After North Korea signed the armistice, the North Korean people set out to rebuild their devastated nation according to the juche philosophy that promoted self-reliance and national independence. This inspired two New York Times writers in 1972 to note with astonishment that this country, the size of Mississippi, had developed a “well organized and highly industrialized socialist economy, largely self-sufficient, with a disciplined and productive work force.”

Despite their efforts to remain food sovereign, and because of events beyond their control, North Korea could not sustain the stranglehold of the United States. For five decades, the U.S. has pursued military and economic policies that have held 22 million North Koreans hostage and threatened them with nuclear annihilation. These same mad politics are driving the insane military budgets of both nations, diverting vital government resources that would improve the welfare of its people.  [Christine Ahn]

It is interesting that Ahn doesn’t comment on the fact that North Korea has foot shortage, but Kim Jong-il still has enough money to buy luxury yachts.

Anyway, now it appears that Christine Ahn and her like minded North Korea apologists are launching a campaign against Joshua to shut him up by trying to focus attention on his job instead of his views.  In the East Bay Express, the reporter Kathleen Wentz has written an article criticizing Joshua while showering praise on Christine Ahn.  I highly recommend everyone read the whole article just to appreciate the propaganda value of it.

Picture of Kathleen Wentz from her Twitter page.

Of course the article had to bring up the No Gun Ri issue and the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission without providing any context about the issue or the KT&RC.  I recommend reading these postings before believing the propaganda:

• Responding to the Bridge at No Gun Ri
• The Forensics of No Gun Ri
• Revisiting No Gun Ri
• Transcript of Briefing to Seoul Rotary Club
• The No Gun Ri Document Shell Game
• Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission Faces Disbandment
• The Truth is of Little Concern to the KT&RC

In response to this article Joshua has published his own posting criticizing the article, which was just hilarious at times.  Here is the passage that kind of sums things up:

In the end, Ahn and her mouthpiece, Wentz, still can’t debate how this regime treats its people without the deliberate ignorance of damning facts … and it’s hard to write something that pointlessly long-winded while still ignoring them. They can quibble about how many people live in these huts or behind these walls, but they can’t deny what the images show, and they can’t claim any greater knowledge than the witnesses do.  Don’t they believe the questions are worth asking, especially of Kim Jong Il?  For all their righteous anger about a couple hundred overweight terrorists at Gitmo, have they no concern left for the children of Camp 22?  Do they dispute that, even without Kim Jong Il’s permission to take a census, the number of huts there must have a capacity of thousands?  How do they deny this while going to such lengths to evade the truth?  In the end, their only defense for Kim Jong Il is to hide behind his secrecy.  [One Free Korea]

Like said before make sure to read the whole thing.

Joshua has also written in the past a great posting with all the statements made my Christine Ahn and the organizations that she is part of.  When you read what she has said before in the past it just makes it more incredible how mainstream news outlets continue to give creditability to her by broadcasting her.  For example the NBC Today show had her on after the Cho Seung-hui killings claiming that the lack of national health care for Korean immigrants contributed to the killings:

The scariest thought of all as the Marmot notes is that Washington may be listening to people like Christine Ahn.

So you decide is Christine Ahn a useful idiot?:

U.S. Forces Korea personnel have begun receiving H1NI flu vaccinations, with the goal of immunizing all military and Department of Defense civilians by Thanksgiving.The first shipment of the 54,000 vaccines arrived this week, and the remainder should arrive by next week, said Col. Jeff Clark, 65th Medical Brigade commander.

Airmen at Osan and Kunsan air bases began receiving their immunizations on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, and nearly all airmen were expected to receive vaccines by the end of the week.

Army bases will begin distributing the vaccines on Sunday, when medical facilities will be open to give the vaccine. Clark said the Nov. 8 vaccinations are meant for those in high-risk categories — pregnant women, children, teenagers and those with chronic medical conditions — though no DOD personnel or family members will be turned away. Immunizations are available only in the injectable form.  [Stars & Stripes]

A U.S. military security contractor was killed last week in a drunken-driving crash in northern Japan, local Japanese officials confirmed Wednesday.The crash — the area’s second fatal alcohol-related incident in recent weeks — prompted the local mayor on Thursday to write to the U.S. Army commander of the Shariki Communications Site in Tsugaru, urging him to emphasize traffic safety among the staff at the rural base.

Greg A. Williams, 48, who worked for Chenega Security & Protection Services, died shortly after 11:30 p.m. Oct. 30 after his car smashed into a bridge pillar, flipped and burst into flames, officials said.

He was alone in the car; no one else was injured, officials said.

It took police several days to identify Williams, a police spokesman said. His blood-alcohol content was beyond the Japanese legal limit, which is 0.03 percent.

On Monday, the communications site commander, Capt. Kirby Atwell, visited Tsugaru mayor Hiroyoshi Fukushima to apologize, according to the city spokesman.  [Stars & Stripes]

The Shariki site is where an AN/TPY-2 radar is manned by a mostly civilian work force on a Japanese base.  The radar is used to track any incoming missiles from North Korea headed towards Japan.  It is a very rural location with the nearest US military base being in Misawa.

Here is this year’s Korea Finder Leadersboard:

1. Mark – 9
2. Leon Laporte – 8
3. RoK N Roll – 5
4. Brewcrew17 – 1
5. Obiwan – 1
6. Rommel – 1
7. Sonagi – 1
8. A Listener – 1
9. Brian – 1
10. Alex – 1
11. Lord of E2 – 1
12. Kushibo – 1

The person with the most points at the end of the year of the weekly Korea Finder contest will rewarded with a book or DVD of their choice from Amazon.com.   Also note that if you got a picture that you think would make a great Korea Finder feel free to send it in to me.

