Time to Withdraw from South Korea

2,922 words

Anti-American Protests in Seoul [1]

Anti-American Protests in Seoul

There is a great deal of talk about an “America First” foreign policy. At the same time, there is a looming fear in the United States of Asian economic dynamism and rising Asian military and diplomatic power. To kill two birds with one stone, it is a good idea to make South Korea the first place to apply an “America First” foreign policy. This can be done by withdrawal.

America has alliances stretching across the globe. Some of the allies are clearly not bad. It is difficult to see how our alliances with the UK or Germany harm the American People at this time. Some of the alliances obviously do no good to anybody. For example, the neocon inspired American support for the “moderate” Syrian rebels is high octane lunacy. One can watch the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army torture their captives to death on the internet. Should some “Faith-Based” charity group working with the US State Department bring a member of the Free Syrian Army to America as a “refugee,” the natural savage behaviors of these “moderate allies” will lead to the same atrocities here.

Another nation whose alliance does no good for the American people is South Korea. Year after year America’s support for South Korea requires cohorts of Americans to pull duty to protect the South Koreans from their Northern, Stalinist kinsmen. Three generations of this author’s family have pulled military duty there — the first generation (a great-uncle) served in the Korean War (1950–1953).

The American military’s effort in South Korea consumes a large portion of America’s military resources. There is a constant requirement for thirty thousand Americans to be sent on tours which last as long as a year in Korea — even when there are serious wartime commitments elsewhere. In addition to direct support for South Korea, another thirty thousand troops are positioned in Okinawa and Japan as a strategic reserve should conflict in South Korea break out. A tour in South Korea is considered a hardship tour, and a soldier who serves there is given a campaign medal. Since the armistice which ended major combat operations during the Korean War, 130 American troops have been killed in combat operations in Korea.[1] The non-combat deaths, from accidents, disease, etc. exceed 1,000. In other words, these deployments are a considerable effort.

This effort is made more difficult to get out of because the political class that directs American foreign policy is highly influenced by foreign pressure groups including lobbyists from South Korea and Japan.

According to [Asia In Washington by Dr. Kent Calder], in 2011 the two largest lobbying nations in Washington by number of registered lobbyists were Japan and Korea, each pursuing an extensive agenda ranging from cultural promotion to trade deals. In this respect, the efforts of these Asian governments have been largely successful, as evidenced by Japan’s recent partnership with Democratic senator-turned-lobbyist Tom Daschle and the PR firm DCI to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership.[2]

With that in mind, it isn’t much of a stretch to surmise that both Japan and South Korea have a plan in place to ensure that the United States would continue to support them should a Pearl Harbor-like event occur that could seriously change America’s defense priorities. This hypothesis makes President George W. Bush’s inclusion of North Korea in the post 9/11 “Axis of Evil” speech a bit more understandable. The South Korean political elite in particular must view America’s withdrawal from South Vietnam with alarm.

The South Korean government wishes to keep American support because northeast Asia is a pretty bad neighborhood. It isn’t just North Korea that is the issue. The Korean Peninsula itself is a buffer zone between Japan, Russia, China’s Middle Kingdom, and Manchuria. When the Japanese started to build their Empire, Korea was their first important conquest. From there, the Japanese attacked the Russian Far East, made Manchuria into a Japanese Colony, and then attacked China. With American involvement in Korea all of the aforementioned nations are secure on their Korean flank. Without the Americans, the entire situation becomes unstable. In such a case, nations which are producing goods for export and self-enrichment must re-prioritize their economic policy to support military aims.

Dark Green represents the Japanese home islands and the early parts of the Japanese Empire. Korea effectively fell under the control of the Japanese in 1905. This picture also shows how Korea fits in as a buffer between the Middle Kingdom, Manchuria, Russia, and Japan. [2]

Dark Green represents the Japanese home islands and the early parts of the Japanese Empire. Korea effectively fell under the control of the Japanese in 1905. This picture also shows how Korea fits in as a buffer between the Middle Kingdom, Manchuria, Russia, and Japan.

A Changing National Narrative in Korea

While the South Korean political elite wish to keep the Americans around as a military back-up, the South Korean people themselves are becoming deeply anti-American. A national narrative has grown up since the Korean War that puts American involvement on the peninsula as just another example of Korean victimization by Great Powers. It wasn’t always this way. During the lead up to the Korean War and shortly afterwards, there were anti-American activists in Korea, but they were usually Communists or bandits.

