A 23-year-old U.S. soldier is under arrest after he was caught by police sexually assaulting a 67-year-old woman in Donggyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul on Sunday.
The soldier was reportedly raping the woman in a residential alleyway at around 6:00 a.m. Sunday when he was spotted by a policeman who happened to be patrolling nearby when he heard the woman’s screams. The suspect attempted to flee but was caught anyway.
The accused soldier reportedly beat the woman in the face prior to the rape as well.
After his arrest, the soldier exercised his right to silence, revealing only that he was USFK. After a USFK lawyer, MPs and other CFC officials arrived, however, he agreed to undergo questioning.
Under the SOFA, the Korean authorities get first crack at soldiers accused of heinous crimes like murder and rape, so police plan to apply for a warrant to detain the suspect.
Frankly, I’m speechless.
UPDATE: A commenter at Lost Nomad claims that no rape took place and that this was just a purse-snatching accompanied by a couple of punches to the face (not that that’s OK). He also claims that the offender was an ethnic Korean. Not that his ethnicity makes any difference, but if true, I guess we now know the standard the Korean press uses when deciding whether to call a a gyopo an “American” or a “Korean.”
Anyway, we may have to wait a couple of days to get the “real story.”
UPDATE 2: The Kyunghyang Shinmun (thanks, Antti) reports that the soldier in question was Hispanic (not Korean), and that not only did a rape take place, the victim was raped three times over the course of 40 minutes. Jesus…
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This guy is trying to get sent home. It would be a lot easier do something bizarre back in the barracks like drink your own blood, but you have to give the kid credit for his imagination.
I’m not sure if the rape of a 67-year-old woman is something you want to “give credit for,” even jokingly. And he ain’t going home—he’s going to a jail in Cheonan, hopefully for a very, very long time.
I’m all for sending him home,(if that is in fact what motivates the rapists of elderly women.) How about twenty or so years in jail first?
Nah, he won’t be going home anytime soon.
1- SOFA doesn’t apply since he wasn’t on duty
2- Korea is NOT going to hand him over to a USFK Tribunal when we’re talking about rape
3- Korea will want to make an example of him due to the heinous nature of the assault
He’ll be warming the inside of a Korean prison for quite a while.
I’d say he’d be a nice candidate to revive Korea’s death penalty for. SOFA probably wouldn’t allow for his execution, and if it doesn’t, that’s a damn shame.
That seems so bizarre. Is it possible that there’s a misunderstanding somewhere along the line?
I know there’s sickos in the world but they’re usually pretty rare.
Let the bastard swing. When was the last time the Koreans executed anyone? The serial killer they caught a couple years ago would have been a good candidate.
Yeah, I guess there might have been a “misunderstanding,” but I’m not sure what kind of misunderstanding would lead to a man beating and raping a 67-year-old woman. Of course, we’ll have to wait until the trial, but given how the guy was apparently caught in the act by the KNP, he’s going to have a hard time coming up with a defense.
um, beer goggles?
Hang him or send him to Iraq without a weapon.
Hey Pawi,
Are you planning to commend expat commentators here and over at the Lost Nomad who are calling for harsh punishment?
Donggyo-dong must be one of the dumbest neighborhoods to commit a crime in, too. With Kim Dae-jung’s house there, there are oodles of security around 24/7 on every corner.
I see the USFK has already offered an apology for the incident (the first of many, I would guess), so they are not wondering about any “misunderstandings.” Good for them, for dealing with this quickly and frankly.
Let this bastard eat stale, cold rice for the next 10~15 years, that will cure the beer goggles right up.
I’m all for justice, but out of curiosity, what is the average sentence for domestic rapists here?
This fruit is borne of the curfew and off-limits list.
I believe that would be a sentence of 6 years, followed by 6months in prison and release after payment of ‘compensation’ to the woman and/or police, aaronm
A comment at the Lost Nomad claims this was a robbery/purse snatching and that the perp was an ethnic Korean named Kwak.
and so the fog of conflicting sources sets in…
An ethnic Korean, White, Black, or Hispanic soldier doesn’t make any different to me.
A completely disgusted sick bastard.
As the pay and incentives to join the Army go up – the overall quality of recruits seems to be going down. In order to meet a quota, recruiters have been know overlook criminal/mental records and allow criminals/psychos to enlist/be commissioned. It will be interesting to learn what makes this guy tick.
Kwak? Uh-oh…
Funny how this guy is “G” in the press, while the French dead baby couple was identified by their first, middle, and last names.
If he is ethnic Korean, the press needs to make that clear (fat chance, I know) stat to forestall the anti-white feeling this crime will inflame.
Yeah, jimong, there in the cradle of diversity a perp’s ethnicity does not matter, but here in your homeland it still does.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis and indignation at the fact that the woman was 67. Implicit in this is the unspoken assumption that it is somehow less heinous to rape someone your own age. Perhaps a young man raping an elderly woman makes it harder for one to “empathize” with the perpetrator? I think regardless of the victim’s age, its a heinous crime. However, in Korea, where ‘respecting your elders’ is quite important, I guess this will shock the public. Still, even if she were a 22 year old hottie, I don’t think he would have any of my sympathies.
beechtreem, I’d say most think rape is heinous no matter what.
But, with a child or the elderly, there is an extra element of outrage because those victims are perceived as utterly unable to defend themselves.
If some guy punched my adult sister, I’d probably punch them a few times back.
But if the same guy punched my grandma, I might near slug the bastard into a coma, not that I’d be right to do it but a kind of protective instinct to the helpless takes over.
so how does a white soldier raping a grandma turn into a korean soldier stealing a purse?
One of these things is not like the other.
Has anyone here heard of the concept of innocent until proven guilty? Can we reserve judgment until the facts are sorted? [ducks under desk]
mateomiguel,
Nowhere did I read anything about the assailant being a “white” soldier. A soldier, yes. But last time I looked (which was today, btw), the U.S. military is made up of every ethnicity you can think of.
Any bets on how KCNA will report this?
In this article, he is referred to as Private “A” (not “G”) and the suspect in the photo does not look Korean, although it’s not possible to say for sure.
http://www.cbs.co.kr/Nocut/Show.asp?IDX=408907
Kyunghyang Sinmun tells the suspect is hispanic ( 히스패닉계).
I hope this story is not true.
It could turn out to be the pre-election incident that the troublemakers were looking for in order to light up their candles again.
I wonder if the general population in Korean prisons is as kind to perverts as is the American one. If so, he won’t last long in jail.
he could be US GI with a Korean last name but also a Latin American mother.
I don’t know. When I was in South Korea, I never heard of getting butt fucked men to men in prison, even by straight men. When I came to the US, it seemed public knowledge that straight men will butt fuck men to men in all prisons. My impression of Korean prisons was that such a thing did not happen, but who knows? Maybe they do that in Korea, too. I’ll let the people who have been to prison debate that one.
anyone care to share how someone can change their flags? How do you get “from Europe” ?
I’ve not been to prison, except to the visiting areas. But from watching television and the Korean movies that come on, it seems to me that homosexual rape gets the same ha ha, wink wink treatment in Korean society as it does in American society. Which is unfortunate, since rape is no laughing matter.
come to think of it, don’t the Chinese claim that the Japanese soldiers did something like this in Nan Jing. I think they did.
For the record, I wasn’t talking about homosexual rape in prisons but rather murder, which is what often happens to sex perverts in US prisons, like Jeffrey Dalmer and Fr. Geoghan.
Does anyone know if Korean inmates mete out the same “justice”?
Wjk, you seem pathologically interested in butt f*ucking. Are you dealing with latent feelings? How the hell do you extrapolate a prison banging from a Harrimony getting brutalized?
Very unlikely to happen, in light of the fact the USFK command made what looked like a quick heartfelt apology, distancing itself away from the soldier. I think the USFK has learned some harsh lessons over the last few years that face matters very much to Koreans. Offering official public apologies without strings attached, will always mitigate the damage. But still there probably will be some bad taste and bad will in Korean public’s mouth, and some Anti-US groups may use the case for their own good down the road.
That commenter at Nomad blog was just making things up from his butt.
It kind of tells how some GIs feel about this incident. Making jokes. “Ha,ha, so what is so bad about raping some women in a foreign country? They are not Americans.”
Well, country bumpkin GI know this. Now, even people in the US do not like you guys going around to other countries and raping women in other countries and we will deal very harshly on you. Being a soldier is no longer an excuse to perpetrate this crime.
