Yes, it is yet another post on the Taliban hostage situation.
My latest KTimes piece is on the fallout from the crisis. The editors changed the opening a bit (and I did not put anything in bold), but it is still mostly reflects my views.
I realize that some of it may sound cold-hearted:
The harsh reality is that missionaries and aid workers are attacked, kidnapped or killed with numbing regularity worldwide. Dozens are killed every year.
The sheer number of incidents dictates that nations that send out large numbers of aid workers and missionaries have to accept a certain number of deaths each year or find themselves bogged down by such episodes.
With the increase in the number of Koreans engaging in those activities, it is only natural that their mortality rates will increase.
Before anyone says it, no, I would not be able to say something like that to the faces of the parents and children of the 21 hostages if they had been killed, which is why I have no business being a head of government (not that there is any chance of that).
In order to be a different, I took a little bit of time from bashing folks to offer what I think would be a start for Korea to make up for this mess:
Hopefully the Roh administration will be able find a way to make up for the damage the Taliban deal has done to Korea’s standing in the world. For all the talk of `soft power’ the things that buy international influence and show a nation’s commitment are blood and treasure.
The Roh administration has shown that it is not up for a confrontation with terrorists. That leaves money as the only means of at least partially resorting Seoul’s reputation. A $200 million aid package to the Afghan government and another $200 million to help pay the expenses of coalition forces in Afghanistan would be a start.
That is all I have to say about that. Of course this blog has another half-dozen writers (including the boss) so I can’t promise you won’t see another hostage post tomorrow.
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55 Comments
Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why doesn’t President Roh resign along with his Intelligence Chief? That would instantly improve Korea’s standing in the world.
And seeing that it was those pesky Korean Christians that started this whole mess, being responsible for helping Roh lose his job would win them back into the good graces with many of their Christian-bashing brethren.
Come on, Roh, fall on your own sword and preserved the dignity of the nation.
# 1 I’d buy that for a dollar!
For all my other disagreements with you, Andy, gotta say to this essay:
Right On.
200 million for the occupation army and another 200 million for the occupation forces
May 5 planes fly into your parents home in wyoming you corn-bred sod.
Can we please get sheldon back where he at least dribbled shit about things he knew?
This driftwood whitebread is already suggesting policy to the sovereign government of the republic of Korea.
And thats with only a few publishings in the hallowed Korea Times.
Let him go forth from this blog and beyond, to where he moves back to the states and his wife beckons from him and disappears to work as a hooker.
Are there not laws against granting passports to these kinds of US citizens.
there should be.
Perhaps mr jackson could join the US military and fight against these members of a former sovereign nation that he calls a terrorist organization, on behalf of a puppet regime that he calls a government, and receive payment from the coalition forces that masquerade as a liberating force.
But that would require ignorance of Newsweek, Time, and the New York Times.
Andy, bring thy upper limb forth and back repetitively till thy cum, and join the US republican party in Afghanistan and preach the gospel of liberation there.
Your tripe is little removed from the trollop of these happy-clappy souls those that you diss, albeit purportedly secular in nature.
sanshinseon, perhaps it is a generation thing, and you are acustomed to 여보 and 자기, but why in your many years has no woman ever referred to you as 어빠?
very strange, youve lived in korea longer than i have been alive, and there was another thing which i cant quite recall right now that struck me as strange in that it appeared that you had not experienced a common part of the life in korea. are these omissions merely a result of the life that you have lived here? that it is possible is true. to never have been called 오빠 is strange indeed. i would appreciate illuminating on this topic such as i have graced andy with.
Korea doesn’t need to do a thing to regain its standing. Korea did what it had to do and that’s that. No need for apologies. No need for blood. No need for treasure. No need for shame.
Pawi, Korea is funding terror. You must have the faculty to grasp that?
Railway, US taxpayer is funding terror. You must have the faculty to grasp that.
terror bad.
terror very effective at shafting hegemonic force via rearward passage,
terror bad.
very bad.
terror winning
feels good up rearward passage.
terror good.
“…But that would require ignorance of Newsweek, Time, and the New York Times…”
Actually, old bean, I would say he’s demonstrating a faithful adherence to the best of the values of Henry Luce (Time’s long-dead founder).