On the whole, Korea had no anti-American or anti-Western attitudes until the early 1980s. Anti-Americanism started to become a factor possibly due to the US reaction to the assassination of President Park in 1979. Respectable, politically active Korean students led the anti-American actions. In 1986, the Christian Scientist Monitor reported that,

. . . 73 students staged a peaceful, four-day sit-in at the US cultural center in downtown Seoul which attracted widespread attention in the international news media. Since then, attacks on US facilities have been smaller but more violent. Last August, students jumped the fence around the US Embassy in Seoul and burned a US flag before security guards caught them. In early December, other students carrying Molotov cocktails seized the US cultural center in the city of Kwangju and held it for nine hours before police moved in. The attacks have also hit US businessmen. Students occupied the American Chamber of Commerce offices in Seoul last November, spreading kerosene on the floor and threatening to light it. US banks have become targets of protests.[3]

During the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, anti-American activities on the part of Koreans were undeniably noticeable. The hostility showed up, in of all places, in Olympic boxing. The South Koreans were ramped up to win at all costs. First, the Olympic referees and judges of all nationalities were under actual physical threat from the hometown crowd throughout the event. South Korean coaches, trainers, and event security guards physically attacked judges and referees throughout the matches.[4] Canadian coach Taylor Gordon stated, “They’ve intimidated the officials into where they don’t call anything at all against the Koreans.”[5] The American team was especially cheated. American Boxer Anthony Hembrick and his coach were likely deliberately misinformed as to the details of his match against Ha Jong-Ho and forfeited for being a “no-show.” During the heavyweight final, Roy Jones Jr. dominated South Korean Park Si-Hun in the ring, but lost due to the fact that three judges were likely bribed (and intimidated) by the South Koreans.[6]

While there are some who don’t feel that African-Americans (such as the Kenyan mercenaries in the Long-Distance Event given quickie US Citizenship papers) don’t truly represent American whites in Olympic sports. In the case of the 1988 Olympic Boxing that idea doesn’t apply. From the Korean perspective, regular American Negros are easily representative of Americans in general. Most Koreans see Americans through the lens of the US Army. Through such a prism, the Koreans have never seen a time when Negroes weren’t integrated with whites.[7] What they see is senior black NCOs and officers giving orders to white soldiers that are efficiently carried out. Additionally, Hembrick was an Active Duty soldier in 1988.

Following the 1988 Seoul Olympics, nasty protests against the American soldiers doing hazardous duty on the DMZ escalated. In 2002, after a fatal traffic accident involving an Engineer Vehicle called an AVLB, Koreans rioted for months. Americans invited to lecture at Korean Universities were threatened by mobs, and a Public Affairs officer was knifed in Seoul.[8] Just as the facts of a police shooting don’t matter to Black Lives Matter’s terroristic protests, the accidental nature of the 2002 AVLB accident didn’t matter to the South Koreans. Korean movies now highlight American “atrocities” such as the “No Gun Ri incident.” This is an event where soldiers in 7th US Cavalry shot some refugees during the confused, early days of the Korean War.[9] The incident has become increasingly exaggerated as the Korean War sinks into the past.[10]

If the US State Department had a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Americanism rather than wasting resources on the existing similar position to combat “Anti-Semitism” they might be more aware of Metapolitical changes in Korea regarding Americans. 작은 연못 A Little Pond (2009) is a movie that fictionalizes and exaggerates incidents where civilians were killed by Americans during the early days of the Korean War. Essentially, other than some of the American characters are a bit more fleshed out it is not much different than Hollywood’s “Dirty Jap” propaganda movies of the 1940s. Many of the top actors in Korea volunteered to make this movie. [3]

If the US State Department had a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Americanism rather than wasting resources on the existing similar position to combat “Anti-Semitism” they might be more aware of Metapolitical changes in Korea regarding Americans. 작은 연못 A Little Pond (2009) is a movie that fictionalizes and exaggerates incidents where civilians were killed by Americans during the early days of the Korean War. Essentially, other than some of the American characters are a bit more fleshed out it is not much different than Hollywood’s “Dirty Jap” propaganda movies of the 1940s. Many of the top actors in Korea volunteered to make this movie.

