Thirty-two Korean-American organizations in the Washington D.C. area released a statement on Thursday expressing concern about planned rallies by South Korean civic groups to protest free-trade agreement negotiations. In its statement, the organizations argued that violent protests could jeopardize ties between South Korea and the United States

These protests planned for the US could give us a sign of what to expect in Pyongtaek the rest of the year and more.

I said a few times before ----- that once The Priest and other anti-US NGOs believe there is no point wasting more time trying to win over a significant portion of the population to their protest against the base expansion ---

we should look for them to focus more attention on gaining coverage in American society.

Many of the expats on the blogs pointed out that ---- when Korean society is against violent protests -- like popular opinion and newspaper editorials against them ----- the anti-US groups will back off the big efforts and quietly go about picking at this and that and those and these and that issue looking for another one that does play well.

But ------- I pointed out ------- Pyongtaek is too big an issue for these NGOs to duck from.

Point: If there goal is getting USFK out ----- and it absolutely is ---- they are perceptive enough to have seen they might achieve that goal by working on the majority opinion --- not in Korea --- but in Washington DC.

All of Korean society has been watching the US for signs it wants out of Korea since 2002 and the US announcement of 1/4th leaving.

That made it highly likely these groups would try to gain attention in the US.

I thought they would try moving up the scale of violence a good bit since the protests were already gaining some AP and Reuters and US newspaper coverage.

That is still likely.....

This move to go to the US is also clearly an effort to gain US attention.

The question: Will they use violence?????

This is a very big test of where the minds of these groups are right now....

If they go and act like the bald, bearded, hanbok wearing regular anti-US leader you see everywhere did when he took a group to the US in 2002 ----

-----he just made speeches and marched ------ and got no coverage in the US and little even in Korea because the protests inside Korea were gaining over 100,000 participants at the time -------- until the last day in DC, when he grabbed a hold of the gate at the White House like he was going to climb over it and the others pushed on the police and a Korean-American school teacher from NY slapped a cop -----

which was basically a non-violent trip by Korea's standards.....

It might mean these groups are paying a significant amount of attention to Korean public opinion ----

----meaning they are placing a good bit of attention into the long term future by not wanting to gain too much ill-will among the Korean public (in South Korea).

But --------- if despite all these warnings from the Korean media and people and even Korean-American groups ----

these anti-US NGO leaders (especially labor) decide to use violence to stage scenes for the American press ---- especially if they do it on more than one day ----

I would bet ------- the riot police in Pyongtaek should invest in some more body armor ----------------because the violence in Korea will be stepped up in Korea with periodic clashes a good bit worse than so far...