The hypocrisy of the response to this incident when compared to the 2002 US military tracked vehicle accident that killed two South Korean junior high students is so obvious:

A court has upheld a decision to cancel the driving license of a South Korean citizen who killed one soldier and wounded two while driving under the influence in North Korea.

The Seoul Administration Court Thursday ruled against a man identified as Chung, who filed a suit against the Seoul Police Agency chief after his license was canceled. Chung, an employee with a subcontractor of Hyundai Asan, was prosecuted in July this year and sentenced to one year in jail with a two-year stay of execution. He killed and injured three North Korean soldiers in Mt. Kumgang while driving a passenger car in December last year.

In the event of a car accident at Mt. Kumgang and Kaesong Industrial Complex, North Korea has investigation rights over the case and South Korea decides on the punishment, according to the Justice Ministry¿s directives. The bench affirmed that the cancellation of Chung¿s driver¿s license was right, given that he drank immediately before the accident and drove at an inappropriately fast speed, although the victims could be blamed to some extent.

In the 2002 accident, the two soldiers involved were not speeding, were not drunk, and committed a legitimate accident that unfortunately killed the two girls.  Candle light protests, demands that the SOFA be changed so the US soldiers could be sent to Korean jail, violent protests including the infiltration and storming of Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu, the kidnapping of US soldiers from a subway, stabbing of the USFK public relations spokesman, banning of Americans from many restaurants and businesses, along with ultimately President Roh Moo-hyun being elected by running on a anti-American platform followed this tragic accident.

Now compare the 2002 accident to the above incident.  A South Korean man kills one person and injures two others while speeding and driving drunk and complains because his license is taken away.  No candle light vigils and no calls for justice from the Korean people and not even a stiff jail sentence from the government.  I’m willing to bet the average Korean probably doesn’t even know about this incident.

The greatest hypocrisy has got to be the SOFA agreement with North Korea that the South Koreans have.  Under the US SOFA agreement a soldier on duty cannot be tried by a Korean court such as what happened in the 2002 accident.  Only soldiers who commit crimes while off duty can be tried by a Korean court which has happened since the 1960′s.  The US SOFA is something of continuous complaints from many quarters of Korean society but yet the SOFA they have with North Korea allows a South Korean civilian driving around drunk to be tried in a South Korean court where he ends up losing his license?

Well at least he got more punishment than when a Korean civilian rapes a US soldier.  In that case no one received any punishment at all.