Japan mulls pre-emptive strike against N Korea

I'm enjoying the thread and learning a lot from both sides. I don't know much myself about the politics and treaties, etc., just what I hear on the news and in the paper over here.

From the point of view of Japan, here is an interesting development. In just the past few years the young people of Japan and Korea have been sharing their cultures and getting to know each other in a surprising way. There is a huge boom in Korean TV dramas over here, and on the Korean side there is a great appreciation of Japanese pop music and pop culture. It is my hope that maybe the young people of both countries have forgotten the past (or never learned it!), which was after all so many years ago.

If anyone can reach the Japanese for Christ it is the Koreans. SK is now 46% Christian, while Japan still lingers at less than 1% (only 1/2% evangelical). Us white folk from America have a hard time denting the Japanese wall of indifference, but surely fellow Asians can do better!

I also expect great revivals in NK when their government collapses and SK missionaries are able to go north.

 

Of course Kim could be saved, if he has not committed the unpardonable sin. Consider what he would have to do, though: reject his anti-God communism and reject his god-like status, meaning a huge loss of face before his people. The school children are taught that all good things come from Kim. He is virtually worshipped as a god! What blasphemy!

I certainly don't recommend a "Rambo style attack." It would be a grave error to launch a military attack on NK. But God will judge the regime in His own time, if Kim does not repent.

As for "Cowboy diplomacy," in my eyes the cowboys are the good guys! :thumbs: That term "cowboy" has gotten a bad rap. My grandfather was a Texas cowboy, and cowboys believed in working hard, helping their neighbors, keeping their word and fighting evil. Hmm, maybe those great Korean Christians could be "cowboys!" :smilewinkgrin:

 

Reflected? impossible.

 

PFC Green has been arrested and charged with murder.

Millions died under communist rule throughout the last century, as many as 160,000,000 by some estimates. You obviously see the US as the villian, and much worse than any communist regime, so there is little point in discussion. But if you are interested in what it was like in South Vietnam after it fell to the north, you should read this article.

http://jim.com/ChomskyLiesCites/When_we_knew_what_happened_in_Vietnam.htm

 

Could you see how US handle to cover up the cases here?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/11/gag.order/index.html

Green, 21, is charged in a civilian court because he is a former soldier; he was honorably discharged from the Army before the alleged incident because of a "personality disorder." The others are charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Is Raping and Killing an Honorable thing to US Army ?

When US found the criminals among Military, they just simply discharge the person, "due to the Personality Disorder" then such cover-up is unfortunately revealed, they take some action. I am not sure Green will be indicted properly or discharged "due to the Personality Disorder"

Now the whole world is watching over him, then US try to cosmetic service for the watchers. What if such case happened a little quietly ?

What if one of his fellows didn't confess the crime, would US prosecutors have charged him?


He also pleaded Not Guilty
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/06/iraq.charge.ap/index.html

This tells us what kind of legal mind US soldiers have toward the local people where they are stationed.
People would argue that he was insane if he could rape and kill her family to disguise the facts.


You don't understand what I have been saying. Therefore there is no worth of discussion any further.

 

Correct Comment! He imitated many things from Bible, like Sun of the Nation.
Eventually I see this matter can be resolved only by the hand of God. If that one person die quicker, many things will be resolved while many concerns and problems may occur on the other hand.
Why Japanese support them so much by going to Ppachinko?:laugh:

 

Is raping and killing a sports for the anti-social personnels ?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/05/iraq.charge.ap/index.html

And thereby he was not indicted by the military police.

The HONORABLE DISCHARGE was the maximum sentence by the military.

What is the value of Honor of US army ?

Should the whole world learn from US and follow US judicial system?

If there was no internal whistle blower, could he be punished ?

 

It is the very nature of government to be corrupt. It shouldn't surprise a Christian that this is so. After all, governments are run by human beings and we know how human beings are:

Romans 3:10-18 (ESV)
as it is written:
"None is righteous, no, not one;
[11] no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
[12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one."
[13] "Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive."
"The venom of asps is under their lips."
[14] "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
[15] "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
[16] in their paths are ruin and misery,
[17] and the way of peace they have not known."
[18] "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

 

Well, the typical pachinko player is hardly the cream of Japanese intellectualism! And probably would not care even if he knew where his money was going! :laugh:

For the uninitiated, pachinko is Japanese pinball, a mind-numbingly boring gambling game, done with a vertical pinball machine in which the only thing you can control is how fast the balls come out. Immigrants from NK are said to control the parlors, and send the winnings to NK.

