South Korea + Japan

so the US is partly moving out of south korea and japan.

alright, this is looking more and more like what castro did to human rights activists during the iraqi invasion...

stuff that would make front page news is buried by the events timing....no mistake here. this is key. the only surprise is that this stuff isn't happening on a friday, so its buried in weekend news.

In Surprise, U.S. Will Pull 12,000 Troops From South Korea
By JAMES BROOKE

TOKYO, June 7 — The United States plans to withdraw one third of its 37,000 troops from South Korea by the end of the next year, according to a South Korean government official.

The withdrawal of more than 12,000 troops, the first pullback since 1992, would include 3,600 American soldiers scheduled to deploy from South Korea to Iraq this summer, according to Kim Sook, head of the North American division at South Korea's Foreign Ministry, who held a press briefing this afternoon in Seoul. He said the South Korean government was informed of the plan Sunday night.

The American decision to cut troops in South Korea, the only major American military presence in the Asian mainland, caught South Koreans by surprise.

President Roh Moo Hyun, speaking at an event honoring South Korea's war dead on Sunday, promised to "properly nurture the South Korea-U.S. alliance." This morning, in an address for the opening of a new session of the National Assembly, he made no reference to the alliance.

The cutback appears to be part of a wider rearrangement of American troops in the Pacific. In Tokyo today, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported that the United States is sounding out Japan about moving some of the 14,000 United States marines stationed in Okinawa to a Japanese base in Hokkaido.

On a stopover in Okinawa last fall, the United States Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, endured a scolding from the local governor, who complained about the disproportionate burden of the American forces on his crowded island.

whoa, they are really reaping what they sow over there. Roh's position on 'nurturing' their US-SK 'alliance' is a long way from the burning hatred of his 2002 campaign. they scapegoated just a little too much on the US, and now are faced with some serious problems.

the remaining US forces are on the south east end of the peninsula. that means a short skirmish along the border would not necessitate US involvement. secondly, the containment of NK is not a big deal anymore. where would the communists expand, really, if they did take over the south? nowhere.nobody wants to have that happen, but the less strategic importance south korea has, the less the US cares to look after their whiney ingrate of a dependent.

now i don't want to go off on japan here, heavan knows that both SK and Japan have had their problems with the US marines in both countries...but.does japan really want the US soldiers to leave a basically unarmed japan against the unlimited man army of china on its doorstep?

this is all heady stuff here. the US needs more people in iraq, and its soldiers are tied up in the lands of surly dependents like SK and germany....now the kids are going to be kicked out of the house to fend for their own.... without much to defend themselves really, if things go wrong.

things are changing......and they usually do on heavy news days.