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Former US gov't official: "If S.K. don't want us(USFK) here... then we can be out in a number of months"

For to get some good ammunition for the struggle against USFK we, sometimes, just should listen and use the stuff what we can get from the "enemy", like following.

Just yesterday I found it on the web site of the Daily NK magazine(of course certainly, Daily NK is complete reactionary, but how Lenin said: to fight the enemy we must study the enemy..^^).

Just check it out:

Chuck Downs is an U.S. author, independent consultant, and former Pentagon official who frequently appears on television news programs to discuss North Korea policy. He has held a number of important positions in government during his career, including Deputy Director for Regional Affairs and Congressional Relations in the Pentagon’s East Asia office and Assistant Director of the Office of Foreign Military Rights Affairs, where he was deeply involved in the planning and negotiation of key overseas basing agreements with foreign governments. He later served as Senior Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to the House Policy Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He retired from government service in 2000.(Daily NK,9.06)

He gave Daily NK an interview with some very interesting contents.

"Q: There have been some rumors among Korea bloggers that in October, after the next talks on the future of the alliance, that an accelerated downsizing or even a full U.S. withdrawal from Korea could be announced. Have you heard those rumors? Do you think there’s anything to them?

A: I wouldn’t call them rumors. For a long time, there have been discussions between both countries on troop deployments. South Korea has resisted a fast timetable of reductions, but Secretary Rumsfeld wants these things to happen on a faster timetable. That’s what he has always said. I think Rumsfeld and his people still want to proceed on that accelerated path. So this is not a new push by Rumsfeld. Perhaps the reductions have recently become even more desirable from the point of view of the Pentagon.

It’s clear that the SK government wants to give lip service to the alliance, but its point of view is at odds with the basic rationale for the alliance. You can’t have an alliance when one side tries to portray the other as an oppressive presence. When this develops, as it did in the Philippines, there is no alternative but to accelerate the reduction in the American presence. The government in South Korea is now limiting us in ways that reduce our capabilities and change our obligations in a legal sense. In such situations, the U.S. tends to respond extremely quickly. When the host government isn’t stridently calling for us to stay and address a common threat, it’s hard for us to justify continuing the troop presence.

No one ever thought we’d leave the Philippines, either, but our presence is always based on how the host country views our forces. If the host country starts doing things like changing the basic command structure, it’s a fundamental shift in the way the alliance works. You will hear the U.S. side say that it will move quickly to do what the host government wants. You can’t do something good for the host government that the host doesn’t recognize as a good thing. We are not the Soviets and this isn’t the Warsaw Pact. We are not a colonial power. If the host country doesn’t want us there, we won’t stay.

Now, I don’t think this means a pull-out from Korea completely, but if we hear the South Korean government say that we are there to work for our own interests, but not theirs, then we can be out in a number of months.

When you are in a foreign country, that country is in charge. We never stay in a foreign country against that country’s will — ever. The Korean pro-U.S. right thinks we should be pushing against the Roh government, for arrangements that favor the U.S. That’s all fine, but it doesn’t work that way. We do what the government in place wants done. It’s the task of the Pro-Americans in South Korea to get their government to promote a strong alliance and arrangements that favor one. We won’t do something against their government’s objectives..."

...and so on

The entire interview(of course there is a lot of b.. sh.. in it, but also some interesting stuff..) you can read here:

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk02500&num=1062