Of course, you demonstrate faithful adherence as well to the values of your spiritual forbears — Alger Hiss, Kim Philby, David Greenglass, to name a few.
#8 This ought to be good. OK, I will take the bait, how are U.S. tax payers paying the Taliban hostage money?
‘Pawi, Korea is funding terror. You must have the faculty to grasp that?’ railway
korea doesn’t fund terrorism anymore than you buying a tank of gas. surely, you’ll have the faculty to understand that.
as for those who may die by bombs bought by the 20 mil korea gave, well, there’s no intention of doing that, thus, the collateral damage that might ensue is ok. see if you have the faculty to understand that one too.
korea does need to aplogize; it did what it had to do.
Pawi, you are one dumb mother fucker. How much gas does the Taliban sell? Korea gave cash to an organization whose currency is death and misery. Pull your head out of Korea’s a$$. You have to be the stupidest contrarian on this blog. I pray to sweet baby Jesus you use birth control.
Oh, and by the way. If your motherland is such the land of milk and honey, why are you back in the Untied States hanging off the teat?
Pawi,
Your gas-terrorism funding comparison is a real stretch. Sure, one or two cents out of every Saudi barrel sold might wind up in the hands of Al-Qaeda. That is a far cry from forking over $20 million directly into Taliban hands.
“korea doesn’t need to do a thing to regain it’s standing. korea did what it had to do and that’s that. no need for apologies. no need for blood. no need for treasure. no need for shame.”
Classic Korean thinking. Koreans only care about themselves. They sit, get wasted at bars, go visit massage parlors, and don’t give a flying fuck about America, Canada, Germany, or anybody but themselves.
Have you ever seen a Korean crying about the death of a non-Korean? Come to think of it, I guess when their money is involved, yes.
What does a Korean care about $20 million that will be used in causing the deaths of Afghans and Allied personnel?
All of the Koreans will withdraw and be back to visiting massage parlors, barber shops, noraebangs, dabangs, and chant, 대한민국 만세!!!
# 15 Pawi is the extreme. I know a lot of Koreans who are wonderful human beings. He is either mentally retarded or he has good fun by saying stupid shit that upsets level headed people. Pawi’s wet dream is to toss Rho’s salad.
Robert Gates and Zbigniew Brzezinski have both bragged about founding, funding and training Al Qaeda.
Then of course there was the whole arms for hostages aspect of Iran Contra.
Oh, and Operation Gladio and its numerous offshoots. Google it.
And so on.
Was it $43,000,000 that Unical tansferred to the Taliban with the blessing of the State Department?
Andy knows these things because he’s not stupid. He just can’t admit that his government is a major sponsor of terrorism.
pawikirogi,
“as for those who may die by bombs bought by the 20 mil korea gave, well, there’s no intention of doing that, thus, the collateral damage that might ensue is ok.”
I agree with Railwaycharm on #12.
#14:
Saudi current OPEC quota ~ 9 mil bpd. At 1-2 cents per bbl, that’s $90,000 to $180,000 per day to Al Quaeda (your estimate). Divide by $20 million (the high guess for the ransom), it takes Saudi Arabia between 4~7 months to pay the Taliban’s ransom. Divide by $1 million (low guess for the ransom), it’s just a week or two. Multiply all times by 4, if you will, since the US buys a quarter of the world’s oil.
Pawi, totally agreed with you in #6. If Andy Jackson and railwaycharm don’t like it…their tough sh*t.
Your math skills are impressive, Linkd, but my estimate is purely an uneducated guess.
Just trying to support Thomas Friedman, one of my current favorite sense-talkers.
I did a little googling. Obviously, there are no certain budget numbers for Al-Qaeda, but the 9-11 Commission estimated a budget of $30 million per year.
It seems your guess was pretty good, then.
Someone please make an argument that dlatn should NOT be banned.
Oranckay? Hurry, and bring the syringe.
#6: And no need for US protection, either, then. Korea can set any dumbass policy it wants if it’s willing to walk the walk and go for a truly independent self defense, without the USFK. But it can’t use our tax money to pay for the bombs that kill our soldiers.
I firmly believe there won’t be any official Saudi government budget money listed therein as line items going to Al Queda/Taliban — and I don’t think there would have been even pre-9/11.
