All right, my friends, this is Antiwar Radio, Chaos 92.7 FM, in Austin, and on the line from Pohang, South Korea, is Joshua Snyder.
He's an American son-in-law living and teaching college there.
His blog is The Western Confucian, which is orientem.blogspot.com.
He's also written for LewRockwell.com, DailyEstimate, Nolenshark.com, The Seoul Times, Spiro News, and Traditional Catholic Reflections and Reports.
Welcome to the show, Joshua.
Thank you.
It's an honor to be on your show.
Oh, well, I'm very happy to have you here.
I've been interested in your articles for LewRockwell.com for quite a while now, and I wish I'd actually got you on the show sooner to talk about America's relationship with the two Koreas and, I guess, with East Asia in general.
This is sort of timely, since we have all the propaganda about North Korean supposed help with a Syrian nuclear weapons program back in the news, which Bush openly said actually is a message to North Korea.
I think, more accurately, it's an attempt to thwart the deal that Condoleezza Rice has made with them.
I guess I just wanted to sort of go over with you the history of American involvement in Korea, where we stand today as far as American forces and prospects for reunification or, on the other hand, for war, that kind of thing.
Maybe first of all, you can just sort of tell us about the beginnings of American involvement in Korea at the end of World War II.
All right.
Very well, yes.
South Korea had been a colony of Japan since 1910, and during World War II, the Korean peninsular state was really decided at the Cairo and Potsdam Conferences.
At the first conference in Cairo, the Allies decided that Korea would be an independent country after the war had ended.
Japan had pursued a policy very similar to the German Anschluss in Austria, where they would try to incorporate Korea as a part of the integral territory of Japan.
So in Cairo, they decided that Korea would be an independent country after the war had ended.
Then at the Potsdam Conference, Stalin had thought of the idea of dividing Korea, actually, as a buffer zone, just like the buffer zones that were created in Eastern Europe at the Yalta Conference.
So Koreans are very rightly a bit upset about having their country divided against their will.
They often point out, why was our country divided and not Japan, as in the case of Germany, which was divided.
And the American involvement really began immediately after that.
Actually, the Soviets came down first, just as the war had ended, and then the Americans slowly entered into the South about a month after the war ended, and stayed on during that time.
And both the Soviets administered the North, and the Americans administered the South, and set up puppet governments in each area.
But the stated goal was to have the country reunited.
But after some failed elections, and both sides were really unhappy, North Korea invaded on June 25, 1950.
And at the time, most of the forces had left, and there were just several advisors left in the country.
And actually, the Soviet forces had left too, so there were just advisors there.
So it really would have been a classic case of non-interventionism, had we just let the situation solve itself.
Probably the Chinese would not have gotten involved, and it would have taken its course.
Now if I understand it right, the U.S. actually backed the former Japanese quislings.
The people who had been the puppet government of the Japanese empire became the puppet government of the American empire, while the Russians were backing the guys who had fought against the Japanese occupation.
Exactly, yeah.
Say what you will about Kim Il-sung, but he was part of the anti-Japanese liberation army, whereas most of the first puppets, Lee Seung-man, and later on throughout the military dictatorships in South Korea, which lasted until 1988 really, most of them had ties within the Japanese military establishment during the colonial period.
And then once the war began, of course this set a precedent for the remaining American wars of the 20th century, in that it was an undeclared war, it was officially called a police action, it was still officially known as the Korean conflict, not the Korean war because it was never declared.
And it was also fought under U.N. obstacles, which we can see many similarities with Vietnam and other actions that America has taken in the 20th century, very similarly, and interestingly at the time, Senator Robert Taft was the main critic of Truman's unconstitutional sending of troops over here.
That really was the first time that an American president had dispatched troops into a major war.
I guess there have been rescue missions and so forth, so-called things like that, fighting against Pancho Villa and that sort of thing, but as far as getting us into a major war, this is the first time that the president told Congress, I don't even care what you say, the U.N.
Security Council has recommended it and that's all the authority I need, piss off.
And that's exactly what happened, and it was a major war, over 50,000 American troops lost their lives and one million Koreans were killed in the conflict, so it was a huge war and it was, like you said, undeclared.
It's funny, they call it the forgotten war, which I was born in the late 70s, well mid-70s I guess now, but I grew up with MASH, so it was never the forgotten war to me, but apparently before MASH ever came out, this is the war that everybody pretended never even happened or something.
Exactly, it was just kind of quietly forgotten and it started in 1950 and then by the 1952 presidential election, both Robert Taft was running against Eisenhower in the primaries and of course Taft had more of the non-interventionist platform, although it wasn't pure non-interventionism, he kind of wanted to continue with some involvement and Eisenhower was, you know, promising some withdrawal of the troops and a year after he took office, it did end in a stalemate, but as you know, the Korean War is still technically going on, it's a ceasefire, but the state of war still exists between the two countries, the two Koreas.
Well I was just going to say something about the fight between the actual right, the classical liberal right wing versus the establishment and their picked guy, Eisenhower, who was after all the war hero and he had that great slogan because his name rhymed with like, and so he had to win, but meanwhile, this guy Robert Taft was actually looking out for America first, not for the most powerful private interests in New York City first, and had a different foreign policy and that was really the final defeat of the old right, they really, until Ron Paul, haven't had true representation in the Congress at all since then.
Exactly, I mean when Ron Paul was in the debates mentioning the idea that Congress should actually declare a war, which as the Constitution says, I mean he was seen as a, you know, far out wacko by many people in the establishment, and really the last time that was said by anybody of the caliber of a senator was with Robert Taft, and you know, so that idea has just been conveniently forgotten along with the forgotten war and all of America's other involvements after that.
Now you point out that the war ended not in an actual armistice or whatever, but in a temporary ceasefire that's lasted for 50 years.
Exactly, and it's flared up from time to time, you know, just in 2006 there was a major, well not a major battle, but there was a skirmish between the North and the South, and six Southern sailors were lost in that skirmish, so every once in a while it flares up and it's always a bit of a dangerous situation, and we're right in the middle of it of course, with a hundred and six bases and uh...
A hundred and six bases in South Korea?
That's right.
Wow.
Yeah, out of 700, over 700 worldwide, you know, one in seven of them are here.
Well no wonder they need English professors over there so they can deal with the occupying army, right?
Well I would say the occupying army really, they keep to themselves mostly.
I would say for a force of close to 30,000 mostly young men, they're actually pretty well behaved.
I would find it hard to find a similar segment of the population back home or anywhere else where there are not so many crimes.
That's not to say that they're completely welcome here, and you know near the bases you can still see the typical signs of prostitution, which are really kind of an insulting image to a somewhat conservative Confucian society like Korea.
But I think really the main arguments against our presence here are from an America First perspective.
As I was looking into this, it's really hard to find an exact amount of money that the U.S. spends to maintain its presence here.
I've read anywhere from $15 billion per year to about $43 billion per year, and it's also hard to see what the South Korean contribution is.
When I first got here in Korea about in 1997, I remember reading that 88% of the cost was provided by the United States.
So essentially what we're doing is, you know, subsidizing the defense of another country the same way we did it with Japan, Germany, and the rest of Europe, while that frees up their public funds to invest in the economy and research and development and establishing state firms and whatever.
So while the American people are complaining that all their jobs are going to Asia, the U.S. government is actually subsidizing the transfer of their jobs to Asia.
Exactly.
I come from a rust belt town, Buffalo, New York, and it was a steel town, and you know about 100 years ago it was one of the richest towns, one of the richest cities on earth, and now it's the second poorest city in the United States after the steel mills closed.
And then coming over here, you know, I'm in Pohang, which is another steel town, home of POSCO, which is the second or third largest steel company in the world, and you know it was built during the period where Korea experienced this great economic boom in the 60s and 70s.
It was a state firm and has since been turned over to be a public firm.
But exactly, the U.S. has been subsidizing not only these companies in Korea, but also Japan, Germany, the rest of Europe.
I mean it's really ridiculous if you think about it.
And it's sort of the same thing that we hear about whenever, well I guess it's been a while since anybody said anything about closing some bases, but whenever anybody talks about closing bases here, always the first thing is what will the impact be on the local economy, the mom and pop diner down the street, and the local gas stations, and everybody in the local community who've grown up dependent on the wealth from that base.
It's the same thing in Korea.
You say in one of your articles that the people there really don't like the Americans and don't want them there, but don't want them to leave, because the amount of money that's coming in that they now have grown so dependent on over the years is enough incentive for them to want to go ahead and keep foreign troops in their country.
Exactly.
And I think they see the benefit of it, and even if it causes them some sense of shame or embarrassment at being, in essence, a protectorate, they realize that they reap some benefits from this.
Not only the local businesses that cater to the American troops, whenever there is talk of a base closing, you'll see the shop owners, and store owners, and bar owners, and restaurant owners out on the streets protesting to keep the base open, the American base there.
But also, as I said, the benefit to the overall economy, having the Korean defense essentially taken care of by another country.
And let's not forget that South Korea is now the twelfth largest economy in the world.
Why are we providing for their defense if that's the true rationale that's given?
Well, yeah, I mean, I guess the argument is that the North Korean army would come pouring over the DMZ and conquer the South if we weren't there as the buffer zone to protect them.
That is the main argument that's put forth, and it's true that North Korea has about twice the number of soldiers in uniform that South Korea has.
But by all estimates, the South Korean army has surpassed North Korea's military capability back in the 1980s.
So really, South Korea could easily take care of itself.
This is a prosperous, capitalist nation.
It's very innovative.
Lots of new technology.
North Korea, as everyone knows, is a basket case.
It has a military first policy of putting most of its money into the military, but there's no room for innovation in a Stalinist country.
And their equipment is old and outdated.
I mean, I really think that North Korea, even if the U.S. troops were not here, would not attempt an invasion of the South.
Well, they'd need, I think you mentioned in one of your articles that they would need the permission of the Chinese anyway to do so, and the Chinese would never give them permission to start a war on the peninsula there.
Exactly.
I mean, China is really interested in regional stability.
You know, it has the old relationship with North Korea that goes back to the war.
But really, for China, South Korea is a much more important trading partner and economic and cultural partner.
There are students in exchanges between both countries.
And a lot of South Korean businesses have set up shops in China.
And China really realizes that this North Korean situation is not in its benefit.
So China would never let that happen.
You're right.
Well, now let's talk about reunification, other than by military conquest.
There's been a push over the years on the part of the government of the South to open up what they call the Sunshine Policy and open up railroad lines between the North and the South, let families visit, that kind of thing.
Are the Americans the biggest obstacle to the continuation of this policy at this point?
Well, yeah, the Bush administration has always voiced its concerns about this policy.
Which are what?
Well, really, the policy, I guess just, you know, we need an enemy, perhaps.
In North Korea, I mean, it's always good to, you know, show the scary pictures on TV of these North Korean troops goose-stepping and, you know, picturing them marching all over the United States or whatever, which is just ridiculous.
But in reality, the Sunshine Policy is actually designed to postpone reunification.
How so?
Well, in South Korea, I mean, the one thing that everybody agrees on, whether left, right or center, is that Korea has to be unified.
And North Korea, you know, they have the same propaganda, it's all about reunification of the two countries.
But South Korea right now realizes that if they were to unify, their economy would be just in shambles.
I mean, when the Germany is unified, the West had a GDP of about three times that of the East.
You know, here the difference is at least 20, and South Korea has an economy 40 times as large as the North.
So absorbing North Korea would just be pretty much a disaster for the South Korean economy.
So they also have an interest in kind of maintaining the status quo and working on a slow reunification process, probably starting off with confederation, which would really keep the two systems in one country, kind of like what China and Hong Kong have.
It'll take time.
I mean, North Korea has been so isolated and such a basket case that it's going to take a long time for any kind of reunification to happen.
Well, it seems like from the American government's point of view, they wouldn't want a Korea united with South Korea's economy and North Korea's nuclear weapons.
That's a whole new power in the region to have to deal with, then.
Right.
Right.
So it doesn't sound like anybody wants it.
The North has nuclear weapons.
They exploded a sub-kiloton device, I think in 2006, and it still has not been confirmed whether or not that was a nuclear weapon or just a big dud or a hoax with tons of dynamite or whatever.
Well, I thought they had detected plutonium traces, which sort of put the lie to the Bush administration's accusations that they were making weapons out of a secret uranium enrichment program, which was an excuse for breaking the deal in the first place and an accusation that they're still making, really.
But yeah, I guess my impression was it sort of half fizzled out, that it was a nuke, but it only kind of half worked or something along those lines.
Right.
Yeah.
There's really doubts about them having the technology to really pose a threat to not even the United States, but even to South Korea, really.
And I've been here through a lot of these crises and when the tension ratchets up.
And the South Koreans really are not that worried.
They don't fear an invasion.
My mother was calling me from home, come back home, it's dangerous over there.