The U.S. military in Korea has scrapped an idea to relocate its key Army headquarters to Hawaii, in a move to reaffirm its commitment to the defense of South Korea, a military source said yesterday.

“I understand that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Army have accepted the proposal by the U.S. Forces Korea that the 8th Army headquarters should remain in Korea as a symbol of (U.S. military commitment) to the defense of the peninsula,” said the source.

The United States has been mulling over moving the 8th Army headquarters to Hawaii by 2012, when the wartime operational control of the Korean military is handed over to Seoul.  [Korea Herald]

I have always said that I would have to see Yongsan actually moved before I would believe it would actually happen.  I would not be surprised in the least to see 2ID and a few other smaller units being moved to Camp Humphreys with 8th Army remaining on Yongsan.  There are decades of inertia and interests on both the Korean and American sides that I have always believed would do everything possible to stop this relocation.

If you can’t beat the foreign pot heads, join ‘em — police have busted three people, including a 23-year-old dude doing his national service as a public official named Cho — for smuggling some new form of drug from overseas and distributing and using it at clubs in — sit down for this — Itaewon and Hongdae.  [Marmot's Hole]

Read the rest at the link, but as Robert points out, no English teachers are apparently involved.  Also just think all of the above drug was smuggled through the mail.  It seems like mailing that amount of one substance to yourself would eventually draw attention and apparently it did.

Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.  [Stars & Stripes]

___________________________________________

By now everyone has probably heard about the mass shooting in Ft. Hood, Texas.  The shooting took place at what in the Army is called an SRP center.  The SRP is where soldiers go to mobilize or demobilize before and after deployments.  I actually did an SRP a few years back at Ft. Hood myself, but I have no idea if Ft. Hood is using the same building for SRP now or not.  The shooter likely chose the spot because it was likely a large number of soldiers would be there to shoot.  If the building is the same and it had a unit doing SRP in it this guy would have had many easy targets to shoot.  So this guy had this thing planned out, he didn’t just suddenly snap.  Speaking of the shooter it has been confirmed that he is alive and many other details about him are coming out:

A military doctor who reportedly feared an impending war deployment is in custody as the sole suspect in a shooting rampage at the Army’s Fort Hood that left 12 dead and at least 30 wounded, an Army official said Thursday night.

The news that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was alive and in stable condition, came as a sudden reversal of early reports that the gunman was among the dead.

“I would say his death is not imminent,” Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said. Col. Ben Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

Two other soldiers who were taken into custody as possible suspects were released Cone told reporters Thursday evening.

A female first responder who shot at Hasan and was previously thought to be dead, was also alive, Cone said.

Federal law enforcement officials say Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.  [Fox News]

I first heard of this shooting on the radio and of course people were speculating that the mass shooting was committed by a soldier affected with PTSD.  This irresponsible speculation only further advances the stereotype that war veterans are all potential rapists and murderers just waiting to snap.  Look at what this idiot had to say:

“I’m very upset. I’m at the point of tears,” said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, who lives in Austin.

“We warned the military about this. We warned the military about the need to increase the number of mental health care providers. We warned the military about lowering recruiting standards, about the medical exams for soldiers coming back from the war and needing mental health care and brain injury exams.”

“We have been working tirelessly to try to prevent this from happening,” he said. “This is so horrible. This is a tragedy.”  [via This Ain't Hell]

Guess what this guy was a freaking psychiatrist, never deployed to Iraq, and graduated from Virgina Tech, which coincidentally is where the Cho Seung-hui mass killing occurred.  Anyway this totally blows away all the false assumptions from Veterans for Common Sense idiot.  It should come as no surprise that this “veterans group” is actually another leftist front group looking to slime the military.

I guess we are supposed to go duck under tables every time we hear a loud bang. We are supposed to stare off into space all the time and cannot sleep at night because of the nightmares of our war crimes. When someone makes us mad were supposed to go into a fit of rage and attack them and God forbid if we have a weapon handy we would then kill them.  For those that haven’t already, I highly recommend reading B.G. Burkett’s book Stolen Valor to see exactly how the current perceptions of Vietnam veterans was created. It is really shocking and the same perceptions created about Vietnam veterans are now trying to be attributed to current war veterans as well.  Of course I have shown before the PTSD ticking time bomb stereotype, is not true.

From what we know now this guy is psychologist that never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and has been possibly investigated before Islamic extremist Internet postings.  So how come the media wasn’t speculating if this guy was an Islamic radical instead of a PTSD time bomb?

Anyway I did find it humorous that people are trying to defend him by claiming he was teased because he was of Middle Eastern descent.  This guy is a grown man and a Major in the US Army, who is a doctor making a six figure salary, how many people could possibly be teasing him?

By the way, did anyone see Larry King, Dr. Phil and Shoshanna Johnson were supposedly defending this guy.

This crap pissess me off.

Anyway here is some more Milblog reaction to all of this:

Mudville Gazette
Blackfive

A survey team from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has launched an assessment on two sites in North Gyeongsang Province — Yangdong Village in Gyeongju and Hahoe Village in Andong.

In March last year the local government that manages the two villages submitted applications to have them listed as a World Heritage site. This week’s assessment comes after two rounds of preliminary expert review earlier this year and is expected to run for two days.

The official listing will be announced at the 34th World Heritage Convention in July 2010.  [Chosun Ilbo]

I have been to Hahoe before and found the folk village to be quite scenic and a great place to spend an entire day if you take in the other attractions such as the mask dance museum and cultural performances.  I have not been to Yangdong Village in Gyeongju.  Has anyone been there before and is it worth checking out as well?

Now here is another folk village I really want to visit.