Get Out!  (Just Not Now)...

"I think it was right, and justified, that we stood up with candlelight protests against American offenses," said Lee Young Joo, 29, a high school teacher. "And in the long term, I think the troops should leave. But right now is a very sensitive period, and I think they should stay."

              (Washington Post 3/13/2003)

"Whether or not the US stance toward the North works, US citizens’ interests are not at stake...(President Roh Mun-Hyun) 

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 Originally written 2003 / updated July 2006

This was how easy it was for South Korea's newly elected president (2002) to forget 37,000 American soldiers gave their lives to prevent the whole of the Korean peninsula from suffering the same horrible fate as the North suffered at the hands of Kim Il-Sung and his tyrant son Kim Jong-Il.

Even worse was the fact that at the time he was giving this interview, there were 33,000 more GIs, and an equal number of American contractors and dependants connected to USFK (US Forces Korea) whose day-to-day jobs were making sure USFK was prepared to fight and die again for Roh, and the voters who elected him, if the North should start Korean War II. 

(And as long as North Korea remained committed to the failed system that made Kim Jong Il a god - it would remain close to collapse and a possible outward explosion)

Roh does not stand alone in this denial. 

That does not mean South Koreans do not occasionally say appreciative words about  the benefits they have gained (and continue to gain) from their close relationship with the United States. 

This is really hard to understand unless you have lived in Korean society for a couple of years.

If you press the common Korean about the US, or if the US media sends people to talk to the Korean government or citizens in the street about the relationship, and South Korean society is in one of the periods where they fear losing the US security umbrella or the American consumer market, they will give honest, sincere credit to the US-SK alliance.  It is not fained.

They just much prefer the routine of fomenting discontent with the US in Korea:  it is an important process in Korean nationalism. 

You could call it a "love / hate" relationship - in which for the most part, they would rather not have to admit what they really feel and believe - that the US has been vital to Korea's prosperity ----- (and Korean society has earned rightful fame in the world for the prosperity they gained after being broken down into a dirt poor nation from the ravages of the Korean War) ---- in favor of feeling they must dislike the "dependence" on the US.

In short, they would rather spend more time focusing on an attitude toward the alliance as one of "master-and-servant" rather than "ally-and-ally".

They do this by not simply focusing on the real negatives in the relationship - but by greatly exaggerating them and believing the worst - unless - again - they fear the ally (America) might actually be thinking of changing the relationship.

Anyone who knows South Korea and denies this is fooling themselves. 

See The Great Water Dump 2000 and The Tank Accident of 2002 (which helped Roh over the top in his election) to see how much Korean society enjoys getting riled up against the US in Korea.

(Well, it really isn't that they act out toward the US ally.  They don't really want to "send a message" to the US government or American people.  They want to keep it domestic.  It is a process for the Korean people themselves.) 

These are just two of the biggest examples that are easier for someone unfamiliar with Korean society to understand. 

Year to year, you can see the same thing on a smaller scale, but so frequently, it is these smaller items that really keep the well of ill-will alive generation to generation.

And this well is waiting for the next "right mood and right incident" to come so the society can dip into it to satiate pent up frustration.

For example, there are at minimum a string of "anniversaries" spread out throughout the months each year that make the news, have some protests, and will at least remind the society of what they have suffered (as well as gained) at the hands of the Americans:  the 2002 tank accident is its own anniversary, but the other big ones are the anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre, Cheju Island Massacre, Independence Day (from Japanese colonial rule), March 1st, the start and end of the Korean War, and more.

There are Koreans who fall into generations that show a deeper, sincere appreciation of the relationship today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  From roughly 65 years old and up (as of 2007 (latest edit)), the generations that remember the Korean War and have some memory of what it was like living under a real colonial power (Empirial Japan), show such an honest regard for the alliance.

But, there position in society has been slowly receding with age.  They are no longer the movers and shakers in the society.  They are also not the future.

Most Koreans below 65, especially college educated Koreans, are like our high school teacher quoted at the start of this article:  loving to think the worst of the US position in Korean society but at the same time demanding the US keep its military in country, because South Korea begrudgingly needs the US relationship.

They view the United States in Korea as a "necessary evil" - and they prefer talking about how it is evil.

Let's get back to the new Korean president's quote:  

....but [failed US policy on NK] could affect the fate of the Korean people," said the President-elect. "This should be kept in mind."   (Donga Ilbo 1/1/2003)

       .....

