Calling out the Dogs

An important aspect of the process of hate USFK/US we can be clearly seen highlighted in this latest case (the acquittal (fall 2002) of the two soldiers who ran over the two middle school girls with a tank in the summer of 2002).  We can see how Koreans view their righteous anger as justification for itself and even the most vile displays of anger.  It comes out in mind blocks.  It is very difficult to point out to Korean adults where they have wrong information or distorted views, because they cling to the emotive rather than information to justify belief.

Instead of defusing things, the verdicts and then the Bush apology caused more and more protests with ever increasing violence.  The Korean government put out some messages that such actions were counter productive, but the main message in Korean society - and even the government - was the exact opposite.

Consistently in the press, the message was that the righteous anger of the people is the only reason the arrogant Americans had given even 10% respect, and 10% was wholly inadequate.  In fact:  it was an insult, they insisted. 

                               (Below -- From the Korea Herald editor)

"What more should we do?" Americans might complain.

                          (No shit!)
 

Well, the presidential apology is not the end but beginning of a solution. 

(for weeks, the words in the press were focused on demanding a     presidential level apology - as the only way to solve the problem of Korea's mounting anger.)
 

The Americans appear to have done all they could do, at least on the surface.

From the viewpoint of Koreans, however, all these gestures of contrition were perfunctory rather than proper, leveling up only in proportion to the public's mounting anger. 

It sounded something like: "Sorry if you feel bad.  Very sorry if you are angry. And terribly sorry if you are really mad."

This is Korea...

Here is some of what was going on at this period.
 

In Busan, 12 activists were arrested by police as they attempted to storm into Camp Hialia. Local police and the US military went on alert and placed fire fighting equipment at the ready in case of petrol bombs. 

Uijongbu police in Gyeonggi Province placed some 360 riot policemen from three companies working 24 hours on alert at some 10 US bases, including Camp Red Cloud and Camp Casey in Dongduchon. 

The 2nd Infantry Division locked down its bases banning soldiers from going out from Tuesday at midnight. 

     (from leaflets dropped at the first fire bombing)
 

"We're claiming that war between Korean people and USFK has begun," the leaflet stated in Korean. 

"The choice is either you leave or we die!"

"This country may have been heaven - but from now on, this will be one of the most threatening countries you have ever experienced."

      (Another article from the period)
 

Firebombs were again thrown at a U.S. military base, this one in Chunchon yesterday, and protests continued near the U.S. Embassy and military facilities, despite an apology from President George. W. Bush for the accidental killing of two South Korean teenagers by an armored military vehicle during a training mission in June.

 The City Council of Uijongbu, Kyonggi Province, where a number of U.S. military facilities are based, declared yesterday that the military court's ruling was unfair, and vowed to struggle to establish an equal South Korea-U.S. relationship and to have domestic courts handle criminal cases involving U.S. servicemen here.

Although Kim Dae Jung criticized the protesters, other elements of the government were giving a different message.

        (From the Korea Herald)
 

The (GNP) denounced one of President Kim Dae-jung's senior secretaries, who reportedly said Korean protests against the verdict are led by a few anti-American extremists. His remark was quoted in a New York Times report Monday.

The National Police Agency said Friday that a riot police unit dispatched to the USFK's Camp Casey on November 21 was being questioned following complaints from a dozen members of an anti US civic group who were injured when they collided with the police. 

An NPA official said that some policemen admitted to have brandished clubs and shields too hard, and some commanding officers could be reprimanded. 

Visit the video page of this newsletter to see some of the protests in this period.  I have a long video of the protest in question.  It was the one where some 9 US soldiers inside the base were injured by thrown pieces of concrete.  A hole was cut in the fence of the base and "scuffling" with USFK riot police.  In Korea, semi-violent protests are the norm for  all protest causes from labor disputes to anti-Americanism.  And when Koreans get "really mad" the violence (and acceptance of it) increases.

       (A report of the protest)
 

Over 200 protesters held a rally at a parking lot near Camp Casey on November 21, protesting a not guilty verdict on US soldiers, and tried to break into the USFK base. The riot police suppressed the protesters with clubs and shields when they tried to take away their helmets and shields.

Besides forming a human wall to scrum with the lines of riot police.  The protesters commonly try to peel away individual officers one-by-one.  The push and pull and slap and kick the man - usually in his late teens to early 20s - until he is broken away from the other riot officers, then they spirit him through the crowd so he can't rejoin the line.

Semi-violent protests are a ritual in Korea boardering on an art form.

It is only due to my long years in Korea that I have even begun to distinguish between the common violence and the more extreme versions.

In the US, even the mild semi-violent Korean protests would make the term "semi" ridiculous."

The Korean judicial courts also encouraged the righteous anger.
 

The court said it is regretful that the accused damaged a U.S. military installation but understands the circumstances and their motive for the action.

Arrest warrants were sought Thursday for the three after police decided they played key roles in the action in protest of a U.S. court martial acquittals of two American soldiers.

Even protesters who illegally break into US bases, not to mention sometimes "scuffle" with US soldiers and damage property, are given suspended sentences. 

The same was true of the group that laid seige for many hours to the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul in early 2002 (months before the tank accident) despite the fact that the office was destoryed.

In a very telling event, a Korean anchorwoman made the mistake of giving vague sympathy to the bastard Americans - and her head rolled...
 

During a Nov. 26 live report, after describing how student activists snuck into a U.S. military base in Uijongbu, Kyonggi Province, she said "It is shameful to see that." 

