Well, they are almost all college freshmen. I think they are doing that kind of stupidity because they are naive, deceived by their senior students.

Radical anti-America and also pro-America is not good for RoK's profits.

All except the last photo are from the 2003 training range breakin.

Here is a video edit of it and a massive protest around the same time.

I'm 80% sure the unit that is shown tugging on the flag with the protesters was not USFK --- I am pretty sure it was one brought in to demonstrate the Stryker military vehicle which was part of the US military's effort to ease the nerves of the ROK military about troop downsizing: the US was arguing that it was going to upgrade USFK's hardware and thus not lower firepower when it took out 1/4th of the ground troops.

The last photo is from the May 2006 violent Pyongtaek base protest.

It was not just the radical university students.

It was a university and labor union protest.

Han Chong Ryun is college student group who are ingored by majority of college students nowdays. they are Han Chong Ryun in that photos no a specific universiy protesters.

That is a good point.

I plan to work up a post or probably an article on Hanchongryon for the site here.

Here is a short note for those unfamiliar with the group:

they were pretty popular when I arrived in Korea in 1995 or 1996. The older students I had sympathised with them, but thought they were too pro-NK and even more that they didn't have the justification for their actions like these older Koreans said they had when they protested in the late 1970s and 1980s.

But, the group was still pretty much accepted and generally sympathised.

Then --- they beat two guys to death.

In two seperate instances ----- one in Seoul and one in Kwangju ---- during sit in or another type of longer protest ---

they thought they spotted a police spy - a older looking male they didn't think was a student...

so the leaders had the individuals seized and taken some where to be "interrogated" --- and both died.

It was a big bombshell in Korean society. College students across the nation denounced the group and dropped out.

The group didn't regain ground until 2000 and the NK-SK summit.

Then it gained some more in 2002 (another year like 2000 filled with a bundle of issues to get red faced with the US in Korea about).

But, it has never come close to what it was like before those to deaths.

Now, more and more, it seems the young adults care more about the kinds of things they do in the US and elsewhere: the school environment, job prospects, tuition costs....

and the University Student Unions have not been able to adjust to this new environment fast enough ------- giving up focusing solely on the US in Korea or trying to convince each new generation that South Korea still doesn't have democracy and the North is a real viable alternative.....