South Koreans debate need for U.S. presence

[unhappycamper]

South Koreans debate need for U.S. presence
By Ashley Rowland, and Hwang Hae-rym, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, April 19, 2008

SEOUL — As they chatted over pricey cups of coffee on the top floor of Seoul’s ritzy Shinsagae department store, Kim Eun-jun and her girlfriends were barely two miles from the largest U.S. military base in South Korea, but they were a world away.

All in their mid- to late-30s, the women said they rarely think about the thousands of U.S. troops stationed at the base in the heart of the city.

“We aren’t the generation that went through the war,” said Kim, a 35-year-old translator. “That may be the reason we don’t care or worry about national defense issues.”

For more than six decades, the U.S. military has been a fixture in South Korea — after the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, during the Korean War, and as a deterrent against an attack from North Korea since then. Now South Korean’s new president is meeting with President Bush in the United States and he may ask that the U.S. pause its downsizing in South Korea.

South Koreans’ opinions about the U.S. troop presence range from gratitude to indifference and, sometimes, resentment over what they see as arrogant behavior.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54143

[izquierdista]

1. And the pro argument would be?

:shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: :shrug: