Via a reliable source I can’t name, I now have some specifics on just how pretty this won’t be. Among Hyde’s expected talking points for his visit to Korea this week are the following. Disclaimer — this is a paraphrase of a paraphrase:
* You want operational control of all forces during wartime. How is that going to
work? Will there be a U.S. general and a Korean general commanding the entire force jointly or two forces separately? Either way, aren’t those both recipes for chaos, given that the two generals might not necessarily share the same immediate goals? [Yonhap reports that Hyde has said (Yonhap's words), "South Korea is now ready to reclaim its wartime operational control from Washington."]
* Why did you deny the Dalai Lama a visa for the Nobel Peace Prize winners’ meeting in Kwangju?
* How can you, a former human rights lawyer, have said nothing about human rights in North Korea?
* Your own people don’t seem to want a Free Trade Agreement. How are you going to convince them otherwise?
* Why isn’t your government doing more to help refugees in China?
[Post edited per a reader's request.]
Hyde should be canonized.
When it get’s into refugee issues, no one will say it outright to visiting diplomats (or maybe they would, these days), but the tone will be you-aren’t-Korean-so-you-can’t-understand-this-issue. It’s good to confront Roh, and publicly would be better, but the answers would be more useful/truthful coming from a poop-slinging chimp.
I hope they publicize the weasely answers Roh gives to these.
I’m a Korean American…
And I have to say that it’s about time that someone took shot at that red diapered n. korean puppet.
I am thoroughly convinced that the korean left is funded by n. korean spies. The anti us sentiment is no doubt fomented by them as well. It’s mind boggling that one generation ago (when I attended public school in korea) they were teaching kids to stand up to the communist north and that macarthur was the savior of korea… and now they are teaching kids that the Korean war was the fault of the US and that N. Korea is S. Koreas oppressed little brother in need of love and openess from the south.
Utter idiocity.
I am part of a cultural exchange program here in the US where recent imigrants from korea get together with Korean Americans to swap languages and gain cultural proficiency. One of the girls that attends this is an a complete communist. She is pro castro and has an anti-US conspiracy theory for everything! One time I stated that I felt bad for those poor korean riot police conscripts who get beaten and burned by leftist korean rioters, because they didn’t volunteer to be there… they were drafted… to that she said that the ones we should feel sorry for are the rioters because the police were attacking them!
As a Korean American I have a much more impartial and logical view of things than a native korean or a native american…
And all i can say is that this illogical anti us sentiment will be the death of S. Korea.
Have fun with your remaining days of pizza and burgers boys and girls. you’ll be eating tree bark soon enough when the north comes a knockin’!!
I personally think the US should pull all troops out of korea and place them in Japan.
That way, the Koreans will get what they “yankee go home” protestors want, while the US will still be on call near by so we can maintain regional security.
The Young S. Koreans will have to learn things the hard way, just like their parents did.
Growing up with wealth has spoiled these young koreans in to an idiotic and dilusional sense of entitlement…
Freedom isn’t free. Neither are the fruits of that freedom. Like those LG cell phones, Red Mango Frozen Yogurts, and those Samsung MP3 Players…
I know this is a late entry but i’m just finding out about Hyde’s trip.
In catching up, it doesn’t appear he had much to say to Roh, along the lines of what was hoped for.
As much as it might be hoped for those things to be said, Hyde would know better and not convey anything counterproductive, while on his trip.