Negative views about US from South Korean soldiers and youth

[FascistLibertarian]

Found this intresting.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/04/116_22029.html

'34 Percent of Army Cadets Regard US as Main Enemy'

By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter

A poll shows that 34 percent of first-year army cadets called the United States the main enemy of South Korea, a former superintendent of the Korea Military Academy (KMA) said.

Kim Choong-bae, president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, disclosed a past survey of 250 KMA entrants to single out "the country's main enemy'' while serving as the military academy's superintendent in 2004.

Kim was quoted by a newspaper as saying, "While the majority ― or 34 percent ― picked the U.S., 33 percent said they regarded North Korea as the main enemy.''

He said the result was unbelievable, stressing the respondents were those who were supposed to be military officers. The KMA did not make the result public during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which ended last February.

Kim hinted that he had been forced not to notify the public of the result, expressing uneasiness about contents of some high and middle schools textbooks.

Citing his meeting with the 250 cadet freshmen, the military expert argued that the hostile sentiment against the "ally" is due to "inappropriate'' education in schools.

In addition, according to a survey of a group of conscripted soldiers conducted by the Ministry of Defense, about 75 percent of them said they have anti-U.S. sentiment.

Various polls on college students or elementary school students have shown that major enemies of South Korea include North Korea, Japan and the U.S.

Meanwhile, North Korea had been found to label the U.S. and Japan as its main enemies. There has been no document or official commentaries from Pyongyang which describe South Korea as the main enemy of the North.

North Korea had reportedly defined the U.S. a "mortal enemy'' and Japan a "longstanding enemy,'' some military officials said.

 

[Celticgirl]

This doesn't surprise me at all. I went over to South Korea to teach English in 1997, right before the major economic crash. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) bailed them out, but with that, sanctions were imposed. South Koreans saw the IMF as strictly a U.S. organization and so a nationwide anti-American sentiment grew to monstrous proportions after that point. Before too long, foreigners were finding it hard to get taxis, we were being spit on in the streets (yep, it happened to me), and Korean police were finding reasons to make trouble for us. I suspect that this anti-American sentiment was always present in South Korea (surprising, considering that the U.S. army had been stationed in various parts of the country to help protect them from a Northern invasion), but the IMF deal just gave them an excuse to really let it all hang out, so to speak. I don't think it is as bad now, nearly 11 years later, but I don't imagine that this kind of deep, nationally-felt resentment would just go away in a mere decade either.

Teaching English to international students here in Canada has been an eye-opener for me as well. The following is a list of nationalities from which my students hailed: South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Spain, Germany, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Angola. (I'm sure I am forgetting a couple.) Of all those students from all those countries, I have yet to meet one that has something positive to say about the U.S. (apart from pop culture). Anti-American sentiment is rife in ALL of these countries. We sometimes criticize our own country's people of U.S. bashing, but I think we generally have a much higher opinion of the States than just about any other country's people in the world.

 

[JesseWZ]

33 % of 250 people is only 85ish people. Thats not a terribly huge number and certainly not a number any good survey should be structured around as a response rate.

 

[2 Cdo]

And yet with all this anti-US gibberish they are still one of the top choices of countries to immigrate to.

I don't see to many people beating down the doors of the countries Celticgirl listed.

 

[muskrat89]

2 CDO - I agree, and that's what I don't get...

or have a natural disaster and see who they expect to contribute the most...

same with foreign aid

 

[Red 6]

Over the years, I've been to about 15 or 16 different countries, mostly as a Soldier. Korea is among them and I enjoyed my time there. From what I've read, this sentiment as depicted with their cadets isn't an isolated view. It's very widespread and I find it somewhat strange that, without all the blood the United States shed during the Korean War, no one there would have the right to an opinion at all. I wonder what they think when they look across the DMZ at their northern neighbors? Makes me want to get insulted by the North Koreans:

http://www.nk-news.net/extras/insult_generator.php

 

[midget-boyd91]

2 CDO - I agree, and that's what I don't get...

or have a natural disaster and see who they expect to contribute the most...

same with foreign aid

The interweb has made the planet tiny. Although the Anti-American sentiment may be there, a father in India determined to leave India for a better life will very likely have access to the internet, either personally owned or a cyber-cafe. That little box of a computer lets him see "what life is like" over on this side of the globe. Big house, shiny cars, 9-5 job etc ...  I'd hazard a guess and say that those are more attractive to a father in need of work than the politics are unattractive.

