By GI Korea on May 15th, 2011 at 3:28 am

ROK Drop Open Thread, May 15, 2011

» by GI Korea in: Open Threads

Another weekend and yet another Open Thread. Here is a tabloid topic to get things started off with, the Mormon Hummer Mom.

Tags: Open Threads

- 149 views

Glans
3:54 am on May 15th, 2011 1
Tom, it’s the fall of the West. Ell and Nikki from Azerbaijan have won Eurovision 2011.
Tom
4:05 am on May 15th, 2011 2
So Korea is now the undisputed number one buyer of US beef in the world, as she imported three times as much as last year. Anyone have any ideal how this could have happened when it’s alleged by the Americans that the Korean market is completely closed to US beef imports?
ChickenHead
4:39 am on May 15th, 2011 3
What are you talking about, Tom?

I find a nice dinner, a little alcohol, and business cards that say I am the CEO of an international law firm, allow total market penetration for American beef.
Teadrinker
10:18 am on May 15th, 2011 4
How fitting, the ad for the video is one of those door-to-door things that I hear is big in Utah because Mormons are big on networking.
JoeC
10:23 am on May 15th, 2011 5
#2

That’s so 2008.
Teadrinker
10:34 am on May 15th, 2011 6
#2,

Do you have any idea how expensive beef is in South Korea? It used to be affordable when I first came here. The price has grown 4 fold since then.

The WTO has ruled once against South Korea that I know of for beef (for the practice of selling imported and locally produced beef on separate counters, a practice which continues) and will very likely do so again this summer concerning the ban on Canadian beef.
Teadrinker
10:35 am on May 15th, 2011 7
“and business cards that say I am the CEO of an international law firm”

What are you talking about? You’re a bartender.
ChickenHead
2:36 pm on May 15th, 2011 8
Teadrinker…

I am not really a bartender more than once a week. Most of my time is spent designing thing in AutoCAD or making them in my machine shop.

Further, I think my wife would frown on buying dinner and drinks for other girls… hence I have to conclude that I was joking about having cards showing that I am a CEO of a law firm.

What is not funny, though, is that I know an English teacher who DOES have cards claiming to be an international lawyer. Another one claims to be an airline pilot. And one claims to be a former Navy SEAL.

This doesn’t build long-term relationships… but it goes over well enough to get girls in the sack after a bit of alcohol. Of course most figure it out pretty quickly… but, by then, it is too late.

This is more crap I don’t like to see.

Goodness… I hope I didn’t give anyone any ideas.
JoeC
6:02 pm on May 15th, 2011 9
Panetta to SecDef and Petraeus to DCIA is a clear signal that a substantial shift away from counter-insurgency and towards counter-terrorism is coming.

Biden has won the debate.
GI Korea
5:01 am on May 16th, 2011 10
JoeC, Biden did not win the debate. Biden was wrong on Afghanistan just like he was wrong on Iraq when he wanted to cut the country into three different states. It was an amateur idea just like claiming you can do counter-terrorism without counter-insurgency is another amateur idea.

If Biden had his way the US troops would have pulled out of the villages and stayed on the super-FOB’s (ie-KAF & BAF) and did nothing but counter-terrorism in Afghanistan these FOB’s would have been surrounded by Taliban and the supply lines cut. That would mean all supplies would have to come in by air which is expensive and cannot support the amount of people on these super-FOB’s now while at the same time the airfield is being rocketed by the Taliban that are surrounding it.

This would require the US forces to go back into the villages and to secure them. Thus those troops that were cut would need to come back to do this operation. The locals would of course be totally uncooperative considering the US had abandoned them to the Taliban who took retribution on them and the place would be littered with IED’s and fortified fighting positions that the Taliban would have installed. To support this large force you would likely have to get the land supply route re-opened in order to get the fuel in to support all those MRAP’s needed for going back into the villages requiring more man power. So now you are back to where you started with a weaker hand.

Also how do you do CT when you have no accurate targeting information that the ground troops in the villages provide? You might as pack everyone up and come back home them.

Fortunately our President is smart enough to listen to good advice and sees that CI is complementary to CT and is not an either or option. Guys like Tom Ricks from the liberal military think tank CNAS agree with this thinking.

Once the Afghan security forces and government agencies are solidly in place this will give the Afghan government leverage to negotiate some kind of accommodation with the Taliban and our troop presence will decrease without giving up the villages to the Taliban. A slow, steady withdrawal of forces based on conditions on the ground make the 2014 time frame sound about right. I would not be surprised if President Obama is able to withdraw a few thousand forces beginning this year.
JoeC
6:22 am on May 16th, 2011 11
“It was an amateur idea just like claiming you can do counter-terrorism without counter-insurgency is another amateur idea.”