In other words, if you commit a crime in a foreign country, you are on your own. Being in military uniform will no longer save you. This is not 1960s.
IMO, this very likely will be used to fuel sentiment against the favorite whipping boy.
However, if the investigation finds him guilty as charged, and they hang ‘im high, excessive fallout can most likely be avoided.
real high.
Please people, innocent until proven guilty.
Too many of the posters here appear too ready to turn their backs on an honorable member of the United States Armed Forces.
Until the true facts come to light, this we do know.
The accused was a soldier for Freedom, one who has pledged to defend Liberty, and maintain Democracy, for all people on this peninsula, as well as back home.
Like so many of our young men and women struggling to ensure a Just and Peaceful world, do not we owe him the benefit of doubt?
Don’t be too quick to judge.
Don’t be suprised when this guy does not get as tough a sentence as the comments here say he deserves. I will be interested to see if he gets 6 years as Hugh said was standard.
Hugh, what are you basing that on?
Not being able to read Korean, I haven’t been able to find a lot of crime sentencing info on Korean-on-Korean crime, but I’ve seen 8 years end up the final sentence after appeals for murder both when it involved a GI and it didn’t.
It was my impression that sex crime laws and sentencing in Korea were woefully behind the times. You see stories about this a couple times a year (having nothing to do with GIs or foreigners).
In the past, I’ve heard it said that that is one of the ironies of The SOFA Issue: that this asshole would get a tougher jail sentence if the sentencing guidelines of the US military were used instead of Korean ones.
I’m just being knitpicky, but this is a cotton candy thought – tastes good in the mouth (and sounds good in the ear) but lacks real substance.
The fact is top level apologies for accidents and crimes by GIs have been a matter of routine for as far back as I’ve been able to trace events. What seems to vary is how the Korean media (and public) want to take them. — as in whether the Korean media reports them at all or quotes them in such a way as to dismiss them as “insincere”.
I would bet $20 cm’s comment quoted above had as a partial reference in his mind the 2002 tank accident, but there is a list of things USFK did immediately after the accident that never got printed in the Korean press and were ignored long after – like visiting the families at the hospital and giving them the customary small bereavement money and apologizing the day of the accident or like the candlelight memorial held on base with VIPs from the US in Korea and Korean government one week after the accident. And the only people in Korea who heard about the monetary settlement reached with the families and Korean government about a month later were those who read the Stars and Stripes.
It also isn’t too uncommon in something like the base environmental stories to find via the Stars and Stripes that USFK brought members of the press, Korean local government, and even (anti-US) civic group members on base to give them information about the problem and a tour of the area, but when you turn to the Korean press, none of that makes it into the “Uncle Polluter” stories.
I’m not sure what lesson USFK command can take from the past information that I’ve been able to gather over the years….
….maybe it should teach them to invade the Korean media offices at gun point and force them to print news of the apologies and whatnot more consistently.
Right now, Korean society is afraid USFK is leaving – especially with 20,000 more US troops heading to Iraq from somewhere in the world. That fact alone probably explains why we are reading about the USFK commanders sincere apology in the Korean press (and why such things were ignored at times in the past when the US-SK security arrangement seemed like a given that would never change).
It looks like the USFK did exactly that. They already had a press cover, apologizing for the soldier in question.
I knew somebody would bring that up. Yes indeed I was thinking exactly that. I was waiting for that. Perhaps I’m wrong here, and I don’t know the exact timeline of those events, but didn’t the USFK did all that after the Korean public shit hit the fan and things got out of control?
What I notice different about the USFK these days, is they have much faster reaction in attempting to mitigate, whereas before, they would take the traditional Western cultural position of let’s wait and see what happened before we say anything. Or it could be just my false impression.
This entire apologising game for someone else’s crimes is nonsensical.
A couple of years ago two 16-year old boys, sons of US officers stationed in Germany, threw a couple of heavy rocks from an overpass onto a motorway near the German city of Darmstadt, thereby killing two motorists and severely injuring some others. The boys were handed over to the German authorities, tried, found guilty, and sentenced according to German law (which led to them receiving a much more lenient sentence than they would have faced back in the US).
Nobody apologised. Nor was anybody expected to apologise, except for the perpetrators themselves. Indeed, if some US army official had offered his/her apologies this would have been resulted in bewilderment because the military as such had not been at fault.
The alleged rapist would fare better in a Korean court than a court martial. Even with a plea bargain, I’d bet he gets at least 10 years. Here’s a link to an exerpt from the Manual For Courts Martial, Article 120 – Rape and Carnal Knowledge.
Note the maximum punishment:
Maximum punishment.
(1) Rape. Death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
I agree with you, but only if you look at this through the western cultural prism. Asia, on the other hand, is a different story. Face is extremely important in Korea, and certainly in most of East Asia.
I agree with you, but only if you look at this through the western cultural prism. Asia, on the other hand, is a different story. Face is extremely important in Korea, and certainly in most of East Asia.
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To be fair, I have difficulty in believing the account in Kyunghyang Shinmun. How can anyone rape a woman three times in 40 minutes? Ejaculated, regrow, ejaculate, regrow, ejaculate in 40 minutes?
If the woman were Brittny or other sexy ass, that may be barely feasible. But for a grand ma? Woman at that age, smell.
And, the victim being a sixty something cleaning woman she is not sexy. She is not wearing a perfume or sexy underware.
Maybe 1.5 times at max. Then, she may be exaggerating. And, if so, how much should we believe?
Yes, I sure know the concept. But I do not like it much. People who have done nothing wrong are put up for blame, to no benefit of the real victim (and here this is the 67-year old lady who has been raped, not the Korean public).
Same for the Japanese government regarding the comfort women issue. Sure, everything conceivable should be done to ease their (certainly difficult) lot. Now (2007; 62 after the end of WWII)really is the last opportunity to finally provide them with adequate compensation, as otherwise they will not be alive to make use of it anymore. In addition, Shinzo Abe (or maybe even the Tenno) should, as representatives of their country, apologise to the individuals concerned.
But I resent the notion that an apology to the ROK or to the Korean public as such is required, as victimhood is personal, not national. Regard me as culturally insensitive if you wish, but I simply resent the entire confucianist group-think concept…
And Baduk’s comment smells of sexism…
RE: #16:
Here’s part of GEN BB Bell’s offical apology:
Translation: USFK-wide lockdown because of one soldier.
Exactly… or maybe he was on some gonzo drugs. Why else would he go after a 67 year old lady?
railwaycharm,
Then why do almost all US movies having to do with jail show a man getting violently raped by another heterosexual man?
I know life is not Hollywood, but ask anyone in the States, they’ll say they play homo in the jail cells.
I actually indirectly know of someone who went to a US jail, and got HIV. Word was that he got raped.
I’m not at all into anal intercourse myself. There are a lot more protozoans, bacteria, virus, and worms you could get whether or not your target is male or female. This is probably taboo to say, but I’m fairly confident about it.
#21 AfChief:
From personal involvement with the US Army commissioning process, I can tell you categorically that anyone with a serious prior criminal record will not be accepted into a commissioning program, much less commissioned as a second lieutenant.
As far as the recruiting of Army enlisted personnel, there was a fairly major scandal about recruiters’ overlooking (or covering up) disqualified recruits back in approx 1979-1980. To include some covering up of prior criminal records, though the major part of the scandal (to the best of my recollection, don’t have a link offhand) involved the upward “adjustment” of ASVAB scores to meet a minimum standard.
(ASVAB = Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, fill in the block multi-choice questions I think, never actually took it myself, not required for the commissioning process).
Recruiting NCO’s have to be fairly senior (Staff Sergeant/E6, or at least on the list?), and they get sent through preparatory training first, where they get some pretty drastic warnings about this subject. I believe there were numerous court-martials of recruiting NCO’s as a result of the 1979-80 scandal, and I strongly suspect that the memory of that has not been lost amongst the Army recruiting community.
When something like this happens, the comprehensive and lengthy pre-trial investigation by the Army will undoubtedly include CID agents checking the guy’s background in civilian life. If it turns out that he had a civilian criminal record, one that precluded his being enlisted in the first place, I suspect the recruiting NCO responsible will be looking at some pretty sharp questioning about the matter (even if the Rec NCO has gone back to regular Army assignments and is no longer in the recruiting business).
The recruiting NCO’s all know this; I think you can be confident that the standard procedures for a criminal background check for this guy were followed when he was recruited, and that most likely this is a “first offense”.
