Published: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:09:11 +0900

If you haven't had enough of Cindy Sheehan, the Marmot has linked to this Z-magazine article from Sheehan concerning her visit to South Korea.  The article is very badly written and I have to wonder who was the editor that let this thing pass, but anyway the article rambles on about nonsense in other parts of the globe, but I will keep my analysis on the Korean related content. 

Prepare your stomach because here we go: 

Miles before our bus reached the village on the evening of November
20th, we were stopped by approximately 200 South Korean riot-police who were decked out in their full riot regalia with bullet proof shields. We were traveling with Father Moon, an elderly Buddhist priest who has been an advocate for the villagers for a few years now. Father Moon got out of the bus and negotiated with the police captain for what seemed hours in the near freezing cold, but was only about 20 minutes. Finally, in what the villagers said was an unprecedented move, they allowed us entry into the village (after we passed another heavily guarded checkpoint). Villagers must present ID to get into their own village and visitors are rarely allowed to go in. Why? Because the village of Daechuri is under-siege in a criminal collaboration between the governments of South Korea and the United States of America and the governments don't want the world to see what their crimes are doing to yet more innocent civilians.

 First all, Ms. Sheehan those guards wearing Darth Vader suits aren't doing so just because you showed up at Daechu-ri; they are wearing that equipment because your so called friends regularly attack them with sharpened bamboo poles, metal pipes, and rocks like this:

Or how about this:

Better yet maybe Sheehan should watch this video of her friends in action. 

Then the fact that Sheehan thinks Father Moon is a Buddhist when in fact he is a Catholic Priest just goes to show how clueless she is about her so called friends in Korea.  Sheehan then fails to realize the reason ID is shown to get into the village is because the North Korean sponsored anti-US groups had been squatting in the village for weeks before they were expelled by the South Korean police but only after they put up a violent clash and injured 117 policemen with their sharpened bamboo spears, metal bars, and rocks.  Not to mention the fact her new Korean friends have links to North Korean spies.

Sheehan continues:

The village of Daechuri has the unmitigated gall to be located next to a US military base, Camp Humphreys, which is slated for an eleven-billion dollar expansion that would include a golf course for the use of
soldiers stationed there. The only problem is (not for the governments)
that the village of Daechuri and their thousands of acres of farmland,
mostly rice paddies, are in the way of the juggernaut of US military
expansion. The people of Daechuri have been cut-off from their farmlands by razor wire, guard towers, and armed foot patrols. Over two-thirds of the residents have the small village, but that leaves about one-third of them there to stand against the mightiest Army and the greediest government in world history.

 First of all USFK is not expanding it is downsizing from 41 camps to 10 and reducing soldiers from 37,500 to 25,000 and I wouldn't be surprised if the number goes even lower.  Plus the Korean government is gaining the land from the closed US camps including some of the most valuable real estate in the whole country, Yongsan Garrison.  The Camp Humphreys expansion is needed to make room for the soldiers being consolidated on the camp.  As Sheehan even noted herself, the vast majority of the villagers voluntarily took the compensation payment and left.  Plus the vast majority of Koreans support the Camp Humphreys expansion.  8 in 10 Korean are against the methods her friends are using to protest at Camp Humphreys while 7 in 10 Koreans support the base expansion.

More from Sheehan: 

 We heard stories of May 4th, when 20,000 Korean olice descended on the village with heavy-hands and strong arm tactics hat allowed the barbed wire fences to be constructed, thereby effectively cutting the farmers off from tens of thousands of dollars worth of un-harvested rice. We heard stories from village elders who lived through Japanese imperialism and occupation to the US Korean police action that killed 2.5 million Koreans, and are now having their lands and ways of life robbed of them by "Pax Americana." My heart broke for the people of Daechuri and was filled with disgust for whom the people of Korea call "Georgie Bushie" and whom I call "BushCo."

First of all watch the video I mentioned before to see why the Korean police had to forcibly remove the squatters that had taken over Daechu-ri.  Plus the rice she mentions was illegally planted on the farmland by the squatters.

This paragraph here is the ultimate example of how incompetent and clueless this woman is about Korean affairs:

 Not only is the expansion of Camp Humphreys hurting the people of
Daechuri, but it will have the effect of further de-stabilizing a region
already on pins and needles due parially to US intervention. You can bet your turkey left-overs that North Korea is watching these developments very closely and only the people of Korea and this region will pay for US infiltrations in South Korea. I know I don't feel any safer by the raping and pillaging of Daechuri...in fact the expansion of Camp Humphreys will only do what Georgie Bushie is becoming infamous for: making America and the world less safe and secure. As an aside: I took a straw poll of about 400 South Koreans and 100% of them said that Georgie Bushie is far more frightening than Kim Jong-Il and they want the US out of Korea so they can put their divided country back together again.

Is this Cindy Sheehan's attempt to be the next South Korean anti-Unification Minister?  This paragraph is about as clueless as something coming out of Lee Jong-seok's mouth.  "US infiltrations in South Korea"?  WTF is she talking about?  Would she prefer that US soldiers remain within North Korean artillery range instead of a consolidated camp outside of NK artillery range and under the protection of PATRIOT missiles from ballistic missile attack?

By the way if you are still reading this without stomach pains congratulations, anyway here is more from Sheehan:

What can we do stateside to help these people? We can lobby our
congressional reps to hold hearings into the tragedy of Daechuri. We can donate money to help the villagers get fuel for heating their homes during the bitter Korean winter and to obtain food, since they can't access their fields for harvest. 

Now Sheehan is saying the villagers are can't get food because they can't access the fields they illegally planted.  This is ridiculous and her final paragraphs are even more ridiculous:

I hope when Americans play golf on the golf course that will be
constructed over the rice fields that sustained and gave sustenance to the villagers for generations, they stop and reflect for even a brief
moment that an entire village was destroyed and hundreds of people were displaced for their recreation.

Golf! A village was obliterated for golf. If this is the "American way"
then we obviously need a new way, as speedily as possible.

The village was not "obliterated for golf".  The village was "obliterated" for the various reasons I mentioned above.

I feel bad for the residents of Daechu-ri who don't want to move but this isn't the first time imminent domain has been used in Korea for the national good and it won't be the last.  Sheehan and her friends would have a lot more creditbility with me if they went out and protested every imminent domain case in Korea every time a highway is built, KTX tracks constructed, or new shopping centers and apartments put up.  Yet they won't because none of that involves the US military.    

Sheehan is a master propagandist and she demagoges issues in order to hit emotional cords in people.  Her article is written to influence people emotionally while being very loose on facts, substance, and context.  It just shows she cares more about leftist causes and promoting herself than she does understanding and making educated opinions about Korea, which has ultimately made her a useful idiot of the North Korean sponsored anti-US groups she calls her friends.  

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Leftist causes? I don't think so.
I believe she is being used as a puppet by those who only wish to cause the U.S. to lose face here in Korea. Lose face in the world, really. Such people don't belong to the left or the right... they belong to the wrong.
The woman is without a clue.

I agree, she is Anti-U.S. more than left or right.

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