 

I don't think you understand the terminology of the US legal system. A "gag order" is certainly not a coverup, but in this case serves to protect the rights of the accused from the case being influenced by outside sources. America tries not to try the case in the media so that the accused can have a fair trial--not that the media always cooperates.

At any rate, the crime is not proven yet, and in America we believe that a person is "innocent until proven guilty." Our system is certainly not perfect--I think the Japanese system of three judges is better than the jury system. However, give the American system a chance. The Korean and Japanese systems were patterned after it in some ways. Remember Douglas MacArthur!

I also don't think you understand what an "honorable discharge" means in this context. It is not a pat on the back saying "You're a good kid," but simply means that his discharge was not due to conviction of a crime while in the military. That would have been a "dishonorable discharge."

Again, you don't seem to understand the terminology here. In the American legal system, this plea is often entered first before plea bargaining. It's complicated, and I don't expect a non-American to be able to follow it, but his lawyers probably told him to plead "not guilty" until they knew what evidence the prosecution has. The plea doesn't really mean a lot at this stage of the game.

 

I know to some extent the American Judicial system and the principle that the people are not guilty until crimes are proven and ruled.
In my opinion American Jury system is even better than Korean and Japanese system which is rather continental system ( German and French)

The point here is that the army organization itself tries a lot for the cover-up or for condoning the soldiers. When we asked them in person why they do so, they said, "if we don't defend for our soldiers, their morale will be down, and we are here to defend your country and need some protection" But there is a wrong philosophy inserted in such idea.

If US army treats the crimes against local civilians in the strict manner, or the same as the crimes against US citizens, US will get much better reputation among the local people where the army is deployed. Then they can be more proud of their services. However, the reality is not so.
Typical ways that US army authority treats the crimes are the following formulae:
-Treat the local civilians as different from US citizens, don't care about the number of civilian casualties while counting the number of US soldiers or US civilians
- Cover-up
- Discharge ascribing to Lack of evidences
- Relocation of the criminal to other countries
- Discharge the criminals and send to US
- Revenge if any businessmen ( merchants or Restaurants owner) report the crimes.

You may remember the cases of Okinawa.
I believe that the most Korean people would welcome US army continuously only if USFK treats the local personnel equally as US citizens and minimize the crimes of US Forces there. This is very important psycholigical matter.

Gen Casey the Commander in Iraq was the commander of US army in Korea. He must know that there is a fundamental problem with treating the crimes of the US amy personnel.

I know we should wait the result of the decision by US court.
But don't you see that US army discharged him simply knowing that he committed the grievous crimes, then they never accused him until his crimes were reported by the confession of his fellows?
If there had been so such confession, US army would have succeeded in concealing the crimes, and nobody would have known the truth, no US prosecutors or Court would have accused him. Even in the future, US court may say our jurisdiction doesn't reach Iraq, or Personality Disorder cannot be punished etc...

I have a lot more on this but would spare my time, but again, if US improve the ethical emphasis of keeping the local law and treating the local personnels equally as US citizens, Korean people will still welcome and love the US army presence there. I am sure Koreans will praise USFK very much, in such case.
To them, it is very much important. Actually I notice such emphasis is done more than before, on the TV of USFK, so the situation is improving.

The majority of Korean residents in Japan are mainly from SK since the period of Japanese colonization ( 1910-1945). Many of them were drafted by Japanese government as workers there, more number of them simply moved there as they could move there freely at that time.
They were from SK, but mostly support NK. I couldn't understand this but later on understood it after learning about the complicated history. There is a conflict between NK group and SK group inside Japan.
My family lived in Osaka for 20 years and my brother has the nick name "Osaka" as he was born in Osaka. I had busines with a company near San-Nomya ( between Kobe and Osaka) and travelled to Tokyo and Kyoto, quite often until 2000.

NK is defiant to UN resolution as expected.
As for idol worship in NK, I have a Japanese brethren friend, named Fukuda, he gave a testimony about his salvation. Many Japanese committed suicide when Hirohito declared he is not God any longer in 1945, and he also tried to commit the suicide as well, then he heard the gospel. So, we should note that often dictators or emperors, pharaos called themselves as gods or deity.

 

I see that you have already decided that PFC Green is guilty and that the army tried to cover up his crimes. Maybe he is guilty, I don't know, and neither do you. You may or may not be aware that Al Queda taught that many accusations should be made against the enemy troops in order to make them look as wicked as possible.

There are many ways in which NCO's and officers can see that a soldier has mental or emotional problems. Very likely Green's fellow troops and superiors saw that he was not right in the head, maybe heard rumors of his behavior, and he was discharged.

