Both siderism in analysis of the Yoon administration.

(Source- 열린공감TV youtube, composite photo from Yeollin Gonggam TV) Pictured First Lady, Kim Gon-hee(left), Yoon Seok-yeol (center) and Kim's mother Choi Eun-soon (right)


South Koreans are dissatisfied with Yoon's pro-Japanese policies. Yoon reduced the budget for alzheirmer's patients, and also RandD. He's used millions for his wasteful move of the presidential office to the old MND building and the new presidential residence in Hannan dong. Yet, he now wants to use the Blue House whenever he wants. The added burden on police caused by the move contributed to the Itaewon disaster in which 159 young people died by being crushed in a crowd. Yoon's clique of prosecutors persecute critics of Yoon, his wife, and his mother in law. Yoon has always had a dictatorial personality. He is an admirer of the former dictator Chun Doo-hwan.

Prosecutors in Yoon's clique frame political opponents with false witnesss testimony and constant leaks of false accusations against the accused to Yoon's conservative media supporters who dutifully publish to defame the critics of authoritarian pro-Japanese rule. Known as press prosecution collusion (검언유착) it is directed against the political opposition and independent media. Yoon also oppresses labor unions, and is taking control of otherwise non-partisan government institutions and agencies by staffing them MB retreads and unqualified former prosecutors. Like most dictators, he's trying to rewrite history, to make Japan and South Korea's dictators the good guys. If he doesn't start another war with North Korea it will only be luck. Yoon and his new right supporters label all critics and opposition "anti-state enemies" and stooges of North Korean. According to Yoon human rights advocates fall into this category.

Above all, Yoon is incompetent. He's had no prior military, foreign policy, or political experience prior to his election to the South Korean presidency. He has no domestic program whatever and spends as much time overseas as possible. Almost all of his cabinet appointees were disapproved by the National Assembly. Unfortunately, that doesn't matter under South Korea's constitution, he appointed them anyway. Anyone, who wants to "both sider" the problem with South Korea's Yoon administration today, doesn't really understand Korean politics, history or Yoon. Does any South Korean president have a worse economic record than Yoon? Yoon's wife had a government minister move a planned expressway interchange closer to real estate her family owns. She and her mother have been implicated in multiple real estate fraud schemes. While people suffer under the bad economy, she purchases jewelry and clothing costing tens of thousands of dollars or more on Yoon's overseas junkets. As far as the Daejangdong scandal goes Yoon is the one who overlooked the Pusan Savings Bank scandal which provided the seed money for the Daejangdong development. So far, after two years, over three hundred warrants, and several ongoing investigations, hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence, there is no tangible proof of any wrongdoing by Lee Jae-myung, the democratic party leader. The scanty evidence against him is mostly from improperly induced perjured statements elicited by prosecutors, from people subject to prosecution themselves and under duress. Trying to pin Daejangdong corruption on Lee is a classic case of Yoon projection and conservative mainstream media misdirection to cover his own misdeeds. He has been disciplined twice for unethical conduct as a prosecutor (it took him nine tries to pass the bar exam). He is a heavy drinker known to drop three thousand dollars in a single night of partying. There is a lack of transparency for his offices' rather large office account expenditures. The claim is that receipts are either no longer available or if available cannot be released due to "security reasons." Get real.

Victor Cha recommends pre-emptive strike

The Quiet Warmonger: Here's what Victor Cha of @CSISKoreaChair called for before the Senate this week. The adoption of a pre-emptive clause by the trilateral US-Korea-Japan alliance would be exceedingly dangerous. Plus he wants ROK arms sent to Ukraine. https://t.co/rSAVCxMxPB pic.twitter.com/NYV1htgWSx

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) October 6, 2023

CSIS Korea chair Victor Cha's prepared testimony is at this link, FWIW.