"We ask Secretary Rumsfeld, do not withdraw American troops at this time," said Mr. Song [a National Assembly member]. "If the alliance is equal, Americans should heed the voice of the Korean government."  

This is the nature of the US-SK alliance.

In the late 1990s, I taught only Korean adults for 2 years (average age between 28-38) - and I listened to what topics they routinely brought up month to month.

In these small English langauge institutes, students would come and go each month, with some staying 3 or 4 months in a row, sometimes longer, but there was always a high turnover rate.

So, I got to hear from a large number of Koreans month to month.

And they kept bringing up the same topics.  Topics about the US-SK relationship.  At vitrually all of them negative.

That is why I developed a couple of mantras:

Mantra #1:  The majority of Koreans below the age of 65 view USFK, and to a slightly lesser extent the whole of the US-SK relationship, as a cancer on their society. 

A cancer they just can't afford to cut out --- yet.

The high school teacher quoted to start this article is just one voice among a sea of voices - each year.

Mantra #2:  US troops in Korea are post-modern mercenaries. 

Mercenaries - because Koreans want to use them but hate them at the same time.  Post-modern - because they don't make a profit.

(Almost all Koreans, however, even pro-alliance ones, actually believe the US makes a hefty profit off USFK.  Why?  Because they have read year after year how many millions of dollars they pay USFK. 

They are only rarely told that money is only a part of the overall costs of maintaining USFK. 

Nor are they told most of the money they pay goes to USFK payments to South Korea civilian base workers and contractors who work for USFK - thus keeping the money circulating in the Korean economy - along with the millions of dollars USFK brings with it into Korea each year - not to mention the billions of dollars South Korean tax payers save by not having to beef up their own military to deal with the North if the US were not there.)

(2007 update - This has been somewhat different since 2003:  The US Defense Department has been showing steady signs since late-2002 that it is looking to change USFK fundamentally.  Almost each month, there is some story in the Korean press about how the US-SK relationship is in major trouble because the US seems to want out.  And like other much more brief periods in the past I've seen, Korean leaders in the press will remind Korean society just how much it will cost to replace the US military.)

President Roh's comment shows how the GIs are viewed as mercenaries. 

He either ignores the fact American soldiers will die if the South is attacked - or - believes America could care less if its soldiers are killed in Korea. 

He surely knows US troops will die in a war. 

It just supports his version of Korean nationalism to pretend they won't - that the US has "no interest" in the fate of real South Korean people walking the streets to work everyday. 

And Pres. Roh is not alone in the ease of dismissing what the US has at risk/stake by maintaining the alliance they love to denigrate.     

I also came up with the Mantras, because I was tired of hearing from Korea area experts and the US State Department the same broken record that "Most Koreans don't want US troops to leave."

The US State Department and top Pentagon officials have a job that necessitates trying to make an alliance work.  It isn't unusually for them to sound like they are saying, "Can't we all just get along."  They get paid to pin a rose on anything having to do with an ally.

The frustrating part about their mantra, however, is that it is regurgitated by the US media any time they happen to pay attention to a large spike in anti-US activity in South Korean society.  (And this rarely happens - they did in 2002, 2000, 1995, 1988, and that is as far back as my firsthand or detailed research into spikes in anti-US activity in Korea has gone). 

And the US government mantra works better than mine, because once they say it, or once someone in the South Korean government says it --- that SK "wants US troops to stay" - the US media and its audience tunes out completely.

And I'm left alone in the dark pleading, "But but but but......."

They didn't really want to hear why Koreans don't want US troops to leave: that they want US troops to remain a bloody tripwire forcing the US to fully commit to fighting in Korean War II if it breaks out - because many Americans will die in the initial shots - and the GI bodybags coming home will steel American society's resolve to fight for South Korea again ---- but these very same Koreans who want the tripwire left in place want to continue to love to dislike those troops at the same time.

The problem for the US State Department, Pentagon, and academics in the foreign policy think tanks is ---- they already have a tough enough time dealing with how hard the boat frequently rocks from the South Korean side. 

They already have the South Korean National Assembly and other high ranking government officials playing up Korean nationalism and its anti-US habit - which makes their job of figuring out how to maintain the alliance difficult enough as it is.

They certainly don't need Americans who might catch wind of what goes on in South Korea getting angry and rocking the boat from the other side too.

