The more I mull it over, the more I see devious designs coming out of the Korean chief executive office.

A Chosun Daily editorial pointed out how silent the administration has been on the Pyongtaek expansion issue and how it could have been out explaining the need for it and why it needs to go smoothly in order to help make it go more smoothly. Read the whole thing.

But, there is more going on than just silence. As the article notes, President Roh and his top guys are speaking out about this and that connected to the US-SK alliance, but the article didn't attempt to guess how these things tie together.

I noted before ----- the central government showed clear signs it did not want to show a heavy hand (or pretty much any hand) in recent weeks in Pyongtaek. It didn't mobilize the masses of riot control people at its command. It left it up to local police mostly, and they did not have the power to be effective.

This made sense given the Roh administrations support base ----- and lets face and even more important point --- given Roh and his top people's inner thoughts and feelings.

The most generous reading of the moves before the latest protest would be -- that the Roh admin wanted to make the protesters look like the thugs and aggressors and didn't want to give them an edge by letting them promote themselves as the victims any more than they already do.

But, now, after more events, I think it is probably much worse than that.

As I noted already, sending in military units was a big eyebrow raiser, because it was sure to bring up images of Kwangju 1980.

And maybe that is exactly what the government wanted.

And maybe its silence on the issues is a sign.

And what has me leaning more into that direction is the fact that ---

what do we hear coming from the administration?

This week, we heard very strong words blasting the US NK Human Rights Ambassador ---- for saying stuff that has been said by the US for a long time.

At the same time, Roh was giving speeches about how Korea must form an independant foreign policy from the US.

This week, the executive branch of the government decided to play tough against the US to go along with its declaration of diplomatic war on Japan.

At the start of the year, when the Pyongtaek plans moved into the implementation stage --- we had Roh bringing back up after a few years absence --- demands the ROK gain war time control of its military and calls for an independant national defense.

This week, we have the military leadership --- you know --- the same branch of government that overthrew the government in the 1960s, held another coup in 1980, did the Kwangju Massacre in the 1980s, and who provided 3 former generals as the strongarm authoritarian rulers in un-democratic South Korea ----- you know --- the branch of government Roh and his top people cut their teeth politically speaking by opposing them as dissidents (including calling for the removal of USFK) ------

-----was the LONE point men telling why force had to be used in Pyongtaek and why it was good for the whole nation

while the former dissidents now in charge were out talking about how the allinace needed to be weakened by Korea striving for more independance....

.....hmmmmm.......

..................hmmmmmmmmm...............

....................................hmmmmmmmmmmm.. ................

It all starts to look like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.