere Roh really was, and consider the very fact that such a statement could be made without a public outcry in what was then still a very conservative country.

By: Sonagi

Sonagi — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 23:35:02 +0000

Guess the Korean military wasn’t feeling too uri when it wrote this report

By: sumo294

sumo294 — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 18:21:35 +0000

virtual wonderer, could not have said it better myself. To mcnut, you idiot! Clinton himself said he was 15 minutes away from bombing the Norks and his decision not to is the reason for the mess the South is in. If you don’t belive ask the Marmot, the a**hole who convinced Clinton otherwise is now a professor at Georgetown Univ. The elites in Korea were aghast that there was no heads up from Clinton and rightly so.

By: slim

slim — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:59:37 +0000

I recall thinking as early as the late 1980s that the world would surely tire of the solipsistic Koreans’ internecine feud — a thought that grew stronger after the European revolutions of 1989 and after years of “North-South reconciliation” is my dominant thought about the peninsula.

I think many commenters are trying to pin too much on Meyers’ very brief commentary — which never purports to be a compendium of explanations for South Korean policy — and the resulting criticism misses the mark. The explanatory power he offers stands independent of the popularity of the United States and the sucess/failure of its policies.

To Tom Coyner’s ideas, I would for starters add that if the ROK is going to insist, to the extent of almost ruining FTA talks with the US, that “Made in Kaesong” = “Made in Korea”, then we can extend the argument to “Made in Yongbyon” = “Made in Korea” and ask Seoul to take a fair degree of ownership for other behavior emanating from a Pyongyang regime that the South bankrolls. The ROK of Roh Moo-hyun behaves like a petulant, irresponsible teenager because so far its behavior has brought few consequences.

By: virtual wonderer

virtual wonderer — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:54:05 +0000

Mcnut,

how the hell would you know KJI is not going to charge in?

I mean, it doesn’t seem to make sense, but then again, I thought he would be incredibly stupid to pop the nuke. And guess what? He got away with it clean. He might think that he can actually use it in war against ROK and get away with it as long as US is not in the picture. And he is doing a fantastic job cleaving the alliance.

Look at the man’s historical record. His closest family members die from mysterious circumstances. His defector nephew gets capped by him in Seoul. His niece hangs herself in Paris. His mistresses die from diseases in exile. His oldest son takes a trip to Japan’s disneyland in what appears to be a defection attempt. He has a screwed family. This is what he does to his OWN family. Don’t you think that qualifies someone as being clinically f*9ked up?

Now let’s look at his historical provocation against South Korea. He sent agents to assassinate South Korean presidents so often I lost count. Let’s try to count them all. He sent in a commando unit to the Blue House, they reached the fu&*n’ gates. He sent assassins and planted a bomb in Burma to wipe out Chun Doo Hwan. He sent snipers to kill Park CHung Hee, but he missed and killed his wife. Let’s go to his other acts of terrorism. He sent hundreds of commandos to communize a ROK island, killing a young boy. He blew up KAL airline to spoil the 1988 Olympics. He sent in numerous midget submarines landing commandos who killed ROK civillians.

IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, THESE ACTIONS WOULD HAVE SPARKED A WAR. This is what KJI is capable of doing. What this tells me is that KJI is NOT afraid of war.

What about the fact that KJI power elite are all soldiers? These are people who have all been trained by people’s army veterans who launched a SURPRISE attack against ROK. Notice the number of tanks in DPRK arsenal? Tanks were the main reason why DPRK won a blitzkrieg. They are not preparing for a defense war. Notice their number of special forces, aka guerilla fighters, underground bunkers,& tunnels? They are not planning to fight US airforce.

You think he is pulling off brinksmanship now, you just wait until he start to do REALLy screwed up sh17. You’ll see it flying when we start to see news of REAL riots and REAL rebellions ocurring in NK. You think a man who got nothing to lose wouldn’t fire that shot?

History tells us he is capable of it, and our current situation tells us that he might see it as his only option.

By: virtual wonderer

virtual wonderer — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:27:39 +0000

Tomcoyner, you write well and eloquently. but you might as well advise that we build castles in the sky.

You wrote, “In other words, that the US and the rest of the world should hold Korea, regardless of its divisions, responsible for what goes on the entire peninsula.”

In case you haven’t been reading the news, “the rest of the world” is kinda cheesed at us. The “rest of the world” I assume, you mean countries like EU countries who are not supporting us on Iraq/Iran. Places like China and Russia who actually agree with South Korean instead of us. Places like South America where anti-american Chavez’s rhetoric resonates. Places like Africa whose policies don’t really affect anyone. So who is this “rest of the world” are you talking about? Oh, we can’t forget the vast Islamic countries who have our most loyal undying support.

You wrote,

“For example, an alternative policy may be for the US to break off all engagement with the DPRK and publicly declare that it recognizes the ROK as the only legitimate, democratically elected and functioning government…”

What do you think Chris Hill is doing now? Don’t you think our current policy is your so-called “alternative” policy?

You wrote,

“Accordingly, all aid for all parts of the Korean peninsula would be channeled through Seoul.”

when we don’t send any aid to DPRK, effectively, all aid is being channeled through Seoul since they are the only ones sending anything. Oh, i forget, the “rest of the world” aka, China, also send them stuff.

You wrote,
“At the same time, Seoul would be held accountable for all activities — including criminal activities that take place within its overall territory, starting with the Yalu River and on south to Chejudo.”

Oh yeah. Great idea. “Hey Roh Moo Hyun, you are counterfeiting US currency at BDA. What? You won’t send troops to Pyong Yang to stop them? Well, I’m imposing a sanction on you!” If we kept listening to your advice we’ll probably see a unified communized Korea under Roh Moo Hyun’s dictatorship.

You wrote,

“Yet, such a policy would signal to both Korean capitals that the world has grown tired of this half-century of impasse and it’s now time for the Koreans to get a full grip on their own responsibilities”

hahahahaha… This is my favorite part. Because well, I guess Kim Jong Il and Roh Moo Hyun just did’t really understand that they pissed off big Mommy and Daddy, aka USA and “Rest of the World”. I guess putting all the burden of diplomacy on South Korea, this would “signal” to them that we are really really mad. They are sure to understand our anger now!

I will end my annoying attack on you by saying regardless of what you recommend or not, KJI’s days are numbered. But becareful of what you wish for, because the solution may not look so pretty.