United States' troops have "become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence,"
"The United States… has done all [it] can in Iraq… [the U.S.] military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. "
Those are not the words of anti-war protesters. That is the cool-headed assessment of the situation being made by influential U.S. House of Representatives member John P. Murtha, a Democrat known for his hard-line stance and someone who supported the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq. He has submitted a bill to the House calling for the immediate withdraw of U.S. troops.
In Korea, the government and the ruling party are way behind Murtha in their thinking. During consultations on Friday, the government and ruling party decided to submit a bill calling for Korean troops in Iraq to stay for another year to the National Assembly next week. They say they took into consideration the mood at the United Nations and in the international community, the choices being made by other countries with troops there, the effects of having troops there, and the U.S.-Korea alliance, but you have to wonder how they could ever arrive at the conclusion that Korean troops should stay another year based on those combined factors. One thousand of Korea's 3,200 troops will be withdraw in stages beginning in the first half of next year, but that looks like a sneaky attempt to get the rest of them to stay.
21 of the 37 nations that sent troops to Iraq have withdrawn or have announced plans to do so. Currently there are 156,000 troops from 28 countries, but if you exclude troops from the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Korea, the number only adds up to 10,000. That is only as many as several hundred per country. At this point Korea is showing the global village that together with the U.S. and U.K. it is one of the main leaders of the occupation. Recently the government started reinterpreting at will the part of the National Assembly's initial bill approving deployment to Iraq "to establish peace and aid in reconstruction" to mean that Korean troops can protect U.N. facilities and officials in the region they are stationed.
The Korean military never had any reason to go to Iraq in the first place and there is even less reason for them to be there next year. The government and the ruling and opposition parties should engage in serious introspection and correct their mistake.
The Hankyoreh, 19 November 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Withdraw Korean Troops Now |