I know that when I was in the service overseas, we were continually warned to respect the locals and to obey their laws. So much so that it became nauseating, especially when we were insulted by the locals. I know that at times, S. Korean college students have spat on US soldiers.

I am not so ignorant as to think that American troops never commit crimes. Some of them do. When you take young guys who have never been far from home, who are bored, or afraid, or maybe already are criminals, sometimes they will do stupid or cruel things.

I will say this, by way of holding out the olve branch; the S. Koreans in general have been good allies to us, and their troops are some of the very best in the world.

 

Also,it is a myth that GI's have not been subject to local law in S. Korea. Here are a few examples of crimes by US troops that were prosecuted by S. Korean courts over the years:

1967 -- Rape - 2 GIs - conviction of US soldiers.
1967 -- Arson and Assault
1967 -- Death by Thrown Piece of Wood
1968 -- Murder and Arson - Initial Sentence - 15 Years
1968 -- Conviction of a civilian contractor - article notes 4 cases had been decided by this date - the 3 noted above and one black market case of selling 3 diamond rings bought at the PX.
1969 -- Very short article in the Washington Post 25 Oct 1969 A10 - Leonard Livingston given 3 years in prison and 5 on probation for aggravated robbery of a taxi driver.
1970 -- Murder of a Couple in front of their 3 year old child - Death sentence given.
1971 -- Rape and Murder - Short article in the Washington Post - 7 Jan 1971 A27 -Terry A. Mathews (22) killed a Korean woman on 22 Oct 1970. He was also caught with marijuana.
1971 -- Drug Case -- Very short article in the Washington Post 16 June 1971 A2 (also a very short article in the Post on 19 Mar 1971 A22) - Robert Albrecht Jr. caught trying to sell 982 tablets of LSD. Sentenced to one year in jail.
1977 -- Murder -
1993 -- Aggravated Assault of a taxi driver
1993 -- Aggravated Assault of a bar owner (female)
1994 -- Street Assault - Attempted Theft
1995 -- Infamous Subway Brawl -
1995 -- Street Altercation -- leading to monetary compensation
1996 -- Murder - Korean female prostitute - 10 year prison sentence
1997 -- Violent Domestic Assault - Korean live-in girlfriend
1998 -- Murder - bargirl
1998 -- Robbery - 2 GIs Arrested.
1998 -- Train Assault - Fine.
2000 -- Large drug bust - 5 year sentence
2001 -- Robbery & Assault - 30 months
2002 -- Simple assault case
2002 -- Taxi brawl
2003 -- DUI Fatality - 3 year sentence
2004 -- May - Aggravated Assault - Sinchon Stabbing
2005 -- July - Beer bottle assault case
2005 -- Aug - Tossing man into a river reportedly for fun
2005 -- Dec - Assault and Robbery - Arrest and sentenced
2006 -- Feb - Lewd behavior on subway

(Compiled by USinKorea.org)

 

That's pretty definitive, NiteShift. Thanks for the info.

In our 25 years in Japan here, I've read about arrests and prosecution by the Japanese of many Americans over the years stupid enough to risk the extremely strict Japanese prison system. So I've been wondering about these charges by Eliyahu about the SOF in Korea.

 

Eliyu is spreading untruth. Untruth is usually the political propagand arm of terrorists.

The Military has a very strong judicial system. Courts Martial are very serious. It is not uncommon for soldiers to be punished much more severely under Courts Martial than under civilian courts.

The military normally hands over US citizens charged with certain crimes to the local authorities as set out under the SOFA (status of forces agreement).

Having said that, there are criminals within the military. Criminals will try to cover up what other soldiers have done on occasion.

Bottom line, the US military has a better record than any other occupying military in the world. IMHO. And I believe that the US military usually has a better record within our borders than most military organizations do in their own countries. For example, the atrocities committed by the Iraqi regime to its own people - everyone keeps forgetting this.

 

PS

You are missing two soldiers turned over for murder in 1992 - 93.

And a DWI case of a US government employee in 1994 - 95.

Not to count a soldier killed by a vigilante for walking with a Korean woman. The Koreans prosecuted the murderer.

 

Trusting such statistics report all the crimes is very much naive.

I have the information which explains only the fraction of the real crimes by US army, in Korean and the following is my translation of the excerpts.


In 1990, for the crimes of US forces, the local authority exercised the judicial rights for only 0.8%, 1% in 1991, 7% in 2001, 26 cases among 372 cases.
The reason why the statistics shows the drastic increase since is because small traffic accidents were deleted from the statistics.

http://usacrime.or.kr/frame-white.htm ( it is in Korean)


However, your statistics prove that there is an enormous difference between the record of US or Korean authority and the actual/real figures.