(There is also a strong tendency, I believe, for these foreign policy types to believe the average American hasn't earned the right to criticize the US-SK relationship, because Americans know virtually nothing about it.  They have not earned the right to pass judgment on the alliance as those who have spent years getting to know Korea.

So, even though these experts do understand how the anti-US process works, and know how deep it runs in SK society, they have a very hard time admitting it outside their tight-knit circle of Korea-related experts.

A graduate student I know in a good Korean Studies program in the US wanted to do a research paper on anti-US culture in Korea, but was told "not to waste his time."  If you try to search for academic coverage of anti-Americanism in South Korean society before 2002, that is exactly what you will find: nobody felt it was worth their time to cover.  ---- This began to change after 2002 due to the sheer strength of the year long Orgy of Hate.  The CATO Institute, however, has spoken about the anti-US habit in Korea and how it should effect our commitment to it.  See this report.)

The US press finally showed Americans late in 2002 and in January 2003 the dark side of Korean feelings toward the relationship with the United States.

A very good article in the New York Times (March 7th 2003) pointed out the reality America faces while maintaining such a huge commitment to defend Korea:

After Donald Rumsfeld said the US would discuss changes in USFK since the Pentagon had already been thinking about them, and the South Korean government was demanding them, the Koreans got very creative.

The new Defense Minister in Korea said that the US "has never officially informed us of the relocation of U.S. troops" and that "the withdrawal issue was never raised by the U.S. government."

The article added:

South Korean officials, however, viewed Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks as an unsettling revelation that was entirely news to them. All they know about, they said, was a plan announced last year for American troops to leave some minor bases in the interests of tactical efficiency.

The Korea Herald main editorial had a different (and more honest but still highly forgetful) understanding of how the "tiny" base deal (that defines the closing of around 50% of the US bases) was under negotiation as far back as the early 1990s: 

The "land partnership program" which Gen. LaPorte explained to the press has been in place for some time, but few outside the U.S. command are aware of it due to poor publicity. The program, designed to solve problems arising from the operation of U.S. bases around the country, came into being as the Korean civil society targeted USFK facilities as a major source of environmental pollution.

As I said, Korean society can become very creative on the infrequent occasions they find that they might have done real damage to the alliance or that the US is thinking about actually going through with changes to it.

So the Korean government didn't know of a big deal it made with USFK?  It wasn't known out the US command?  No English and Korean version of the agreement was made though both sides signed off on it?  No press release was ever made?  It was never brought up at press conferences?  Sure.  Whatever...

If that is so, why do I have memories of hearing about the Land Partnership Plan going to the late 1990s when my only source of information was the English versions of the very same Korean press?  And how could the head of the Korean military forget about it? 

Well, that is easy to explain if you have gotten to know Korean society over the years.  Koreans have long been convinced, thanks to the global Cold War years, that the US would never leave South Korea even if they demanded it. 

(see this more recent post I wrote in July 2006 for a more detailed review of this topic)

And the US commitment to Korea was stronger during the Cold War, but when that came to an end in the late 1980s, the US was still in the habit of dragging its feet when it came to major, difficult changes in the US military commitment to South Korea. 

Plans were discussed.  Plans were made.  Plans were made even when the South Korean government, especially the military, did not like them, because they thought it would weaken America's commitment to fight in Korean War II. 

The only reason South Korea would sign such agreements if the US really wanted them to, however, was the knowledge they had that their government had frequently watched such plans die a slow death sitting on the shelf collecting dust bunnies, because the ROK government would drag its feet, and the US government wouldn't press them after a few years went by.

That changed dramatically after the terrorist attacks of 11 Sept 2001.

(image right: things seen in South Korean society after the 9/11 attacks really opened a window of opportunity to see how deep and disdainful the sport of anti-Americanism can be in Korean society as a whole.  Read this article from the Christian Science Monitor.  See this site for more examples.  The sign with Bin Laden on it says roughly in Korean "Bin Laden also says he is sorry."  It is a snide comment after Pres. Bush, among other high ranking US officials up and down the chain of command, apologized for the tragic crushing death of two middle school girls on a road when they were hit by a US armored vehicle.)

With the war in Afghanistan and war on terror in full swing, the US government under President Bush, and the Defense Department under Donald Rumsfeld, decided it was going to push ahead with reshaping the US military in Korea - whether the South Korean government balked or not.  That was a very rude awakening not only for the ROK government, but the press, important people of influence, and the common man in the street.

