I am writing this letter to show my opinion on anti-American protest in Korea.

As a first generation Korean-American, I spent half of my life in Korea and the other half in America. I travel to Korea quite often and sometimes a long period. I happened to talk to many young generations in twenties including my relatives in Korea. All of them are either in college or college-educated in Korea. When they tried to explain their anti-Americanism to me, I am shocked by their naive thinking pattern, ignorance on the facts, extreme emotions and immaturity. I believe that this symptom was artificially created by political motivation by the current government.

The young generation is always the easiest target to maneuver. Whatever motivation created this ridiculous anti-Americanism, it became a serious emotional problem to Koreans. Americans are not considered friends any more, but enemies to Korea. Can we get back to logical thinking and resolve this conflict ? I don't think so.

At this moment, the more we try to explain and resolve the issue, the bigger the anti-Americanism will grow. It is too late to go back. Once they possess anti-Americanism, they will not listen to the other fact or truth. The best option right now is to keep a distance between two nations. Just hands-off policy. The only way to keep two nations back to friendly is to withdraw US forces from Korea.

The current SOFA is perfectly fair to both nations and there is no justification to change. Korean government people all know that. The request to change SOFA by Korean public cannot be done. Withdrawing US forces is the only option to stop the growing anti-Americanism. It will calm down those emotional Korean youngsters. In fact, we should have Korean people control their own destiny. Simply, why do we spend our tax payer's money for the people who do not appreciate at all.

As a Korean-American, I tried to be neutral. This conflict is mostly due to Korean people's ignorance on different cultures. Korean people do not know that hitting a person is a crime, but human being killed from a car accident is not even a criminal case in USA. I explained this in many cases. But emotionally controlled people in Korea are not convinced. There may be a slight chance of disaster caused by withdrawing US forces. But, we have to take that risk in order to avoid growing problems in the current situation.

Ik Kim Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA