This is personally worrying — my son is in the midst of interviewing for a new position in the army (he’s a Major in the signal corps), and just this past week he was narrowing his options down to a position in South Korea. We thought this was good news, since he’s currently stationed in Kuwait, and we’d rather he were in a nice, peaceful, calm place. But look! South Korean President Yoon has declared martial law, citing vague threats from North Korean communists while actually targeting the South Korean opposition parties.
“I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free constitutional order,” Yoon said.
Yoon did not immediately specify who constituted the pro-North Korean anti-state forces. But he has cited such forces in the past as hindering his agenda and undermining the country.
He did not say in the address what specific measures will be taken. Yonhap reported that the entrance to the parliament building was blocked.
“Tanks, armored personnel carriers, and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country,” Lee Jae-myung, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, which has the majority in parliament, said in a livestream online. “The economy of the Republic of Korea will collapse irretrievably. My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”
Yeah, everyone who opposes my politics is a Communist who supports the terrorists. Sounds familiar.
The news sources are predicting immediate protests, rallies, and even riots in response — South Koreans do not abide autocracies taking over. The American military won’t respond (we hope!), but it’s probably no fun to be hunkered down in Camp Humphreys while the citizenry takes to the streets.
It’s probably too much to expect that someone in the military will always be posted to someplace calm.
I Googled for Camp Humphreys. It seems to be a pretty big place with schools and family housing not far from Seoul. I wouldn’t worry too much.
(Sgt. Seymour was stationed at K-2 Air Base just outside of Taegu around the end of the Vietnam war. I had a pretty good time and learned a bit of the Korean language, almost all of which I’ve forgotten over the decades.)
The parliament sat at 1 in the morning and voted the fash down. Now reports are confusing, military has withdrawn, military is supporting martial law. Next few hours will tell.
The martial law decree has been declared invalid by South Korea’s National Assembly and troops are beginning to withdraw. It looks like the president has found a way to get all the opposition parties to forget their differences and band together against his own party. Oops!
Rich Woods@3: According to some news sites not even the president’s own party likes him very much right now.
What the Korean military is actually doing seems to be a bit unclear right now, going by news reports.
Cross posted from The Infinite Thread:
Followup to JM @57 on The Infinite Thread:
Link
Fuck! Trump’s metastasising.
A return to form.
Conveniently memory-holing the fact that South Korea alternated between dictatorship and military rule for 43 years. Historically they do abide autocracies taking over.
beholder, ya’ little shit, please.
A few years ago president Park Gyunhe proved to be corrupt, she was thrown out of office and into prison. Yes, the same Koreans who are raised to be normally quite deferential and submissive to authority removed a sitting president from office and judged her to be guilty enough to do actual prison time (she was later pardoned by another president, but she spend several years in the hole). They did something the “rugged individualist” Americans who claim they “don’t trust people with power” have yet to accomplish in their entire fucking entire history which is incredibly fucking sad.
Koreans:1, Americans:0.
THere’s a Trump-style fascist in every country. Its just a pity the Dummycrats are not more like South Koreas opposition parties.