And the mood here was like, oh, that's just North Korea talking again.
The best policy is not to listen.
Interesting.
Now you talk also about another excuse for keeping American forces there is to contain China.
Right.
Is that necessary, that America needs to contain China?
And if we do, do we need to occupy South Korea in order to do so?
Exactly.
And no, we don't really need to contain China.
China is completely contained.
In the north we have Russia, to the east you have Korea and Japan, two huge countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, India with its more than a billion people and then the Central Asian Islamic countries.
So China really is pretty much geographically contained.
And also they, what a lot of people don't talk about is we hear a lot of fear about this Chinese century coming on.
And with China's one child policy, where people can only have one child, there's a huge demographic time bomb just waiting to go off in China where they'll have such a large number of elderly people and not enough of a workforce that's young that it will be a huge drain on their economy.
So they're also contained in that way.
So I wouldn't worry about China that much.
But I do think that that is the justification, one of the large justifications for having us here.
And it's been said that there's talk in the works for a kind of pan-Asian security union that would include the U.S. of course, kind of like NATO, the U.S. would be involved in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia and New Zealand.
And of course this kind of talk is just pushing China and Russia closer together, making the world more unstable.
Well, that's a good point.
Nobody ever seems to focus on that.
But when you declare global hegemony and you attempt to corner everybody who's not already owned by you, all you do is guarantee that you won't have global hegemony.
We see even the Europeans getting closer to China and Russia.
Exactly.
And it's just a complete mess of a situation.
And back in 2006, this was very quietly changed, but the United States and South Korea agreed that the U.S. forces in Korea would have what is called strategic flexibility, meaning that they could, at their own will, operate outside of Korea in any kind of regional or, you know, for example, a dispute between China and Taiwan, you know, the U.S. troops could just zip over from Korea and get involved in that.
Oh, without asking specific permission, you mean?
Right.
Exactly.
I didn't even know about that.
And then you say that was changed, though?
No, that began in 2006.
That would not have been possible.
So like, this is sort of when they talk about, you know, well, for example, when America bombed Libya and what, France denied us airspace, that kind of thing.
Exactly.
But this is like a carte blanche, a blanket permission that you can launch attacks on other nations from our nation.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Huh.
Wow.
So maybe it's not so much about protecting Seoul from North Korean tank divisions, huh?
That's my take on it.
Yeah.
Yesterday, when Bruce Gagnon was on, he was talking about this sort of neocon, new world order where, you know, the United States would be what I think he used the term security exporter in this new global order.
Right.
Right.
And each regional country would have its own place to play.
Maybe South Korea and Japan would be allowed to, you know, produce technological gadgets and other countries could produce sneakers or whatever.
And you know, our role, the American role would be, you know, just to provide security for this whole global operation.
And I really don't see how you could maintain a free society given such a situation.
Yeah.
Killing people.
The growth industry of the 21st century.
Exactly.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, that's a pretty lousy place to be.
Well, tell me about this.
When Don Rumsfeld back, I guess, in 2005, was talking about maybe we should get our troops out of South Korea.
Was he agreeing with you and me or was he just wanted them out of the way to make it easier to bomb North Korea without them being able to hit back at our guys?
Well, yeah, I think that that's a part of it.
And that's why, you know, we've moved.
We're in the process now.
The United States is moving its bases near the DMZ to a huge $10 billion complex south of Seoul in a city called Pyeongtaek.
And that's really caused a lot of trouble here in Korea as well.
A lot of farmland has been taken over.
You know, the South Korean government, eminent domain, has claimed this land for this American base.
And Korea is a country with not a lot of land.
So when a huge swath of agricultural land is taken over for a military base and people are moved out, it's a cause for a lot of protest.
And I think another thing was the former president was left-leaning, although he would not even talk about, you know, having the U.S. troops leave.
But he was being punished, I think, for his deviance from the doctrine of empire a bit.
Even as troops were reduced here, I mean, mainly they were just sent to Iraq.
You know, in 2004, 3,600 American troops were sent from South Korea to Iraq.
That counted for about 10 percent of the American forces in South Korea.
Just today I heard that a squadron of 20 Apache helicopters is being removed to go to Afghanistan.
So I think a lot of the reduction is actually just wear and tear on the empire.
And you know, it's wars in the Middle East, so we're having to shift the pieces around a bit.
Yeah, so it's nothing to do with a real change in policy at all.