Great Changes in the Center are Expressed by People in Margins of their Society

In 2015, US Ambassador to South Korea, Iraq War veteran Mark W. Lippert was slashed in the face by Korean nationalist Kim Ki-jong.[11] Kim was wearing traditional Korean clothing during the attack. The attacker’s choice of clothing is significant. Professor Ben Kiernan argues in his study of genocide[12] that one of the markers of severe ethnic and racial conflict is a “cult of antiquity.” As racial and ethnic conflicts intensify, those of the forefront of the conflict tend to wear traditional clothes, discuss how ancient history can be applied to the present, and express great interest in their people’s golden past in the misty days of yore.[13] This the traditional clothes worn by the attacker does show just how sharp the anti-Americanism in Korea has become at the margins. There were some brief pro-American feelings following the attack on the US Ambassador, but they quickly faded.[14]

A cult of antiquity: Kim Ki-jong, wearing traditional Korean clothing. Kim’s choice of clothing is highly nationalist and symbolic. [4]

A cult of antiquity: Kim Ki-jong, wearing traditional Korean clothing. Kim’s choice of clothing is highly nationalist and symbolic.

US Ambassador Mark Lippert after Kim’s knife attack. Ambassador Lippert is an Iraq War Veteran. [5]

US Ambassador Mark Lippert after Kim’s knife attack. Ambassador Lippert is an Iraq War Veteran.

The Pollution of the Han flows into the Potomac

One of the reasons for the catastrophic Immigration Act of 1965 was America’s military involvement in South Korea and other Asian locations. One cannot justify the costs of defending a people if one doesn’t feel them worthy of entering one’s own nation. Today, South Koreans have entered the US in droves and have large communities in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, among other places.

Koreans and many other Asians have the appearance of high intelligence and they don’t become involved in Negro-style street crime.[15] However, their success deserves a second look. The “stereotype” of the Asian “model minority” is probably more related to disappointment felt by American whites in the behavior of blacks following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than a careful study of actual Oriental folkways. The first time “Yellow Peril” idea started to be dropped and replaced by the “model minority” stereotype is in 1966, when William Pettersen wrote about Japanese-“American” successes in the New York Times.[16] Following the 1992 Rodney King Riots, American whites felt a further affinity for Asians in that both were attacked together by blacks.

However, the actual “success” should be given a second look. South Korea is only different from North Korea due to the presence of thousands of well-armed, highly trained and disciplined American troops forcing the adoption Western standards on a non-Western population. Additionally, Seoul is filled with battalions of American advisors, businessmen, and diplomats. This influence is what makes South Korea’s prosperity possible. Korean culture on its own is North Korea. Indeed, North Korea is more like Korea prior to Japanese rule than otherwise — the land of Juche is merely a reversion to the pre-1905 Hermit Kingdom.[17]

Like all Oriental people, Koreans are more concerned with saving face and harmony than actual substantive results. This is why a gold medal gained by cheating in boxing in the ’88 Olympics was more important to the South Koreans than an honestly gained silver medal. To emphasize appearance over substance, Asian societies produce people that are good at taking tests, but not so good at cutting through the professional fog in real life. Part of the reason for excellence in taking tests is a widespread culture of cheating. Cheating scandals are so common that one must wonder exactly why Universities bother to accept Asian students.[18] In the United States, cheating by Asians, including South Koreans is very common. One blogger writes,

The stereotype, delicately put: first and second generation Chinese, Korean, and Indian Americans, as well as nationals from these countries, often fail to embody the sterling academic credentials they include with their applications, and do not live up to the expectations these universities have for top tier students.

Less delicately put: They cheat. And when they don’t cheat, they game tests in a way utterly incomprehensible to the Western mind, leading to test scores with absolutely zero link to underlying ability. Or both. Or maybe it’s all cheating, and we just don’t know it. Either way, the resumes are functional fraud.[19]

This fraud comes out in funny ways. Discovered in the fallout of the Obamacare website rollout scandal was Asian incompetence. Writes another blogger:

But just who has been behind the crash-and-burn of Obamacare? None but Henry Chao, Deputy Chief Information Officer and Deputy Director of the Office of Information Services at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer of the United States, and Aneesh ‘Depak’ Chopra, former CTO.