Suddenly, they forgot these plans had been signed by South Korea or that they had even been discussed.  "Who knew?" people like the editor of the Korea Herald exclaimed.

And faced with actually seeing USFK drastically reduced, perhaps to nothing, Korean society got very worried --- and demanded the troops stay.

The fear even got to the point the real pro-US alliance Koreans felt the need to become more active in fighting against the anti-US side.  They had done so in the past, but rarely did such an effort manage to pull more than few Koreans and almost all of those veterans and people in their 60s or 70s. 

When USFK announced it was withdrawing 1/4th of the ground troops to fight in Iraq, and those troops would never return to Korea, the South Koreans even managed to fill the streets in numbers similar to the several tens of thousands that came out regularly in December 2002-January 2003.

The problem for those Koreans who have always had a sincere value for the alliance is that the rest of the society has used several cultural institutions - especially university education, but also the news media, political groups including National Assembly members, elements of pop culture, and more - to promote the idea that ---- although South Korea can't do without Uncle Bully, it would be much better if they could, because, gosh darn it, the US has done nothing but cause trouble and push Korea around going back to the late 19th Century.

If you sit down with a Korean who thinks this way, and they are not hard to find, I taught them month to month for over 4 years, and you try to make sense with them how "nothing but trouble" does not mesh well with the times these very same Koreans will admit to some of the benefits of the US relationship, you will walk away frustrated.

Simply put - it is a prejudice. 

It is not logical.  And despite the best efforts of the State-Department-think crowd, it is the true nature of anti-US thought in Korea - and it is not simply a case where, "Koreans just have some (legitimate) concerns about US foreign policy or economic trade pressure but like the US in Korea on the whole."

It might make it less frustrating for someone who has committed themselves to getting to know Korean society to pretend this is true, but I have found that only a small percentage of the expats who might say this actually believe it to be true deep in their hearts.

(They seem to have trouble admitting the truth, because they believe that might somehow make them "anti-Korean".  I like Korea.  I enjoy going back when I can.  But, I have not chosen delusion over cold, hard reality shoved in my face year after year where it concerns the nature of the US-SK relationship.)

And it really isn't hard to understand, if you are willing to contemplate the idea that South Korean society doesn't want an alliance, but wants mercenary soldiers and ready access to the mega US consumer market for Korean products.

From the Christian Science Monitor article about Korean reaction to 9/11:

Nor are American diplomats reassured by recent polls showing that nearly half of Koreans approved the February trashing of the US Chamber of Commerce in Seoul and that 60 percent of Koreans "don't like" America.

The attack on the US Chamber of Commerce came BEFORE the 2002 tank accident - or Iraq War II -- even though it was the orgy of hate following the accident that caught the American press attention and caused the think-tank crowd to discus anti-Americanism in Korean society - and which has led too many to say the problem didn't really exist much before the accident.

I have seen fair minded, nice, average Korean men and women do a complete 180 in my classes or in one-on-one discussions about the US-SK relationship - when they finally asked for my opinion, and I told them I thought the US military should withdraw.

I came to that conclusion my third month into teaching in Korea in 1996 after hearing so many nice people lay out for me frequently all the bad things the US had done in Korea and the bad pressure it always put on Korean society.

I never gave my opinion in the class, because I was a teacher teaching English as a language.  I focused on correcting their grammar mistakes and focusing on key language points.  I also quickly found they would parrot my sentences (as well as my opinion) if I told what I thought anytime before the very end of class.

That first time I did say I believed the US should respect Korean public opinion and pull US troops out has stuck vividly in my mind.

Suddenly, most of the students were speaking at the same time.  "No.  No.  Not now," they said.  "It's too dangerous now."

I sat down dumbfounded, and I pointed to two students who had been with me all three months.  They had just minutes before repeated again why the US was bad for Korea and it should leave.  When I asked them how they could reverse so quickly, they repeated, "It is too dangerous now.  After unification, then the US should leave."

Bingo! 

If you want to understand Korea's sport of stoking a sense of self-worth/nationalism by painting their "dependence" on Uncle Bully in a bad light, the above illustration is a Bingo! window of opportunity.

