KORUS FTA Needs Work: Obama

Rapport is not the issue. Alignment is. Regarding NK policy the two appear to be in complete alignment. Obama ostensibly respects the sovereignty of SK and has also not indicated that he has any issues with Lee’s internal policies. However, on trade issues, where their respective interests conflict, Obama is not in a position to be in complete alignment with Lee.

John Galt:”Over the last couple years, watching the protests over Roh’s suicide and beef import uprising from last year, I didn’t see much footage of riot police being attacked by protesters. I’m not denying they took place, that is why I’m requesting evidence”

Here’s how Korean protests work. The people gather and approach the police line where they proceed to attack them, pelt them with stones, bars, moltov cocktails. They also attack the police busses. The police attempt to hold the line and in the process of doing their job, some demonstrators who put themselves in harms way are hurt.

WJK, do you run that “Rate my Penis?” site? Just curious.

And Brooklyn is touristy? What about the the Bronx Zoo? Yankee Stadium?

“dwaenjanggirl”? Never heard that one before. Sounds gross but better than buchu kimchi breath, I guess

Strange thing happens when you spend a great deal of time away from Korea. When you go back, you smell garlic in crowds. When I saw those pictures of all the red devils gathered around City Hall, all I could thing was manul namsae!

wjk “Thanks for standing up for the male Korean, Yuna.”

I do have to say, you do appear to have more perspective on the political situation in Korea than Yuna does, and in that regard, I concur with her pronouncement that you are “one of the least bigot-like personalities on this site.”

es1982, excellent post.

I witnessed this stuff in the 1970s and 1980s and was concerned to see kids who seemed to be deliberately trying to martyr themselves.

The students were the instigators, and while they believed they had a righteous cause, right afer the assassination and just prior to Kwangju, I warned that it was a dangerous game to play. In those days it wasn’t really violent, but kind of a game of push and shove in which the students would get in the faces of the riot police and try to push through in order to take their demonstrations off the campus and into the streets. The riot police would shove back and fire tear gas and it would disperse.

Traditionally, Korean people show restraint in such situations, but a new dynamic of violence appeared to be evolving in which a certain element of dangerously violent demonstrators were coming to the fore. To this day the tradition continues.

After the assasination of Park Cheong Hee, considering the power vacuum, I warned that it was extremely unwise for the students to push too hard. Then of course, they chose to run completely amok through Kwangju, burning police houses, raiding weapons stores, and commadeering and riding around in military vehicles.

And the massacre that ensued was extraordinary. Chun Doo Hwan sent in his most merciless dreaded black berets from Kyeong San Do – the regional rivals of Chollado – in to mop up.

I had an American army friend in intelligence back then who warned me of Chun’s naked power grab – he promoted himself through the ranks and consolidated the army under his power. Although the Korean Special Forces were nominally under US command, the hapless US commanders were blindsighted and, unaware of the murderous intent of the evil generalisimo, had little input in the matter. He had apparently established himself as the de facto leader of the Korean army by that time and took what he wanted.

My friends in Kwangju estimated many more casualties than are even reported to this day. To this day, I believe there has been a cover up of the real extent of the tragedy – the murders, the rapes of young kids.

While Chun bottled up and suppressed opposition about as efficiently as Park had after that, it became obvious that the masses yearning to breath free did not exhibit wisdom or self control and were more interested in dangerous brinkmanship.

I left Korea in 1986 and didn’t observe things firsthand after that. But upon returning to Korea in 2003 and witnessing the bizzare anti-American demonstrations, and the casual, gratuitous violence exhibited by the demonstrators, it became pretty obvious that a certian contingent of demonstrators were going out of their way to instigate violence. The riot police have in my eyes exhibited extraordinary restraint. But they put their lives on the line, and have been pushed against the wall.

In the meantime, an extreme subversive leftist element has emerged and has driven the violence. They instigated the anti-American demonstrations that emerged around the relatively innocuous accident involving 2 schoolgirls, and turned the protests into an orgy of hate and racism. They moved in on Lee Myeong Park as well, ceasing on the beef issue to attempt to undermine his political viability. And they instigated violence at the time of No Mu Hyeon’s suicide.

They prey on the fact that the Korean people are extremely divided along generational and regional lines. The 386 generation who grew up demonstrating against Park and Chun are kneejerk “progressives” as are the youth. They are impressionable, easy prey for the propaganda of this dangerous element. They have been repressed by the culture for so long – by a repressive social system that demands compliance that they confuse this with political repression. They do not appear to understand that progress is achieved through hard work, not through constant protest. Naturally, these are big generalizations, but the extent to which they are true is uncanny.

Yes, everyone’s a critic, and it’s easier to see the problems than to invent solutions. But as long as students are forced to spend untold hours in hagwans studying English, and encouraged to follow rather than reason for themselves, their pent up frustration is likely to result in more of the same unquestioning suceptibility to loony ideas.

You have faulted wjk for his excessive language, but to me he displays more creativity and quality of thought than the majority of people his age in Korea. I only wish there were more like him in Korea.

“What I meant by “the least bigot like” statement was that wjk isn’t hiding behind some thin veil of objectivity or a guise of wisdom gained through experience when he’s making his statements.”

Interesting. Objectivity and wisdom = bigotry.
Amazing the lengths to which some people will go to justify a partisan perspective.

Re smoking – NK: “Well I don’t really blame you because you are very health-conscious. Smoking is a filthy habit and what’s more very expensive. In NY, it’s now almost $10 a pack. I’m planning to quit soon if not for the right reasons then for financial ones.”

Nicely dispassionate comment as you are yourself a smoker, NK. I myself gave up cigarettes many years ago. However, let me weigh in on the joys of tobacco. One of the rare pleasures in life is tobacco in the form of cigars and pipes, done outdoors on relatively infrequent occassions.