#5 These protests have been 100% pure Korean Bull$&!^ from day one. It really has almost nothing to do with the beef issue and everything to do with the Korean Left trying to regain some of the ground they lost after the last election, in which they got their asses royally kicked.
Korea is a crazy, self-defeating country in a lot of ways. Last night I was talking to a Korean college student who was angry with the government because they were "too violent" with the protesters. What she didn't know was that the protesters have been using iron pipes and bricks to attack the police with. The police are so afraid of being accused of a repeat of the Gwangju Massacre they'd rather get physically beaten than fire their weapons. If you want a really in-depth analysis of this issue, read Robert Koehler at The Marmot's Hole. He's covered it exhaustively. It's the first time I've seen even the normally pro-Korean Koehler just truly disgusted by Korean behavior on both sides of the issue.
It's crap like this that makes every American I know here in Korea think that it would be MUCH better on all counts if the U.S. pulled USFK out of here lock, stock and barrel.
The further we can withdraw ourselves from Korea's internal politics, the better for both countries, and that includes scrapping the proposed KORUS FTA treaty. We've been nothing but a convenient scapegoat for Korea's problems the last twenty-five years and it's long past time that ended. The Koreans simply won't face up to their own problems as long as they can blame them on foreigners who won't fight back. BTW, they'd NEVER have dared pull this kind of crap about something Chinese. |