AQ is the mortal enemy of the Al Saud royal family. What will happen is that there are thousands of wealthy Saudis, an unknown portion of whom will be Al Queda supporters (perhaps for Wahabi religious reasons, perhaps also because they are quietly opposed to the total Saud domination of the KSA government); these will contribute from the personal funds they control. Of course there won’t be an audit trail, the money will be laundered through various Islamic charities.
The connection to western oil receipts is a real one but I believe it to be much more indirect than some of you seem to be suggesting.
However, my guess is that this proportion of wealthy donors giving relatively large amounts is probably pretty small and getting smaller since the AQ attacks on the various foreign residence compounds and official Saudi govt facilities back in the 2003-04 time frame. For various reasons, among which will be intense KSA government interest in shutting down this avenue of funds donation.
Occasionally in the past I have seen references in general sources to various semi-legal/black market business schemes in which AQ has been alleged to be involved; I think diamond smuggling was one of them, can’t provide a link readily so take this as unconfirmed if you like. But I don’t think they would be doing this kind of thing if they could raise all the money they needed from donors.
Like traditional potentates from ancient times until the rise of the modern state apparatus, AQ leaders at any level above the most decentralized local cell must spend a considerable amount of time on raising funds. It must be many times more difficult now (compared to pre-9/11) to raise large amounts readily from wealthy donors — though I would guess they now have much more success with “street” level begging bowl operations throughout the Islamic world.
But only after the local fund-raisers have taken their cut, of course. We don’t get to see that but I imagine the diversion of a high proportion of funds for “living” expenses by all levels of the incredibly complicated donor chain must be an enormous frustration for AQ leaders. But then, I suppose it’s just not the will of Allah that everyone be an ascetic like the great Osama.
So if it’s true that the Koreans paid up with a readily liquid and large lump sum, I for one sure wouldn’t attempt to minimize its value to the Taliban by suggesting it’s not a big deal because it just got sloshed into some notionally big Saudi/Islamic world AQ/Taliban moneypot.
Of course we have only the word of a unidentified Taliban spokesman that this has actually happened; I therefore watch this blog with interest to see any further reports of confirmation or denial of such a payment, from official/unofficial ROK sources. Wouldn’t this prove to be a dynamite story for current ROK administration opponents?
Side note: I once again give thanks to God (and all his angels and saints) for the blessed “preview” function of this board.
Allah be praised in particular for the way His mighty hand causes my corrections to appear instantaneously, without having to click “resubmit” each time I find another error. I haven’t seen this feature before, truly miracles are all around us — if only we will take the time to behold them and give thanks!
1. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not the only terrorist organizations in the world. When Pawkirogi says that the United States is funding terror through oil purchases, he’s right. Even U.S. politicians have said the same thing, claiming that weening the United States off its oil dependency will prevent the United States from funding both sides of the war on terror.
2. The Saudi royal family pays for the establishment of extremely conservative Madrassas across the middle east.
3. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which has recently been desginated a terrorist organization, gets its funding from Iran’s oil revenues.
4. Germany and Italy both paid money to the Taliban to release their hostages. Korea has not set a precedent on this issue.
With all the above said, I still disagree with the policy of Korea’s government. If it actually paid the Taliban a ransom, then it is immensely stupid and has caused irreparable damage to the country’s prestige.
5. Oh, and let’s not forget that back in the 1980’s, the party loving scion of a wealthy Saudi family, decided that he wanted to take a break from free-basing in Lebanon and get involved with a different kind of “base” against the Russians: He started waging jihad in Afghanistan. Now who do you think funded his operation?
#28 And the Taliban knows Kevin Bacon.
# 20 JK, are you back in men’s clothes yet?
# 29 Backing a campaign against a common enemy is not supporting a terrorist. It only becomes a problem when it back-fires on you. Why didn’t you throw Sadam in there while you are at it?
Korea chose life for those 19 hostages. You chose the theoretical deaths of an unknown amount of US soldiers.
That’s why I say some of you WANTED the Koreans to die.
I wanted them to live.
Korea did right. There should be no apology for that. No apology, no shame, no treasure, no blood.
******
‘why don’t you go home?’ Korea basher railwaycharm who lives in Korea to pawi
I would ask you the same question but our situations aren’t the same; I’m from the US, you aren’t from Korea.
