Below is a comment I posted at GI Korea's blog - which concerns my initial reaction to hearing at his site about the local police in Pyongtaek telling the central government is was not going to put its people out to guard/defend a fence the government is thinking of putting up around the fields.

This is bad.

It is the first sign of the government reaping the whirlwind it is letting build up.

I guess both sides have been trying to get the other to use "bad" force first to justify bringing in the big guns.

That is the only f-ing somewhat positive guess I can make about why the national government has done what it has done to prepare for the protests since the start of the year.

At the elementary school, they sent it what looked clearly like local authority forces backed up maybe with some national riot police, but definately not enough and not sent to assert the rule of law and the authority of the government.

Then sent more n. riot police for the recent canal plugging, but not enough to deal with the situation and they did not make many arrests to send a message.

In both cases, the authorities thus failed in their mission --- they didn't clear the elementary school and only plugged up some lines --- which were opened back up later.

In the last protest, instead of large amounts of national riot police, they send in a bunch of contractors with shields.

Stupid idiots.

And like you, I don't blame the local authorities.

If I were the commander of the local police, I'd tell the government to go shove it up their bum too. Put my men out there without enough resources to get pounded on AND despised by not just the squatters trucked in from outside - but locals too --- from your home base.

If the central government isn't going to take adequate measures to overwhelm the protesters - and thus try to deter them - if the government is going to take half-assed measures ------ why should my people take a beating for it?

And also very bad ---- perhaps the elementary school and canal protests were not considered strong wins for the anti-US forces ----- the were able to stop the authorities from reaching their goal 100%, but they were not able to get the "brutality" factor on camera to give them a justification for rage, and the government did get some things done but more importantly kept the press on their side and kept the people on the fence.

Now, this is a clear, very clear, victory for the anti-US groups.

And the problem is Korean society likes winners. They like feeling like they are fighting the good fight.

Fear of paying for their own defense trumps all...

But most of the other factors surrounding Pyongtaek Base Expansion favor the anti-US groups ---- evil bases, camp town culture, environmental problems, rice farmers, being pushed around by an authoritarian government because of the US wishes and so on ------

----and mainstream Korean society has too much a history of feeling like they can get away with spikes in anti-US activity and keep the status quo at the same time.

They have had their doubts since 2002-2003 and all the noise from Rumsfeld's Pentagon ---- but it is a sliding equation.

Meaning ---- the more they feel inspired by the anti-US groups but think in the end - the government will see the base expansion through and/or USFK will backdown enough to accept whatever does get accomplished ----

------ the more they will burn to join in the fun in the fields of Pyongtaek.

At minimum, this will assure the anti-US leaders they will get near maxium support from their core --- university students and labor ---- when they call on them. Their weaker members who have thoughts more like the mainstream will feel much better about bashing heads and doing whatever to cause headaches to expansion after seeing how things are evolving.