Midget

 

[Bo]

Not very surprising when you consider the following:

... the United States has attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries in different regions of the developing world, since August 1945, a number of them many times (Eric Waddell, 2003):

"The avowed objective of these military interventions has been to effect ‘regime change’. The cloaks of "human rights" and of "democracy were invariably evoked to justify what were unilateral and illegal acts." (Eric Waddell, 2003)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4659

 

[Red 6]

Time to go back to the North Korean insult generator!

 

[megany]

This isn't a big surprise.  I went to school in South Korea (as a student, not a teacher) and there was a lot of anti-American sentiment.  We also weren't treated very well at some establishments in our local neighbourhood - "no foreigner" signs outside bars, shopkeepers would refuse to serve us, etc.  It didn't matter which nationality we were from - we were white, so we were obviously American.

It's amazing, though - if the Americans were to pull out of South Korea there would be pretty big problems - the Americans bring a lot of cash into that country and also provide military services.  I think the South Koreans need to realize how positive certain aspects of the American presence has been - the ROK basically went from dirt roads, complete ruin and huts to a modern nation in slightly over 50 years.  That's hard to pull off.

 

[Shec]

"Yankee Go Home; and take me with you"  - getting to be a rather tiresome refrain methinks

 

[Greymatters]

Not surprising, look at the anti-US sentiment here expressed at many of our higher educational institutions...

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I sense the time is right for South Korea to shoulder the burden of it's own defense, I sure the pullout of bases there will save the US trillions of dollars that could be spent on a more deserving country. I sure a review of the econmic and social impact of such a move might be a sobering splash of water for the young snots.

They should have loaded all of those cadets on a bus and told them because of their opinions they have been picked to take part in a one year exchange program with NK, where they will get to live and eat like a typical North Korean.  ;D

 

[1feral1]

From Bo... the United States has attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries in different regions of the developing world, since August 1945, a number of them many times (Eric Waddell, 2003):

"The avowed objective of these military interventions has been to effect ‘regime change’. The cloaks of "human rights" and of "democracy were invariably evoked to justify what were unilateral and illegal acts." (Eric Waddell, 2003)
--------------------------

So what!

If the US had sat back and did nothing, the world would be more phucked up than it is now.

IMHO

 

[geo]

Over the years, I've been to about 15 or 16 different countries, mostly as a Soldier. Korea is among them and I enjoyed my time there. From what I've read, this sentiment as depicted with their cadets isn't an isolated view. It's very widespread and I find it somewhat strange that, without all the blood the United States, Canada Britain, Australia & many others shed during the Korean War, no one there would have the right to an opinion at all. I wonder what they think when they look across the DMZ at their northern neighbors? Makes me want to get insulted by the North Koreans:
http://www.nk-news.net/extras/insult_generator.php

If the US had withdrawn from Korea after the Cease fire, South Korea would be a subserviant part of "PARADISE LOST" in the People's Republic of (North) Korea.

 

[Bo]

Not everyone forgets history.

People need to realize that much of the negative views held by South Koreans towards the U.S. stem from what led up to, and took place during the Korean War. I would assume that North Koreans feel the same way about the old Soviet Union. The Korean war was not fought to protect the people of Korea. Rather, it was just one of many proxy wars fought by the U.S. and the Soviets in order to increase their influence in that area.