There is an old old stereotype, about young hooligans standing in front of a criminal court judge, and the judge saying “you have a choice– you can go in jail, or go in the military”. (Read “Army” as the standard choice for “military”).
So here’s another note, for the record: The US Army JAG Corps used to (and, I’m sure, still does) send out lesson plans, instructing those of us (in the commissioning/ recruiting business) to try to step on this stereotype whenever/whereever we find it. It probably hasn’t been true since around the WWII era.
A serious disciplinary problem in civilian life is a good bet to be one in the military, and the Army has enough headaches without voluntarily taking on another one.
If you want a motivation, I suggest “you-all” instead look to the “tenor of the times” in which we live (ie the “golden” age of internet porno, to include the “alternative” brand), as well as the recent worldwide massive growth of prostitution/sex slavery, and the general “permissiveness” of the times in which we live.
I’m old enough to remember when it wasn’t so. My God grant that we can someday return to the higher public moral standards of an earlier era, though I have little to no expectation that my prayer will be heard.
WJK,
maybe Garlic Breath (who sometimes has a tendency to exaggerate) is right about this one:
You really have a penchant for the dirty details of sexuality. Really weird…
‘But I resent the notion that an apology to the ROK or to the Korean public as such is required, as victimhood is personal, not national. Regard me as culturally insensitive if you wish, but I simply resent the entire confucianist group-think concept…’
How do you feel about jewish group think regarding the Holocaust?
I have never noticed any “Jewish Group Think” regarding the Holocaust. The Jews of today are full well aware that, while they can accept the apologies which are still forthcoming (e.g. from the German government or from other German institutions), they can do so only as proxies of the actual victims. These are those directly or indirectly (e.g. those having lost relatives dear to them) affected, but not e.g. those who are mere 4th generation descendants of the actual victims. There is a German proverb: “Neither guilt nor victimhood are hereditary.” The members of the Jewish community in Germany are full well aware of this. The question of compensation is a different matter – both the liability and the entitlement can be passed on to future generations.
Jews have never demanded an apology from Germany for the Holocaust. Unlike many Koreans, Jews have a genuine, not a merely pretended, sense of honour, and thus understand that “to demand an apology” is non-sensical. Either an apology is freely tendered (and can then be accepted or rejected), or else it’s worthless. An apology tendered under coercion is, by definition, insincere and serves no useful purpose.
Germany has, through her representatives, tendered sincere apologies to the Jewish community (as well as to Israel as a country) on multiple occasions, and has humbly asked for forgiveness, on the understanding that the Holocaust has simply been too incisive and monstrous an event for real forgiveness to be granted. The German pleas have been rightly accompanied by compensation payments, though the Germans are full well aware that any compensation of whatever amount cannot possibly be adequate.
Thus the country (however not the individuals presently living there unless they have been personally involved) remains forever fraught with guilt. This is why everybody here try to pass themselves off as foreigners, e.g. I myself invariably emphasise the fact that I am an adoptee of Romanian descent. Others point to a foreign great-grandparent and in this way try to create a non-German identity for themselves.
All this has, however, nothing at all to do with the GI thug who raped the old lady…
No your are totally wrong dogbertt. It doesn’t matter. It would make it to the news in every country you pick if a 20 something rapes a 67 year old woman. It’s not the issue of what ethical background is this bastard, it is about how seriously sick bastard this guy is. And he is a soldier, one of USFK. What does a man or a woman learns first thing when they are recruited to the Military? I think they learn about discipline. That’s why readers of this news are more upset about the news. I am sure, regardless of your hatred attitude towards Korean, it would make it to the news if this crime was conducted by one of the Korean army. And local medias would demand for a sincere apology from the Defense Minister. Why a quick official apology announced from the USKF General Bell? That’s how serious this crime is.
Pawi, let me just point that the Holocaust was a crime perpetraded by the government of Germany against an entire ethnic group while this rape, however disgusting it may be, is the act of an individual against another individual. To conflate the two and argue that a USFK apology is appropriate using the example of Jews and the Holocaust is to imply that this crime and this criminal are part of a wider policy of USFK to assault and rape elderly women. I don’t think even you would argue that’s the case.
I have to admit, that made me laugh, and when I glanced at his gravatar when I went to cut and paste, I laughed more.
Next from cm,
Yes, that is wrong. But you wouldn’t have known it at the time (or since) unless you read the Stars and Stripes about it before Korea went nuts.
I did an extensive review of it here:
http://www.usinkorea.org/1st/TRAGEDY/index.html
Everything I mentioned in the first note happened a couple of weeks to a few weeks before Korea went nuts. They were focused on the World Cup (which included keeping a lid on anti-US activity as they were warned about by the government and press a couple of months leading up to the WC — because actually, the anti-US activity was pretty high from the end of 2001 until just before the WC brought in all the foreign journalists).
And it is worth repeating what happened on USFK’s side: on the day of the accident, USFK officers met the families at the hospital and gave them the small amount of money — making the effort to follow Korean custom. They also apologized. A week later, they held the first candlelight memorial that at least read as if it were impressive – complete with a helicopter flyover tribute and following Korean and American customs for such events. USFK members and others also took up a collection and build the monuement at the accident site. And they came to a monetary settlement between the 3 parties that had to agree on it – that being USFK, the Korean government, and the 2 families.
But nobody outside of Stars and Stripes readers heard about any of that.
And that is part of “the process” that goes beyond that event.
I agree sometimes the statements USFK makes are going to rub the Koreans the wrong way naturally due to differences in our sense of justice systems: USFK is going to apologize for the events, but it is also going to keep comments about the future cases to a minimum – because the cases are still pending. And frequently, USFK is going to add that apologizing is not an admission of guilt on their part (or for the individual GI if it is one of these crime cases).
The soldiers too usually don’t plead guilty and thus don’t throw themselves on the mercy of the court like I think is the Korean way – instead they opt to do what any lawyer in the States would tell them to do: keep your mouth shut.
But, I really don’t think there has been a change in how USFK goes about handling events as they arise.
I think the primary difference between 2002 and today is — the Korean press and others of influence and the common man — are seriously afraid the US-SK alliance is unravelling and has been since 2002 when Roh got elected — so they are much more willing to print USFK apologies and stuff USFK gives them via the public relations and other offices to explain USFK’s thinking and actions on this or that issue.
That is the difference. The Korean press isn’t simply ignoring or undermining USFK’s response.
That has always been part of the pattern and what I call “the turtle effect”.
In fact, historians might be able to go back and judge the temperature and health of the alliance – at least from Korea’s point of view – by checking this out:
Are the anti-US/USFK NGO leaders quoted in the piece?
Are they quoted and USFK not?
If both are quoted, whose quote comes first or is favored by the article?
And lastly, if a National Assembly member is also quoted pretty much echoing what the anti-US NGO leaders have been saying, and the editorials in the Korean press come out swinging with that message too, USFK should know by now it is time to batten down the hatches.
This has been the idea expressed in several comments, but I’m not sure it really matches Korea or American society.
Rape is a fairly common crime in both countries, and all of the victims are not hot and sexy women between the ages of 15-35. A 67 year old woman being raped, I think, really isn’t highly extraordinary.
I am not saying it is no big deal.
If I had my way, medieval tourture would be used on sex offenders. I know what the life-long effects are for a victim of a sex crime.
So, I’m not taking anything away from how horrible the event was for the victim.
I am saying though that I can easily picture such an attack not making it beyond the local news orgs in the US (or Korea).
If such an attack occured in the county I live in here in Georgia, I can easily picture it not making it into the state TV news broadcasts based in Atlanta. If it happened in Atlanta, it would have a much better chance of being known state-wide via the evening news, but on a busy news day, I can even see it not making it there.
And I think it is safe to say on most days such an attack would have little chance of being picked up as a national news story or drawing a lot of national attention.
I am going to guess the same is true in Korea especially given how talking about sex crimes is still somewhat of a taboo in Korean society (like it used to be in the US decades ago).
Pawi is comparing a single rape to the systematic murders of 12 million people? groan
I find it unusual that people are making a big deal about the woman’s age. Isn’t rape more of an issue of having power or control over a person vs. sexual attraction or gratification? (Didn’t someone mention prison or military rapes earlier? Don’t tell me those are all results of sexual attraction.)
As for this comment:
I don’t know much about this either but in relation to Korean-on-Korean crime, I did receive a letter once from a Korean prisoner who had claimed he had completed 7 out of a 15 year sentence which I thought was pretty damn long. Long story as to how I got that letter and what it said although the letter was pretty funny and the guy obviously nuts. But I’ll save that story for my future book on life in Korea.
