Should US troops leave? Options

[CheolSu]

If the American military pulled out of Korea would it improve chances of reunification?

What do you guys all think?

[catman]

If the American military pulled out of Korea would it improve chances of reunification?

What do you guys all think?

Even Roh didn't want US troops to leave so it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[Megapower]

Um... 30K dinky troops won't do much against 1000K N. Korean troops... It's not like staying or leaving will make a difference, but symbolically, Korean reunification must coincide with retreat of US forces to Japan. That's an obvious pre-condition.

[Captain Corea]

Um... 30K dinky troops won't do much against 1000K N. Korean troops... It's not like staying or leaving will make a difference, but symbolically, Korean reunification must coincide with retreat of US forces to Japan. That's an obvious pre-condition.

Why? I mean, why would US troops need to leave for the Unification process to start?

I see them eventually leaving, but it depends what kind of unification process we're looking at. If the DPRK system was to collapse, I'd be cool with US troops staying on for a bit to ease confidence.

Eventually though, I'd like to see their presence here minimized.

[KraterosHellas]

If the American military pulled out of Korea would it improve chances of reunification?

definitely. there's no question about that.

[kaizen]

Even Roh didn't want US troops to leave so it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

He didn't want US to leave because because around that time of the year, the US base was already planned to be relocated and our government had already spent millions of dollars. Also Donald Rumsfeld made a deal with Roh to decrease the number of US presence in Korea.

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

Yes, they should leave.

Ofcourse there are different notions of what it is for the American troops to leave.

THe question appears to be framed within the context of troops leaving so that Koreans may work out their own destinies free from American or any other outside undue influence. In such terms any person who values freedom and dignity will say yes, America should leave.

The two white posters Captain Canada and catman do not seem to have answerd the question in the way it was framed.

This post has been edited by ElegantKoreanGentleman: Aug 15 2011, 01:38 AM

[YourMuDoIsWeak]

Yes lets placate the NK....
Seriously as if reunification will occur just because the US troops leave, that is some naive thinking right their.
I guess its ok if they try to bully SK more right?

The US should leave only if reunification under a SK government happens.

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

Yes lets placate the NK....
Seriously as if reunification will occur just because the US troops leave, that is some naive thinking right their.
I guess its ok if they try to bully SK more right?

The US should leave only if reunification under a SK government happens.

My venerable friend.

I do not think reunification will occur only because American troops leave but it would be one step among many that would hopefully eventuate into a free, independant and proud Korea.

As for North Koreans bullying South Korea, I do not believe it. North Korea is clearly the weaker of the two parties and their aggressive gestures have been to extract concessions when they were in dire circumstances from sanctions imposed not by South Korea but the Americans. If the antagoists and their desire to maintain power in a region alien to them were to shrink away this may ease tensions between the Korean governments as both are hostage to the American presense.

I think a unification should be under both North and South Korean governments. A unified Korea under the South would maintain an American presense like Japan. A government that has a North Korean voice might be able to shed the American presense altogether or atleast dilute it. THis would in turn make for a more independant and harmonious region.

This post has been edited by ElegantKoreanGentleman: Aug 15 2011, 02:47 AM

[Captain Corea]

My venerable friend.

I do not think reunification will occur only because American troops leave but it would be one step among many that would hopefully eventuate into a free, independant and proud Korea.

As for North Koreans bullying South Korea, I do not believe it. North Korea is clearly the weaker of the two parties and their aggressive gestures have been to extract concessions when they were in dire circumstances from sanctions imposed not by South Korea but the Americans. If the antagoists and their desire to maintain power in a region alien to them were to shrink away this may ease tensions between the Korean governments as both are hostage to the American presense.

I think a unification should be under both North and South Korean governments. A unified Korea under the South would maintain an American presense like Japan. A government that has a North Korean voice might be able to shed the American presense altogether or atleast dilute it. THis would in turn make for a more independant and harmonious region.

Would you live under a North Korean government? I know I have no interest in living under a North Korean system of any kind and would be happy if Unification was managed wholly by the ROK.

As for the North bullying the South, perhaps the deaths of ROK citizens and soldiers matter nothing to you, but they do to me. I call it bullying when the DPRK uses force to extract concessions... I suppose you call it a 'love tap' lol

[SemperFidelis]

how dependent on US troops is the local economy surrounding US bases?

This post has been edited by SemperFidelis: Aug 15 2011, 03:51 AM

[Captain Corea]

how dependent on US troops is the local economy surrounding US bases?

Interesting question.. and I'm sure there are studies out there.

The macro-economy? I don't think it's very dependant at all. Micro-wise, I think a lot of restaurants, bars, shops and such would be hit hard, of course. But that'd be the same in any neighbourhood, really.

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

Would you live under a North Korean government? I know I have no interest in living under a North Korean system of any kind and would be happy if Unification was managed wholly by the ROK.

As for the North bullying the South, perhaps the deaths of ROK citizens and soldiers matter nothing to you, but they do to me. I call it bullying when the DPRK uses force to extract concessions... I suppose you call it a 'love tap' lol

Living under the North Korean government is not the issue of this thread however any objection to living under a North Korean leadership would be due to the sanctions imposed by America. As such the issue of living under a North Korean government cannot be discussed without questioning the interference of America that effectively vetoes the ability of Koreans to decide their own fate if it aligns with interests that are not in America's agenda. To be free within the confines of America's interests may be very agreeable with you but it is not a fate I wish Koreans to suffer.

However Korea cannot ignore America. It is so far still the sole super power in the world but at least this power might be checked with a joint North Korean administration. This would ensure a more assertive Korea that is relatively more independant and also respects the independant streak of the North Koreans that the South has been lacking for some time.

As for the highly unfortunate deaths of the South Koreans, it is a direct result of Korean division instigated and forced by American interests. If we are to mention lives lost due to this American interference it is only fair to mention the thousands that have starved in North Korea under American imposed sanctions.

how dependent on US troops is the local economy surrounding US bases?

As far as I'm aware there is a thriving prostitute culture that thrives under the American troops. South Koreans fail to mention this while constantly talking about comfort women. The South Korean government encourages the industry to service American troops but aside from that this thread deals with a macro issue that addresses the national charachter, long term development and direction of the Korean people. A focus on the local economy seems grossly out of place to the national charachter of this discussion especially when it seems to be advocating the American presense by an Australian soldier.

This post has been edited by ElegantKoreanGentleman: Aug 15 2011, 04:25 AM

[zoopiter]

If the American military pulled out of Korea would it improve chances of reunification?

What do you guys all think?

does the wish of the north regime to retain absolute power and luxury changes with or without the americans around?
if it doesn't, it dun actually matter. and actually it is not an if, it does not change. the americans are merely made an excuse to fuel hatred.

then is it worth asking the americans to leave, so that the north korean regime and anti-western individuals won't have an excuse for tension? i guess if the south korean had built a sufficiently overwhelming military force that can defend sk with no chance of jeopardising security and had reasonably overwhelming force to avoid heavy south korean casualty, it will be fair to ask the americans to leave.

security and livelihood still comes first.

[catman]

Living under the North Korean government is not the issue of this thread however any objection to living under a North Korean leadership would be due to the sanctions imposed by America.

You were unable to prove this under you old pseudonym.

[YourMuDoIsWeak]

Living under the North Korean government is not the issue of this thread however any objection to living under a North Korean leadership would be due to the sanctions imposed by America. As such the issue of living under a North Korean government cannot be discussed without questioning the interference of America that effectively vetoes the ability of Koreans to decide their own fate if it aligns with interests that are not in America's agenda. To be free within the confines of America's interests may be very agreeable with you but it is not a fate I wish Koreans to suffer.

However Korea cannot ignore America. It is so far still the sole super power in the world but at least this power might be checked with a joint North Korean administration. This would ensure a more assertive Korea that is relatively more independant and also respects the independant streak of the North Koreans that the South has been lacking for some time.

As for the highly unfortunate deaths of the South Koreans, it is a direct result of Korean division instigated and forced by American interests. If we are to mention lives lost due to this American interference it is only fair to mention the thousands that have starved in North Korea under American imposed sanctions.



As far as I'm aware there is a thriving prostitute culture that thrives under the American troops. South Koreans fail to mention this while constantly talking about comfort women. The South Korean government encourages the industry to service American troops but aside from that this thread deals with a macro issue that addresses the national charachter, long term development and direction of the Korean people. A focus on the local economy seems grossly out of place to the national charachter of this discussion especially when it seems to be advocating the American presense by an Australian soldier.

Your horrible at the rhetoric game.
Korean Prostitute is more of a problem in big cities than in the small ones like Osan and Pyeongtaek. Also MP's have cracked down of prostitution near the base hence why many Juicy Bars have been shut down.

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

Your horrible at the rhetoric game.
Korean Prostitute is more of a problem in big cities than in the small ones like Osan and Pyeongtaek. Also MP's have cracked down of prostitution near the base hence why many Juicy Bars have been shut down.

http://www.modelminority.com/joomla/index....g&Itemid=56

U.S. Military Prostitution in Asia PDF Print E-mail
By Katharine H.S. Moon
Excerpted from Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S./Korea Relations
Columbia University Press, 1997



The U.S.-Korean history of military prostitution shares many of the characteristics and tensions present in other sites of overseas U.S. bases, especially in Asia. The economic dependence of local camptown residents on the presence of U.S. troops is not unique to South Korea. For example, Takazato Suzuyo, a political activist on Okinawa, reported that Okinawa, which served as a R&R area to U.S. troops in Vietnam, lived off U.S. dollars:

In its heyday, there were more than 1,200 "approved" bars, night clubs, and restaurants on Okinawa, and soldiers spent money freely. B-52 bombers were taking off from Kadena [US Air Force] base almost every day to bomb North Vietnam, while returning soldiers from Vietnam, with their chest pockets filled with dollar bills, sometimes spent all their money in one night.



In Olongapo and Angeles in the Philippines, where the U.S. Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base were respectively located (until the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1992), "[t]here was virtually no industry except the 'entertainment' business, with approximately 55,000 registered and unregistered prostitutes and a total of registered 2,182 R&R establishments. By 1985 the U.S. military had become the second largest employer in the Philippines, hiring over 40,000 Filipinos. . . . The sum of their salaries amounted to almost $83 million a year."

