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South Korean Military Base Threatens International Security

Tim Rinne
NFP State Coordinator

Although a 1953 cease-fire brought a halt to the actual fighting, technically, the Korean War never ended, and the conflict is still going on. For over half a century, the United States has maintained an adversarial relationship with the North Korean government — permanently stationing troops in South Korea (29,500 at last count) and projecting an aggressive military presence in the region. It’s worth noting too that the U.S. is the only nation with a demonstrable nuclear threat to have been continuously engaged in this conflict. And that the only time the United States ever offensively used nuclear weapons, it was against a country lying just across the Sea of Japan from the Korean Peninsula.

I mention these facts, not to justify or excuse the actions of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, but to provide an historical context for the current crisis. Other nations — not just the United States — have concerns about their ‘national security,’ and there may well be a ‘defensive’ and nationalist basis for the North Koreans’ recent behavior. The last thing the world needs right now, however, is another nuclear power — particularly one that is test-firing missiles over a neighboring nation’s air space, and conducting nuclear tests in the face of nearly unanimous censure by the international community.

As the record shows though, the U.S.’s own actions in this part of the world have been far from faultless, and have provided basis for suspicion, if not outright antagonism. Since becoming the sole remaining superpower on the planet, the U.S. has been anything but a ‘good neighbor’ and kindly uncle. The Bush/Cheney Administration’s designation of an “Axis of Evil” (which of course identified North Korea by name) and talk of “regime change,” its disdain for international rule of law with its “doctrine of preemption,” and its pursuit of a Missile Defense system and expanded military presence in the Asia-Pacific Theater, have again aroused fears over U.S. intentions.

Even President Bush’s pledge, just hours after the North Koreans’ October 9 nuclear test, “that the United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range — and I underscore the full range — of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan,” followed this same disturbing pattern. While the President’s comments may have provided some reassurance to the Japanese and South Korean governments, this thinly veiled threat of nuclear retaliation could hardly have been lost on North Korea — or its longtime ally, China.

Indeed, as the world is daily discovering, what the Bush/Cheney White House is seeking internationally is not cooperation and coexistence. It’s dominance — military and economic dominance. As StratCom Commander James “Hoss” Cartwright bluntly stated at the 2005 Strategic Space Conference, “The business of America is doing business, and we do it on a global scale,” obliging the military to take a “global approach” to America’s security. America’s ‘national’ security interests now ring the globe. And in this imperial scheme of things, the rest of the nations of the world have the option of either being ‘with’ the U.S., or ‘against’ it — of compliantly going along (“the coalition of the willing”), or risking being targeted for “regime change” (the “Axis of Evil”).

This is of course ‘bullying behavior’ on an international scale. But with a vast network of military bases dotted across the globe — strategically placed “lily pads” (to use Pentagon jargon) from which the military can launch strikes against enemy targets anywhere on the face of the earth — the Bush/Cheney Administration can back up its words.

Although Congress just stripped the funding for permanent military bases in Iraq from the 2007 Pentagon budget, the United States already has over one thousand bases in at least 130 foreign countries — with more constantly in the works. There are bases on Castro’s Cuba (the infamous Guantanamo); on Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet; on sacred Islamic soil in Saudi Arabia; down under in Australia; in the midst of Colombia’s drug war; and to China’s great displeasure, on Taiwan. In fact, there are bases in most of the member nations of the UN — including the Korean Peninsula, to keep a close eye on Kim Jong Il.

The Confrontation at Pyeongtaek

One of these South Korean bases, “Camp Humphreys” near Pyeongtaek, has become the site of a major political confrontation in that country. Camp Humphreys Air Force Base lies at a strategically important point alongside Pyeongtaek harbor, providing easy access to the Yellow Sea (and to China on the other side). For several years now, the Pentagon has wanted to consolidate a number of its sprawling South Korean installations into a “main operations base” (MOB) at Camp Humphreys, which as part of its new “strategic flexibility” policy, can be used both to launch a preemptive strike on the North and to contain China. U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), accordingly, bullied the South Korean government into using its eminent domain powers to acquire land to expand the camp. The enlarged installation will permit the relocation of the majority of the U.S. forces stationed in Seoul and north of Seoul (who are currently in range of North Korean artillery massed near the Demilitarized Zone), but also the headquarters of the Combined Forces Command, which has operational control of ROK (Republic of Korea), U.S. and UN combined forces during wartime. When completed in 2008, Camp Humphreys will be the largest U.S. Army base overseas, and the largest overall base in South Korea.

The South Korean government’s heavy-handed acquisition of the property surrounding the camp, however, sparked a backlash in 2003 from the villagers and family farmers of nearby Doduri and Daechuri who were being pushed off their land. Unwilling to give up their homes without a fight, the farmers and townspeople organized protests — ‘trespassing’ onto their seized fields to work their land and even occupying the local elementary school. These highly publicized activities, in turn, prompted the police to forcibly evict the protestors from the school and place barbed wire around the perimeter of the future base.

But when these moves failed to adequately quell the protests, on May 4-5, 2006, the government dispatched 13,000 South Korean military troops to install a wire fence around 12 million hectares of fields, to prevent the farmers from getting to their land and cultivating their rice crop. As the troops arrived to set up the fencing, the residents and their supporters moved in to block them, provoking a confrontation. By the time it was over, 250 people had been injured and another 500 more had been rounded up. It was the first time since the 1980 Kwangju massacre that the South Korean military — as opposed to riot police — had been used against civilian demonstrators.

The protests, though, have not abated. What began as an effort of roughly 150 families to preserve their land and homes, has grown into a nationwide peace movement to resist the base expansion and the Pentagon’s “strategic flexibility” policy — a policy that will destabilize the entire Asia-Pacific region and push the world just that much closer to a nuclear showdown.

In a little-known and remote area near the South Korean coast, the struggle over the Bush/ Cheney Administration’s goal of military and economic dominance is being waged. Should the U.S. succeed in completing the expansion of Camp Humphreys, it will become the frontline base from which the White House preemptively attacks North Korea. And that attack will have particular significance for Nebraskans. Because it will have been planned, launched and executed from StratCom, right here in Nebraska’s own backyard.