Pawi,
Don’t waste your time trying to get us to make antisemitic comments because we criticized you for doing that very thing in another thread.
Besides, as Sonagi pointed out, you can’t possibly compare a rape with the murder of millions of Jews, nor can you equate Korean demands for apologies with Zionism.
Speaking of apologies…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan
I’d say Japan has done more than most to show remorse for its colonial past. To put things in perspective: it took nearly 250 years after the case was open in British courts for the Crown to even acknowledge the events of the deportation (genocide) of the Acadians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Acadians
Then again, as Fantasy was pointing out, Korean and Japanese view things quite differently than we do. Japan will continue apologizing because of its shame, and Korea will continue demanding more apologies for whatever reasons it does.
A couple of days ago, an express bus driver who was “feeling sleepy” plowed into two vans carrying guests on their way to a wedding in Seoul, killing ten. So far, there is no national outrage.
A U.S. Army vehicle accidentally kills two Korean girls walking in a road and there is a huge national outcry.
It makes a difference, cm.
BTW, you are wrong and USinKorea is right in that the USFK apologies and actions following the 2002 accident were _immediate_. Your misunderstanding is likely the result of the fact that you relied on the Korean press’s failure to report that, in line with “national sentiment”.
To a Korean, an injury suffered by one Korean at the hands of a foreigner is equal in weight to any number of injuries suffered by non-Koreans. Therefore, rape of one Korean woman => murder of six million Jews.
Viz. Kim Sun-il.
Correction…
“Japan will continue apologizing, in part because of its shame, and Korea will continue demanding more apologies for whatever reasons it does.”
dobertt, you said the guy should be hanged, or sent to Iraq without a weapon, or killed.
But, if you say that the Japanese troops who did the same to old ladies in Nan Jing shouldn’t be hanged, sent to Iraq without a weapon, or killed,
I think you’re wrong.
Most likely, you would say that Nan Jing never happenned, right?
dogbertt.
Also, dogbertt, is your favorite song also
My Way
Just like dogbertt in Dilbertt?
despite the strong possiblity that some of those Nan Jing troops/officers are enshrined in the Y-shrine or that they are still alive and well as corporate CEOs in Japanese companies or are major big wig politicians of the LDP (which wins almost all the time),
I think dogbertt wouldn’t say they should be hanged.
I think dogbertt would also say that those were Korean troops of the Japanese Empire army who did those atrocities in China.
it’s a really a WTF crime, but when the same crime is compared to the Japanese Empire’s Army, then
either it never took place,
they were Koreans,
or they shouldn’t be hanged.
Something seriously wrong.
Yes, I know that legally, some crimes have a expiration date on them. I forget the legal term. But something is seriously wrong with some people and how they think.
wjk,
I may have an arcane sense of humor, too much Monty Python I suppose, but that is all. You are really bent! I don’t think this is the kind of blog where you can get “those” kinds of needs, met.
wjk wrote:
Most of the Japanese troops who looted, raped, and killed in Nanjing are either dead or soon to be dead. I expect Pawi to make such totally irrelevant and illogical connections, but not you, wjk. You’re beginning to think like him, and that really worries me.
Why are you speaking for Dogbert when he is alive and well on this thread?
Who owes me $20? Did I have any takers?????
It’s very relevant. I think they did a photo exhibition at occidentalism.org a while ago asserting that the Chinese doctored Nanjing photos.
What’s not relevant about it?
Foreign trooper in a distant land raping an elderly woman. Everyone thinks it’s so messed up. NOW. Almost unanimously. You wouldn’t be human to say it’s not messed up.
But, ah, occidentalism.org thinks the same in Nanjing never happened, it was made up. Just pointing out a double standard.
Nan Jing massacre
Here are some made up photos for you. I must admit the Chinese must have been better than Hollywood at making stuff up at the time. If you believe they were made up, that is. Warning, super graphic.
In the US, Nazis (don’t even have to be German, all that needs to be proven was that you worked for them) are still deported even if they are as good as dead men walking around. Why the double standard for Japanese War heroes? Some of them might be in the US.
wjk,
When you make statements about occidentalism like this – such specific and strong claims, how about linking to some blog entries we can read?
As for the ability of the Chinese to fake photos back then or doctor ones later, the fact is they could have done so. I have no idea whatsoever about photos related to that event, but I do know the Chinese government went to very extensive lengths to fake a whole area where they said the US used chemical weapons against them in Manchuria during the Korean War. And people like Prof Cumings used the same exact line of argument you did – it must be fact because who could make up something like this? Well, after the Soviet archives began to open up after the end of the Cold War, we learned the Chinese were able to fake the chemical weapons charge.
To even things out, I’ll mention one good thing the Japanese did and are still doing.
I once met an elderly US Korean woman who said she was a doctor. She worked as a doctor during the Japanese occupation and worked for the Japanese government. She says the Japanese government still pays her something like a pension. Her job was to be a doctor in some remote Korean islands that no one wanted to go to. True story. She still gets checks. I could hardly imagine such a thing occuring under the Chosun King.
and wjk, after several multiple postings – if you want to go to war with occidentalism, please take the fight off neutral turf? Go over there on the comments pages, instead of yanking discussions on completely unrelated blog posts here at Marmot’s into your personal war…
(And I did not mean personal war as necessarily a bad comment. If you think the site is horribly distorting things, then combatting it with passion (and facts – preferably with links) is a good thing, but the war shouldn’t be fought on other blogs on posts that have no relation to occidentalism.)
wjk, I have very little interest in Japan. You already know and care more about Japan than I ever will.
However, I have never advocated going soft on Japan because, as an American, I recall that we suffered a devious sneak attack by the Japanese and then went on to lose many American lives before finally teaching the Japanese a much-needed lesson and freeing Korea in the process.
I don’t know for certain what Korean troops did while serving the Japanese empire in WWII, but I have read that the Japanese used many of them as POW camp guards, where they acquitted themselves quite dishonorably. In addition, I think it’s impossible for Koreans to assert that they were entirely victims of Japan when you have people like your former beloved president Park, who practically became Japanese willingly.
Ahh, what? Occidentalism has never taken the position that nothing at Nankin ever happened. In fact, I have never even written about it.
For the record, I do think something happened in Nankin.
Would someone be kind enough to remind me how a story about a backalley rape of an old woman by a GI in Donggyo-dong developed into a discussion of Japanese atrocities in Nanking?
Well, isn’t everything Japan’s fault?
It is the Korean version of Godwin’s Law. The Japanese replace the Nazi’s.
The Corean Corollary to Godwin’s Law.
I request that someone (preferably Mr. Carr) provide a definition of rape here in the eyes of the Law™.
There are a lot of technical niceties,e.g., competence of an underaged victim to give consent, whether a woman can be a perp, whether forced fellatio = rape, with various views in various jurisdictions, the basic elements of the crime of rape are vaginal, anal and/or oral intercourse by the perpetrator with the victim without the victim’s consent.
Although it seems very probable that there was an aggravated assault, having worked some such cases in NYC, I’ll be very surprised if rape, or even attempted rape, turns out to be a sustainable case on the facts – as opposed to some semi-hysterical/biased young Korean cop’s or reporter’s imagination.
Should have been an “Although” at the start of the previous post.
I’d have to go back and check, but I don’t think forced oral sex (and possible not anal) fit the rape statute itself in the state of Georgia and would have to be tried under different ones. I seem to remember the GA code book specifies vaginal contact.
However, oral sex of any kind is still illegal in the GA code book as well as a few similar hold-overs from another day….
Like I said, USINKOREA, depends on the jurisdiction, and GA is very eccentric. If you really want to narrow it down, it means “intercourse” without one party’s consent, where the content of “sexual intercourse” will vary from place to place. The central concept, besides sex, is lack of consent – which doesn’t necessarily entail violence or even the threat of violence, although if you’re trying make the case, sadly it helps if there’s a lot of violence involved
Yeah right, unless you were a German/Nazi scientist…
Operation Epsilon
Operation Paperclip
etc…
It’s not required – it’s an apology. The USFK is responsible for its personnel’s behavior. The Korean public did not demand an apology. It’s simple. A USFK military person raped a Korean woman. USFK is responsible for that person and they apologize. They are apologizing to Korea as a nation because that relates to the rapist’s status.
Absence of Shakuhachi makes me feel dreary , and his presence make me feel stable. Hahaha.