# 33 Yeah, that’s right your father was a great American patriot. Why should I go home when I can rake the dough and bang your relatives?
You’re dead wrong, pawikirogi. Korea didn’t do right. Their goal, saving the hostages, was noble. But the end does not justify the means. The means, in this case, were note only objectively wrong (direct aid to a terrorist organization is per se wrong) but furthermore did incalculable damage to the Afghan government, Korea’s international standing, and the safety of Korean citizens abroad.
When Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines takes note of the Taliban’s success in this case, do you really think it’s not going to occur to them that they have a huge supply of minjok hostages ripe for the picking? Will you keep singing your off-key “no apologies” refrain then?
> 5. dlatn
> sanshinseon, perhaps it is a generation thing, and you are
> acustomed to 여보 and 자기, but why in your many years
> has no woman ever referred to you as 어빠?
I don’t really know why; maybe i’m just not the ‘brotherly’ type… Back in the day, all those fine long-haired mini-skirted agashis used to call me “Sweet Big All-Night Daddy”… Today they affectionately and politely refer to me as “harabaji”, which is depressing to no end, but i live on somehow.
> very strange, youve lived in korea longer than i have been alive,
> and there was another thing which i cant quite recall right now
> that struck me as strange in that it appeared that you had not
> experienced a common part of the life in korea. are these omissions
> merely a result of the life that you have lived here?
I suppose that is true. I have always found that we expats in this country have amazingly different experiences, and extremely wide range of different modes of Korea — mostly based on what kind of person we are, what about Korea interests us, what sort of energies we attract by our behavior & etc. I love discussing and reading about these differences, comparing notes with others about how they have experienced Korea, which is usually quite different than how i have…
But this has nothing to do with the present topic that Andy introduced; we can talk about it later in an appropriate topic.
“I have always found that we expats in this country have amazingly different experiences, and extremely wide range of different modes of Korea — mostly based on what kind of person we are, what about Korea interests us, what sort of energies we attract by our behavior & etc.”
Very, very true, indeed.
Sometimes, when I talk to other Germans who also lived in the ROK for some time, I get the impression they must have been resident in a different country, which merely happens to be called the “Republic of Korea”, as well.
Here is a good piece written out of Toronto regarding the risks of negotiating with the Taliban.
http://www.thestar.com/article/252625
Who cares whether pawi radically breaks from his entire known blogosphere history and actually grasps an important point? The Chosun Ilbo, no slacker in the reflexive nationalist department, does get it:
“Korea lost a lot through this incident. Its status has tumbled to that of a nation that openly cuts deals with terrorists. Now, terrorist groups from all corners of the globe will put Koreans on the top of their list as potential kidnap targets, for political or financial gain. With 12 million Koreans traveling abroad each year, this is not an ungrounded concern. The scheduled withdrawal of the Dasan engineering unit and the Dong-eui medical unit ended up looking as if it came in response to the Taliban’s demands. The sweat and sacrifice that our troops gave in Afghanistan over the past five years has gone to waste.
Korea is responsible for punching a gaping hole in the global line of defense drawn against terrorism, giving the Taliban an international stage for its propaganda warfare. Now the militants plan to abduct and kill more nationals from foreign countries whose troops serve under NATO and the U.S. military in the country, a spokesman for the movement warned Monday. With the Taliban in high spirits, the trust the international community had in Korea crashed and burned. For a very long time, Korea will have to live with the disgrace of having pleaded with the government of Afghanistan to free Taliban prisoners and the fact that the whole world found out about it.”
Entrepreneurial terrorists get it; Roh doesn’t.
Railwaycharm, your comment in #31…I would respond to it…but it was just too corny.
Then Railwaycharm wrote to pawi: “# 33 Yeah, that’s right your father was a great American patriot. Why should I go home when I can rake the dough and bang your relatives?”
Let’s see…..first off when I put up a link that talked about Asian-Americans who had gotten mistreated based on the writings of this one young Asian-American girl, railwaycharm wrote that he would put the girl on his lap and spank her (thus saying he didn’t take what she said seriously but that he dug her fine-looking Asian self). Then in another comment on this blog he talked about “flappy-lipped” African-American gangsters (which did get deleted eventually). Now, he has to make crude comments about how he is having sex with some Korean-American’s relatives. And he has the nerve to complain about racism by Koreans.