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/6d1240b7-bfd7-859b-3fc5-ecd6d083540a/100423_Cha_Testimony.pdf

Tim cited Cha's proposed military interception of North Korean missile tests. This is a bad idea, that I had been waiting for some high profile "expert" to recommend. Declaring that the US will attack North Korean ICBM testing pre-emptively is a bluff that will be called. It will have no deterrent effect on North Korea. There are always zingers in these very biased assessments pushed by CSIS for their arms manufacturer and state sponsors. They've been cranking this stuff out on youtube. Two more Cha quotes that I just can't take seriously:

It is noteworthy that the administration has stated its interest in reengaging in dialogue with DPRK with no preconditions as to the results of such talks. This is a subtle but significant change that suggests greater flexibility.

The Biden administrations professed willingness to engage in "dialogue without preconditions" is meaningless boilerplate. The Biden administration has nothing substantial to offer in the way of diplomacy. But they're willing to listen to Kim surrender without preconditions. I'm not big on Cha's "saving face" argument either. This is in the same category as the establishment disapproval of Trump's leader to leader overtures with Kim, which according to the neocon critics, unfairly and unduly "rewarded Kim Jong-un" by elevating his status by having the president meet with him. This always was meaningless drivel.

To me this is the kind of argument people make when they don't want to address the substantive issues. When your negotiating approach fails, namely the US "all or nothing" humiliating approach delivered to Kim, by John Bolton at Hanoi, necessarily he's going to look elsewhere for support. His covid lockdown basically put DPRK foreign policy in deep freeze. That's over now. Before "fire and fury" the US had already bypassed China and Russia and thereafter pursued a new cold war policy of block politics. Where else would Kim go?

Cha's praise for Yoon's foreign policy is absurd. Yoon has no domestic support to speak of. He's a lame duck. Frankly he's a corrupt simple minded psychopath. Anyone who criticizes him is "an anti-state actor." His policy is turning South Korea into a security/surveillance/police state. He's got nothing else to offer. A military crisis is probably something he feels he could use to bolster his foundering administration.

There are some who argue that this new development in DPRK-Russia cooperation is a response to the Camp David summit. I do not believe this to be the case. Russia’s need for ammunition alone would have made this cooperation inevitable regardless of U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation

This is ridiculous.

I think any sort of attempt to destroy an upcoming ballistic missile test launch, either on the launch pad, or in flight by the US or South Korea, will result in military retaliation by North Korea. After which, it will be difficult to restrain Yoon, or the US from further escalation and the possible outbreak of war.

I've read that a satellite launch effort might be made by North Korea before Oct 26. Further ICBM testing could be expected in the future as well.

This US official apparently has some common sense.

Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made the remarks, a day after Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies made the proposal at a congressional hearing.

Cha noted the need to consider a "declaratory" policy to signal the capability of destroying a North Korean missile headed towards Japan, Hawaii or the U.S. West Coast when it is on the launch pad or in other flight phases.

"I think I would just say that we have a very close relationship, strong discussions on the way in which we want to address North Korean threats and their intercontinental ballistic missiles and all the tests that they're doing," she said at a forum hosted by the Stimson Center.

Jenkins said she would not say a preemptive strike is "the way to go."

Senior U.S. official stresses 'strong' ties with S. Korea, Japan over N. Korean threats

Doomsday Machine scenario in North Korea?

Daniel Ellsberg in his 2017 book, the Doomsday Machine, lists 24 situations, other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which the US implicitly or directly threatened to use nuclear weapons. Some of these instances are quite specific and others less so. I had encountered a few of these situations before in history books. There were the US nuclear threats made against China, and/or North Korea. There were various Berlin crises during the cold war, and of course, the Cuban missile crisis, which Ellsberg describes in great detail earlier in the book.

One thing I learned from Ellsberg's book, was the central importance and futility of nuclear policies revolving around the so called "decapitation attack," designed to take place in various contexts, usually considered in a cold war context by Ellsberg, against the Soviet Union as part of the strategy of nuclear war. Ellsberg generally speaking regards the decapitation strategy as the wellspring of the "doomsday machine" referred to elsewhere as the "dead hand" mechanism to make sure the nuclear counterstrike takes places place regardless of what happens to the targeted national leadership structure. The "doomsday" response mechanism involves several dangerous, and totally suicidal potential outcomes.