@ usinkorea
Korean rape is ① the docking of ② male penis ③ into female vagina ④ by the means of assault and menace.
Other kinds of sexual misconduct by means of assault and menace is assigned into the ‘forced sexual misconduct’. The two crime is the same at the extent of legal punishment. Hmmm. I don’t know the corresponding English term. Just interpret me with your sense.
Well okay, the Korean media may not have had any time to demand an apology in this case. But, as far as I understood it, they kept demanding a “real” apology for years after the 2002 incident, in spite of the fact that several apologies had already been tendered.
You might recall that further up in this thread I described the incident which happened a couple of years ago in Germany, certainly a serious incident by any standard. Yet, no apology was tendered nor required. Because it was obvious that the military as such had not been at fault – and there was no suggestion that they were somehow “responsible” for the criminal behaviour of the two boys who happened to be the sons of US officers.
Okay, the difference may be that then it was not members of the US military who were involved but their dependants.
I wonder in how far an employer should be regarded as responsible for the misdeeds of their employees (or their dependants) in their spare time. What about a Korean expatriate working for Hyundai somewhere outside of Korea, should Hyundai then also apologise on his/her behalf if s/he commits a crime ?
I do concede, however, that the USFK is not just any ordinary employer. And I accept that the USFK might fight it useful to apologise in order to facilitate relations with the Korean public. Sure they should, as a matter of courtesy and practical intelligence. I merely deny that they are under an OBLIGATION to do so.
It’s not a legal obligation.
Okay, maybe that is a common trait in American and Korean culture that is too elusive for us humble Germans.
The victim is the victim, the 67-year old lady, certainly not the Korean public, let alone Korean nationalists who might want to pass themselves off as such, as in the Comfort Women issue.
The victim is certainly deserving of all the support that can possibly be provided to her, including apologies from whomsoever, if these is suitable to alleviate her lot. But I think more that rather than being in need of an apology she is in need of medical and psychological support – and it would certainly be a good thing if the USFK rushes in to make sure she gets this quickly and of the highest standard, irrespective of the cost. I hope, the USFK would do that anyway, irrespectective of whether they have an obligation to do so or not.
Sorry, that was supposed to read as ” But I think that, rather than being in need of an apology, she is in need of…”
There’s culpability on both sides of this issue. For years USFK has cast a blind eye to rephrensible behavior that occurs off post by soldiers (officers included) for years. Club and shop owners reinforce the behavior by either ignoring it or minimizing it as they persure their greenbacks.
The message conveyed by ignoring bad behavior and cultural insensitivity is clear: It’s OK to disrespect Koreans in the 기지촌 or “ville”, or whatever you call the sewer outside the post. The only contact most of USFK will ever have with Koreans is with those working on base, or those in the vicinity of a post.
Many equate Korea and Koreans to what little they know of it. If the act like an ass in front of senior leadership and nothing is said, they’ve just received taciturn confirmation that they can do as they please downtown. Who pays for it? Not only the well-behaved expat, but those a modicum of decency. I might add that I’ve seen behavior of non-military persons (both US and Canadian) that rival the worst of USFK.
To come back on track here, as long as USFK ignores bad behaviour, this sort of incident will continue to make headlines and everyong will suffer for it.
I completely agree, if USFK indeed has ignored reprehensible behaviour over a considerable period of time, they are themselves at fault. But this is the precondition required.
I am not knowledgeable on the subject. Maybe the commenters with a connection to USFK can enlighten us regarding the situation…
true, dda. Von Braun was Americanized that way.
I remember seeing the Area III command sergeant major drunk downtown 4 out of 5 nights a week back in ’02. The clown was married with his wife in country to boot. A sterling example if I ever saw one. With a dirtbags like that in charge, is it any onder USFK has the recurring issues?
…Bueler? Bueler?
I remember seeing the Area III command sergeant major drunk downtown 4 out of 5 nights a week back in ’02. The clown was married with his wife in country to boot. A sterling example if I ever saw one. With a dirtbags like that in charge, is it any wonder USFK has the recurring issues?
…Bueler? Bueler?
If you say it is so, and no other insider contradicts, I will very well believe it.
Where there has been fault that has led to damage, an apology should be forthcoming as soon as possible. I would very much prefer to see it directed to the victim herself and to her family, though, than to the public at large. This does not exclude the fact that the public should be informed of the details of the apology, simply as a matter of practical intelligence, as this may help the USFK to save themselves some trouble…
I’m not quite sure what you mean by “ignored”. No connection with USFK, but after a few years spent as an officer in an infantry battalion in Germany and in CONUS, I can tell you that both
1) blatantly criminal behavior by US soldiers, and
2) what might be called “stupid” behavior, (ie non-criminal but careless behavior, such as failing to watch carefully for equally careless Korean youths walking in the road, while driving your heavy armored vehicle) —
is inevitably going to happen.
You can, if you choose (for whatever reason, to include political ones) make your standard for such behavior one of “perfection” (the notorious “zero defects” standard).
Or, you can measure it against what happens in the equivalent civilian populations (ie what’s happening in both the general population of 18-25 year old Koreans, and 18-25 year old Americans back in the US). By “measure”, I mean both/ either “statistically” as well as “anecdotally”; of course, this assumes a willingness to even consider such viewpoints. If such willingness is lacking, then any discussion of the subject is futile (IMHO).
Because we’re dealing with a large population (tens of thousands) of 18 to 25 year old men (ok, 90% men). It’s inevitable that some of them are going to “fuck up”, by which common US military expression I mean either of the two above iterated categories.
I wasn’t there at USFK HQ when this latest “incident” was reported, but I can guess the most probable reaction of the generals and senior colonels to it. Either:
1) somewhat embittered resignation, if said generals/colonels are convinced that their sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and field grades, in the appropriate chain of command for this young man, have done all they can to preclude such incidents; or
2) cursing, office-furniture-destroying rage, if by action (or inaction) one of the aforementioned lower ranking members of the malefactor’s chain of command have seemingly “condoned” such “bad” behavior. In this latter case, the chain of command concerned is definitely going to be “reading” about it.
It’s always a source of wonderment to me as to what unconscious assumptions civilians draw upon, when they summon a mental picture of what they think happens in the US military.
Maybe you’re going by old WWII war movies, or perhaps a more current genre of “action films”, in which all kinds of outlandish or even insane behavior is seemingly condoned? I know that I think that such “observed” behavior is what may be flashing through the minds of young guys (not just troops, but US civilians too) — when they perpetrate misdeeds such as these.
Look to the tenor of the times, not the “inaction” of the chain of command, for your explanation — that’s my advice.
Of course, “it’s a free country, brother”, and you can choose whatever explanations you like. If perfection is what you demand, then let’s get our US troops out of Korea; perhaps only then can full peace and harmony finally prevail upon the peninsula. Works for me, anyway.
From your post, I surmise you used to be enlisted and stationed in ROK. You must have had some contact with at least a couple dozen senior NCO’s (E7/E8/E9); were they all “drunken clowns” as well, or is this just another example of “selective” memory to prove a pre-determined political point?
I myself saw quite a few senior NCO’s in my time in the military; some of them were indeed “hard-drinking”, though if it interfered with their duty day, they didn’t last long. Most didn’t allow drinking alcohol to interfere with their duties, as it was my experience that “command climates” that condone “hard drinking” are now decades in the past.
Almost all of the senior NCO’s I saw were competent, many were outstanding; normally you don’t get promoted to that level if you’re not at least in the “competent” category.
Paul H
I wasn’t saying that all were clowns, I was stating an opinion that the senior enlisted member of Area III set a piss-poor example for his charges to follow. On numerous occasions I personally observed him in a sorry state.
The point I was trying to make is that in general, the commands tend to turn a blind eye to certain behaviour. In my opinion, they don’t really want to know what goes on downtown, nor will they ever get to observe it fist hand.
I do believe most seniors are indeed competent and responsible BTW.Lest you think I was going after all USFK, I assure you I was not. I do however stand by my observation of the individual I mentioned.
Paul H wrote:
One swallow does not a summer make. One alcoholic commander does not support your accusation that “the commands tend to turn a blind eye to certain behaviour.” Judging by your spelling, you do not appear to be American, and thus, probably never a member of USFK, so how would you know that USFK commanders look the other way?
OOPS! It was Wapo I was quoting above.
Sonagi,
I am an American, I did my 20+, and spent better than 13 in Korea. I tend not to spell check when typing on blogs, but thanks for noticing. BTW, it’s Wapu and not Wapo.
