VARMINT CONG ALERT!!!
Yellow-Bellied Clinton C**ksucker subspecies.
Posted on 02/25/2003 10:25:26 AM PST by Enemy Of The State
South Korea joins the 'axis of independence' By John Feffer (Republished with permission from Foreign Policy In Focus)
Roh Moo-hyun, the incoming South Korean president, is part of a trend that raises the hackles of the administration of US President George W Bush. The United States now has another outspoken and uncowed "ally". Roh joins an axis of independence that includes France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder. With friends like these, the Bush team laments, who needs an axis of evil? What's bad for Bush, however, is a boon for the rest of the world and particularly for the Korean Peninsula. Roh Moo-hyun is the world's best hope for avoiding war in East Asia.
Roh Moo-hyun is a true outsider, a lawyer who never went to college or law school and passed the fiendishly difficult bar exam through his own efforts. He defended students and labor leaders, the key organizers of South Korea's democratization movement, and went on to serve in the legislature. Considerably younger than outgoing president Kim Dae-jung, Roh is a spokesman for the influential generation that graduated from college in the 1980s and is fed up with the Cold War that lingers on the peninsula.
Many Koreans hope that Roh's independence will enable him to sweep away South Korea's endemic corruption and put economic reform on a more solid foundation. The big corporations have already shown signs of early capitulation by dropping their opposition to class-action suits in the financial world - a much-needed step in the direction of greater transparency.
But it is foreign policy where Roh will make his mark. The new president is even more committed than the previous administration to a policy of engaging North Korea. He favors moving forward with North-South reconciliation even before the current nuclear crisis is resolved.
Roh's inauguration on Tuesday came at a crucial time. The Bush administration has so far refused to negotiate with Pyongyang and has developed military plans to accomplish the regime change that malign neglect has so far failed to accomplish. Though it still adheres marginally to a peace constitution, Japan has announced that it too would launch a preemptive attack if it thought North Korea were about to strike first. And North Korea, apparently moving forward with its nuclear program, has made repeated threats of its own, including withdrawal from the 1953 Armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.
Trigger fingers are getting itchy in East Asia, and only Roh Moo-hyun clings tenaciously to an olive branch. A US "military strike against North Korea is an extremely serious matter that could lead to a war on the peninsula", he has said. "So I oppose even a review of such a possibility." Roh knows that war would bring untold death and destruction to South Korea. And North Korea's collapse would burden his country with refugees and economic and political challenges that dwarf what West Germany faced more than a decade ago.
US war plans have traditionally relied on South Korea to provide military support and to establish political control in the event of a North Korean collapse. As such, Roh's pacifist tendencies put more than a speed bump between the United States and full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.
But that's not all. Roh wants Uncle Sam to stop treating his country like an untrustworthy teenager. The Status of Forces Agreement between the two countries (which establishes the conditions for US military presence in South Korea) is woefully lopsided when compared with similar US agreements with other countries such as Germany. In the recent demonstrations around the accidental killing of two Korean schoolgirls by US soldiers, tens of thousands of South Koreans gave vent to years of pent-up frustration and anger.
Neither Roh, nor the majority of the demonstrators in South Korea, are anti-American. They, like anti-war protesters in New York and London, oppose specific US policies. They are part of a worldwide reaction to the unilateralism of the Bush administration. If the current administration continues along its current path, the axis of independence may expand to include all US allies.
Roh is no stranger to uphill battles. He pulled off a stunning upset victory in the December elections. Now, facing even longer odds in the international arena, he is simultaneously trying to establish peace with North Korea and negotiate a more just relationship with the United States. Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize is a tough act to follow. If Roh pulls off these two foreign-policy feats, he will set the stage for a more profound prize: a peaceful, unified Korea.
John Feffer is the author of Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions and the editor of the forthcoming Power Trip: US Foreign Policy After September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003). He has recently returned from three years based in Tokyo working on East Asian issues. Feffer is also an advisory committee member of Foreign Policy in Focus , a joint program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. This article is republished with permission.
They have their loudmouths, of course, just like we do. They demonstrate and make lots of noise, and get lots of publicity. That doesn't make them representative of ROK public opinion.
Recognize also that 30 years ago it was estimated the North Koreans had 80,000 agents in the South. I'm sure they're well trained at agitprop and miss no chance to foment dissent and to stick a thumb in the US collective eye.
I can vividly recall going hiking out in the country, away from the US bases where rude, drunken GIs had already made an indelible impression. I was regularly invited into homes for drink, food and conversation. Regular folks liked us quite well, and were very friendly.
I spent 9 years in the Korea/Japan and did my college language in Korea; an Asian Studies degree. Korea negotiated a Status of Forces Agreement with the US, and it renegotiated yearly or thereabouts.
While the entire nation is upset, this "upset" was stoked as ROH ran his election campaign against the US in a protest fashion, which is the only form of politics he understands, e.g., student protests against government -- and this time being part of incumbent government he ran agains the USA. Germany did the same thing. President Bush has already decided how to handle those who flaunt their "independence" by whipping up their populations against Americans at time when America is leading the West's war on terrorism - which is to not do anything for these country's politicians that is "optional" but rather only do what is required between the nations. Korea and Germany have both learned what the cold shoulder is.... One of Korea's great National fears is Japan becoming a military giant; the fact that the USA has basically given Japan's the greenlight to loosen restraints in the post-WWII Constitution to rearm with offensive weapons. Japan will force North Korea, Russia and China to rethink their belecose military intimidations, and will also give South Korea another chance to rethink their "anger" against the USA. S.Korea is already swinging pro-American and now ROH is backpeddeling on previous statements claiming he was misquoted (NOT).
America doesn't have to maintain troops in S.Korea but does need to keep a presence in the Pacific as tensions will be high there indefinately... and because America's future both politically and economically is turning to Asia from Europe and the Middle East:)
Puh-leeeze. All Roh has to do is go out and buy his own.
ZOT bait?
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