The Party Pooper has just posted a great article that disputes alledged crimes and statistics provided by an anti-USFK group here in Korea called USAcrime. Feel free to read the propaganda yourself than read the Party Poopers rebuttal. Here is a sample of the typical propaganda that US soldiers are subjected to here and the Party Pooper’s response.

Statistically, people bound by SOFA (soldiers, civilian components, their families and their relatives) have committed 2-3 crimes against Korean citizens a day. Hence there have been over 100,000 cases of criminal acts since 1945. Nevertheless, Korean courts have only judged around 4% of these crimes (confined to US soldiers). In most other cases, U.S. soldiers who have committed crimes against the Korean people, have been released without punishment or due compensation to the victims.

Answer of earlier question: Not very long. Anyway, playing with statistics looks fun! Can I play too?
Ok, according to your numbers (100,000+ cases over the past 59 years) that’s about 1,700 “criminal acts” per year from a population of 37,000 (actually, it should be more than that even now that the numbers have been reduced, because their statistics include soldier’s families, relatives, and all others covered by the SOFA).

Thus about 4% of GIs are committing crimes each year (actually less, since there would certainly be many repeat offenders doing more than their share).
So at worst, only 4% of the soldiers are bad guys and the other 96% are more or less law-abiding people doing nothing more than serving their country and protecting Korean democracy at your nation’s request.

Wow! 33,600 soldiers just minding their own business and doing nothing more than making sure Korea stays safe. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I never realized just how well they were doing. Also, what percentage of these “crimes” are traffic violations? What percentage is just brawls between GIs or fights in which both parties (GI and Korean) were at fault? Come on, drunken Korean men never bait GIs or start pushing first?

What is sad is the amount of people who believe this crap. It doesn’t help that every time a GI gets in a fight with a Korean or a serious crime it is put on the front page of every paper and ran on the news. Now what happens when Koreans attack GIs and even kill them? Well not a whole lot.

Here is a perfect example, the last time I was in Korea, a US Army Major was attacked and killed by a knife weilding assailant in Itaewon. What was really amazing was that Koreans in the crowd were trying to take the knife away from the officer who had taken the knife away from the attacker and it wasn’t until some more Americans arrived on the scene did anyone provide any help in restraining the attacker and providing transportation to get the wounded major back to Yongsan to 121 hospital. The major ended up dieing from his wound to the liver.

Now ask any Korean you meet today about this incident and no one will recall it, but ask the same person about the fhlameldahyde being dumped in the Han River and they will instantly remember that. By the way has anyone taken the Han River boat cruise and seen the stuff floating in that river? And the enviromentalists are more worried about fhlameldahyde than industrial waste?

Then there are the attacks on the subway which including kidnapping when 3 GI’s were kidnapped after a confrontation on a subway which in court was proven to have been started by a Korean man hitting a GI and then the attempted murder and stabbing of the 8th Army spokesman a Lieutenant Colonel on his way to work at the subway stop just outside of Yongsan Garrison. He was able to fight off his attackers and escape. To read more about these incidents Click Here.

It is bad enough that these incidents happened but what bothers me even more is that average Koreans know nothing about it. But ask them about the drunk soldier that got in a fight at Shinchon one night and pulled a knife to defend himself and killed no one and everyone knows about that. I’ve told these incidents to KATUSAs and they didn’t believe me until I showed them the evidence on the internet. So like I have told my soldiers here, if you are a new soldier coming to Korea walk away from any possible off post confrontations you may find yourself encountering because whatever happens no one will help you and everything will be blamed on you and no one will care or remember it.

Also keep in mind that the majority of the people here are very nice but their is a fringe minority that uses propaganda and tries to create incidents with GI’s to provoke an anti-American backlash for their own twisted political reasons. You really only need to worry about this around college areas and Seoul in particular. Just keep that in the back of your mind while traveling around Korea.

I have travelled extensively around the peninsula and only one time has someone tried to provoke an incident with me and that was at Kyongbuk Palace in Seoul. Me and my buddies were just walking in the palace when a Korean female backed by her posse of young thugs started yelling anti-American obscenities at us and saying we are not allowed to visit the palace. That is pretty absurd because that would be like me telling Koreans they cannot visit the Grand Canyon. We walked away from the incident but something like that if it was other soldiers could have turned violent and that is what these groups want, so they can put your picture on the front page of the newspaper. Don’t give them what they want and don’t let them intimidate you from going out and seeing the many sites here in Korea.

Popularity: 2%