20+ years, and all you could up with was one commander? Well, that speaks for itself, Wapu. At least you did acknowledge:
Also, for the record, “Command Sergeant Majors” don’t command anything. A CSM’s job is to be the senior enlisted advisor to the officer commander (don’t know what rank that would be for “Area III” in USFK, I’ll guess it’s probably a full colonel or a brigadier general).
If something is royally screwed up in the “Area III” area of responsibility, it’s the Area III commander who will answer for it to his higher commander (not his/her Sergeant Major).
Wapu #103:
Ok, Wapu, you’re now the Command Sergeant Major (with 13 years plus of time in USFK under your belt) to a brand new “big boss” (C in C USFK).
He’s asked you for ideas to solve the problem of US GI misbehavior in Korea. What specific proposals do you intend to make to him, in order to solve this problem?
(Aside from relieving the “drunken clown” Area III CSM; let’s assume he’s already rotated back to CONUS).
Also for the record: in the plural, it’s “Command Sergeants Major”, not “Command Sergeant Majors”.
I’m honestly not sure if there’s supposed to be a hyphen in there or not. I think the UK spelling has the hyphen, the US military doesn’t; however, consider this unverified.
I always imagine struggling Korean advanced English students using this blog to try to improve their skills, which is why I think those of us who post here should “try harder” (like Avis rent-a-car) to avoid typos/ English language errors.
To include calling one on ourselves (like a good, honest golfer).
“Those who correct, must in turn humbly accept correction”. Didn’t Confucius say something like that? (If he didn’t — he should have).
i may have mistaken occidentalism.org for Nanjing, but the essential same accusation applies.
Why?
Matt, you would probably say the Korean comfort women were volunteer hookers. Primarily based on the report written by a Japanese American US soldier.
Were the women in Nanjing a mass group of volunteer hookers, too?
and Bevers would say, King Sae Jong taught the Japanese about the comfort women system. The above two, I’m sure Matt and Bevers said with 100% certainty.
as for Bevers, work, the reason why he can’t make any profit out of it is that it is essentially an English translation of pre-existing Japanese work, with almost the same figures and maps as well. And not surprisingly, the exact same concepts, too.
Here would be one of the many Japanese people who write about it (took the time to learn/translate all in Korean, and you’ll feel like you read this somewhere before.)
wjk, would you please stop derailing this thread? I do not think that Robert and the other commenters here are obsessed with the Japanese as you are. Dont you have anything to say about the GI accused of raping the old lady?
With wjk, it’s either Japan or anal rapists. Everything is black and white.
Sonagi,
No senior commander (or junior for that matter) is going to admit he/she has a discipline problem in their command; to do so would be professional suicide. I didn’t jump into the Marmot’s Hole to bash USFK, or soldiers in general, but I do sincerely believe that USFK has a well earned reputation for band-aid fixes to serious issues. Running a command is difficult, and there’s no 100% solution to any issue.
Add xenophobia, cultural insensitivity, inexperience, an ops tempo that never slows down, and there are going to be behavior issues when the weekend hits. I don’t know what the right answer is, but the day senior USFK leadership takes frequent, impromptu, and unannounced strolls through downtown XX-ri, attitudes and behavior might change. Everyone knows it isn’t going to happen.
And for the record, I’ve seen a fair amount of civilians (DOD and otherwise) acting like fools; it’s not a mutually exclusive club. There will no doubt be an ineffective crackdown, command climate survey, and leadership showing for the weekend, and after that it will be business as usual. Let’s hope the there aren’t any repeat performances in the near future.
Paul: I haven’t got the answers here. My point about the (hopefully departed) Area III SGM was that he set a poor example, and that reflects back on the command. Again, I’m not out to “bash” military, civilian, or Koreans here. I’m not trying to troll Marmot’s Hole here either BTW. I honestly wish there was a viable solution.
A gyopo war against the Japanese is brewing in the Eastern US. Yoko’s story. So far from the Bamboo grove. Now the chosun is providing long range support.
If I believe the great and honorable Kimsoft, what this Yoko lady is saying is not a lie. But it turns the tables on who is bad and it is essentially a selective history.
More than a million German women from Berlin could write a similar account, if you believe the Soviet Red Army that occupied Berlin. But, such a story would never make it to a US high school curriculum, would it?
same WTF crime. Different judgement when it comes to Korea.
link
wjk—I believe that’s a Yonhap piece adopted by the Chosun. Anyway, it’s the No. 1 piece at Naver.com now, and I have a separate post up on it.
I lost a long comment, and I’m too tired to retype it all.
The basic idea was, Wapu, I agree with you. We need to get the GIs out of the disgusting ville. Let’s organize bus tours – ones that will take them to the plenthora of red light districts (look near just about every train statoin I can remember in Korea) or take them to the nicer entertainment areas where there is a WIDE DIVERSITY of places where a man can get stinking drunk and pay for sex.
A man going out frequently, getting staggaring drunk (even puking), and chasing skirt while the wife and kids are at home…
You just described what my Korean adult students said Korean men do as the norm. According to every class I can remember where the prostitution issue came up or socializing in what Korea calls “circles” of friends or co-workers (and it always came up once a month or so) – 80% of Korean men go to prostitutes either willingly or drug their by someone in their “circle” – usually an older Korean male.
What part of the disgusting GI behavior irritates Koreans so? The behavior, or the skin color?
Which is exactly why the villes sprung up (or at least was one of the reasons they sprung up). O’Sullivan’s site has a much more informed long term view of this from his much longer experience in Korea than mine. He notes how the ville was in part established to keep GIs away from the other entertainment districts in the cities and towns – to prevent drunk Korean men from getting in a fight with drunk bastard GIs to prevent them from polluting the local women and so on.
As Paul H. pointed out, if you want to make the case you are making – you have to start by showing us how GIs commit crimes on scale of frequency many times higher than Korean men.
Otherwise, talk of skin color would seem to take on a much bigger role in explaining why one man’s act is more vile and newsworthy than the other.
Which track would that be — the ear candy one?
I’ll bet you a millon dollars to your $10 that —- USFK could string every GI who disrespects Korea up on a pole with barb wire strung through their scrotum —
and you will still have some rapes, thefts, fights, and the occasional murder.
Find me a town with 25,000 to 30,000 Koreans where such crimes don’t take place…….
It would be nice if we could argue this, but we can’t. Call it hypocritical, but Koreans will never see things like that.
Also, yes, we do expect persons who willingly join the military to have higher standards of behavior. Once you enlist, you are no longer a civilian free to do as you will, but have voluntarily submitted to following orders and being subject to a strict regimen. You have agreed voluntarily to abide by clear codes of conduct that are stricter than what you were subject to under civilian law. If you don’t think you can handle things like not sexually abusing 67 year old women (or 12 year old girls, like the trained apes in Okinawa), then maybe you ought’na join the service, ya think?
Or just think of it this way: Sure, there are in the U.S. maybe a million civilian white trash Lynndie Englands. In that element, they are insignificant and irrelevant. But put Lynndie in uniform and suddenly she has the power to adversely affect foreign policy. Now, tell me why I should not hold military members to a higher standard of behavior and why I should support them when they so blatantly and needlessly f*ck up like that.
Everyone rags on pawi (I’m certainly guilty of that) and not unfairly, but it is WJK who has really lost the plot. Drug habit? Lack of sleep? Been raped yourself? Just asking.
Dogbertt #131:
The US military (Army in this case, I think it was the USMC and the USN in the Okinawa case) doesn’t knowingly take in anyone with serious prior criminal records, as I answered above (my #57, in response to #21).
I’m not sure what else you can expect military leadership to do, insofar as regulating off-duty behavior. (The case of Lynndie England involved “on-duty” behavior, and certainly involved inadequate supervison (“negligent” in terms of lower-level officer supervision, and outright “criminal complicity” in terms of her immediate NCO supervision (her Staff Sergeant E6 boss was her lover, as well as being personally involved in the various “torment” antics at Abu Ghraib)).
“Good” lower-level supervisors (sergeants, lieutenants, and captains), at the company level, will usually give “safety” briefings, prior to weekends/lengthy off-duty periods. If done properly and over a period of time, such briefings can help to inculcate a climate of discipline, one that would help to militate against the committing of criminal acts when off-duty.
I suspect part of the internal review, done by the chain of command in this case, will will look into matters such as this (as per Gen Bell’s evident pronouncement, see post #54).