Ellsberg was critical of US and Soviet efforts to keep secret their "doomsday" response mechanisms to potential loss of national command centers in a nuclear war. His logic is that if the opposing side is unaware of a doomsday mechanism that survives a first strike, there is a loss of deterrence value. Why keep it a secret? The side that launches a first strike decapitation attack is going to sustain a devasting nuclear counterstrike in any event despite disabling the enemy's command and control structure. In the case of the US, he speculates that the reasoning is that it is too disturbing to the public to consider that control of nuclear weapons is decentralized with lower commanders having the authority to launch nuclear weapons without regard to the principle of commander in chief and civilian control of the military, if certain conditions appear to be present.

I hadn't previously realized that decapitation strategies were a major component of nuclear war planning. It's almost fundamental that command and control would naturally be subject to an attack during a general war, but an evaluation of the full implications of exclusive destruction of the national command authority during a nuclear conflict are more fully explored in Ellsberg's analysis than I had ever encountered. So what's the point? I'm only addressing North Korean decapitation below. There are many other ramifications addressed by Ellsberg, particularly with respect to Russia. These are my observations below, not Ellsberg's.

Decapitation strategies with conventional forces on North Korea by the US armed forces have been discussed openly in South Korean media. My reaction was that this was an inadequate tactical response to a strategic problem, North Korean military nuclearization. In other words, the strategy would in all likelihood fail and invite the very military responses one was ostensibly trying to prevent, either general war, or nuclear war with North Korea. Two sources that I knew of, Victor Cha, CSIS Korea Chair, and Thae Yong-ho (North Korean defector and current assembly member, South Korea National Assembly), separately stated their opposition to the so called "bloody nose" approach, recommended by one of Trump's military advisors. Trump had used the expression "fire and fury" at one point. I think Joseph Yun, a career diplomat leading US diplomacy efforts with North Korea, resigned not too long after the bloody nose issue was floated, so that was subject to similar speculation, that the US was contemplating or planning some military response to North Korea that he may have also opposed. Thae Yong-ho specifically mentioned in the way of a caution to US planners, that North Korea had already adopted a nuclear doomsday response or "dead hand" response to attacks on its command and control structures.

William Arkin raised the notion more recently that the new tactical warhead W-76-2 on the submarine launched Trident missile was possibly aimed at North Korea or Iran. This was the only public indication (that I know of) that the decapitation effort against North Korea might be in the form of a nuclear attack from the US, until US nuclear submarines began visiting South Korean ports in recent months. These included one Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine that docked in Busan and was visited by President Yoon.

In light of Ellsberg's detailed discussions of nuclear (first strike) decapitation scenarios, decision flow, and likely responses and outcomes, I now realize that the discussion of a conventional "decapitation attack" against North Korea, is probably intentionally misleading, and that it was likely intended to include nuclear strikes all along.

Interestingly enough, it wasn't too long ago, that North Korea announced its intention to launch a nuclear response to any US/South Korean attack on North Korean command and control elements, conventional or otherwise. Ironically, this follows Ellsberg's theory of deterrence to nuclear decapitation strikes- let your opponent know you have a "doomsday" response mechanism in place. I could easily anticipate the Pentagon arguments why this can't be true for North Korea, but if you read Ellsberg's book, one could easily do their own informed speculation on that. Highly recommend The Doomsday Machine, (the book).

In keeping with the theme, International Day of Non-violence.

South Korean press censorship- no limits?

President Yoon Suk-yeol seems to be pushing South Korea in a repressive direction, with no protest from his American partners. https://t.co/DAKlYgUrdN

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) September 30, 2023

No Pre-trial Detention for Democratic Party Leader Lee Jae-myung

Court rejects arrest warrant for opposition leader Lee over corruption charges
Seoul Sep 27, by Park Boram

During the morning session of the hearing, prosecutors reportedly highlighted the seriousness of the charges and concerns of destroying evidence as they made a case for Lee's arrest, while Lee's lawyers claimed he is not a flight risk and thus arresting him for investigation is unnecessary.

The court rejection is widely expected to bolster Lee's standing in the party in the run-up to the general elections in April and would lead to a massive blowback against the government.