No, not at all.
You mentioned the former president, that's Roe, R-O-H, right?
Yeah, Roe Moon Hunt.
Yeah, he's the guy who Gordon Prather wrote about, a joint press conference that he gave with Bush at the Asia-Pacific Summit in Australia.
And Bush talked about working out a nuclear deal with the North and working on a real end to the war, a real armistice to end the war.
And Roe, I don't know if deliberately or not, said, oh, gee, I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I got that translation right.
Did you just say, Mr. President, that you want to go ahead and end this war?
Exactly, yeah, that was a big moment here in Korea.
Oh, really?
What was the reaction to that?
How did that play out in the media there?
Well, I think Roe was actually very unpopular here in South Korea, largely due to his economic policies.
You know, his leftist economic policies really led to a lot of chaos here.
But that was one moment where he kind of boosted back a little bit.
I've been here, you know, since Bush took office.
I mean, I have never met one Korean who has anything positive to say about George W. Bush.
And so to see their president kind of stand up to this guy a bit was a bit of a moment of pride for Koreans, I think.
Yeah, and Bush's response, of course, was, no, they have to do everything we say first, then we'll negotiate with them, the same as everybody else.
Yeah.
Now, one other thing that you mentioned in one of your articles that puzzled me was that the dictator of the North, Kim Jong-il, has said that he wants reunification and that when Korea is unified, he wants the American troops to stay.
Right, that was said back in 2000, the year 2000, when South Korean President Kim Dae-jung went up to the North for the first summit, which it turns out was really kind of just a photo op that was about a $2 billion photo op that was paid for by the South to Kim Dae-jung and eventually won the Nobel Prize for that.
But anyway, yeah, that's what Kim Jong-il, the dear leader, said, that he sees a role for America here post reunification.
And you know, I think this just underscores the issue that Koreans see this alliance working very much in their economic benefit.
They can have their defense provided for, and they can focus on their economy.
You know, South Korea, or both Koreas, have always, you know, been somewhat unlucky geographically, stuck between China and Japan, and Russia on the North.
So I think, yeah, that's their idea.
They can have, you know, an American presence here, they can focus on their economy more.
Yeah, if you're the commies in the North, follow the South Korean model.
You have America pay for all your territorial protection, and then you can spend all your money propping up businesses within the country.
That's right.
You say in one of your articles for LewRockwell.com that actually the amount of mercantilism and, you know, corporate welfare, crony capitalism in South Korea would be enough to make the Halliburtons of the world blush.
Is that really right?
That's exactly right.
I mean...
It's just a fascist economy there, or what?
It basically is.
I mean, it's...
You know, I was looking at...
I don't want to get you kicked out of the country here, Joshua.
No, that's okay.
It's still relatively free here, but, you know, the amount of government involvement in the economy, especially back in the 60s and 70s, is just something that we could never imagine.
I mean, about 80 or 90 percent of the R&D budget came directly from the state, and now the companies are pretty much on their own, or have grown up enough.
They're still...
They're moving away from that, but it's still quite shocking to my eyes to see how directly involved the government is in the managing of the economy here.
And now, tell me about this, too.
The accusations, which, to the best of my knowledge, are completely false, regardless of the so-called, you know, new videotape that was put out and so forth, about the Syrians and the North Koreans working together on a nuclear weapons program, how's that being covered there in South Korea?
Is it...
I guess there are a few experts over on this side who are saying that the purpose of this is to try to screw up the deal with the North Koreans.
It's not so much about Syria.
It's about North Korea, and Rice and, I think it's Christopher Hill at the State Department, have made all this progress, and the war party's trying to screw it up.
Is that what they're saying over there?
That is what they're saying over here.
I think the big question is with the timing, and if this report, whether or not it's true or false, has been around for this amount of time, why is it being released right now at this time?
Right.
Israel bombed Syria last September 6th.
Right.
So that is, obviously, the big question.
Why now?
Well, it's perfect timing to screw up our negotiations with the DPRK, huh?
Exactly.
I mean, I get it when we're close to some kind of deal, this is being brought forth.
And also, there's the question of, is this aimed also at Iran, an ally of Syria or Syria itself?
There's really no telling where this is going to go.
Well, yeah, the Israelis are trying to work out a deal with the Syrians on the Golan Heights right now.
This could have to...
Aren't we like a bunch of Kremlinologists, you know what they're called?