But if a servicemember is going to suddenly commit an unexpected and serious criminal act, I don’t know how you think his military supervisors can be expected to anticipate and prevent it. If they could, there wouldn’t be a need for a Uniform Code of Military Justice.
What do you expect — that the military will hold classes for all its members, about the necessity to not rape old women? Try to imagine the effect on morale that would have (“Jesus, do our leaders really think we’re a bunch of complete animals?”)
The “problem” here comes from what society chooses to emphasize, on a selective basis. You gave an example above, in your post #68.
If we wanted to, I’m sure we could go into dusty JAG archives of the WWII era, and find files on horrific crimes committed off-duty by US miltary servicemembers.
Try to recall if you will the fictional details of the capital crimes read off by the Lee Marvin character in the “Dirty Dozen” movie. You may remember that some of these were committed against English civilians, by the fictional US criminal servicemen featured in the movie.
I suspect that there were similar crimes that actually occurred back then, during the long wait in the UK of the US forces build-up prior to the Normandy invasion. But — somehow I doubt that English/UK civilian society of the day chose to “play them up” as a major news/political issue.
You may scoff and say the two situations are not at all similar — but I say they are. Just in the last couple of weeks, the President awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously to a Marine who died a while back in Iraq. He threw himself on a grenade, to protect his fellow squad members (he tried to use his Kevlar helmet to cover it first, it didn’t save him, though he lived for a while afterward, I think he died on the operating table).
There are as I recall many examples of this from WWII — throwing yourself on a grenade back then was an automatic MoH. There were actually a couple of troops who survived it, by various “fluke” chances if I remember correctly.
So — what do you think? Do you suppose ROK newspapers/TV/media gave this US MoH ceremony/story any play at all? “Gee, fellow Koreans, we’re living right on the edge here, but now look what an example of heroism one of our brave allies has set for us.”
Maybe Korean media did cover it — I’d be genuinely interested to know, but I don’t read/speak Korean, and the Marmot didn’t choose to cover it as a “counter-example” for this particular incident. So you see, it’s indeed all a matter of where you choose to put your emphasis.
Which one of these do you think represents the “true” essence of our modern US military — the hero who threw himself on the grenade, or the rapist (alleged) of an old woman?
My complaint is with why such an act by a GI adversely affects foreign policy. And the correct target of that “why” is not the individual GIs who screw up but the process why which the screw ups are blown up in order to justify the level of negative attitue that ends up hurting the US interests in a place like Korea.
The point being: with a pool of men and women that size, some of them are going to commit even the worst of crimes no matter what anybody does about it.
Criticizing how those cases are used to create a solid foundation of anti-US bias is not “support them” with the “them” being the individuals who screw up.
Those will be punished.
The “them” that some of us are trying (vainly) to protect are the members of the vast majority who don’t screw up like that – and US interests in a place like Korea.
If we all follow what you are saying, then USFK is truly in an absolutely hopeless situation. There is no way these crimes are going to stop happening as long as tens of thousands of US soldiers roll in and out of Korea year to year. And if we just resign ourselves to accepting that Korean society is going to distort them, and we just heap scorn on these individual criminals for “making it so” – it is a rather depressing position to be in.
Holy smokes! “wjk”…that thing still lives? It moves?? I thought after he left Occidentalism, he would finally find peace with himself and not blame every insult to his ugly pimply face at the hands of ever girl he tried to woon on Japan. Yet, he still manages to drag his sack of “I have a severe inferiority complex with anything having to do with Japan” shit here to The Marmot’s Hole…amazing.
WJK really is starting to sound psycho…never mind that his posts are always a broken record replaying the same message “Japan is worse and although I deny ever seeing it, I will always mention homosexual rape and pornography in my posts”
I had a psychologist friend of mine read WJK’s posts and he confirmed that such strange obsessive behavior (in wjk’s case, he is obsessedw with Japan and how Korea matches up to Japan) usually stems from an experience in an individual’s past in which his feelings or self confidence was hurt. Any bets on how many times some chick insulted and dumped wjk because of his ugly face or insecure “Han” attitude and decided to go out with a more mature, confident nikkei guy? Maybe this is what fuels his obsession and jealousy against Japan.
Marmot’s Hole is a great place.
It’s hard to stop my laughter.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
All the posts here end in quarrels between wjk et al and shakuhachi et al. Hehehe. What an ENTERTAINING phenomenon it is. Hehehehe.
I’ll make Chinese come here and sightsee them.
I think the man is definitely sick – and while I agree that any rape is a horrendous act – the fact that it was someone that we usually associate with being “defenseless” makes it that much worse.
Someone asked about what rape is in Korea – what the sentences for the offence are – I wonder if there are any that truly know what it is:
“I remember reading in the newspaper many years ago that a Korean woman woke up in the middle of the night to discover her house being robbed. The precise facts of the story elude my memory, but the thief raped her and while she was being raped she bit off a piece of his nose. He was captured, arrested and brought to court, but so was she. She was arrested for assault and found guilty. He was found innocent of rape because she was dressed in such a provocative manner (she was wearing her underwear _ remember, she was asleep in her own bed), that the thief felt compelled to rape her. I remember reading that in complete disbelief. Thank goodness the courts no longer think this way. But wait a second, that’s wrong! The courts still do reason in this manner. The recent ruling by the Seoul High Court that a young female American soldier (only 19), raped by a Korean taxi driver, after she missed the last bus at Incheon International Airport and accepted the rapist’s offer to drive her to her camp, was not actually rape is a case in point. The Inchon District Court found the taxi driver guilty, but the Seoul High Court reasoned that she gave up physically resisting the taxi driver too early in the assault, and thus it was not rape! With this sort of reasoning one must wonder what the real rape rate is in Korea.”
Sorry to link one of my own articles…..
sorry – http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200406/kt2004062916552154060.htm
@ robert
If you can read Korean,
http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSD&office_id=020&article_id=0000286682
대법원은 지난해 8월 강간죄 구성 요건인 폭행과 협박의 의미를 이전과는 다르게 해석하는 판결을 내렸다.
한국 근무를 위해 인천국제공항을 통해 입국한 미 여군(당시 20세)을 부대까지 태워주겠다며 호텔로 데려가 성관계를 한 택시운전사 임모 씨(49)에 대해 무죄를 선고한 원심을 깨고 유죄 취지로 사건을 서울고법으로 돌려보낸 것.
대법원은 당시 판결에서 “피해자를 항거불능 상태에 놓이게 했는지 여부는 폭행 및 협박의 내용과 정도는 물론이고 심리적 영향, 피해자와의 관계 등 제반 사정을 종합해 판단해야 한다”고 밝혔다.
Interesting…..of course notice the dates between my article and the one you presented. Also note that I did not imply that race was an issue – hence the first example of the Korean woman being raped.
To be honest – I am very surprised that the media and the public has been somewhat quiet with this incident – I would have expected a lot more outcry and rage. I do not think he is an “example” of the American military here – which – for the most part tends to do a damn good job. There are idiots in every group -
Robert neff,
This isn’t been played up, because the press and other people of influence in the society and the average Kim, Lee, or Park has been witnessing for a couple of years now all the talk of Washington perhaps trying to find a way to delink USFK from Korea.
There is a clear, broad stroke pattern of anti-US cycles. You can generally read them by who is quoted in the papers and how they are quoted.
In this case, USFK was quoted. No anti-US NGO was quoted. And no Korean local or National Assembly politician is quoted voicing outage.
That means Korean society is scared. They can be scared of losing USFK, hurting exports abroad if anti-US activity is noted in the US press or pisses off the US government, or simply worrying about the Korean image been smudged by the foreign press.
For a rather long time, we have been in this “turtle mode” because of the mega changes perceived in the US thinking about USFK. Before 2003, the quiet periods when USFK had a good chance to be quoted in the articles without the reporter editorializing them only lasted a couple of months until the foreign media or US government’s short attention span faded their gaze on Korea out.
Since 2003, however, USFK has kept pushing for fundamental changes.
Thus, the media has layed off this case.
wiesunja, your friend does psycho analysis?
Very interesting.
More so, because it’s unrelated to the truth.
I’m told that I am objectively a pretty good looking guy. I never contended with a Japanese guy for a girl. I did over a Korean girl. In public, I never even talk about Korea-Japan issues. My first childhood best friend was a Japanese dude from Japan. In elementry school in the US East coast. They were Japanese people from Japan, working for some Japanese company. I think based on what I see of Japanese people in the US, those guys from Japan aren’t exactly confident of themselves. They’re loud when they’re in their friend groups, but otherwise very reserved. Quite different from 3rd, 2nd, or 4th generation Japanese Americans. I think sometimes I actually contribute some useful information and input from time to time. If you have a problem with anything anti-Japan, I’m sorry you do. But that’s life. My observation of you, is that you merely say bad things about Korea and put Japan on a pedestal. You don’t qualify to look down on me in anyway. Good day.