Ideologies around race and nationality have also contributed to the social inequalities and conflicts, especially affecting prostitutes, in the U.S. camptown communities in Asia. Enloe writes that "[c]lass and race distinctions inform all social relations between the U.S. military and the host community." The racism demonstrated by American soldiers toward Asians in Vietnam and Korea are well-documented. Lloyd Lewis notes that "soldiers in all branches of the armed services [in Vietnam] recount receiving the same indoctrination" that the "enemy is Oriental and inferior." The racist terms for Vietnamese -- "g@@k, slant, slope, dink . . . or a half a dozen local variations" -- had all been employed previously by Americans [toward Japanese in World War II and Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War] to designate yellow-skinned peoples." Max Hastings has noted in his history of the Korean War that the"Eighth Army was forced to issue a forceful order" in the summer of 1951 that soldiers cease "to take a perverse delight in frightening civilians" and attempting to "drive the Koreans off roads and into ditches." The order concluded with"We are not in this country as conquerors. We are here as friends." Hastings also includes a comment by a Marine, Selwyn Handler: "Koreans were just a bunch of g@@ks. Who cared about the feelings of people like that? We were very smug Americans at that time." Bruce Cumings recounts the racism among Americans, soldiers and diplomats alike, in the late 1960s:"Their racism led them to ask me, because I was living with Koreans and they rarely ventured out to 'the economy,' things like whether it was true that the Korean national dish, kimch'i, was fermented in urine."

Racist stereotypes of Asians within the American society have mixed with sexist stereotypes of Asian women to foster American participation in camptown prostitution in Asia. The main military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, encouraged soldiers to explore Korea's "nighttime action," especially the kisaeng party, the "ultimate experience":

Picture having three or four of the loveliest creatures God ever created hovering around you, singing, dancing, feeding you, washing what they feed you down with rice wine or beer, all saying at once, "You are the greatest." This is the Orient you heard about and came to find.

A U.S. Army chaplain I interviewed in April 1991 noted the following:

What the soldiers have read and heard before ever arriving in a foreign country influence prostitution a lot. For example, stories about Korean or Thai women being beautiful, subservient--they're tall tales, glamorized. . . . U.S. men would fall in lust with Korean women. They were property, things, slaves. . . . Racism, sexism -- it's all there. The men don't see the women as human beings--they're disgusting, things to be thrown away. . . . They speak of the women in the diminutive.

On Okinawa, U.S. servicemen from the Kadena Air Base "can be seen in town (Naha) wearing offensive T-shirts" depicting "a woman with the letters LBSM," which means "little brown sex machine." The "brown" refers to the Filipino and Thai women who constitute the majority of military prostitutes on Okinawa. Aida Santos reveals that Olongapo sells a variation on the theme--a popular T-shirt"bearing the message 'Little Brown fu-king Machines Powered with Rice.'" She emphasizes that in the Philippines, "[r]acism and sexism are now seen as a fulcrum in the issue of national sovereignty."

The presence of U.S. military servicemen in Asia generates significant social transformations that affect both the host Asian society and the American society across the Pacific. Thanh-dam Truong has asserted that the U.S. military's use of Thailand as the major R&R base for U.S. soldiers fighting in Vietnam has spawned the now booming sex tourism industry all across the country, winning Thailand the ignoble title, "Asia's brothel." Filipinos have charged that U.S. servicemen have brought AIDS and HIV into their country. Prostitutes in Olongapo, along with the umbrella feminist organization, GABRIELA, and health organizations, pushed the Philippine government to"obtain a guarantee that all U.S. service personnel coming into the Philippines be tested for HIV." In 1988, the Philippines Immigration Commissioner required all U.S. servicemen entering the Philippines to present certificates verifying that they are AIDS-free.

In addition, sexual relations between American men and Asian prostitutes have created a living legacy of mixed-raced children who are rejected by both their mother's and father's societies. Maria Socorro "Cookie" Diokno, an active leader in the Philippines' anti-base movement, has referred to the children born of American servicemen and Asian women as "Amerasian 'souvenir' bab[ies]." ABC's Prime Time (May 13, 1993) depicted Amerasian children in the Philippines who had been abandoned by their soldier-fathers and were living with their impoverished mothers, scavenging for food among heaps of rubble and waste. Enloe reports that "[o]f the approximately 30,000 children born each year of Filipino mothers and American fathers, some 10,000 [were] thought to become street children, many of them working as prostitutes servicing American pedophiles." Enloe adds that a Filipino "insider" has noted that many others have been sold, with "Caucasian-looking children . . . allegedly sold for $50-200 (around P1,000-4,000), whereas the Negro-fathered ones fetch only $25-30 (around P500-600)." Johnston's Mom in Songt'an, Korea, also tried to give up her sons to adoption, after earlier having given up a daughter. But in the end, she could not bear to do it and went back to prostitution in order to keep her boys. In the film, Camp Arirang, one barwoman in Songt'an laments the need to give up her half African-American son one day; black Amerasian children are most shunned in Korean society, so most mothers try to send them to the United States for a chance at education and a future. She has already torn up all photographs of herself with her son because she knows she must let him go. In a voice cracking with emotion, she calmly says, "All I want him to know is that he was born in Korea, that his mother is Korean, and that she is dead. It will be easier for him that way."

The withdrawal of U.S. naval bases from the Philippines in 1992 also left behind a legacy of approximately 50,000 Amerasian children in the Philippines, with an estimated 10,000 of them living in Olongapo, which had housed the U.S. Subic Naval Base. The law firm of Cotchett, Illston, and Pitre of Burlingame, California, filed a class action suit against the U.S. government on behalf of Amerasian children left behind in the Philippines in March 1993. The plaintiffs would"ask the federal court to order the Navy to provide funds for the education and medical care of these children until they reach 18 years of age." The prostitute-mothers of these children and several leading Philippine civic organizations, such as GABRIELA, as well as the Council of Churches, mobilized such legal action.

