Make up your freakin' mind!

In the same edition of the Joong Ann Daily (an English language South Korean newspaper):

Yankees Must Not Go Home!

The United States has rebuffed an appeal from South Korea to delay the forthcoming withdrawal of a third of U.S. troops from the peninsula, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Defense officials from Washington and Seoul concluded two-day talks yesterday on the future of the U.S. troops in Korea. The force reduction and the closure of the Yongsan Garrison including the transfer of the Seoul-based U.S. forces to new bases south of capital were the two main agenda items of this week's Future of Alliance Talks.
"Because the reduction of U.S. troops in Korea will be carried out in line with the GPR, the United States expressed difficulties in adjusting the size and schedule of the planned forces cut," the Defense Ministry said. GPR refers to the Global Defense Posture Review, the U.S. plan to redeploy its forces around the world.
Under the plan, Washington already announced the withdrawal of 12,500 American soldiers from the peninsula by the end of 2005, including the 3,700-strengh combat team that has departed to Iraq. The United States has been maintaining roughly 37,000 troops here.
At the talks, South Korea reportedly asked the United States to delay the troop cut until 2007, but the proposal was turned down.
"We told the United States more time is needed to complete the plan to spend $11 billion to beef up U.S. capabilities," a Defense Ministry official said. "We also said that transfer of some missions from the U.S. to South Korean troops won't conclude until the end of 2006."
Despite such appeals, the United States said it would stick to the original schedule of force reductions by the end of next year, the official said, but leaving room for further negotiations on the schedules of pulling out particular mechanized units.
Seoul has been alarmed that the planned withdrawal of U.S. firepower, such as multiple rocket launchers, may weaken the deterrence against North Korea.
Aside from military shifts on the U.S. mainland, the peninsula will be the first place to experience the transformation of the U.S. army, Richard Lawless, Pentagon's chief negotiator for the South Korea-U.S. defense talks, said.said.

Photos take aim right at America

Noh Soon-taek is an activist who speaks with his photographs. Mr. Noh, 33, has used his camera as a weapon to expose what he sees as the absurdities of Korean society in the turmoil of modern history. His primary interest is the division of the two Koreas, and the role of the United States on the peninsula.
In a photo exhibition titled "Smells Like the Division of the Korean Peninsula," Mr. Noh presents 36 black-and-white photographs taken in his home country, which he dubs "Republic of Komerica."
In stark, black-and-white photographs, Mr. Noh finds a different shade of Korea's reality. One of the photographs on display features Panmunjeom as seen from a new angle, with U.S. soldiers in the foreground, backs to the camera. Mr. Noh says in a caption that while South Korean soldiers think the Americans watch the North Koreans, they don't recognize that they're the ones being watched over. In a film that depicts a children's picnic at the War Museum, Mr. Noh photographs carefree kids with the museum in the background, writing, "Why do we have to commemorate a war, not peace? The War Museum today again swallows children."
Mr. Noh, who works at a leftist monthly magazine called Mal ("Words"), is politically anti-American, but that doesn't mean he hates Americans. What he's opposed to is a Pax Americana, an empire with supremacy over the world. He wants as many U.S. citizens as possible to visit his exhibit, in much the same way that millions of Americans have seen Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." In October, Mr. Noh will hold a joint photo exhibition in New York on the topic of the U.S. Army both in Korea and Japan.
"I don't want so many parts of our reality to be real, like the division of the country and South Korea's dependence on the United States," Mr. Noh said. "But sadly enough, the public is only given a fabricated reality. Once we get over the ignorance, there are so many things to learn.

Yes, like how ignorant you are. Pax Americana: that's why there are so many famous North Korean dissident photographers and documentarians who are free to show their art showcasing the problems in the glorious workers paradise of North Korea, such as............. oh yeah, that's right, there aren't any. Nor are there any from the glorious workers paradises of Vietnam or Cuba, for that matter. But in America and South Korea, you can't swing a dead cat at an art opening without hitting one (sure, often they are a part of the wait staff, but art is only appreciated after the artist is dead, non?). Hmmmmmm, tell you something about the differences between North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba and the USA and South Korea? No? Then boy does Markos Zuniga has a website for you!