As stated above, this attitude is encouraged throughout many key social institutions, and it has been for many years.  (again see this site for a historical review of the broader picture)

Here was President-elect Roh Mun-Hyun soon after the election of Dec 2002 discussing the split between the Washington and South Korean society on how to deal with NK's nuclear weapons program:

"Koreans should stand together, although things will get difficult when the United States bosses us around."  Mr. Roh complained to the union group that he would not even have control over the South Korean military if war broke out on the peninsula.

The Korean press claimed confusion whether his use of “all Koreans” meant just “South Koreans” or not.  I think it was fairly obvious he meant Koreans North and South, and the opposition party understood it to mean that too.  It sent shivers down their spines (and that of the 65+ generation who remembers the Korean War and is generally not anti-American). 

Korean academia however generally agreed with Roh:  This was from CNN Asia Edition:

"If America takes a hardline position then Seoul is destined to take a soft position ... Korea and Japan are not American colonies. They need to have their own independent diplomacy," comments Chung-in Moon of Yonsei University.

Speak for Korea, not Japan.  Over the years, Japan has consistently stood by the United States much like the UK post-WWII.  Korea, on the other hand, since 1998 has been a different story.  (And since I first wrote this article in early 2003, and I'm now editing it in July 2006, Japan has been the lone strong supporter of the US in East Asia on the policy initiatives focusing on NK's nukes and trying to get it to return to the 6-party talks.)

Yonsei is one of the three top universities in Korea.  And Korean higher education has been well known for being an anti-American factory for decades.  This is a professor of a prestigious school saying, despite the 50+ year commitment to defend South Korea by US soldiers, even if that meant death in a 2nd Korean War, to be a truly "independent" nation, and not a "colony" of Uncle Sam, it is "fated" Seoul must pursue a foreign policy opposite that of Washington.

But if the US says, "Fine.  If you want to go it alone on foreign policy, I guess you don't want a strategic alliance.  So we'll take our troops out" --

All but the radical fringe in South Korean society responds with a loud "Hell no!"

These very same important, influential people who lay out frequently for the whole of Korean society to witness (and absorb) how the US constantly pressures Korea, and did this or that to harm Korea greatly in the past, who say the US must eventually get out, always rapidly change the tune when they fear the US might be listening and willing to put through a reformation in the alliance.

I coined the phrase "the turtle effect" to describe this key phenomenon the whole society will demonstrate from time to time. 

The best example of it for a reader not familiar with Korea to look at came after 2 GIs were attacked by a mob of university activists on the Seoul subway.  It was the climax of the first half of the 2002 orgy of hate.  The anti-US demonstrations had grown to several thousands, and the Korean press had been whipping them up, but one article each in the NY Times and LA Times about the attacks on the soldiers - caused both the press and the thousands of average Koreans joining in with the handful of radicals - died overnight.  --- The protests did not gain strength again until a couple of months later - when Korean society saw the US press was clearly not paying attention beyond two measly articles.

But, the key point to remember is --- the norm in the society month to month, year to year, is NOT remembering how much South Korea has gained from the US in Korea --

--but the exact opposite Process of reminding itself all the time about how the US has been a cancer on them - but a cancer they just can't afford to surgically remove right yet.

The norm is a constant sprinkling of tid bits like the image to right.

This cartoon ran in Korea's mainstream but leftist newspaper Hankyoreh.  The paper does not have nearly as many readers as the more conservative mainstream press, but the cartoon does represent the vast majority opinion in Korea about GIs and how they can get away with even rape and murder while Korean society is "helpless" in the face of American power in Korea. (I have covered this issue at GI Crimes)

(a side issue on the cartoon is just how vile a representation of the US in Korea it is - and how such displays are simply observed in Korea with no thought about how hateful they are.  You have already seen in some of the pictures in this article and on the rest of the www.usinkorea.org site some of the common, hateful parts of Korea's protest culture against the US. 

Here is a pop music video that has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song but everything to do with somehow making South Korean society feel better about itself by sticking it to the American cowboy bully bastards.  It really is a very disgusting display of Korean nationalism aimed at the US, but Koreans did not see a problem with it.)

The cartoon shows one of the big noses (a GI) climbing through the window of a Korean family.  He then begins raping the Korean man's wife.  The Korean male remains frozen in place - because the GI has drawn a "SOFA" line with some chalk the Korean male dares not cross.  Finished violating yet another Korean female, the GI turns and mocks the male, laughs, and jumps out the window.