Asian societies have borne the burden of the painful repercussions of militarized prostitution, but the American society has not gone untouched. Many of the prostitutes who end up divorced from their GI husbands (an estimated 80% of Korean-GI marriages end up in divorce) go back into prostitution around military camp areas in the United States. In the film The Women Outside, officials from the Mayor's Office of Midtown Enforcement in Manhattan state that some U.S. servicemen have been paid by flesh traffickers to marry women in Korea and bring them to the United States for work in massage parlors and brothels.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/as...tml?_r=1&hp

Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.

Now, a group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.

“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country’s struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War. They say the government not only sponsored classes for them in basic English and etiquette — meant to help them sell themselves more effectively — but also sent bureaucrats to praise them for earning dollars when South Korea was desperate for foreign currency.

“They urged us to sell as much as possible to the G.I.’s, praising us as ‘dollar-earning patriots,’ ” Ms. Kim said.

The United States military, the scholars say, became involved in attempts to regulate the trade in so-called camp towns surrounding the bases because of worries about sexually transmitted diseases.

In one of the most incendiary claims, some women say that the American military police and South Korean officials regularly raided clubs from the 1960s through the 1980s looking for women who were thought to be spreading the diseases. They picked out the women using the number tags the women say the brothels forced them to wear so the soldiers could more easily identify their sex partners.

The Korean police would then detain the prostitutes who were thought to be ill, the women said, locking them up under guard in so-called monkey houses, where the windows had bars. There, the prostitutes were forced to take medications until they were well.

The women, who are seeking compensation and an apology, have compared themselves to the so-called comfort women who have won widespread public sympathy for being forced into prostitution by the Japanese during World War II. Whether prostitutes by choice, need or coercion, the women say, they were all victims of government policies.

“If the question is, was there active government complicity, support of such camp town prostitution, yes, by both the Korean governments and the U.S. military,” said Katharine H. S. Moon, a scholar who wrote about the women in her 1997 book, “Sex Among Allies.”

The South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality, which handles women’s issues, declined to comment on the former prostitutes’ accusations. So did the American military command in Seoul, which responded with a general statement saying that the military “does not condone or support the illegal activities of human trafficking and prostitution.”

The New York Times interviewed eight women who worked in brothels near American bases, and it reviewed South Korean and American documents. The documents do provide some support for many of the women’s claims, though most are snapshots in time. The women maintain that the practices occurred over decades.

In some sense, the women’s allegations are not surprising. It has been clear for decades that South Korea and the United States military tolerated prostitution near bases, even though selling sex is illegal in South Korea. Bars and brothels have long lined the streets of the neighborhoods surrounding American bases in South Korea, as is the case in the areas around military bases around the world.

But the women say few of their fellow citizens know how deeply their government was involved in the trade in the camp towns.

The women received some support for their claims in 2006, from a former government official. In a television interview, the official, Kim Kee-joe, who was identified as having been a high-level liaison to the United States military, said, “Although we did not actively urge them to engage in prostitution, we, especially those from the county offices, did often tell them that it was not something bad for the country either.”

Transcripts of parliamentary hearings also suggest that at least some South Korean leaders viewed prostitution as something of a necessity. In one exchange in 1960, two lawmakers urged the government to train a supply of prostitutes to meet what one called the “natural needs” of allied soldiers and prevent them from spending their dollars in Japan instead of South Korea. The deputy home minister at the time, Lee Sung-woo, replied that the government had made some improvements in the “supply of prostitutes” and the “recreational system” for American troops.

Both Mr. Kim and Ms. Moon back the women’s assertions that the control of venereal disease was a driving factor for the two governments. They say the governments’ coordination became especially pronounced as Korean fears about an American pullout increased after President Richard M. Nixon announced plans in 1969 to reduce the number of American troops in South Korea.

“The idea was to create an environment where the guests were treated well in the camp towns to discourage them from leaving,” Mr. Kim said in the television interview.

Ms. Moon, a Wellesley College professor, said that the minutes of meetings between American military officials and Korean bureaucrats in the 1970s showed the lengths the two countries went to prevent epidemics. The minutes included recommendations to “isolate” women who were sick and ensure that they received treatment, government efforts to register prostitutes and require them to carry medical certification and a 1976 report about joint raids to apprehend prostitutes who were unregistered or failed to attend medical checkups.

These days, camp towns still exist, but as the Korean economy took off, women from the Philippines began replacing them.

Many former prostitutes live in the camp towns, isolated from mainstream society, which shuns them. Most are poor. Some are haunted by the memories of the mixed-race children they put up for adoption overseas.

Jeon, 71, who agreed to talk only if she was identified by just her surname, said she was an 18-year-old war orphan in 1956 when hunger drove her to Dongduchon, a camp town near the border with North Korea. She had a son in the 1960s, but she became convinced that he would have a better future in the United States and gave him up for adoption when he was 13.

About 10 years ago, her son, now an American soldier, returned to visit. She told him to forget her.

“I failed as a mother,” said Ms. Jeon, who lives on welfare checks and the little cash she earns selling items she picks from other people’s trash. “I have no right to depend on him now.”

“The more I think about my life, the more I think women like me were the biggest sacrifice for my country’s alliance with the Americans,” she said. “Looking back, I think my body was not mine, but the government’s and the U.S. military’s.”