We've got to figure out, like reading the tea leaves, what the hell our government is up to here, with the U.S. as the U.S.S.
R.
I'm sorry?
Yeah, I mean, you really have to put on your thinking cap to figure out what's going on.
You know, the New York Times today, Stephen Lee Myers, April 30th, 2008, Bush says Syria nuclear disclosure intended to prod, that's his term for it, North Korea and Iran.
So there's that, but one of the things in here that really caught my eye was the North Korean activities that Bush is concerned about include what administration officials assert are a still undisclosed program to enrich uranium and the sale of nuclear technology to countries like Syria.
So we have the bogus Syria thing here, but we also have this accusation that's been floating around since 2002, that the North Koreans have a secret program to enrich uranium with equipment that they got from the Pakistani AQ Khan nuclear black market network.
And still to this day, I think in other places, the New York Times has admitted there's still not a shred of evidence for this.
This is the excuse that Bush used to break the agreed framework in 2002.
And still, this is our excuse for not sealing the deal with them in 2008, is they must be keeping it secret because otherwise we could prove it exists.
Exactly.
Incredible.
Yeah.
I don't know how they get away with it, but I guess if it's just the New York Times serving as our watchdog, then we can't really expect too much better.
Right.
I mean, if the only people who are investigating this are blogs and small, non-mainstream outfits, what else can we do?
Yeah.
The other thing I wanted to touch on here that you bring up in one of your articles is, and I guess you brought this up a little bit with the growth of prostitution in South Korea, a very conservative society that really looks down on that kind of thing.
American soldiers make for pretty bad ambassadors, I would think.
If you take the average country in the world where they've never met an American and the first one they meet is a 19-year-old with an M-16, they talk about, you know, the ugly American tourist, but what about the ugly American soldier in somebody else's country?
What does this do for long-term perception around the world of what America's about?
That's right.
I would not want to be a Korean taxi driver because just recently there's been, in Japan as well, just a series of attacks by American servicemen on taxi drivers.
You know, like three or four guys will get into a taxi late at night and they're drunk and who knows what'll happen, and suddenly they're just beating the guy outside of his car and kicking his windows in and things like this.
Yeah, just the image that it creates for Americans is very bad, and when I first got here, you know, as an American, I felt, you know, I had to defend or explain the actions of these people, but then over the years I just realized, wait a minute, they're not doing this in my name.
You know, I can stand up for a longer American tradition of non-interventionism and abstain foreign policy.
Yeah, it's good to see your voice in the Seoul Times there, promoting the Ron Paul foreign policy of disengagement.
How did that go over?
Well, Ron Paul, you know, the Korean media doesn't really touch much on international issues too deeply.
Most of the Korean media just focuses on its economy and what's going on, so Ron Paul never really made it into any of the big papers here.
You know, it's all been focusing on Hillary and Barack and McCain.
So I did my part, but didn't catch on, I'm afraid.
Yeah, well, I guess it's sort of like people who go to prison for a long time, they end up just wanting to go back because they're so institutionalized.
That's really how it is now.
They're just used to having the Americans there and all the economic entanglements and everything else.
Nobody really wants to change.
That's right.
That's right.
It'll be a long time before change comes.
I think we'll have to institute it back home and I really hope, you know, more people get involved in this issue back home of really questioning why are we in South Korea?
Why are we in Japan?
Why are we in Germany?
You know, look at these, just taking these three countries as examples.
Their economies are all relatively prospering.
Japan's been in a recession for a while, but over the years we've seen tremendous growth after World War II for these three countries that were completely devastated.
And you know, what's happened to the United States?
I mean, just the opposite.
We're thinking as we're spending on the empire overseas.
Yeah, as Garrett Garrett said, everything goes out and nothing comes back.
Exactly.
That's the American empire.
All right.
Well, I really appreciate your time today.
This has been great.
I know virtually nothing about South Korea other than from what I've seen on Google Maps or, I mean, Google Earth, which is that everybody's got a blue tile roof.
Other than that, I don't really know anything about the place.
So I really appreciate you coming on the show to share your insight with us.
You're welcome.
And anytime you're in this neighborhood, look me up.
Oh, I certainly will.
Everybody, that's Joshua Snyder.
He's an American living and teaching college in Pohang, South Korea.
You can read what he writes at LewRockwell.com.
This is Anti-War Radio, and we'll be right back.
