How did I end up in South Korea? Never knew I wanted to visit the place but an anti-militarization group ( http://www. space4peace.org ) asked me if I would go to the Gangjeong Village to witness and report on these gentle peoples' struggle to preserve their way of life.
The problem: there is a huge port now under construction to accommodate U.S warships. It will be able to accommodate nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers along with all the accompanying support infrastructure that implies.
Gangjeong is a village of fewer than 2,000 people who's livelihood depends on raising tangerines, strawberries and fishing. One of their traditions has been to go out to Karumbai Rock, a large, flat expanse of lava flow at seaside, to worship and give thanks to life.
April 2012 this all changed. Samsung, the main contractor, erected a fence around Karumbai Rock and surrounding areas and started blasting. Only fragments of this sacred rock remain.
This is all part and parcel with President Obama's foreign policy "pivot" towards the Asian-pacific region that he articulated late last year.
In some insane notion that the United States might someday "need" to go to war against China, our military planners have deemed it necessary to strengthen our stance of belligerence in the region. And it might not be just Korea. We are negotiating with the Philippines and Viet Nam to place naval forces there also. But South Korea, having been a vassal state of America for over fifty years now, was the easiest place to get started on this new confrontational stance.
Remember the peace dividend we were going to reap with the collapse of the Soviet Empire? I do. Somehow we let that dividend slip out of our grasp. The military planners and beneficiaries of empire have again manipulated the American people to, if not support, then at least be complicit in a new global cold war. And the people of Gangjeong Village are paying an astronomical price for our hubristic and unrealistic dreams of greater empire.
I am now staying in a modest hotel here in Gangjeong village. I notice that there are few locked doors and very little crime. The people are friendly and truly appreciate the life they live. As currently planned, U.S. aircraft carriers will dock at this island paradise and perhaps 3,000 sailors at a time will take shore leave. Ask the Philippinos what that is like. Our naval base at Subic Bay supported a large industry of bars and brothels. There is no reason to believe that it will be different in Gangjeong. Philippinos know, Okinawans know, and the people of Jeju Island know.
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