Here is a sincere question…

Things don't add up, exactly. Why would Bell be forced into retirement for pushing for a quick transformation?

Certainly, he didn't come up with this Quick Transformation Plan all on his own after a night of heavy drinking. This had to have come from higher up and been discussed repeatedly in minute detail prior to taking command. If so, why would they push him into retirement for following orders? Especially when everyone knows it will be unpopular with the ROK.

Anyway…

I am certainly going to get a kick out of it, though, if Bell's last act of defiance is screw up all the corrupt scams going on just before his retirement. Even though this will irritate a lot of people now, it would be a fantastic legacy that would make the textbooks… and, in the end, it could make the transformation happen much, much quicker as it would cut off a lot of the high-dollar interests that do NOT want the transformation to happen (i.e. Itaewon "community leaders").

We will see if he has the ability, ethics and patriotism to do it… otherwise he goes down as just another worthless LaPorte-esque hack.

Which brings up a subdivision of one of the four categories of USFK leaders as discussed here:

http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/27/gi-myths-is-the-us-…

There are some high-level leaders who know exactly what scams are going on even though they are not exactly involved from a cash-in-the-pocket standpoint.

The "conspiracy" is that they clearly understand (and accept) that they will be branded as "hard to work with" on a two-year tour by long-term, high-level ROK counterparts who have close, long-term relationships with long-term "community leaders", if they don't go along with the long-term graft.

LaPorte was a fine example of this… as his ethics were questionable to begin with.

When people write comments here about how stupid Koreans are and how superior the US military is in everything from cleverness to integrity, think about this.

Best I can tell, USFK senior leadership is equal in ethics to a bunch of ratty whorebar owners, Spam-smuggling black marketers, slot-playing ajumas, off-base housing slumlords and shady construction company bosses… but not quite as smart.

Bingo! Well said.

Now ask yourself why LaPorte was asked to hang around so long? Could it be because the ROKs loved working with him because he kept things business as usual compared to Bell who is adamant about transforming USFK?

I think if you check the history of the the CFC Commanders you will notice that their tours varied in length.

http://www.usfk.mil/usfk/index.html?/org/cfc.html

Would you also come to the conclusion that Gen Scwhartz was forced to retire because he only served 30 months? Change of Command is influenced by many factors and I highly douobt htat cracking down on illegal activity has any major role in why Gen Bell is retiring.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JB16Dg01.html

I think General Bell has been going after the corruption for the past year because the first year he took command he was consumed with relocation issues and didn't want to do anything to piss off the Koreans while relocation issues were being worked out.

I'm still waiting for him to do something about the golf courses though.

The black marketing story is about to get real interesting….