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1. #1
   On July 28th, 2007 at 11:15 am, Ron Rockstar said:

   Sending a presidential envoy?? Hey, Roh Moo-hyun, how about sending soldiers! That is the only thing the Taliban understand.

2. #2
   On July 28th, 2007 at 11:49 am, Pat said:

   The bastards killed him just so they could up the ante for the inevitable payoff from South Korea.

3. #3
   On July 28th, 2007 at 12:02 pm, ajmontana said:

   “Mourning, watching, waiting, praying.”
   You’re caption sums it up.

   Adding, These cold blooded, ignorant, cowardly killers must be caught.

4. #4
   On July 28th, 2007 at 12:18 pm, changjin89 said:

   Saturday morning greetings Mrs. Malkin and loyal community. Many thanks to you for your dogged attention to the continuing plight of the kidnapped Korean missionaries. With respect to the mission of envoy Baek, it seems that on the surface he would have little influence with President Karzai in meeting the demands of the kidnappers; Korea’s military contingent of 150 engineers and 60 medical personnel is already scheduled to leave by the end of the year. However, if the policy of the Roh Moo-hyun Administration towards the Kim family regime that holds northern Korea in its thrall is a guide, then perhaps envoy Baek will offer ransom to the kidnappers. If the Roh Administration wants to get President Karzai to release Taliban prisoners, perhaps money also will be offered to the Afghan government. To date there is nothing in the track record of the Roh Administration that would suggest that the Taliban bandits will suffer military consequences at the hands of the Korean armed forces for their capital misdeeds.

5. #5
   On July 28th, 2007 at 12:22 pm, josetheguerilla said:

   Then need to send the ROK Marines in there to slice’em and dice’em! Don’t submit to those bastards!!!!!!!!

6. #6
   On July 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm, puhiawa said:

   These young men and women were on a charitable medical mission. The evil of Islam is limitless.

7. #7
   On July 28th, 2007 at 1:15 pm, PBoilermaker said:

   #4 is correct. The Korean military contingent in Afghanistan was never intended to put warheads on foreheads. Why would they start fighting now?

   It sounds like the Taliban animals will get their way.

8. #8
   On July 28th, 2007 at 1:27 pm, dedalus said:

   …another reason (as though one were needed) why we should have sealed off and annihilated the Taliban and Queda holdouts in Tora Bora.

9. #9
   On July 28th, 2007 at 3:25 pm, jamesgreenidge said:

   On July 28th, 2007 at 1:27 pm, dedalus said:
   …another reason (as though one were needed) why we should have sealed off and annihilated the Taliban and Queda holdouts in Tora Bora.

   It’s very important to remember something (taken from members of the 1st Battalion, 258th Field Artillery Regiment Nat Guard in Jamaica Queens — who really feel for the circumstances of women over there ) that there is _nothing_ the grunts on the ground would love better than “just surround and annilate” enemy combatants. What looks like a common sense “quick n’ easy wrap up” move to the media and other parties is routinely considered weeks before by the guys on the ground. If they’re unable to effect such a seemingly simple operation it’s not because the idea never occurred to them or they weren’t motivated but local and political factors hamstring such a response. You’re trying to wage a “humanitarian war” campaign with minimal civilian casualties uppermost in your mind, one, and two, you must regard the religious and tribal sensitivities of the locals to keep them on your side, with all the pitfalls inherent there. It’s the damnedest of battles because your objective is not to reduce a countryside into a parking lot. The enemy knows this well and exploits it to the hilt. We couldn’t have won WWII that way. That said, ironically South Korea has the advantage, due their low profile and numbers in Afghanistan, of being able to effect a one shot dead-drop strike on the Taliban as daring as the Entebbe Raid with minimal retaliation consequences over there. I don’t think they’d receive much condemnation for violently taking out a few Taliban strongholds and doing a few nasty covert things to teach the Taliban a lesson. I vaguely recall — someone help me here — in the ’70’s when a Russian envoy or diplomat or such was kidnapped and murdered by Iranians and after the KGB kidnapped one of their leaders and sent him back home in pieces in a gift box the kidnappings stopped. You sadly have to be that brutal dealing with people who don’t share your mode of thinking.

   James Greenidge
   Queens New York

10. #10
    On July 28th, 2007 at 5:04 pm, changjin89 said:

    John Masters (1914 – 1983) wrote a book “Bugles and a Tiger”, set mostly in Waziristan near the Afghan eastern border in the 1930s while he was an officer of the 4th Gurkha Rifles. In it (pp 188 – 190) he gave several examples of the uncanny, indeed brutal methods of one fellow Indian Army officer in fighting Waziri tribesmen, a good many of whom with some of their fellow Pathans in Afghanistan today comprise the manpower of the Taliban. In reflection, Masters decided that these incidents “made it clear why the major was so brilliantly successful in his tactics. Under his skin he was a Pathan. His instincts made him do, in any circumstances, just what a Pathan would do.”

    In playing an important role in the recapture of Seoul from the Inmingun in September 1950, the ROK Marine Corps were famously not gentle. In their duties in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they inspired the North Vietnam Army formations in their area of operations to avoid contact with them whenever possible. Even today, they maintain a training camp near Pohang that is famously resorted to by employers seeking to motivate staff and parents seeking to give new perspective to adolescent children. The ROK Marine Corps would like to acquire their own aviation assets but in fact are facing severe reductions in force according to plans drawn up by the Roh Moo-hyun Administration.

    Obviously, if the ROK Marine Corps could rescue safely Korean citizens and severely chastise their captors, the place of the Corps in the hearts of their countrymen could be set for the next one hundred years. While it is hopeful to imagine that the last week has been used to bring in various appropriate assets of the ROK armed forces and get them quietly into place to allow such a strike, given the mentality of the Roh Administration that remains in power for the rest of this year, such a bold scenario seems very unlikely.

11. #11
    On July 28th, 2007 at 11:11 pm, Perk said:

    It is terribble, very sad that these ‘missionaries’ were taken and are being held. It also should be recognized that they were told not to visit, that the Afghani govt would not take responsibility for them or protect them, and they entered Afghanistan without permission. Hopefully there will be a time when missionaries can enter the country without issues, but now is obviously not the time.
    We are expending enourmous resources on these people, when there may be other priorities, because they placed themselves in harms way.
    I want them saved. I am sympathetic to their cause, even though I am familiar with Korean ‘Christian’ evangelistic churches (very different from what we in the west expect, or understand as Christian). I do not however, believe that we can ignore the fact that they were warned not to go. That they then snuck into the country, and that kidnapping is an accepted way of making money for groups in that area.
    It is amazing how the MSM is ignoring the issue, but when it is exposed, all the facts should be extant.

12. #12
    On July 29th, 2007 at 1:57 am, NeoConNews said:

    I can’t add much to all the thought and expertise poured into the comments above, beyond praying for the lives of those held hostage, and hope that those who have taken them will get what they deserve soon.

13. #13
    On July 29th, 2007 at 6:09 pm, Laree said:

    #10 Not to mention that going into caves during the Korean War, give them the ROK some experience, with the terrain and that kind of warfare. I too would hope “they” would be quietly inserted, they fight on their own terms, there is a lesson for us. I don’t need to know they are there. The answer isn’t appeasement, you can’t appease people who want you dead.