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,333899,00.html

For the G.I.s at camp casey in Tongduchon, 20 kilometers from the demilitarized zone separating the Koreas, about the only place for an evening's entertainment is "downrange," or "the 'ville." Barely 100 meters from Camp Casey's main gate, this is a seedy mile of sleazy bars, greasy-spoon restaurants and shops hawking everything from American-size bomber jackets to see-through lingerie. But it's the bars that rule the strip: dimly lit dives with names like U.S.A., Las Vegas and Sexy Club, and signs warning that the premises are off-limits to Koreans. Filipinas and Russians in micro miniskirts idle in the doorways, trying to coax G.I.s inside. This is where U.S. soldiers head after an arduous day of drills and training.

On a recent night, three sergeants from the American Midwest sit at a table in a pizza joint downrange with a heavily made-up, platinum blonde Russian in a tight T shirt and pants. She sips mango juice and says nothing. Dressed in T shirts and jeans, the men swig Budweisers from the bottle and joke with each other. They do not want to give their names. "Just chillin' out," says one, his brown hair cropped on the sides and brush-cut short on top. He likes the Army, he says, though he can't wait to get home to see his young daughter. He is proud to be up here, "protecting democracy" from North Korean aggression. But that concern doesn't extend to the Russian and Filipina women who work the bars where he spends his free time: they're just part of the landscape. "The women are here because they've been tricked," he says, nonchalantly. "They're told they're going to be bartending or waitressing, but once they get here, things are different," he adds, with a knowing look.

The fact that the women may have been forced into prostitution doesn't seem to bother most of their soldier-patrons. Nor, until recently, did it bother the military brass at the bases. But now a U.S. Senator and 12 members of Congress are demanding action. Alarmed by a Fox Television news report casing brothels where trafficked women were allegedly forced to prostitute themselves to G.I.s, the lawmakers sent a letter to the Pentagon in May, asking for an investigation. "If U.S. soldiers are patrolling or frequenting these establishments, the military is in effect helping to line the pockets of human traffickers," the legislators told U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In June, the Pentagon pledged to investigate the trafficking allegations in Korea and check other U.S. military installations around the world. (A Pentagon spokesman could not confirm whether such an investigation had started. In a written statement, the U.S. military in Korea says it has nearly completed an inquiry into the allegations.)

In Korea, concern over the behavior of U.S. troops comes at a particularly sensitive time. Many younger Koreans resent the U.S. military presence on their soil. Sex crimes involving G.I.s prompt periodic outbursts of anti-Americanism. And last Wednesday, 3,000 angry demonstrators staged a noisy protest in downtown Seoul over the death of two young teenage girls who were crushed by a military vehicle during a June training exercise on a public highway not far from Tongduchon. Numerous apologies from the U.S. military have failed to cool growing public anger over the incident. The military has refused to relinquish jurisdiction over the soldiers.

For their part, the U.S. lawmakers are particularly concerned about the charge that soldiers are paying to have sex with women who have been forced into prostitution. In 2000, Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, putting Washington at the forefront of efforts to combat the growing worldwide trade in women. Republican Congressman Christopher Smith, the chief sponsor of the law and one of the lawmakers pushing the Pentagon to clean up its act, says he was shocked to learn that it's business as usual up in Tongduchon: "There needs to be a very aggressive ending of this outrage," he told TIME. "We need to lead by example."

A good place to start the campaign might be Club Y, a sleazy haunt that Filipinas working on the strip call "a bad bar." Rosie Danan found out just how bad the week she started working there in late 1999, at the age of 16. Back home in Manila, a recruiting agency had promised Danan the job would require her merely to serve drinks and chat with customers. After she arrived in Korea�on a false passport�Club Y's mama-san took her papers away and told her the rules: she would be serving up her body as well as booze. She would get no days off for the first three months. And later, she could earn days off only if she sold enough drink and sex. She would live in a room above the club and, unless she was with the mama-san, would not be allowed outside except for three minutes a day to make a phone call. The penalty for coming back late: $8 a minute.

At least 16 Filipinas have escaped from bars near Tongduchon since June, bringing with them similar horror stories. Official statistics show 5,000 women have been trafficked in Korea since the mid-'90s, but human-rights groups says the real figure is much higher. More than 8,500 foreign women entered Korea last year on "entertainment" visas, mostly Filipinas and Russians. These visas are a tool for international trafficking, says Goh Hyun Ung, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration: "The women don't know they are going to be locked up as soon as they get to clubs and forced into prostitution." Goh says U.S. soldiers sometimes help Filipinas escape from clubs, but most are ignorant of the trafficking. He blames commanders for not educating the troops: "The U.S. military in Korea has always pretended the problem didn't exist."

Danan had to dance on stage every night, eight times a night�and, the mama-san warned, all her clothes had better be off before the song ended. It was the most humiliating thing she had ever done. But a few days later, it got worse�a G.I. came in and paid to take her to one of Club Y's squalid VIP rooms, where sex costs $60 for 10 minutes and about $160 for half an hour. The mama-san gave her tissues and a condom, and hit her when she resisted. "Every time I am crying," says Danan. "The mama-san said, 'If you cry like that in the business, the business is going down.'"

In June, U.S. Secretary of the Army Thomas White wrote Congressman Smith to assure him that military brass in Korea "in no way encourage, support or condone any aspect of prostitution or human trafficking." Colonel Sam Taylor, a spokesman at the main U.S. installation in Seoul, says the military is aware of the worldwide problem of human trafficking. "If presented with evidence of illegal activity, we'll start the process in motion to make those establishments off-limits."