After her remarks were aired, many messages criticizing Hwang were posted on the Internet bulletin board of KBS.

      (and the phone board was swamped) 

In response, Hwang said, "I meant that I felt ashamed because the Status of Forces Agreement does not grant the Korean authorities the right to prosecute alleged crimes by American GIs during their official duties."

Nice try.  But she was fired anyway.

As I write this article (in late 2002) many of Korea's pop culture icons are putting out the message they are going to join the protests and help encourage Koreans to push for "justice".

Pop singers are shown on the news singing songs to unite the society to give it the strength to fight America.  Famous TV show personalities, movie directors, and actors have their heads shaved infront of the US Embassy to show solidarity and teach the people how much Korea has suffered at the hands of their bastard ally.

The problem is the US government is not going to take the steps they are calling for.

The US will never allow a re-trial of the two soldiers.  It would be like asking Koreans to stop eating kimchi.  It cuts against a core standard in the American cultural sense of justice.

The US isn't going to change the SOFA to ease the Korean anger.  The Koreans have little idea what the SOFA actually says because they have been taught such a distorted view of it. 

The US soldiers in the tank were coming back from exercises - thus on official military duty - in a military convoy when they hit the two girls walking right beside the road.

The US will never allow Koreans to throw soldiers in jail for such acts occuring on duty.

Besides that, everyone knows Korean drivers in such accidents also don't go to jail.

The US will never allow Korea to vent its xenophobic rage by holding USFK members to a higher standard of law than their own citizens.

The US will never allow its soldier to be thrown in jail for such an accident or for a case like the water dumping case of 2000. 

So there seems little chance actions by the US government, even in the face of a Korean society united in hate, will stop the current orgy of anger.

In fact, I assume lack of success in achieving their goals  - despite all they are doing - will only enrage Koreans more.

I think this time they might actually push the process of hate to the point real changes do come about - once the American people see what is going on here - but it won't be the kind of changes Koreans are ready for.
 

As of the fall of 2003, these predictions have proven half-true.

In early 2003, USFK did announce dramatic changes.

And Korean society went into a frenzy of back-tracking.

President Roh, who road the wave of antiAmerica into office at the end of 2002 was even criticized for "kow-towing" to Bush when he visited the US.  (As part of his campaign, he promised, as the first president to have never traveled to the US or abroad much, to not "run" to America "for a photo op if elected and when he did go, as a need arose, he would demand a "more equal" relationship).

There is much going on now of interest in general to the US-SK relationship, but I will keep this short to focus on how it influences the culture of anti-Americanism.

Roh's actions and the bulk of Korean society show a fundamental misunderstanding of the US, its foreign policy modes, and how things are done.

They believe the changes USFK now demands were simply a result of the anti-US actions of 2002.

This is ignorant, because the changes were already agreed to by the two governments all the way back in the early 1990s when the end of the Cold War caused a down sizing of the US military - including base closings in the US.

Pulling the bulk of US troops away from the DMZ and out of Seoul are not new ideas - even though the Korean military pretends it has never heard of them before....

The Korean belief that a little ass-kissing is going to fix everything is fatally flawed.

It will not only fail to end anti-Americanism - unless it finds a way to become a consistent pattern in Korean institutions long adapted to promoting the hate -

it will not change the desire of the US military to change its forces in USFK - most likely to a better defensive positioon, but coupled with the delays and frustrations that will surely come with such big changes and the resistance + anger of Korean society does have a real potential to bring about down sizing of US forces and potentially only a token force of some few thousand left in Korea.

There is much in this process that is interesting in general for the US-SK alliance, but I'll cut it short by simply saying:

beware what you ask for......)

Contrast to point out the difference between the "arrogant Americans" and the righteous Koreans.  A commonly  held myth is that Korean soldiers attacked the US soldiers who ran over the two middle school girls, because  the Americans were laughing at the broken bodies of the dead kills. 

Koreans also believe the US killed the girls "on purpose"....even that it has been "proven" a third US soldier stood outside giving directions to the driver how to run over them.

Facts and sense aren't important.  What justifies keeping such beliefs is the idea that anger justifies itself.......justifies the beliefs that help perpetuate and elevate the anger.  A vicious, disgusting cycle.
 

The meaning of the burning cross is not the same in Korea as the US in that Koreans are familiar with racism in the US and the image of the cross, but in the US, we have a more immediate, much stronger reaction to it.

The reason the image is important for you to understand is that -- in Korea -- the fact that Koreans are angry at someoone justifies even forms of expressing that anger thers would feel ashamed to use.

The crosses are a sign of "how can I hurt you best" rather than sympathy for the KKK, and Korea's use of the 9-11 terror attacks to "hurt the pride" of the "arrogant Americans" is another form of "anything goes" when Koreans are angry.
 
 

Firebombing of a small US base in Seoul. 
 
 
 

"David" - poor oppressed Korea - 
fighting the Goliath - Arrogant    America.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Street fight resistance after breaking into a US base north of Seoul.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The breakin, one of several in the last few years.  They cut through the fence. 

I wonder if terrorist will pay attention to how easy it would be to hurt the US by following the Korean's lead.  These Koreans are surely pointing out huge  security weaknesses by these acts.

And the students get nothing more than suspended jail terms or probation.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One of the many semi-violent protests in front of  US bases. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fighting and occupying the attention of Korean riot police who line the road around the US Embassy - to protect Americans from Koreans - while other Koreans scale the wall of the Embassy compound.