By law, sitting lawmakers are immune from arrest while parliamentary is in session unless the National Assembly passes a motion giving its consent to the arrest, a measure intended to shield lawmakers from political persecution.

Last week, the National Assembly voted to lift the opposition leader's arrest immunity in a surprise, narrow 149-136 vote attributed to a number of dissenting ballots from his own party that commands a majority of parliamentary seats...

The Yonhap article describes this as Lee averting "...the biggest crisis yet for the former presidential candidate." This is a crisis for South Korea as a "democratic" state. Lawyers noted before the hearing that there is no physical evidence, only statements of witnesses, which one witness in relation to a charge this morning in this case, noted was coerced by adamant prosecutors that he publicly regrets making. This is part of a pattern by Han Dong-hun/ Yoon Seok-yeol directed political prosecutions. The purpose is to persecute the opposition, not to enforce the law. So far, the judges in Lee's cases have demonstrated "noon chi" a kind of political intuition, knowing that jailing Lee on such flimsy evidence would rip South Korea apart politically.

I understand Lee had to be transported to the Seoul jail while he was waiting for the court's decision, where he was stripped searched, fingerprinted, stood for a mugshot, etc. They probably forced him to wear the prison jumpsuit. This is from the police description of what they said they would do as "standard procedure" while waiting for the court order. Lee is going back to Green Hospital for treatment.

Meanwhile, this short video below (in Korean) displays virtually the entire South Korean OOB. One interesting aspect is that the organizers used AI (augmented reality?) to depict a South Korean Aegis class destroyer sailing down the main drag between the high rise buildings. (I think this is Sejongno in Seoul). One report said the Armed Forces Parade went from Gwanghwa Plaza to City Hall.


The parade celebrates the 75the Anniversary of the ROK Armed Forces. An administrative unit from the US 8th Army participated in the parade, said to be 300 in number. They appear briefly near the end of the video. The AI depiction of the ROK destroyer appears at 01:11. The video is under two minutes long. Similar technology exhibited at the Asian Games opening in China a few days ago. Yoon is on a power trip. This parade is to distract the public from his administration's incompetence, oppression and disadvantageous foreign policy, while attempting to glorifying himself with "patriotic" credentials.

Rahmbo "going rogue" on China

Rahm Emmanuel in Japan, goes rogue on China
Responsible Statecraft
DANIEL LARISON
SEP 22, 2023

Emanuel was always a curious choice for a prominent diplomatic post, given his record as a crude, knife-fighting political operative, but in recent weeks he outdid himself with his trolling comments about China. When the then-defense minister, Li Shangfu, had not been seen in public for several weeks, Emanuel tweeted a mocking reference to Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None" as he called attention to the growing list of top Chinese officials removed from their positions over the last few months.

This briefly earned the ambassador some favorable coverage back home, including a report in The Wall Street Journal last week that billed him as a “warrior diplomat,” but like the so-called wolf warrior tactics that Emanuel has been imitating it ended up backfiring on him.

The ambassador’s social media antics have done nothing to advance U.S. interests, and it is hard to see how it benefits Japan or the U.S.-Japanese relationship to have our ambassador in Tokyo flinging insults at a neighboring country. As the NBC News report said, a “second administration official said for Emanuel to make these comments makes no sense and does not advance U.S. strategic goals with China or with the Asia-Pacific region.”

The U.S. doesn’t send its ambassadors abroad so that they can play at being the ugly American for online clout, but lately that seems to be what Emanuel thinks his job is.

Great article. I would add two things. First, Rahmbo's slant if you will is to deliberately undermine any sort of diplomatic reconciliation with China. This is totally consistent with the Congressional drift back in the states. Sometimes its seems the Whitehouse can't decide which way it wants to go. Or is the old horse soldier speaks with forked tongue routine? Blinken goes one way then another. Typically he likes to chastise and lecture the Chinese. Biden says one thing, then another. Then Congress does something or says something concerning China policy that is the opposite of some less provocative or conciliatory statement temporarily expressed by the administration.