But the reality is the bars are utterly dependent on their American patrons. Of the 41 major U.S. military camps in Korea, the 12 biggest are served by nearby "camptowns," where bar owners licensed by the Korean government sell tax-free alcohol to G.I.s. (Korean civilians are not allowed in the bars.) Some 2 million customers visited the camptowns in 2000, the last year for which figures are available, according to Korea's Culture and Tourism Ministry. Troops at all the military installations in Korea are briefed on the consequences of engaging in illegal activities, including the one-year jail term that paying for sex can bring under U.S. military law. There are no briefings on the issue of trafficking, Taylor says: "It is probably something we will start to brief them on."

But last week there was little indication that much had changed downrange. Young men with crew cuts still loiter in bars, fondling Filipina and Russian women, or paying for lap dances. And at least some of the bars still offer "VIP services." The bar owners deny that their dancers are tricked or forced into prostitution. Hyun Ju, Club Y's manager, is emphatic that "no woman has ever been mistreated at this club." She claims that "the owner treats the girls like family. He even takes the girls on holiday to the swimming pool." Kim Kyong Soo, president of the Korean Special Tourism Industry Association, which represents bar owners serving U.S. soldiers across Korea, says his members complain that the U.S. military allows Filipinas into Camp Casey to have sex with soldiers. "That's where the prostitution begins," he insists. "If we put a stop to that, it would be much easier for the entertainers to do their job." ("That activity should not be taking place. It is certainly something we are going to ask questions about," says military spokesman Taylor.)

Kim, who owns the Palace Club on the Tongduchon strip, has himself been accused of trafficking in women. In Aug. 1999, police issued an arrest warrant for him on suspicion he brought more than 1,000 Filipina and Russian women into Korea to work as bar girls around U.S. military bases. Kim says he followed legal procedures. A judge cancelled the warrant for lack of evidence and closed the case.

Kim was working in the area in the early 1960s, when bar owners near the base were granted government approval to form the Tongduchon Special Tourism Industry Association. That gave them the right to buy and sell alcohol tax free to U.S. soldiers and other foreigners. At a time when Korea was still dirt-poor, this was a vital source of foreign exchange�and a way to keep G.I.s from troubling Korean women not involved in the sex industry. Until the early 1990s, the women working downrange were almost all Korean. But in the mid-'90s, with the economy booming, Korean bar girls became too expensive. So, Kim claims, he negotiated with the Korean government to bring in Filipina and Russian women on special entertainment visas. Contacted by TIME, an immigration official said he had never heard of such an agreement.

The supervision of the camptown bar owners association is the responsibility of the Culture and Tourism Ministry. But Choi Byung Goo, a ministry director, says he does not know if there is any prostitution in the camptowns. "The bars are tourist restaurants for foreigners," he says. "There is no way we can know how they operate their businesses." If he had gone to Tongduchon last week, he might have heard about the four Filipinas who say they escaped from one of the clubs, where they were forced to dance naked and got a day off only if they sold an impossibly high number of drinks a month. The women told their stories to a researcher at RMIT University in Melbourne, who is conducting an undercover investigation into conditions in Tongduchon. Despite Choi's protestations of ignorance, the researcher says the government is aware of the trafficking: "They would have to know. The anti-prostitution and trafficking NGOs have all been lobbying them on this issue."

Danan's story had a happy ending�almost. She escaped from her mama-san a year and a half ago with the help of a Filipino priest. Last June, she returned to Korea hoping to marry her G.I. boyfriend, only to face another bitter disappointment. He beat her, she says, and almost smothered her with a pillow. So she went back to the shelter run by the Filipino priest. Downrange, some of the soldiers say they have heard stories like that. But a lot of guys are just young and lonely and looking for a woman to drink a beer with. "It's about companionship, it's not about sex," says a soldier who's heard about trafficking, while enjoying the rock 'n' roll music at the Sun Club. At Club Y, a soldier sits with his buddy nursing a beer as two Filipinas perform a lap dance for G.I.s at the table behind him. He thought prostitution was legal in Korea and has not heard about the trafficking, but says, "There's nothing I could do about it." At the pizza joint, the three sergeants don't have anything more to say, telling a reporter: "We shouldn't be talking to you." Why not? "We're here to protect democracy. We're not here to practice it." They finish their beers and head out onto the strip, the platinum blonde Russian in tow.


http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_wo...0.2shaffer.html

Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations
Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations. By Katharine H. S. Moon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Pp. xiii + 240. $16.50 (paper).

Six million American soldiers served in Korea between 1950 and 1971, and upward of one million South Korean women worked as "sex providers" for them in the "camptowns" that sprang up around U.S. bases, says Katharine H. S. Moon in Sex among Allies. The scope of these sexual contacts means that the image of each society held by the other is very much shaped by sexual conduct and relationships, she argues. But Moon demonstrates as well that conflict over prostitution played an especially pivotal role in U.S.-Korean relations in the early 1970s, when the authoritarian rulers of South Korea feared withdrawal of U.S. troops under the Nixon Doctrine. South Korean leaders, in rhetoric that eerily recalls the suffering of the "comfort women" who served the Japanese during World War II, sought to mobilize these prostitutes as "personal ambassadors" to Americans, seeking to instill in them the idea that they were performing patriotic acts in meeting the sexual needs of foreign soldiers and thus encouraging the U.S. army to stay in the country.

Moon, a political scientist, has written a model work of international [End Page 499] history. Her archival work draws from both U.S. and South Korean military sources, buttressed by interviews with middle-level military officials from both nations. Historians will be particularly interested in the nuggets Moon has unearthed in U.S. military reports as early as 1965, which pessimistically reviewed the prospects of reducing military prostitution because of its economic importance to South Korea and because many American officers believed that such "fraternization" made GIs more committed to fighting in Korea.

