Dangerous Korea

The former Director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, Won Sei-hoon (원세훈) has been sent to prison for three years for attempting to influence and intervene in the 2012 Korean Presidential election (link). Won & colleagues generated a massive disinformation campaign against the Presidential opposition candidate, while supporting the candidacy of now-President Park Geun-hye. The scandal greatly damaged Korea's democratic image, as well as fundamentally undermining the status and standing of President Park.

 Mr. Won was escorted to the Seoul High Court by right-wing paramilitary supporters in a futile and foolish-looking show of force & bravado.

Patriotic Delusion

Patriotism can be dangerous - as delusion distorts safety & reason.

American exceptionalism is one such case, but other peoples suffer similar befuddlement. South Korea is gradually reevaluating hubris. This week's trigger is Incheon Airport (ICO), Seoul's major gateway, too often uncritically celebrated as "The World's Best Airport" ...

I've used Incheon International Airport 50 times & feel no love - services are often closed; prices are high; the exterior is good-looking, but inside design is ugly and at best unremarkable.

Incheon is located an hour outside Seoul (some 40 miles? distance somewhat fudged), and access is typically by highway bus or taxi operating at high-speed (when possible) along a very scenic mostly waterside route. It's dangerous.

Yesterday at least two people died and dozens were injured in a huge traffic pileup on foggy Yeongjong Bridge (인천 영종대교; "the world's first 3-dimensional self-anchored suspension bridge" - which cost US$1.4 billion). In hindsight, surely traffic control signage was poor, and driving pace typically furious ...   빨리빨리 !   Victims:  Rest in Peace...

 

Remember Our Dictators?

A long list of scum have sold-out their people for Yankee military dollars. They purchase weapons systems and unnecessary military supplies, leaving their national economies indebted for generations. The worst dictators take a key cut of businesses and loot the national treasury; they torture and execute anyone resisting their regime.

The Philippines, beloved by America under Ferdinand Marcos and martial law, after 30+ years has yet to recover. The summary execution of Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. in 1983 (within seconds of return to Manila while under Philippine military official escort) remains a brutal reminder of power politics. Hundreds of millions of dollars have now been recovered. Among our dictator friends, even when horrible mutilations & murders are well-documented, perpetrators are granted noble retirement in exile, ignored by US corporate media.

Nguyen Cao Ky (South Vietnam PM; 30 yr. refugee in USA), Harold Holt (Australian PM; vanished), Park Chung Hee (South Korean President; assassinated by colleague), Ferdinand Marcos (Philippine President; died as refugee in USA), Keith Holyoake (New Zealand PM), Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu (South Vietnam President; 25+ yr refugee in UK & USA), Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn (Thai PM; 3 yr refugee to USA), Lyndon B. Johnson (US President); SEATO, 1966

Military Democracy

 

People resist militarization. But "Democracy" can be ignored.

We've lost our UN World Heritage site "강정을" in Korea.

Jeju, Okinawa & Hawaii = military sacrifice !

 

Boot in the Face

Many local citizens of both Henoko, Okinawa (southern Japan; link), and people from Gangjeong, Jeju Island (South Korea; link), are actively protesting against expanding their region's military bases.

Repeatedly beaten, they'll not submit. Behind the local constabulary of Henoko and Gangjeong crouches the U.S. military, and behind them the multinational arms dealers poised to profit from future conflicts.

More on military expansion around Okinawa:
• Battle for Okinawa (Reuters)
• Japanese-protest-relocation-of-US-base
• Tokyo snubs Okinawa's new anti-base Governor

More on Jeju:
• Editorial - Limp Regret not Enough
• Base construction resumes - Conflict remains
• "Island of Peace" in the Crosshairs of War 

Crusade 2015

Feel our Oppression ?

Fighting for scraps is normal

The Land of the Free

Goyim-led secret?

Headquarters for this Crusade:

The New Jerusalem

Whose security?

Military industries

Waging war on US

                       --- Genki

Militarism is Terror

Is there truly a War on Terror?

Or is it a War on People - operated by militarists?

We'd have far fewer enemies if militarists didn't park "our" guns & tanks & jets & bombs in foreign lands all round the world.

SHUT IT DOWN !

Shut Down Militarism!

Too many misadventures. Too much reciprocal suffering. It's overdue we pull back military & weaponry to our own borders.

Send abroad teachers, engineers, doctors & nurses -- not militant combatants.

Our leaders should no longer engage in 5000-year war. Pull back, stay at home, build better lives for our own people. Doing otherwise is expensive, wasteful, doomed to fail, and cruel.

Grieving over "viciousness and barbarity" is a continuing cost of militarism to everyone.

Anti-militarist peoples of the world, Unite ! 

Goto Desert Death

Journalist Kenjo Goto was murdered last week in the Syrian desert by militant captors. Goto was a Japanese freelance video journalist with some twenty years of experience around the world's conflict areas. Remembered in many ways, he had strong concern for others and an active sense of tolerance:
 

後藤健二 @kenjigotoip  ·  7 Sep 2010

目を閉じて、じっと我慢。怒ったら、怒鳴ったら、終わり。それは祈りに近い。憎むは人の業にあらず、裁きは神の領域。－そう教えてくれたのはアラブの兄弟たちだった。

"Closing my eyes and holding still. Anger & yelling halt everything. It's close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans; leave judgment & justice to God. That's what I learned from my Arab brothers & sisters." 

For the past 70 postwar years, Japan has allied strongly with the USA, while being largely pacifist in its global profile. But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lusts after change, backed by an extremist right-wing and encouraged by Uncle Yankee (U.S. bases still occupy key areas of Japan, with parallel manipulations in Korea). They've embarked toward a new era of military recklessness, polluting Japan's global goodwill, and destroying the immunity often enjoyed by Japanese citizen-pacifists worldwide.

Mr. Goto graduated from Hosei University (法政大学社会学部 卒業生), which stands strongly for "Freedom & Progress" 「自由と進歩」 (link) built firmly upon Japan's renunciation of war (戦争を放棄した日本国). Pacifism is not passive acceptance of the radical right & the never-ending threats of chauvinistic nationalism & "top secret" government. Japanese people can still maneuver to escape militarism. Prime Minister Abe, now spattered with his countrymen's blood, can still avoid following his Yasukuni-enshrined predecessors to ignoble infamy and militarist waste.

(graphic death photo)

Rest In Peace, Kenji Goto
後藤 健二  1967-2015