Secondly, even if Rahm's inexperience, lack of appropriate temperament for diplomacy, and his wild egoism weren't all there already, the political environment he operates in Japan, has other detrimental influences. The US military (INDOPACCOM) dominates the relations between the US and China. This is the social/political milieu as well for American officials living overseas in Asia. So essentially, when you're looking at US foreign policy in East Asia, you're looking at what the major military command there wants. (Trump was the only one who tried to make his own policy there, which had some other defects). In terms of the domestic political environment in Japan, the embassy is dealing with the LDP government, which while reputed to be dominated by the US, is actually far right and currently predisposed to revisionist views of its position in Asia, and expresses a desire to resume a "normal military" like other states. This means doubling their defense budget and acquiring all sorts of offensive strike weapons. In other words, Japan is returning to its former militaristic perspective. This is true particularly of some of the leadership in the dominant factions of the LDP, if not the entire LDP rank and file. Japanese pacifism and the "peace constitution" are passe and being trashed by the ruling party.

The political environment that the US embassy in Japan is a part of, is a militaristic far right hotbed of extremist views concerning China, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, the East China Sea, Russia, the South China Sea, and every other relevant foreign policy issue. It's an echo chamber that drives itself to more and more extreme views on the world situation and what our policies and those of our allies in the region should be. The US establishment really doesn't get it, that diplomacy and militarism are qualitatively different. That's why they thought not too long ago, that the former PACCOM commander Harry Harris would make a suitable ambassador to Seoul. He did little but offend the politicians he interacted with in South Korea, because they weren't (at that time) far right ideologues like himself or adequately subservient to US demands. The current South Korean administration fits right in now with the US/Japanese far right ideology. In South Korea they call it the "new right" ideology.

The Korean take on the Kennedy/Biden hero Yoon Suk-yeol. https://t.co/QtreCYq3eZ

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) September 21, 2023

The political persecution of Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung in South Korea is taking place precisely because he would return South Korea to policies based on putting the interests of the Republic of Korea first, and returning to the nationalist aspiration for independence from foreign domination. Lee ended his hunger strike on its 24th day to face yet another judicial hearing next week on whether he should be jailed pretrial on what are fabricated charges. He also needs to return to his parliamentary duties in effort to reform the nomination process for party candidates in the next election. This so those within his own party that voted to allow the government to jail him, could be identified and kept off the ballot.

The demonstration on Thursday outside the National Assembly building during the vote on Lee's legislative immunity during session, was in the tens of thousands. Police efforts to restrict the crowd with barricades were contested by numerous men in the demo of all ages, off and on, all day long. The administration's reaction to these frequent demonstrations was to consider crowd control remedies, including blocking subway exits leading to assembly venues, potentially using water cannon (previously ruled unconstitutional) which have not been used yet, and granting police immunity/indemnity in situations where they might incidentally injure or kill demonstrators. A a metal worker was seriously injured by police earlier this year and another trade union rep burned himself to death in front of a court house. A dusk to dawn ban on assemblies is being considered by the National Police Agency. The ban is currently from midnight to dawn. The former is regarded as unconstitutional as a matter of law. So the administration is trying to get by with half a loaf, midnight to six am, which many attorneys regard as also unconstitutional. I had wondered what had happened to the metal worker labor union demonstrations lately, some of their permit applications had been denied. From Thursday's demo in support of Lee Jae-myung in front of the National Assembly building-

Yeouido, in front of the National Assembly building Sep 21


Took a couple of screen shots of today's candlelight movement demonstration (below). The size was difficult to evaluate because of their confinement to only two lanes of traffic and no overhead cameras. I estimate it was in the tens of thousands. The organizers said 20 thousand. The police said 3 thousand which is a joke. It assembled between Namdaemun and City Hall, and ultimately marched to Samgakchi plaza near the Yongsan presidential office and back to Namdaemun. Listened to the speech of the former Justice Minister Chu Mi-ae, who described the former administration's failure to decrypt Han Dong-hun's Apple hand phone with his (alleged) incriminating fabrication of charges against Yoo Shi-min, another former minister, as a coup d'etat. Han had discussed with Channel A News reporter, the means to fabricate charges of financial corruption against Yoo, a popular spokesperson, and public figure on the left.

