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Speaking as a Korean American, I have to say that I am appalled and furious at this most recent wave of anti-American protests and the Korean governments tacit approval of the hate filled invective aimed at Americans in general. My feelings are that we should pull our troops out of the Korean peninsula immediately and let the Koreans fend for themselves. It seems that many of these spoiled "young generation" Koreans are being indulged by the authorities rather than being held accountable for their actions, as if the physical attacks on Americans are just a phase they'll grow out of. I'm sorry, but perhaps the best lesson the Korean youths can learn today is that their actions entail responsibilities and in this case they will be responsible for driving away the best and only true ally Korea has ever had in its long and checkered history.
Americans tend to be forgiving in many ways and there is as of yet little public backlash against S. Korea, but I'm doing my bit to even the scales by boycotting all imported Korean goods here in the US. I plan on buying an LCD monitor and CD/MP3 player this week and you can rest assured that it will not be Korean made. The mass hysteria that hit Korea during the Olympics over the Apolo Ohno issue was surreal in its irrelevance to anything remotely important in the world today. Are there not other, more pressing concerns that 50 million Koreans could turn their attention to? If the Korean kids want to show their nationalism, they can wave their flags and paint their faces and go "rah, rah" for the home team. But burning the American flag is another thing entirely. I'm a second generation American and my stomach tightens up each time I see the US flag being desecrated in this fashion. I ask the Koreans today, what have you done to make the world a better place? To my eyes, the only thing that the Koreans have done is work to make themselves rich by selling their goods to the Americans.
What many Koreans do not seem to realize is that their current affluence derives directly from the protective umbrella of the US forces over the past 50 years and this security blanket will be sorely missed when US troops pull back to Japan. This will again leave Korea alone to fend for itself against its much larger regional rivals, Japan, China and Russia and I will be pleased to see the look of astonishment on the "new generation" Koreans' faces when they try to cut a deal with the Chinese or Russians on national security. It is a brutal, Darwinian world out there in East Asia and if the Korean youth think the Americans are overbearing, they haven't seen anything yet.
Speaking as an American taxpayer, why should my money go towards paying for the defence of a people that feels the moral justification to kidnap, beat and knife my country's soldiers? Contrary to popular myth, South Korea is not vital to American national interests and it makes absolute sense for American forces to pull out of Korea and operate out of Japan, using the Japanese-American defence ties as a bulwark against instability in Asia. Korea is irrelevant in the big picture as it will soon be overtaken and basically swallowed up by China so why put American soldiers at risk now? If the North and South want to unify, fine. Let all those spoiled young Korean protestors pay for it. Most likely they'll find a way to get American and Japanese taxpayers to subsidize their re-unification, but I hope not.
Ted Kim,
New York, NY
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