Hey, expats in Korea, you see why you guys have such bad reputations? Many of you are NOT this way….but people like him make all of you look bad. I don’t like it when Koreans make negative stereotypes about Westerners living in Korea, but based on railwaycharm’s attitudes, I gotta say, those stereotypes aren’t completely off the mark either.
“‘why don’t you go home?’ korea basher railwaycharm who lives in korea to pawi”
Yeah, there IS something ironic about railwaycharm’s comment, Pawi.
There’s this criticism on this thread of the Korean gov’t because the hostages got released (which is a good thing, one would think, Western expat anger aside). One Korean-American says the Korean government did what it had to do and owes no one any apology. Like the Western expats on this thread, he merely gave his opinion.
Then railwaycharm wrote ignorantly, “Oh, and by the way. If your motherland is such the land of milk and honey, why are you back in the Untied States hanging off the teat?”
I still don’t know HOW railwaycharm saw that Pawi had said that Korea was the “land of milk and honey” by defending the Roh Administration’s actions. I am in agreement with Pawi on this one and yet I would never DARE say Korea is a perfect place to live with its many problems or that I think life in America sucks. And as Pawi mentioned already, the attacks against him are coming from a so-called American like Railway who has chosen NOT to live in America and do anything for his country. No, he’d rather live in Korea and tell Americans how they SHOULD live and think and how they SHOULD support the war in Iraq (a place he would never personally go to fight because he is enjoying himself too much in Korea)….for the good of America.
What a loser.
JK,
I’m with you on #41. Railwaycharm’s comment:
Why should I go home when I can rake the dough and bang your relatives?
…lacked taste. Nice way to live up to “Ugly American, Go Home !” stereotypes, Railwaycharm.
Thanks shinsanseon, that was kind of the answer I was hoping for.
Korean people often have difficulty in adapting their linguistic language structures to accommodate non-ethnic Korean others, no matter how deeply acculturated the perceived outsider may be (ironically, often they the more they are, the more difficult it can be).
Still, back to the topic
Yankee doodle takes it up the ass
doo dah
doo dah
Yankee doodle takes it up the ass
ha ha ha ha ha
Why should I go home when I can rake the dough and bang your relatives?
Oh, great. Another loser foreigner teacher living it up in Korea.
why does telling the truth make you a loser
there is good money here and lots of women
nothing wrong with that
Good money and lots of women by losers’ standards.
All, the statement I made was completely out of frustration, hyperbole through and through. No I am not an English Teacher. No, I am not banging the locals. My corny statement was meant to be as over-the-top as Pawi’s pabulum puking.
I conduct myself with dignity and have never pulled a Busan 9, never played the ugly American bit. In-fact I am critical of those who have.
> dltan #44:
Actually I do remember one or more early Korean girlfriends (80s) telling me that K-gals did call their BFs 어빠 meaning older brother, depicting it as “a Korean thing”, and that it squiked me out (seeming more incestuous than intimate), and that they never seemed to consider applying it to me — they themselves wouldn’t consider it appropriate to use with a foreign BF. I guess sometime in the 90s that psycho-social barrier came down, and K-GFs felt OK with using it on F-BFs… There’s a research-paper in here somewhere…
But the rest of your post was less charming than a Railway…
I’ve never heard that Korean guys call their GFs “little sister” —
do they ever?
As far as I know, no one calls their younger brothers or sisters (literally or figuratively) 동생. They simply refer to their name. Some guys who are dating older women, though, will call them 누나 (older sister) - at least initially.
In my experience, the Korean women who have called me 오빠 usually spoke little or no English and the bulk of our conversation is/was in Korean. That allows for a more natural use of the term. They always start out using my name and then at some point 오빠 “accidentally” (so they say) slips out in conversation. I tell them I like it, and they continue to use it from there.
If someone only uses English in conversation, they are not likely to be referred to as 오빠.
dlatn — Congratulations. You’ve been banned. Comment #4 was one of the most disgusting things I’ve read in my comment section. And I’ve read a lot of disgusting things down here.
That’s banning material, too.
Good show Robert.
Yeah, like a hit on The Sopranos, it hadda happen sooner or later…