The failure to decrypt Han's phone led to the dismissal of the charges against Han Dong-hun for "lack of evidence." This ushered in the now a seemingly unchallengeable press-prosecution-president collusion dictatorship currently running South Korea. Han, the current Justice Minister under Yoon, is a despicable character acting as the enforcer for Yoon.

From Namdaemun/Seungnyemun (south gate) to City Hall, candlelight demonstrators gathered for the procession to Samgakchi, early Saturday evening 9.23 Seoul time.

Candlelight movement demonstration returned to Namdaemun-City Hall station venue later on Saturday night September 23.

Betrayal is a bitter cup for Lee Jae-myung supporters

Lee Jae-myung's legislative immunity to arrest and detention removed by a National Assembly vote.

28 members of his own democratic party, the majority party in the legislature defected to vote with the conservatives to give them a majority vote in favor of the resolution to drop Lee's immunity. This betrayal of their own party leader effectively seals the factional split within the democratic party before the upcoming election campaign season. The defecting group of democratic assembly members are labeled "su bak" (watermelons) one color on the outside another on the inside. They are considered by the progressive democrats who support Lee, as seeking their own personal gain rather than the public interest. In the US context, they would be called "democrats in name only" who merely represent special interests and really are more like conservatives and implicitly allied with conservative interests.

(Source MBC News live 9.21.23) Angry demonstrators near National Assembly building in Yeouido confront police. They anticipated that the resolution to allow any arrest and confinement of Lee Jae-myung would be denied because of the large majority of Democratic representatives. However it is estimated that 28 members of the party betrayed the party leader after he declined to give up his weighted voting power in the nomination process for the spring elections. 국회 앞 이재명 대표 지지자 희비교차..체포동의안 부결 '기대'에서 가결 '낙담-분노'

South Korean lawmakers vote to lift opposition leader's immunity against arrest (from @AP) https://t.co/JNPHweANGR

— Hyung-jin Kim 김형진 (@hyungjin1972) September 21, 2023

(Source MBC News live 9.21.23) Supporters of Lee Jae-myung outside the National Assembly building in Yeouido before the announcement of the vote to drop the legislator's immunity from arrest and pre-trial confinement. They were calling for the National Assembly to decline the prosecutor's proposal to let the court's proceed to determine whether Lee should be jailed.

We'll see what happens tomorrow during the regular Saturday demonstrations. Democratic supporters of Lee are angry. Will the courts test the anger and resentment of Lee's supporters by finding that the contrived politically motivated charges against Lee are supported by credible evidence to warrant his pretrial detention?

[Column] Once a model democracy, Korea’s governing system is seriously unwell
Hankyoreh Sep 21

Yoon’s “Yongsan totalitarianism” is a threat to Korean democracy

The primary figure in Yongsan totalitarianism is the president himself, of course. Under the banner of “freedom,” the president has divided the nation and placed the country’s foreign policy on a US-oriented line as part of his purely black-and-white mindset.

The president stands on the front lines of ideological disputes and historical debates, seeking to erase the legacy of the independence movement against Japan on the grounds that some freedom fighters had communist sympathies.

All media outlets, opposition parties and civic groups that criticize the government are branded as “anti-state forces,” with the public prosecutors and the Board of Audit and Inspection serving as effective weapons toward that end.

The president doesn’t respect the National Assembly and circumvents it using his legal prerogatives to veto laws and make appointments.

The ruling party that ought to be providing balance between the president and the public has been reduced to a presidential lackey, forfeiting its relevance and independence.

Yongsan totalitarianism is a threat to democracy. It’s become common for not only politicians of all stripes but even ordinary people to talk about “the worst politics in history.” But what they’re really saying is that Korean democracy is seriously unwell.

https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1109545.html

I left out the column's rather rudimentary and simplistic comparison to Jan. 6, Trump, etc., as irrelevant. The last part of the column is what is important. US domestic politics is really not germane, except to the extent that Yoon is directed if not controlled by US national security interests and Yoon's own domestic pro-Japan constituency.