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…
158 Comments
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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/L.....d_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/D.....e_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.