Perhaps most important, Moon has interviewed current and former prostitutes in Korea to ensure that "the voices of living Korean comfort women of the many U.S. camptowns . . . will be heard" (p. 16). Moon presents harrowing case studies of the economic and social conditions that led Korean women into military prostitution, their daily work lives, and the abuse they often suffered at the hands of pimps, customers, and government authorities. But she also shows the struggles, dreams, and, at times, political sophistication of these women.

Moon's narrative thus combines high-level diplomatic history with social history "from the bottom up." Her particular concern is to develop the connections between gender and foreign relations, a growing field pioneered by such scholars as Cynthia Enloe and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Moon's contribution is to show the importance of a particular group of women as actual "players" in global politics, rather than to discuss, as many such studies do, simply the "gendered ideology" and the gendered consequences of international policy. Moon's focus on interracial sexual relations rooted in military life and conducted between a dominant and a dependent society adds greatly to recent similar work by Gail Hershatter on China, Beth Bailey and David Farber on Hawaii, Ann Laura Stoler on colonial Asia, Luise White on colonial Africa, and Saundra Sturdevant and Brenda Stoltzfus on GIs in Asia.

Sex among Allies also stands out as international history not only in its attention to the nuances of relations between states, but also in its careful delineation of fault lines within each society. Thus, Moon shows that the plight of Korean prostitutes was not due only to Korean weakness with regard to the United States. Just as important were the ruthless exploitation by Korean club owners, the government's use of prostitutes as a tool in negotiations with the United States, and Korean culture itself, which has long stigmatized those who had intimate relations with outsiders. Moreover, many Koreans have not been unhappy with the creation of a prostitute caste because it shields "normal" Korean women from U.S. soldiers.

At the same time, the joint U.S.-Korean campaign to "clean up" [End Page 500] the camptowns in the early 1970s had its origins in three sets of divisions among Americans. Military officials who sought to implement the official U.S. antiprostitution policy came into conflict with GIs and many officers who believed that sexual access to Korean women was their right. Tension between black and white GIs, on the rise on bases throughout the world in the late 1960s, erupted into open violence in Korea in 1971 due to allegations of discriminatory treatment by camptown clubs and prostitutes. Finally, career U.S. military officers in South Korea fought what they considered to be Nixon's intent to pull out of Korea by demanding greater order and regulation in the camptowns, with the particular goal of reducing the staggeringly high venereal disease rate among GIs.

The pivotal events of the "clean-up campaign" demonstrate the complex outcomes of seemingly straightforward events, and at times the harmful effects on Korean women of well-intentioned motives. The withdrawal and redeployment within South Korea of some U.S. forces in 1971 led to greater rates of venereal disease and conflict between the U.S. military and prostitutes by upsetting established patterns of sexual relations. The efforts to reduce the GI venereal disease rate often led to increased victimization of prostitutes, due to a hopelessly flawed contact identification system and the unscrupulous operators of private Korean medical clinics.

Moon's overall argument is compelling, but certain nuances may be questioned. Military prostitution was nothing short of "disgraceful work," as one former prostitute put it, yet Moon at times comes close to celebrating the efforts of prostitutes to practice their trade free from control by U.S. military and Korean government officials. What appears to be an appeal to liberal rights and freedom for prostitutes is less than convincing in the face of the high rates of venereal disease that seem inevitably to accompany unregulated prostitution, although Moon demonstrates that neither the U.S. military nor the South Korean government acted with the health of the prostitutes as a central concern. Moreover, the collective actions by prostitutes in 1971 against a boycott of camptown clubs organized by black GIs and against the placing of certain clubs as off-limits to GIs did not strike this reader as a blow to "U.S. hegemony" over the camptowns or as a rejection of the treatment of Korean women's bodies as commodities, as Moon asserts.

Sex among Allies would be an important addition to classes in global women's or gender history, war and society, and U.S.-Asian relations, although the excessive use of awkward acronyms may slow down some students. With Moon's exposition of the work of Korean [End Page 501] prostitutes as the "glue" that has for decades linked Americans and Koreans, no lecture or class discussion on the Korean War, on the Nixon Doctrine, or on the world role of the U.S. military should henceforth ignore the central roles of gender and sexuality.

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

Your horrible at the rhetoric game.
Korean Prostitute is more of a problem in big cities than in the small ones like Osan and Pyeongtaek. Also MP's have cracked down of prostitution near the base hence why many Juicy Bars have been shut down.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47556

Prostitution Thrives with U.S. Military Presence
By Zoltán Dujisin

SEOUL, Jul 7, 2009 (IPS) - With the presence of U.S. soldiers, flesh trade is flourishing near the Camp Stanley Camptown close to Seoul.

Since 1945, U.S. troops have been stationed in the Korean peninsula, with their current strength estimated to be 28,500. The country plunged into civil war between 1950 and 1953 and since then, U.S. troops have remained there, claiming to act as a deterrent against North Korea, the country’s communist neighbour. Prostitution in the region is a direct result of their presence, local observers say.

Russian and Chinese troops also had troops stationed on the Korean peninsula in the aftermath of the civil conflict, but "have since left the area while U.S. troops are still here, in almost 100 military bases," Yu Young Nim, the head of a local non-governmental organisation which provides counseling, medical and legal care for sex workers, told IPS.

Yu Young Nim’s office is located at the Camp Stanley Camptown, a few metres away from local Korean restaurants, home in the 1980s to U.S.-imported Kentucky Fried Chicken and Subway logos. Locals attest to the slow decay of a town.

