Seoul may send Iraq troops, GIs from DMZ
to go By David Scofield
While
South Korea remains steadfast in discussing commitments
- and not the immediate dispatch of 3,000 long-promised
troops to Iraq - the United States has made good on its
promise to mobilize its forces in Korea to contend with
"changing global threats and new force projection
technologies" in Iraq. Washington says it will redeploy
3,600 infantry troops from the 2nd Infantry Division,
currently stationed a stone's throw from North Korea
along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), to Iraq by
mid-summer.
Recently reinstated South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun, impeached by his opponents on
March 12 but restored by the Constitutional Court last
week, remains outwardly committed to dispatching troops
to Iraq. But with the overwhelming victory of his
supporters in Our Open Party (OOP) in general elections
on April 15, his backers increasingly are calling on the
government to rethink the offer to assist the US in
Iraq, many parts of which are again war zones.
Ostensibly, atrocities committed by US guards at
Abu Ghraib prison and civilian casualties throughout
Iraq, especially during the campaign in Fallujah, have
provided the most recent justification for demands that
the government reverse its decision to send troops. But
the true reason probably has less to do with human
rights abuses in Iraq than it does with a tradition of
national myopia and anti-US sentiment - more
specifically, feelings against the United States Forces,
Korea (USFK).
(In another ugly but not uncommon
incident over the weekend in Seoul, some US soldiers
were arrested after one GI apparently stabbed a Korean
civilian in a nightclub district. What makes this
unusual is that South Korea's "progressive" Internet
news media are equating it with US abuse at Abu Ghraib
prison outside Baghdad, where Iraqi prisoners were
tortured by US guards. This incident has been especially
poignant as it happened only three days before
yesterday's May 18 memorial of the Kwangu Massacre, a
city in the country's southwest. In 1980, less than a
year after former dictatorial leader Park Chung- hee was
assinated, newly self installed president Chun Doo-won ordered Korean
Special Forces soldiers to re-take the city of Kwangju
by force after students, leftisits and unionists had siezed
control demanding an end to the military's hold
on political power. The soldiers killed between
500-2000 people, an event that many Koreans believe the United States
was either directly involved in, or turned
a blind eye to.)
Groups of South Korean
lawmakers, and a few of its many non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), justify their anti-dispatch stance
on feelings of moral outrage at US conduct in Iraq, but
these same groups remain mute when confronted with
evidence of far more heinous injustices being inflicted
on the people of North Korea, less than 100 kilometers
from South Korea's capital. Condemnation of US
human-rights violations in Iraq offer convenient cover
for motives that have less to do with the protection of
the world's most vulnerable, than with narrow domestic
political objectives - Abu Ghraib being nothing more
than a convenient backdrop of moral outrage for
Korea-centric policies.
The South Korean
government may, as it continues to promise, dispatch
troops to Iraq, but the composition of this dispatch
will have little to no effect on the security situation
on the ground. Those lawmakers who support a dispatch,
largely for reasons relating to domestic politics and
"defense on the cheap" - which is what the US symbolizes
to many of South Korea's more pragmatic elected
officials - do not necessarily support a dispatch
comprising primarily combat troops. South Korea
presently has more than 700 medical and engineering
troops in Iraq, but has not committed combat troops
capable of conducting operations and maintaining sector
security. Many feel that the next dispatch, currently
planned to include more than 1,400 combat troops of the
3,000 total, should be redesigned with a heavier
emphasis on re-construction, and not security.
The N Iraq deployment area is relatively
safe But as benevolent as soldiers dedicated to
reconstruction sounds, this noble objective is unlikely
to be met. Putting aside the fact that reconstruction
cannot be effectively implemented before local security
has been achieved, the location of South Korea's planned
troop dispatch requires little reconstruction. It is in
the far north of Iraq in areas that have been under
Kurdish control since the end of the first Gulf War in
1991. Likely locations for Korea's 3,000 troops are
Irbil and Sulaimaniya, areas far beyond Saddam Hussein's
supporters' effective reach, and as such, area that were
not targeted in bombing campaigns last spring. Both are
presently secured by only 300 US troops.
In
times of battle, half-hearted allies can be worse than
non-allies. If South Korea, after much indecision and
hand wringing, decides to "honor" its promise in a
strictly perfunctory manner, as seems likely, the result
will be greater headaches for the US command in Iraq
than no participation at all. If South Korea commits
combat troops but decides that they will maintain only a
small, isolated pocket of sparsely populated land in the
far north, the net effect of their contribution of
3,000, would be the freeing of only 300 US combat troops
for other areas - a grossly inefficient exercise.
There is another factor beyond South Korea's
propensity to involve itself in international efforts
only when assured that the pay-off will exceed the
contribution many fold - South Korea's participation in
the Vietnam conflict comes immediately to mind - and
that is cost. South Korea spends less than 3 percent of
its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, a fact that
is painfully obvious to anyone who happens by its
infantry camps, or who has witnessed the dilapidated
equipment South Korea's rank and file soldiers are
assigned. Maintaining 3,000 troops more than 7,000
kilometers away from South Korea will require a
tremendous outlay of resources - resources that would be
better used to upgrade and re-focus its own domestic
defenses.
The re-deployment of 3,600 US troops
from South Korea may be just the beginning. The return
date for these troops has also not been set, and some
analysts believe this could well be a one-way trip out
of the country. President Roh's belief in domestic and
foreign policies independent of the United States
requires a more Korea-centric approach to defense and
military matters. The original agreement to dispatch
troops was made not out of any belief in a "50-year
blood relationship between the ROK and the US", as is
sometimes articulated by officials from both countries
old enough to recall the Korean War (1950-53), but out
of concern that to appear less than a supportive US ally
would weaken America's resolve to maintain the
perception of a strong bi-national defense, effectively
undermining a central pillar of economic stability in
South Korea.
(The US maintains about 37,000 troops
in South Korea, mostly in Seoul, and a roughly equal
number of dependents, contractors and related personnel.
Most will be moving out of the major US base in
Seoul to other locations in South Korea, and some may leave
the country entirely, though the exact number and deployment
timetable is unknown.)
Placating the US is
tired strategy But doing just enough to placate
the US and ensure the continued perception of American
protection of South Korea and the real economic benefits
this generates, is a tired strategy, and ultimately
counter-productive for South Korea.
The United
States would be wise to take this opportunity to
encourage South Korea's self-first (oddly reminiscent of
North Korea's juche) philosophy and encourage the
nation to move forward in developing a policy consistent
with changing national attitudes and developing an
indigenous military structure to match. South Korea has
become a resource sink for the United States in terms of
budget outlay, equipment commitments and human resource
allocation. The US can not afford to maintain bases,
equipment and personnel in a country that has become
increasingly hostile to its presence, and whose
citizenry views them as anachronistic with contemporary
perceptions of North Korea and its leadership.
South Korea and the United States should use this
opportunity to take the first tentative steps toward
a more equal relationship long demanded by Roh and
an increasing majority of South Korean people, by using
this initial re-deployment as a first stage in the complete
removal of the USFK and in doing so, the overlord
perception it invokes. In return, South Korea can
more fully focus on its immediate domestic concerns, of
which it has many, by creating domestic solutions to problems
long mitigated by the presence of US troops, and
proving to its people the fidelity of a progressive intra-Korean
agenda independent of perceived United States
interference.
David Scofield, former
lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies,
Kyung Hee University, is currently conducting
post-graduate research at the School of East Asian
Studies, University of Sheffield.
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