Quickie translation of Cyberbeggar’s post:
The Seoul High Court overturned the “not guilty” verdict of the taxi driver who raped the female GI, stating that there was clear evidence of force or intimidation and sentenced him to 2 1/2 years behind bars. The post is an excerpt from a longer story dealing with rape cases and how the court’s decisions define rape as a crime – must be evidence of physical restraint, threats, or violence. The first case cited in the original article was a thirteen-year-old girl raped by a 31-year-old man. The High Court decided that the man holding the girl’s shoulders down constituted restraint. Hmmm, ya don’t say? In fairness, mysogynist judges aren’t limited to Korea. An Italian judge made headlines a few years ago when he excused a rape suspect because the victim was wearing tight jeans.
Thanks for the update, Cyberbeggar.
Did you leave open the blockquote tag, wjk?
Isn’t it obvious why it does? I mean, for Christ’s sake, Pres. Clinton himself had to apologize because a couple of trash ghetto gangbangers the U.S.M.C. (thanks Paul H.) accepted because some recruiter had to make his quota raped some pre-teen Japanese girls. How the hell is that “blown up”? It is outrageous to begin with! As an American citizen I’m outraged — imagine how outraged the Japanese were. And I for one do not blame them.
Now, why should a couple of ghetto thugs who should be in prison instead of the military have influence on foreign affairs equal to a Kissinger? It ain’t right and I put the blame on the individuals and the military that coddles them.
Yes, there are heroes in the military too. But Paul H., come on. I can size up some ghetto thugs or white trash and predict with some accuracy that they will sooner or later commit a serious crime. Why can’t our military, which supposedly does not recruit those with a criminal record (do you claim that policy is followed 100%?), and also supposedly runs batteries of psychological tests on recruits? Raping children and grandmothers is not just boys letting off steam.
Not to mention that we should not have our military in Iraq in the first place, fighting an alcoholic moron of a president’s oedipal war. That MOH winner’s death was completely, utterly, and totally unnecessary. I would much rather that such a heroic young man have been able to live and contribute to U.S. society IN THE U.S. WHERE HE BELONGED.
And as I said, yes, I do hold military members to a higher standard of behavior, because the military itself does (or claims to) and because everyone who is in the service is there of his/her own free will.
two words-moral waiver.
I did not know that. Thanks for explaining how gangbangers, thugs, and criminals are welcomed into my nation’s military.
“If you’re not gay, there’s a way”.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9131.html
Whoa, whoa…peace…everyone please quit bashing “white trash.” We are the best behaved per capita in the military.
Thanks.
Dogbert, that is a bit misleading. Nowadays you can get caught with a cock in your mouth and get off scot free, but heaven forbid you get caught with a Russian chick on your lap after midnight.
First of all, this guy should be castrated. Raped a 67 year-old woman????? WTF???????
dogbertt wrote:
“A couple of days ago, an express bus driver who was ‘feeling sleepy’ plowed into two vans carrying guests on their way to a wedding in Seoul, killing ten. So far, there is no national outrage.
“A U.S. Army vehicle accidentally kills two Korean girls walking in a road and there is a huge national outcry.”
There IS a difference between incidences where a person of a particular country commits a crime versus foreigners in that country committing it.
It’s actually worse in the US (discrimination against fellow Americans sometimes) as I will illustrate:
Timothy McVeigh blew up a building in Oklahoma City. No outrage against white Protestant American ex-soldiers. No questioning about what is wrong with the Christian faith or with white people.
Sept. 11, 2001, we know what happened in NY. Many Americans then blame the religion of Islam and disciminate against Americans of Arab descent.
Actually, there was a lot of questioning about “angry white men”. There really was not a religious angle to McVeigh’s actions, though.
However, for another example, the U.S. federal government has expended much effort in shutting down white supremacists and their oddball religious movements. So I cannot accept your argument that attitudes in the U.S. are analogous to Korea.
I was living in the U.S. at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing and I remember the reaction of the country at the time. True, it differed from the post-9/11 reaction in one respect, which was the tightening of the borders. Obviously, as a citizen, tightening border controls would not have prevented what McVeigh did. Post-9/11, however, we can restrict foreign elements who have announced their goal to harm us.
Again, though, this is irrelevant to the 2002 accidental killings of the two Korean girls.
Unlike Oklahoma City and 9/11, it was an accident. 9/11 was an attack by foreign elements against the U.S. Do you claim that what happened in Korea was the same?
In that respect, why are Koreans drawing a distinction between accidental killings committed by Koreans and those caused by others? If a Korean living in America gets drunk and kills someone while driving, would our reactions as Americans be any different than had an (non-Korean) American done the same? No, they wouldn’t, and you know that’s true.
That is the difference between Koreans and Americans in their thinking.
Finally, why don’t you tell me where Tim McVeigh is now?
“Finally, why don’t you tell me where Tim McVeigh is now? ”
Well, as you already said, the two incidences in Korea were accidents while McVeigh PLANNED his crime. He was sentenced to death and died. The 9.11 hijackers also died, albeit not at the hands of the US justice system.
What are you advocating, that the Korean driver and the two US soldiers be executed??
Yes, I agree with you that there would not be a big stink if a Korean driver ACCIDENTALLY killed someone in the US. (BTW, how do you define Korean? Do you mean someone who is a US citizen or someone who is not?) But the point is the US and Korea are NOT the same country. Different size, different make-up, etc. Plus, one country has grown THROUGH immigration for over 400 years (since immigration really began long before July 4, 1776), some of it willing, some of it forced. Korea, on the other hand, was a tiny country that tried to mind its own business but found itself invaded here, taken over there, and now being a younger brother dependant on yet another powerful country. Different circumstances, and very apples and oranges. I am NOT justifying some of the young Koreans’ negative attitudes toward the US. What I am saying is that I can see how people could be angered about a crime a foreigner commits in the home country.
I STILL don’t know why, in Singapore, American Michael Fay got off with a few less paddling licks on his *ss than the Singaporeans did; he committed a crime, and he had to pay the price. Why should an American get off any easier than the two Singaporean boys who got more licks with the paddle? And most of America at the time agreed with me.
The other difference between the reaction of McVeigh’s crime and the reaction to 9.11 was how AMERICANS, not foreigners, of Arab and Pakistini (and even Indian, weird as that sounds) descent were treated.
I had a colleague at work, born in the US like me, who had his bank account frozen for a period of time. The FBI came and investigated him. No joke. The reason? He had the same last name as one of the hijackers.
This was an AMERICAN. At the time I wondered if Internment Camps like the ones in Hawaii during WWII were next.
Wasn’t Ted Kennedy on the “no-fly list”?
These things happen, and not just to Arabs.
On another note, Robert Kennedy, probably one of the most-loved Americans of his day, was murdered by a foreigner, an Arab. Was there an anti-foreigner backlash at the time?
And just saying again that “America is a land of immigrants” ignores the fact that it is not an easy matter to absorb so many immigrants, from such diverse backgrounds and having values so at odds with core American values, in a short time.
JK, i think those were necessary, harmless precautions in the grand scheme of things. Just like as expats like to say that some Korean Kyopos hold to heart Korea tighter than America many people from other countries do exactly the same.
I know of a Pakistani national who is indeed a US citizen in everyway, yet talks politically as if he’d do stuff for Pakistan over US interests.
Again, contrary to conventional thought, this is not a Korean thing, where only American kyopos would pull a Robert Kim. I think one Israeli US American was caught once for spying for the benefit of Israel from classified American secrets. Recently, too. And I think he seeked asylum in Israel.
In my opinion, to be truly American American, it takes more than 2 generations, to view the land you were born in as your own. This applies to every culture and background.
Early Irish immigrants stuck by the Catholic church and Ireland closer to the USA, even if they were born in the USA. Also thanks to early prejudice against non WASP people in the US.
Don’t forget also that there were plenty of WASP American people in the CIA who were double spying for both the US and the Russians or straight up working for the benefit of the Russians, even though they had no blood ties whatsoever with the Russians.
Think about that before you label all US Koreans as potential Robert Kims.
and it appears at least Robert Kim wasn’t in it for a Swiss bank account to tout of.
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