Year after year, I have heard Koreans of all ages and types talk about how "GI criminals are NEVER brought to justice in Korea.  They just fly away to America.  And there is nothing we can do about it!"

The Korean press reinforces this idea year after year with articles like this one that said 2003 would be the "first time" a GI might be held for trial in a Korean civilian court.

The Koreans manage to believe things like this despite having lived in the same Korean society I have watched since 1995 - a society in which I can remember several high profile cases, and even more minor ones, that were reported in the very same Korean press -- where GIs were brought to a Korean court, convicted by a Korean judge, and placed in a Korean prison.

Why can't the Koreans remember that?  Why do they insist on repeating the GI Crimes myth year after year?

It is a prejudice.

The GI Crimes issue is just one that has many, many tid bits of social attention paid to it several times each and every year - which Korean society watches and absorbs.  Every time one of the tens of thousands of Americans connected to the US military is accused of a crime, or some accident happens, or some pollution is reported at a US base or the US Embassy grounds, or some other item pops up, it is simply folded into the large anti-US grab bag and simply reinforces what Korean society has always known to be true - the US presence and influence in Korea is an evil - but a necessary evil they can't help but "endure."  And each issue gets a street-preaching display that is added to the extensive collection traveling bands of activists use in cities large or small throughout Korea.

But, again, if talk shifts --- on the US side --- to changing USFK in a significant way, the talk in Korea veers back to demands the US maintain the status quo.  (except for the traveling bands of activists who really do want the US out of Korea and are desperately trying to convince enough Koreans - the evil is not necessary)

Below is a story about a Korean National Assembly member who was angry at the talk of moving US soldiers out of Seoul and further South --

"American troops are something like hostages to attack by North Korea," said Mr. Song. "Maybe this kind of action [moving US troops off the DMZ and away from North Korean heavy artillery] means some kind of signal for a pre-emptive strike against North Korea."

He not only demands the US remain "hostage" to the threat of a North Korean attack by keeping the GIs in the Kill Zone, he also uses a sadly common, cynical argument that the only reason the US wants to move GIs away from the DMZ is - to prepare to unleash war on the Korean peninsula - then somehow manage to high tail it out of the South before Pyongyang can strike back at American targets.

For much the same reason, Mr. Song also opposed proposals to withdraw American forces from the large headquarters area that they have occupied in Seoul since the Korean War.

(see this somewhat dated review of The Yongsan Saga I did in 2003)

"When North Koreans attack Seoul, automatically American troops will be involved [read "killed"] just in time to react," he said. "So they can prevent North Korean attack."

Mr. Song shared a view, increasingly heard here, that any American proposal to move troops from near the line with North Korea may mean that the United States intends to attack North Korean nuclear facilities against the wishes of the South Korean government. The logic behind this thinking is that the United States would want its troops out of harm's way in case North Korean ground forces retaliated by striking across the demilitarized zone.

I don't think Americans have ever heard the "tripwire" theory explained in its full, cold-blooded nature before.  The idea has always been that current US troop strength was not enough to win a war, but they would provide enough time for reinforcements to come from Japan and elsewhere in time to save South Korea.  But the more important idea, the reason it was called a "tripwire", was that the initial attack would send so many bodybags filled with dead GIs, American society's resolve would become like steel and they would eagerly support a full American commitment to Korean War II. 

I guess nobody explained to Americans that Koreans would also demand we leave our troops in Seoul at USFK's Yongsan base - to deter North Korea from raining down artillery shells on it - as it has threatened to do in the past - at the very same time Korean society has LONG used that very same base as one of THE major long-term rallying cries about why Koreans have "legitimate" reasons to hate those very same US troops:  why those GIs who rotate in and out of South Korea each and every year by the thousands - should be considered a pseudo-colonial force in a military organization that runs roughshod over South Korea's social dignity and "national sovereignty."

I am not exaggerating.

Korean society has used the issue so much in the past and has repeated it from top to bottom, from the president and National Assembly members down to the man in the street, they have convinced many State-Department-think people Korea must have some right on their side. 

From time to time, you will find these foreigners familiar with Korea quoted in the paper as saying something like, "If the US had thousands of X-national troops in Washington, Americans would also have strong anti-X feelings."

Donald Rumsfeld even said it in 2004.

