U.S.-S.Korea Agree to Pull U.S. Troops Out of Seoul

[salin]

U.S.-S.Korea Agree to Pull U.S. Troops Out of Seoul

Jan. 17 — SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea and the United States have agreed to pull out all American troops from Seoul as part of a global realignment plan of the U.S. forces, South Korea's defense ministry said Saturday.

The decision to move U.S. troops south, away from the border with North Korea, was taken on a request by Washington and after a meeting between the two sides in Hawaii, a ministry spokesman said.

The U.S. military presence in the center of the South Korean capital over the past 50 years has been a constant source of anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea.

more: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040117_65.html

[raifield]

1. Agreement of Nescessity?

Thanks, we'll be taking these guys out of your way now...we need them a little due west.

[brainshrub]

2. The troops are being re-aligned to deal with the shortages in Iraq.

But it's good that we are withdrawing from S. Korea. At this point, they are perfect capable of defending themselves from any attacks from N. Korea.

[bahrbearian]

3. Away from ground zero, we're getting ready to attack.

[teryang]

4. Iraq war weakening conservative commitments

I agree that this change was long overdue. The commitment to Iraq has weakened the American posture in Northeast Asia. Obviously, our current regime sees Japan as picking up some of the slack. As our military posture in Korea weakens, the independence of the S.Korean foreign policy will increase. Divergence between the former allies regarding N.Korea will increase. Korean Japanese differences will become more public. The American presence is to mitigate those differences as well as provide the old cold war security umbrella. There was a northeast asian policy before the cold war, now if our current administration could just remember what it was.

Violent S. Korean opposition to American presence has never had any effect before. These changes are the result of the weakening of American national security posture as a result of the Iraq occupation.