It is kind of sad that the government has to distribute comic books to teach youngsters that being taken over by Kim Jong-il is not such a good thing:

South Korean police plan to distribute a comic book this fall aimed at changing the minds of elementary and middle school students who admire North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and want the U.S. military to leave their country.The move is condemned by a leading teachers union as a return to the country’s dictatorship past.

“The police must not be a political organization,” said Eom Min-yong, a spokesman for the Korea Teachers and Education Workers Union, who claims police are misusing their authority to gain favor with President Lee Myung-bak. The union represents about 18 percent of South Korea’s teachers.

The 52-page book will say that North Korea’s nuclear program and possible reunification under Kim’s communist regime threaten the South, Korean National Police spokesman Kim Ki-tai said.

KNP decided to publish the book after observing a “shocking” trend of anti-Americanism among young bloggers, he said. The police randomly monitor blog sites, paying special attention to those that are considered a threat to national security.

“It aims to straighten out the distorted ideas about reunification and national security among young teenagers,” Kim Ki-tai said, adding that none of the students who wrote the blogs have been arrested.

About 150,000 copies of the booklet, targeting students in grades four through nine, will be distributed to classrooms across the country. The project will cost 75 million won, or about $60,000, and the money will come from the police budget.  [Stars & Stripes]

I don’t agree with police passing out these comic books, but I find it humorous that the KTEW is saying that police should not be used for political purposes and are misusing their authority.  That is exactly what the KTEW been doing for years themselves:

The students went up on stage and told participants they had distributed anti-war badges around the nation in protest against the Iraq war and said they felt unifying the two Koreas was a way to create a world without wars.  They also joined the former communist guerrillas in the shouting of their old slogans against imperialist Yankee soldiers and the puppet regime of Syngman Rhee.  Kim, who also instructed his students to operate an online group that opposes the U.S.-led war in Iraq, now serves as an official with the KTEWU’s North Jeolla Province chapter.

Only in Korea are communist guerrillas teaching anti-Americanism considered part of a school’s cirriculum.

Let’s not forget how the KTEW union also were responsible for spreading lies about US beef in South Korean classrooms in order to mobilize their students to attend anti-US beef protests last summer.  This all shouldn’t be surprising considering the KTEW union are the same pro-North Korean stooges that consistently teach North Korean propaganda and anti-Americanism in their classrooms to include celebrating the 9/11 attacks.