In front of one of these restaurants, sits a 36-year old former "mama-san", which in Korea denotes women supervising sex-work establishments. Like many other retired sex-workers, she looks older than her age, and has decided to open a restaurant.

The "mama-san" prefers catering to U.S. soldiers instead of the more demanding Korean clientele.

"G.I.s eat their food without complaints," she told IPS. "Koreans always expect to be served like kings."

It was in camps such as these that a new dish called Pudaettsigae entered the Korean diet: Poor Koreans took ingredients such as sausage, beans, processed cheese from leftovers at the U.S. camp and mixed them with home-grown ingredients.

After being a sex worker for much of her youth, during which she had a son with a U.S. soldier, like other "mama-sans" she opened her own club, where she employed other girls. She had to shut shop three years ago due to declining incomes.

"If the base closes, I’ll try moving to the [United] States; it would be good for my son," she says. Her son lives in Korea and speaks the language well enough, but got his primary education in English. "I don’t think he could attend a Korean university, but the U.S. universities are too expensive for us."

She could only wish his father was there to help.

"I have some contact with the grandfather, but barely with the father. He doesn’t send my son gifts, not even a Christmas card. He has so much more money than me and doesn’t do anything for his son," she says. "My son [believes] he has no father."

Several U.S. soldiers have married local prostitutes, in many cases impregnating them, only to later abandon them.

"Even in those cases of couples living together, these women can be easily abandoned by their husbands or boyfriends, and are victims of physical, mental and financial abuse," says Young Nim.

"The women mostly come from broken families, backgrounds of sexual abuse or domestic violence, and there is no protection from victims of these crimes," he says. "After entering the prostitution business they can’t get out."

U.S. officials have made statements condemning prostitution but have done little to stop it.

"They think this system should exist for the U.S. soldiers. Superficially they stand for a zero tolerance policy but practically they know what is going on and use this system," Young Nim told IPS.

There has been a reduction in prostitution of Korean women, which "has more to do with the work of non-governmental organisations and the fact that Korea has developed economically," while "there is no contact with the U.S. authorities. They have a legal office and counseling centre but only for their own soldiers and relatives."

After the negative publicity, the top military officials of the U.S. army have slowly became more outspoken in their condemnation of prostitution. U.S. soldiers were discouraged from frequenting traditional entertainment districts in central Seoul, although locals say that did little to stop them.

A turning point was the violent murder of a prostitute in Dongducheon in 1992. The finger of suspicion pointed at U.S. troops, though action against them is difficult given they enjoy a special legal status since 1945.

While prostitution is illegal in South Korea, camp towns are practically exempted from crackdowns, and US military anti-prostitution policies have forced these places to minimize their visibility.

Recent anti-prostitution laws are addressing the problems of Korean women, although there is disagreement among local activists regarding their effectiveness. However, they are effective in keeping out foreign sex workers; if arrested by the police they face deportation.

Some 3,000 to 4,000 come annually from countries like Philippines. While Russian, Uzbek and Kazakh women were also known for being trafficked into Korea in the past, now 90 percent of the women working as prostitutes hail from Southeast Asian countries. (END)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_South_Korea

Modern prostitution
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

Despite legal sanctions and police crackdowns, prostitution continues to flourish in S Korea, while sex workers continue to actively resist the state's activities. [22]

Camptown prostitution exists outside U.S. military bases (for example outside Camp Stanley). Though U.S. officials publicly condemn prostitution, they are perceived as taking little action to prevent it, and some locals suggest that U.S. Army authorities prefer having commercial sex services available to soldiers.[23]

Massage parlors offering sexual services sometimes distinguish themselves from legitimate parlors by advertising with the word "anma", sometimes quite openly with large neon signs. Following the enactment of the Special Law in 2004, there was a crackdown on red-light districts; while many of the brothels in those areas were forced to close, the crackdown went as quickly as it came, with the result that prostitution was driven more underground but also became a more competitive business with lower prices and more services.[citation needed]

Red light districts in South Korea can compare to those of Amsterdam and Germany. The four main red light districts in South Korea prior to the Special Law are Cheongnyangni 588, Yongsan Station, and Mia-ri in Seoul and Jagalmadang in Daegu. While not all of them are operating to full capacity, some still exist while being tolerated not only due to the vast amount of money that is involved in the business, but also in an attempt to control the sex industry.

Other sexual services include 가택 마사지 (gataek massaji) which is an "in-call" massage where the customer would travel or meet at the masseuse's home or quarters, and 출장 마사지 (chuljang massaji) or an "out-call" massage where the masseuse travels to the customer's place, love motel, hotel, or another disclosed location.



This post has been edited by ElegantKoreanGentleman: Aug 15 2011, 06:17 PM

[ElegantKoreanGen...]

You were unable to prove this under you old pseudonym.

The world knows sanctions starve people and are responsible for the famine in North Korea.

If you want to go against a standard belief the onus is on you.

Sanctions ruin economies and make them poor. Political and economic isolation leads to starvation.


If you want to deny that then I'm not suprised. THe division of Korea has always attracted the most perversley minded "outsiders". Like CaptainCorea you percieve this as a little game. Horah your side must win!

This post has been edited by ElegantKoreanGentleman: Aug 15 2011, 11:11 PM

[YourMuDoIsWeak]

Most of your sources are outdated fact is many of the Soldiers have moved to Pyeongtaek...
Prostitution is a problem but its not caused by US G.I.'s.