I wonder if they ever consider whether Americans would think that way "if"

1: The US were faced with annihilation by a hostile nation like the regime in Pyongyang just some 60 miles above Washington

and

2: American society were depending on the other allied foreign country to guarantee our security - our very national survival - because our military was not strong enough?

If Canada had been a sworn enemy of the United States for 50 years, and its military was too strong for the US to handle alone, and Canada continually threatened to turn Washington into a "sea of fire", and the US had tens of thousands of Korean troops stationed in country prepared to fight and die for the American way of life, and American society decided to create a strong culture of ill-will toward those Korean troops and frequently displayed popular anti-Korean sentiment - from politicians in the White House to members of Congress to the New York Times to CNN down to the man in the street across across the states ---

---- I can guarantee you these same State-Department-type people would not be talking about how "understandable" the American attitude was.

They would be talking again about racism in American society and how it needed to be corrected.

But, Korea society has so successfully trumpeted the frequent anti-US issues (like the SOFA, GI Crimes, pollution, Uncle Bully economic pressure, and many more) for so long, it has not only made anti-US thought a norm in the society as a whole, it has made many intelligent people who extend themselves into the project of getting to know South Korea to conclude - "Can 48 million Koreans be wrong?"

They will try so hard to find common ground with the Koreans that they end up purposefully burying what actually is said and thought in Korean society.

Or, they will try to dismiss people like myself by saying things like, "Most Koreans don't want US troops to leave" and the ever-popular, "Anti-US thought just represents the radical fringe."

Below are some polls that depict the Korea you will find in the real world and not the Twilight Zone:

In the poll, published recently in Chosun Ilbo, 53 percent of respondents said they disliked the United States. Only 37 percent said they liked America.  62 percent were unfavorably disposed toward what they saw as the spread of American ideas and customs.

An MBC-Korean Research Center poll found that when it came to apportioning blame for the nuclear crisis, 51 percent said the cause was an American hard-line policy, while only 24.6 percent blamed Pyongyang's adventuresome. 

(Stars and Stripes 8/28/03)

In July 2002, 51 percent of South Koreans between 18 and 29 had a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable view of the United States. By May of this year, 71 percent of young South Koreans expressed such views.

In most of the nations surveyed, critics of the United States said their opinions mainly reflect opposition to President Bush. But in South Korea, 72 percent of those who hold unfavorable views of the United States expressed “general hostility,” one of the report's authors said in a telephone interview.

South Korean elementary school students voted Pres. Bush the world's biggest villain, while North Korea's Kim Jong Il ranked second, in a recent survey.

(see this extremely vile video "lesson plan" the anti-US Korea Teachers Union used in some primary and secondary schools around the time of the 2005 APEC summit in Pusan - to teach Korea's young minds an "alternative" version of what "globalization" really means.

The US of images of 9/11 made me extremely angry.  Extremely.

 

 

 

 

 

The above screenshot from the video is the scene of the plane hitting the towers that came accompanied with background music of Louis Armstrong singing, "What a Wonderful World..."

- The KTU is not an official government union - but it is one that is part of the large umbrella militant labor organization that frequently supplies the "shock troops" for violent anti-American protests along with the ever-present university student groups)

Back to the article quoted above:

Some experts say the U.S.-South Korea relationship has been one-sided, more of a client-patron relationship, said Park Kun-young, a professor at the Catholic University of Korea. Through the years, the interests of South Korea have been subordinated in U.S. global strategies, he said.

Even the most recent moves toward force reduction, which include plans announced last month to move 2nd Infantry Division forces south of the Han River, are unilateral moves that could give the impression the United States might attack North Korea, Park alleged.

(Stars and Stripes 7/18/2003).

I can hear some Korea area experts in the US who might read this saying, "But, see, it is about Bush and US policy.  Not about the US role in Korea."

Wrong.

Bush wasn't even on the presidential radar screen when I arrived in Korea in 1996.  And from the first moment I began teaching Korean adults, I heard exactly the same kind of complaints from Korean society as you hear today. 

To South Korean society - The US is more of a cancer than a friend.  But they don't want to pay the price in terms of security, economic instability, or military spending increases that would result if they forced the US military out. 

Their economy dwarfs that of the starving North.  Their population is much larger and much healthier.  But they want to keep the US soldiers as "a hostage" to the North Korean threat -- just in case.

And in the meantime, they want to feel better about themselves as a people and a nation by creating a recurrent cultural habit of promoting dislike for those soldiers and the US in Korea.