Let me show you some glympse of them.

In 1998, Hur, Jooyeon was killed by Hendrics
In August Soon-Nyo Park was killed at America town in Kunsan
Joong-Pil Cho was killed in April 3, 1997
Where are these cases? These were not all the murder cases in that year.
In 1992, the prostitute, Yoon, Kumee was killed by a GI who stuck the peak of an umbrella into her vagina. Where is such record? How was the criminal punished ?

In June 2002, the famous killing of Hyosoon and Misun by US armor tank occurred. Of course this was recorded as a simple traffic accident, by US. However, the most Koreans knew that the accident could be easily avoided only if the operator paid the due vigilance at that time. Two girls at the age of 13, in the middle school walked along the roadside to attend a birthday party, then the US armor tank ran over them both were killed right there. This trigerred enormous anger among the Koreans, but the operator was not punished at all. If they valued the lives of the local civilians as important as the US civilians, such accident would not have happened.

One of the main problem with this is that Korean Prosecutors give up the judicial rights voluntarily and hand over to USFK. Do you know why?
Otherwise, they will be severely condemned by US and US used to pressure Korean government to protect their soldiers. So, even though there was an article that the crimes during the official activities are subject to US jurisdiction and the crimes in the private activities are subject to the local authorities, mostly Korean authorities gave up the right and handed over to US. Disobeying such tacit rule is impossible in reality. Do you know that Korean government cannot move or relocate a division or battalion of Korean army to another place, without the approval of US ? Korean government has no authority to command the Korean army in major operation, without the approval of US. This situation angers Koreans very much as well and cause the Korean prosecutors to hand over the US criminals voluntarily to US in most cases.
Moreover, even though only a small portion of criminal cases were handled by Korean court, most of them had to be released due to the pressure from US government.

In 1967, in my hometown, a man was riding on a bike with his fellow, a USFK truck was passing by, some US soldiers were on the truck and threw a lumber to him and hit his head, he died soon. Later his family reported Korean police and tried to find out the justice, but the Korean police said, "he was unluky, when you pass by US trucks, you must be careful and avoid any collision with them as there is no way to accuse US army personnel" Where is such case in the record?

In 1982, my former boss at a US company in Korea accused a 2 star general of USFK, as he drowned a Korean girl in the lake, but the general was protected by USFK very much, but my boss was very much persistant in accusing him. There general was called to Washington and had to retire, while my boss who was the CID (Criminal Investigation Dept) commander of US army then was called to Washington and had to retire as well.

Where is such case in your record ?

During the period which you show, there were hundreds of murder/killing cases but only a few of them recorded as muders.

Steve Green case in Iraq shows the true aspects of how USF handles the crimes.
In the beginning after the discovery of the crimes, they used to discuss how to conceal the cases, how to cover-up, how to whitewash, then discharge them honorably or dishonorably, that is it!
Then if the crimes are known to the public, then they are to be tried at the civilian court. Often they are unpunished due to the lack of evidence, wrong jurisdiction, personal disorder, mental illness, etc.
In Green's case, the Military court or prosecutors must have known the case in detail, but never accused him or his fellows with murder charge. Now the case is known to the public, then they say " we are now investigating," and the civil court and prosecutors accuse him. If they are not revealed to the public, they succeed in the whitewash.

If you were not naive to present the data to show them as all the criminals by USF, you may have shown them to prove that ROK authorities are exercising the judicial rights over USFK. However, those are the cases where ROK authorities had to exercise it because the cases are known too much to the public as the Steve Green cases. Those are a very small fraction of the real number of cases.

We must face the judgment by God who knows all the crimes of ours. We should view the world from the view how God sees and remembers the world and its history. Some people and some countries may have succeeded in cheating the people, but God will find their crimes.

 

In the case of the tank that killed two girls in 2002, it was judged to be an accident because it was...an accident. You may not realize that tank drivers have a limited view of the road. Several American soldiers are killed each year by armoured vehicles because the driver couldn't see them. I myself was nearly run over by a M60 at one time. I am sorry for what happened to those girls, but do you think an American soldier did that intentionally?

Regarding the man killed by a thrown piece of wood in 1967; the soldier who was invloved, Spc John Vaughn, was arrested by Korean police and tried in a Korean court.

Yes you are correct that we are all subject to judgement by God. But His judgement may not be the same as you think.

 

You're right John. The army tries very hard to get it's people to behave in foreign lands. Not always successfully!
25 years is a long time. I admire your commitment

 

True El Guero. But I imagine Eliyahu absolutely believes that what he says is true. Most S. Koreans believe exactly the same, and their press and educators reinforce that belief every day.