By Here is some breaking news, the Joong Ang Ilbo has discovered that the Taliban are not "conscientious Muslims":
The deep sorrow of Shim’s family is the pain and sadness of us all. We shall never forget the cruelty and cowardice of the Taliban.
The evidence of these cold-blooded killings suggests the Taliban are no longer conscientious Muslims but have become murderous pyschopaths.
You mean to tell me the executions, beheadings, stoning of women, suicide bombings, among a host of other vicious crimes committed by the Taliban over the years was not enough to convice the Joong Ang Ilbo until now that the Taliban is not "conscientious Muslims", but "murderous pyschopaths"?
So how does the Joong Ang recommend dealing with these "murderous pyschopaths"? By giving in to their demands:
So the best solution, to prevent the deaths of other hostages is to release the Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government, as the kidnappers demand.
But the Korean government cannot force the Afghan government to do that, so more Koreans are likely to die. The Afghan government is reluctant to free Taliban prisoners because the United States, its principal ally, has a policy of no compromise with terrorists.
Basically what this columnist is claiming is that the past crimes of the Taliban are not that of "murderous pyschopaths" because they were not directed against Koreans. Only now that the Taliban are targeting Koreans are they considered criminals. This mind set is why the Koreans advocating giving into terrorist demands don’t care if freed Taliban prisoners go on to kill Afghan civilians and American soldiers, as long as they are not Koreans.
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8:31 am on August 3rd, 2007 1
This entire charade continues to reveal more of the Korean mindset to the rest of the world, and this is a good thing.
9:00 am on August 3rd, 2007 2
“The evidence of these cold-blooded killings suggests the Taliban are no longer conscientious Muslims but have become murderous pyschopaths.”
INCREDIBLE! Yet another frogs in the well quote.
“You mean to tell me the executions, beheadings, stoning of women, suicide bombings, among a host of other vicious crimes committed by the Taliban over the years was not enough to convice the Joong Ang Ilbo until now that the Taliban is not “conscientious Muslims”, but “murderous pyschopaths”? “
Well, isn’t the answer to that obvious? Conscientious Muslims who execute, behead, stone, and carry out suicide bombings don’t become murderous psychopaths until their victims are Korean.
That Joongang story is going straight into my Korean media file of shame favorites folder.
10:29 am on August 3rd, 2007 3
[...] http://rokdrop.com/2007/08/03/korea-discovers-taliban-are-not-conscientious-muslims/ [...]
1:09 am on August 3rd, 2007 4
What's astonishing is that the article readily admits that Korea is weak country. The Korean government is unable to "force" the AFG government into caving to Taliban demands, who themselves are hamstrung by "No negotiating with terrorist" policy by superpower ally United States. That's the gist of it.
"We can't do nothing, and we have to watch big brother America. So hopefully AFG will kinda act by themselves and release the terrorist prisnoners so the korean hostages can be freed. It's in their hands." Reeks of inferiority complex.
And to think – few centuries ago, brave Bakjae soldiers fought the Tang army to the death and brave marchers were gunned down Japanese police as they proclaimed a free Korea.
2:01 am on August 3rd, 2007 5
I just had an epiphany as to why korean liquor stores are always being robbed
2:21 am on August 3rd, 2007 6
I was curious as to how the Korean version was worded and found it here:
http://news.joins.com/article/2811557.html?ctg=20
It's longer and organized differently. The infamous 'good Taliban gone bad' remark is at the beginning of the third paragraph.
3:33 am on August 3rd, 2007 7
We are talking about the country that continues to literally throw money at North Korea hoping it will change. Ignoring certain realities is par.
Anyway, it's America's fault that the Taliban did this.
4:28 am on August 3rd, 2007 8
When frogs in a well become fish in a barrel.
6:32 am on August 3rd, 2007 9
How about they ask North Korea to use its influence on the taliban to free the hostages?
11:48 pm on August 3rd, 2007 10
[...] for terrorists to be released: it knows that these lives will be traded for other lives, but at least they won’t be Korean. I don’t mean to single Korea out here entirely, of course. Italy knew that its [...]
11:44 am on August 3rd, 2007 11
It would be ironic if the newly reformed Japanese Ministry of Defense put together a rescue operation to save these noble Korean souls. *GUFFAW*
/know it won't happen, but we can dream.
8:08 am on August 4th, 2007 12
[...] one Italian journalist, not that Seoul cares because they just discovered the Taliban are not "conscientious Muslims" and have been attempting to shift responsibility for the whole crisis on to the [...]
9:27 am on August 4th, 2007 13
[...] GI Korea continues his updates on the hostage situation with a couple of excellent posts (here and here) be sure to check out the coverage over at One Free Korea as well – and let’s not [...]
6:38 pm on August 4th, 2007 14
Greetings to this community of Korea well-wishers. It is a particularly acute struggle at this time to get Koreans to wake up to hard reality. Part of the difficulty is in the fact the the miracle on the Han (as with the German wirtshaeftswuender before it) has been cossetted in the USA security guarantee. Part of it, as in Europe and North America, lies in the profoundly pernicious influence of the mostly Marxist liberal arts and social sciences professoriate of the universities. For Koreans, some measure of it also may be due to residual cultural insularity, the Korean diaspora and the Korean global marketing effort notwithstanding. For my part in communicating with younger Koreans, and I would hope that others would employ similar: have tried to contrast the historical examples of Lee Soon-shin and Dae Jo-young, what with the great bravery and stalwart attitudes they showed in the face of mortal adversity to the Korean people, with the "all-powerful to be powerless" attitudes of appeasement exemplified by Roh Moo-Hyun and Chung Dong-young.
Obviously in the case of the community of the latter two, and Kim Dae-jung before them: if you were to admit that the attitude of ransom paying (be it money, policy, prisoners) is wrong, then soon the dismantlement of Seoul's "Stockholm Syndrome" must touch on that holiest of holies, the "Sunshine Policy" towards the Kim family regime holding 23 million Koreans hostage. Likely they'd sooner cut their own hearts out then wake up to that.
12:22 pm on August 5th, 2007 15
[...] thinking of the incumbent Roh Moo-hyun Administration. Their thinking is at best similar to the Joong-Ang Ilbo and often worse. Perhaps a good part of the problem for President Roh and his administration in [...]
1:29 am on August 14th, 2007 16
Note to GI Korea; the above comment by "Daniel" is spam – form generated to insert the post title.
1:50 am on August 14th, 2007 17
This Daniel Spam keeps getting through the Akismet some how. I have marked different postings by this guy as spam about 10 different times and it keeps coming back.