It reads like a who’s-who of Asian ‘America.’[20]

The scandal also revealed large swathes of stolen code in the Obamacare website, setting up the US Government for all sorts of lawsuits. Indeed, much of Asian technological progress hinges upon copying (or stealing) the technological advances made in the United States and Europe.

Up until Omar Mateen, an Islamist from the savage Pathan tribe, shot up the Pulse Nightclub in 2016, the worst spree shooting was done by Korean Immigrant Cho Seung-Hui in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

The hatred in the center expresses itself in the margins.

If American Leaves South Korea

Should the United States leave South Korea, the Korean Peoples themselves will need to determine if they wish to continue to be divided or not. If not, the Koreans must then determine how to re-unify. This unification could take the form of a bloody war of conquest, but the blood shed will not be American. Additionally, Americans can send Koreans with American citizenship who lobby for American involvement in such a war back to Korea as volunteers to fight. Why does an Arkansas farm boy fight for Korea when there are plenty of Koreans working money laundering jobs on the West Coast that deserve a chance for glory? Since the US Department of Defense now allows women in combat billets, Korean women with American citizenship can also be pressed into the cause.

As alluded to above, an American withdrawal from South Korea increases the chance of war in Korea a bit and immediately ups the tension between the nations of northeast Asia. For example, the Koreans have an irrational, lingering hatred of the Japanese, and removal of a steady hand in Korea opens up the frictions in this papered-over rivalry. Should the conflict spread across northeast Asia, the “Americans” with Chinese, Japanese, etc. nationality living in the United States can also be volunteered to fight for their race.

Keeping out of war, rather than rashly joining in, is a great way for a nation to ascend to power or hold on to power. Keeping out of World War I for so long made America what it is today. Prior to that, the United States, while independent, was still a partial vassal of Great Britain. American presidents, usually Democrats, from Jefferson to candidate William Jennings Bryan complained that money earned (with interest) by the sweat upon the brow of the Yankee yeoman pioneer left America for the counting houses of Lombard Street in London. But this changed due to war. When the British got involved in the 1914–1918 war due to Western Europe’s buffer state of Belgium being invaded, King George V had to go to Woodrow Wilson hat in hand for aid.

Therefore, a good way to get out of the debt and trade imbalance with Asia is to simply stop subsidizing Asian defense budgets — while Asian governments subsidize destructive competition with American industries. It is time to take our own side.

Notes

1. http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/korea/monument-to-honor-troops-killed-in-combat-since-korean-war-ended-1.179678 [6]

2. http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/korea-japan-no-end-to-the-backroom-brawl/ [7]

3. http://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0128/oanti.html [8]

4. To see a video of one referee attacked watch the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO_Aspbv0fw [9]

5. http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197118 [10]

6. http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197118 [10] & http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/02/sports/the-seoul-olympics-boxing-ends-in-controversy.html [11]

7. President Truman ordered the Armed Forces desegregated in 1948. The last segregated units were broken up in the early months of the Korean War.

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangju_highway_incident [12]

9. For a fictionalized account of the incident, one can watch the following move: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Pond [13]

10. For further reading: http://www.salon.com/2002/06/03/nogunri_2/ [14]

11. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/world/asia/us-ambassador-to-south-korea-hospitalized-after-attack.html [15]

12. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (2007)

13. In this youtube.com video, Professor Kiernan explains his ideas in depth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiMEIxrLck [16] There is some Godwin’s Law invoked in the video, but the idea can be applied more generally.

14. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/asia/south-korea-split-over-how-to-react-to-attack-on-us-ambassador-mark-lippert.html [17] For more info on anti-Americanism I suggest the following: http://freekorea.us/category/anti-americanism/ [18]

15. However, they are involved in organized and white collar crimes. http://www.mafianj.com/asian/koreans.shtml [19]

16. http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapter14/modelminority.pdf [20] For some dull reading on how awful it is to be a “Model Minority” I suggest this weepy website: https://nicholashartlep.com/ [21]

17. http://www.historytoday.com/wilson-strand/opening-hermit-kingdom [22]

18. http://time.com/3546635/sat-cheating-china-korea-college-board/ [23]

19. https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/asian-immigrants-and-what-no-one-mentions-aloud/#comment-4168 [24]

20. http://www.vdare.com/posts/obamacare-failure-minority-occupation-government-not-quite-that-competent [25]