I didn’t say it was either one or the other. I said, shift away from counter-insurgency and towards counter-terrorism. I was talking about a changing emphasis.

I, and likely no one else here knows exactly what was said in the briefing rooms, only what was reported by people like Bob Woodard. Reportedly, the crux of the debate was where greater emphasis should be given; counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency. Biden was pushing towards the counter-terrorism side of the scale.

I said Biden “has won”, not he “had won.” His arguments may not have been the right ones 2 years ago, but the debate was on-going and the signs are counter-terrorism gained weight. One such sign is sending the architect of counter-insurgency to run the CIA; the control center of counter-terrorism.

There’s greater acknowledgement that there is little we can do militarily to fix the civil and political messes that exist in Iraq and Afghanistan. What we are calling counter-insurgencies looks a lot like fighting other’s civil wars. We will largely leave those places in a few years and they will still be messes.

BTW, I also believe that Iraq will end up as a partitioned country anyway. We just delayed the inevitable. If we had gone with the Iraq Study Group plan, we would have had participation from Iraq’s Arab neighbors, hastened the partitioning more peacefully and not allowed Iran to achieve the influence it has. But that is too much “what ifs.”

Going forward, let’s resolve to never again consider any thought of nation building. There has been speculation about an Obama doctrine. If he is taking suggestions, I have one — No Safe Havens for Terrorists. Simple message to the world. If you have a terrorist problem, handle it. If you can’t handle it, we can lend some help. If you don’t want to acknowledge it, even after we use all the tools of diplomacy to convince you, and it threatens us, we reserve the right to handle it anyway without your permission. We’ll be in and out in a couple of hours, like Terminix Pest Control — counter-terrorism.
GI Korea
5:50 am on May 17th, 2011 12
JoeC, the President is not pushing CT over CI in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan CI is going to be the main focus as long as US troops are there. CT is hardly needed in Afghanistan because the Al Qaeda people there have little capability to coordinate an international terrorist attack. On PBS last week they had a journalist spend a week traveling around with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and this group of Arabs were a joke.

CT is needed in Pakistan where what remains of Al Qaeda has a safe haven, access to communications, money, and other infrastructure they need to coordinate a international terrorist attack. The Taliban leadership hiding in Pakistan should be considered terrorists as well because what they are doing is terrorizing the Afghan people.

With Petraeus going to the CIA that should be a sign that US policy is moving towards launching more CT raids into Pakistan not Afghanistan using a mix of US SOF and CIA operatives just like the Bin Laden raid. If I was an Al Qaeda or Taliban leader I would by lying very low now in Pakistan because not only do you have the drones to worry about but now US SOF could be knocking on your door at any moment.

As far Iraq the only partioning I see happening in the future is Kurdistan becoming an independent country once they achieve some kind of accommodation with Turkey that they will not become a safe have for the PKK. This is many years off. The fate Kirkuk would have to be determined as well before Kurdistan ever becomes independent.

As far as the Sunni/Shia areas people forget that all these people are Arabs and many of them are inter-married and live in mixed neighborhoods. They all generally get along as long as there is not outside actors agitating people like Al Qaeda & Iranian proxies. These outside agitators are what nearly brought the country to the point of civil war that the surge put down.
JoeC
3:17 pm on May 18th, 2011 13
I came across this article about some ROKAF officials, military and civilian, being prosecuted for construction contract bribery.

I’m curious about this civilian’s indictment:

A civilian working in the military surnamed Choi, 52, was indicted and arrested for pocketing 33 million won from a construction company in exchange for a construction project that involved building fuel facilities for Air Force planes in Osan in 2009, prosecutors said. Another military official and 14 military members were also charged with receiving Korean beef gift sets between March 2009 and September 2010 from Choi and two private construction firms, said prosecutors.

Since Osan was the only location given in this article, are any of these bribes related to ROKAF or construction on Osan Airbase?
Glans
8:30 pm on May 18th, 2011 14
Republican senators are prepared to block the nomination Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, even though Ken Starr likes him. Susan Crabtree has the story at TPM.
Glans
5:09 pm on May 19th, 2011 15
Do you know why Dorothy Parvaz was freed? Because Doris Truong petitioned for her freedom, that’s why.
Glans
4:05 am on May 20th, 2011 16
Leon LaPorte may have known this, but I didn’t: there’s a faith healing academy.