Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63702&archive=true

Bush to visit Yongsan Garrison next week

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, August 1, 2008



WASHINGTON � President Bush will visit Yongsan Garrison Wednesday as part of his weeklong trip to East Asia.

White House officials confirmed that both the President and First Lady will meet troops and observe a joint troop event involving American and Korean soldiers before flying to Thailand for the second leg of the trip.

The barracks visit will cap two days of official events in South Korea, according to Dennis Wilder, Senior Director for Asian Affairs for the National Security Council.

Bush plans to meet with South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak to discuss regional issues and thank him for his work to reopen beef trade between the two countries. The leaders last met in the U.S. in March.

Wilder also said the two will also discuss the ongoing U.S. military presence in South Korea, including the "impressive progress" in transformation efforts for the future.

The trip is the ninth to East Asia for Bush, who will spend the last four days in China for the Olympics.

Wilder said the Olympics visit is designed to "show respect for the American athletes and Chinese people" and not an endorsement or attempt to ignore ongoing human rights violations in China. He did not say which events the president will attend, but noted he expects to view a number of sporting events.

[Bibbitybop]

Too bad foreigners are prohibited from political activity in Korea. I for one would love to protest.

[nautilus]

[wylies99]

Expect the Kim Jong-Il paid professional protestors to be out in force.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Somebody super important is at the Namsan Hyatt today, dozens of black Suburbans with Washington DC and Maryland licence plates, tinted windows and satelllite transmission beacons. Wild.

[Ut videam]

[Kikomom]

If he dares venture off base, it'll probably be at a Reverend Moon's invitation. Maybe this is why he was in Seoul when his helo crashed? Making personal preparations for the royal visit?

[jkelly80]

[Bigfeet]

[wylies99]

[wylies99]

[PRagic]

Traffic's gonna blow. Damn.

[bangbayed]

Umm...I don't think reasons to protest Bush are in short supply, for Koreans, or anyone else in the world for that matter, including Americans.

[Kiarell]

Please, Tibet? There's so much propaganda swirling around that. the crackdowns in Tibet are really not that big. A lot of the movement is funded by the US because they want a breakaway state to turn into a puppet state, much like the US did with Northwest and Northeast India, which have become Pakistan (still under our control) and Bangladesh. The Tibetans, like anyone, in any region, anywhere deserve autonomy, (I'm an anarcho-socialist) but there is really no mad rush for it, no groundswell of uprisings. A lot of Tibetan nationalism is mythology. The Dalai Lamas are theocrats originally put in by a Chinese emperor to be puppet rulers in those lands. Go ahead and look up this bullshit "Buddhism". Having secrets you deny strikes me as very "Scientology". The abduction of women for bizarre sex rituals ain't too nice either. Please don't conflate liberation struggles like that of Burma with that of Chinese Tibet.

The real crime is the racist treatment of the Uighurs, and raping of the lands of Xinjiang, or Uighurstan. Or perhaps the Olympic-time crackdown and jailing of dissidents, homosexuals, environmentalists, unionists, and walling up of the ghettoes. All the Olympics seem to do is bring out petty nationalism, political oppression in the host nation, and a huge strain on host city's tax pool which never gets made back, leaving a large skeleton of now worthless venues. Or the horrible pollution which causes a bevy of health problems. I can't stand people (like in the USA) who bitch about smoking but find the 21st century dependency on cars to be unproblematic.

Tibet? Honestly. Protesting for Tibetan independence is little more than a hobby for the tofu-eating, middle/upper-income, "left" liberals of the West.

Anyone interested in disillusioning themselves of the Tibet myth should check out Michael Parenti's youtube speech on tibet: "Friendly Feudalism"

[aka Dave]