At the close of World War II, forces of both the Soviet Union and the United States occupied the Korean peninsula in accordance with an agreement put forth by the United States government. The Soviet forces entered the Korean peninsula on August 10, 1945, followed a few weeks later by the American forces who entered through Incheon. U.S. Army Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge formally accepted the surrender of Japanese forces south of the 38th Parallel on September 9, 1945 at the Government House in Seoul.[22]

Many Korean people had organized politically prior to the arrival of American troops.[23]

The American forces arrived in Korea in early September. One of Hodge's first directives was to restore many Japanese colonial administrators and collaborators to their previous positions of power within Korea. This policy was understandably very unpopular among Koreans who had suffered horribly under Japanese colonial rule for 35 years, and would prove to have enormous consequences for the American occupation.[17]

A second policy set forth by Hodge was to refuse to recognize the existing political organizations that had been established by the Korean people. Hodge sought to establish firm U.S. control over events through out the southern half of the peninsula.[20] These policies would help give rise to the later insurrections and guerrilla warfare that preceded the outbreak of the civil war.[20]

It was agreed that Korea would govern independently after four years of international oversight. However, both the U.S. and the USSR approved Korean-led governments in their respective halves, each of which were favorable to the occupying power's political ideology. These arrangements were largely rejected by the majority of the Korean population, which responded with violent insurrections in the North and protests in the South.[20]

The government that emerged was led by anti-communist U.S.-educated strongman Syngman Rhee, a Korean who had been imprisoned by the Japanese as a young man and later then fled to the United States.[29] The South’s left-wing parties boycotted the elections in part to protest U.S. support for Rhee and its suppression of indigenous political movements.

Sounds like Kharzai's story, no?

For a time, American troops were under orders to consider any Korean civilians on the battlefield approaching their position as hostile, and were instructed to "neutralize" them because of fears of infiltration. This led to the indiscriminate killings of hundreds of South Korean civilians by the U.S. military at places such as No Gun Ri, where many defenseless refugees — most of whom were women, children and old men — were shot at by the U.S. Army and may have been strafed by the U.S. Air Force. Recently, the U.S. admitted having a policy of strafing civilians in other places and times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

 

[Red 6]

What's more pertinent than what happened in 1945 is the current wave of revisionism taking place in Korea. By that I mean the fact that their school system doesn't teach the sacrifices made to establish and grow democracy in the ROK. The South Korean government was established precisely because our forces gave them the time to survive in their early years. Also, the South Korean population has been subjected to wave after wave of subtle propaganda from the north targeted to separate them from feelings of solidarity with the west, in particular the US. This is a big reason why so many of their younger people seem to think Americans are a bigger threat to their security.

US KW casualties

KIA 54,229  WIA 103,248  MIA 8,142  POW 3,746  Total 169,365

 

[chanman]

I find it somewhat strange that, without all the blood the United States shed during the Korean War, no one there would have the right to an opinion at all.

Well, that, five republics (on their 6th now), a couple of coupt d'etats, a massacre that actually sounds like a mini-version of Tiannamen without the tanks, and just short of four decades.  The current South Korean democracy is barely past the two decade mark.  The US sacrifices in the Korean was a necessary, but not a sufficient condition  (link leads to wiki article on the specific definition of necessary and sufficient conditions I am using) for the right to free speech (you can have an opinion anywhere, being able to propagate it without harmful side effects is the hard part)

*Some probably wouldn't consider South Korea's current arrangement to be mature yet, sometimes being compared to Italy for political dysfunctionality.  Incidentially, Roh Tae-woo, who brought in democratic reforms and served as president from 1988-1993 was charged and convicted of mutiny, treason, and corruption (first two for role in 1979 coup and 1980 massacre), and served two years of his sentence before being pardoned.

 

[tomahawk6]

IMO the previous government fanned the flames of anti-americanism but when the US announced a realignment of forces the Koreans melted like hot butter and now they elected a somewhat conservative pro-american government. These things are cyclical. It is good that we put the Koreans on notice that they are more than able to defend their own country but we will provide the types of forces/capabilities that they lack. I suspect ten years from now or even farther out there will be some US military presence in Iraq.The American shield and money is a tough combination to beat.