Seoul may dispatch troops

[Barrett808]

Senior government officials are signaling that Korea may accept the U.S. request to send combat troops to Iraq after President Roh Moo-hyun underscored the alliance between the two countries.

"It is not desirable (for the government's decision on the dispatch of troops) to come too late given the U.S. side's preparations," Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said before attending a weekly cabinet meeting yesterday.

Yoon's comments are an indication that the government is positively considering the troop dispatch to Iraq in consideration of Seoul-Washington relations and security conditions on the Korean Peninsula, analysts said.

"The outcome of the field study by an inspection team dispatched to Iraq will affect the government's decision on whether to send troops and when to send them," Yoon said.

(more)

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/10/01/200310010062.asp

[jayfish]

1. Just Another Supposed Democracy...

disregarding the will of its' people. Don't forget that a majority of the American people did not approve of the war until they finally gave in to it's ceaseless drumbeat(see Colin Powell at UN). Not to mention the Brits, Spanish and Italians.

Jay

-Edited To Add To Coalition Of The Willing(something Dubya can't seem to do)-

[Snow]

2. Don't be too harsh on them without knowing the pressures that

can be brought to bear. South Korea, is, in fact, a democracy and doing a pretty decent job of it. Noh has resisted the pressure from the US for some time now, and there has been enormous antipathy towards any involvement in the bush war by the Korean people - but at the same time, the opposition party, who represent the past powers, are much more inclined to go join in with the US.

Not sure of their motivation, but the conservatives always have cachet in South Korea. Noh is bringing in changes that a lot of them have objected to strenuously - for example, a barely 40 year old lawyer in as Attorney General, and even worse, of the female gender! And he's made several other cabinet-level appointments of women - one of them is a Quaker, so she's an associate of the late Nobel Peace prize nominee Ham Sok Hun (http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/queen_of_suffering.htm). The old-timers really don't like any of this, and they also would much rather bomb the bejabbers out of North Korea than try the diplomatic approaches Noh is using.

Since they're pissed, they've cooked up some scandals involving relatives of the ruling party being caught in things they shouldn't be caught in, at least by their lights. For example, the previous president, Kim Daejoong, is catching heck for having bribed Kim JongIl, the Dear Leader himself, to start opening up his country, allowing visits, and so forth.

So this latest move of sending troops (is it troops, or support people?) to bush2 war is a problem in real politik - the question you should be asking, rather than clucking your tongue over the willingness of less powerful countries to bend over for bush, is what did bush do to get them to join in? Did he bribe them, and if so how much? Did he blackmail or threaten them, and if so how? And don't be so hasty to damn them - they really are improved vastly in recent years, and working hard on getting better - especially in reducing american influence. but understand that it's very tough.

[jayfish]

3. Does It Really Matter What We Did To Get The...

government of SK to bend? The people of SK do not want this and the Government, at this point, appears ready to disregard them. I have nothing against the people of SK. They are making their voices heard.

Oh and BTW. I'm not clicking my tongue, I'm clicking my keyboard.

Jay

[Snow]

4. The government has done it's honest best to

sidestep this, while being under enormous pressure from a very big rock. You're painting things too much black-and-white. The best of governments/administrations sometimes gets caught like this, especially if you're a former US colony and the US doesn't quite realize the part about former. Noh is a decent man of enormous personal integrity - he is a former human rights lawyer whose formal education is only to high school level - he taught himself law and passed the bar as an autodidact. These are good people who are doing their best, but diplomacy in their situation calls for compromise. Noh made a strong point by refusing to be a part of any armed effort initially - that's he's capitulating now makes it obvious that he's bing forced. The Korean people understand this for the most part and most of their anger is with bush. You're misunderstanding the situation if you think that Noh and company are simply another US toady government who salute when the US says 'boo!'

[Don_G]

5. That's A Complete About-Face

Last week the ROK government were saying they wouldn't send ANY troops to Iraq unless the situation with North Korea was resolved or at least more stable.

I wonder how many jobs it cost the US for this agreement?

[oneighty]

6. Question?

Why not take our military out of South Korea, send them to Iraq? Could it be we need our military there to maintain our dominance over the two Koreas?

Very curious.

180

[methinks2]

7. F Y I

just some info I read today.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EI30Dg04.html
Asia Times -

Very interesting.

[oneighty]

8. Thank you methinks2

It would not load. Can you explain briefly?

180

[methinks2]

10. that was a link

to Asia Times describing the dispatching of 150,000 Chinese troops to the border w/ N. Korea, a soldier accidently stated that it was because they didn't want the refugees when the US starts the war.

[Snow]

9. Principally because Kim jongil's reaction is unpredicatible

Would he take a withdrawal as a sign that US will not back South Korea any longer, and he can now invade? That's the likeliest scenario, and the likeliest outcome of that is pretty bloody. Probably the South would pound the North to ribbons, but the entire peninsula would be badly damaged, and the South's economy would be back where it was in the 50's. If the war reunified the peninsula, then you have one battered country that used to be a first-world economy now staggering, and a beaten very poor country.

If Kim doesn't try to invade, then frankly Korea as a whole would be lot better off with the troops out of there....what we need is to give north-south diplomacy time to work, while the US resists the urge to meddle - at all.

[oneighty]

11. Is a United Korea

In the best interests of the US? I say no. South Korea is the US foothold on the Asian Continent. South Vietnam was to be the US opening to the soft underbelly of China. That did not workout. Now India is taking over that position, sort of.

I do not think the Iraqi people will be very happy to have Asian Combat Troops in their country. They will be hated more than Americans.

IMHO

180

[Mikhale]

12. Quit making sense, 180

After all, why would US troops be required to protect a prosperous democracy occupying a defensive position on the end of a peninsula from a bankrupt, outnumbered relic of the Cold War?