Kneeling on a neck

George Floyd said "I can't breathe" but Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin continued to press his knee on Floyd's neck.  For more than 7 minutes.  That was Monday.

It is now Friday.  Omar Jimenez, a CNN reporter and his crew were arrested for doing his job.  Buildings are ablaze.  Protests are spreading to other cities.  Donald Trump tweets that looting will lead to shooting.

....These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020

Twitter applied a label to this tweet.

This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Learn more

After that Twitter label was applied to Trump's tweet, the official White House account doubled-down on the notion that it is okay to shoot looters.

The President did not glorify violence. He clearly condemned it.@Jack and Twitter's biased, bad-faith "fact-checkers" have made it clear: Twitter is a publisher, not a platform. https://t.co/lTm3Pxxaqg

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 29, 2020

* * *

Watching this unfold on CNN, it is easy to miss the fact that this is not new.  Police officers, mostly white officers have been killing people of color under color of authority for decades.  The only thing that has really changed during this is the speed at which events are brought into our homes by technological advances.

We know a lot of names now.

George Floyd
Eric Garner
Tamir Rice
Trayvon Martin
Philando Castile
Alton Sterling

There are many more names that are familiar to us.  But there are also names we don't know, yet they are part of a pattern that has been going on for a very long time in America.

Robert Bandy was shot by a white cop in 1943 because he had the temerity to hesitate in handing the cop's baton back to him.  After the cop had thrown the baton at Bandy. This led to the 1943 Harlem Riots.

James Powell was 15 years old when he was shot and killed by an off-duty police lieutenant in Yorkville (upper East Side of Manhattan) for no good reason.  This was the primary cause of the Harlem Riot of 1964.

Phillip Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed on May 15, 1970 at Jackson State College.  Now known as Jackson State University, it is one of the largest Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the U.S.  They were killed by police wielding shotguns.  This happened 11 days after the Kent State shooting.  Kent State is famous because the dead were white students.

Arthur McDuffie was a black insurance salesman who was beaten to death in December of 1979 in Miami, FL.  The cops tried to cover up their crime.  When they were acquitted at trial in May of 1980, the Liberty City riot that followed that injustice caused the deaths of 18 people.

Clement Lloyd was another unarmed black man killed by Miami cops, in 1989.  This led to the Overtown riot.  The cop was ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Tyron Lewis was shot and killed by cops in St. Petersburg, FL in 1996.  He was 18 years of age and unarmed.

Oscar Grant III was shot by a BART cop in Oakland on New Year's Day 2009.  He was 22 years old an was being held down by one cop as another murdered him.  At least in this instance, the cop was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

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Non-violent protest isn't bringing about change.  I write that not to advocate or support violence.  I write it to point out taking a knee has lead to nothing but a knee being used to kill yet another unarmed black man.  I write this because I can see how the frustration of these events being repeated time again without action being taken drives people to act.

What is the solution?  It is easy to say we must reduce income inequality, increase opportunity, apply resources into the economically disadvantaged segments of the population and so on.  Ideas that are easy to espouse and difficult to put into effect.

Let's examine how to make progress in these areas in the days to come.

I am not...

Every time someone does something and then denies that they are the kind of person who would do that, I think of one of our former presidents.

In point of fact, President Richard Milhous Nixon was indeed a crook.  Just ask the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote this in his 'eulogy' of Nixon.

"If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning."

Now we have Amy Cooper.  She is the woman captured in this video:

Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm

— Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020

According to CNN, Ms Cooper is apologizing this morning for her actions yesterday.

"I'm not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,"
Really?  Then why did you threaten to call the police and claim an African-American man was threatening you?  Why mention his race if you are not a racist?  Is "I'm being threatened by a man" not enough?  Do you believe that identifying your alleged attacker as African-American will add urgency to your false plea for help?  Of course you did.

Here's a thought.  Put your dog on the leash.  If you want the dog to be able to run, get a longer leash.  Get an expandable/retractable leash.  Or just follow the rules.  Don't whine that the dog run was closed.

How about not filing a false police report?  That man was no threat to you.  Except perhaps as a threat to expose your racism.  You can whine about how your "entire life is being destroyed" but the destruction is of your own making.  You set off the charges that brought your existence crumbling to the ground when you leveled false charges at a man who did nothing more than ask you to follow the rules.

Perhaps Ms Cooper can find some hope and solace in the story of Adam Smith.  Name not familiar?  Perhaps this will help.

The day after Mr. Smith posted that video, his employer fired him from his position as CFO of a medical supply company.  Three years later, he and his family (wife and 4 kids) were living in a trailer and surviving on food stamps.  But his LinkedIn profile shows that he started work at a company in 2019.  Maybe his life is on the upswing again.  Maybe that will happen for Ms Cooper.

But she owes the people she hurt by her actions, and that is a much larger group than just Christian Cooper, the man she tried to harm with a false police report; a lot more than her half-assed apology of this morning.  She needs to acknowledge, rather than deny her racism.  Will that happen?  Time will tell.

Honoring Our Fallen

I am proud to be a veteran.  Today is not for me.  It is not for all veterans.  The day our nation honors all of its veterans is Veterans Day, in November.

It is not for my friend, SFC Roberto Cisneros who is currently stationed in South Korea.  The day our nation honors our active duty military members is Armed Forces Day, which we celebrated earlier this month.

Today is for our honored dead.  Today is for those who died while serving on active duty.

Today is to honor William Pitsenbarger, an Air Force pararescueman who gave his life to save many others on April 11, 1966 in Vietnam.  It is also to honor another Air Force enlisted man, Keigan Barker.  He was a Special Tactics Combat Controller who died during a training swim that was part of an Air Force Combat Dive Course.

Today we honor Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, who volunteered to be inserted onto the ground at the site where Super Six-Four, a Blackhawk helicopter had crashed during the Battle of Mogadishu.  Both men were killed.  It is also for Marine Corps Lt Col Geoff Hollopeter, who died in April.  He suffered cardiac arrest following a short illness, after having finished his tour as a battalion commander.

Today we honor the 31 Americans whose names are carved into the base of the Berlin Airlift Memorial.  They all died during the operation that airlifted supplies into the American, British and French zones of Berlin after the Russians blockaded the city.

Today is for our fallen heroes.

Just a Common Soldier (A Soldier Died Today) by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

The 40th anniversary of a relatively unknown massacre - Part 3

There are between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers in an infantry division.  On May 26, 1980 there were reportedly five divisions of troops about to enter Gwangju and re-take the city from the demonstrators who had seized it.  The following day it took less than three hours for the military to take control of the city.

The question is, what did the U.S. government know about the events in Gwangju after the uprising began on May 18, 1980?

Tim Shorrock obtained previously classified documents that proved the Carter Administration knew of South Korean contingency plans to use military forces against pro-democracy demonstrators BEFORE the Gwangju uprising.

The previously mentioned Richard Holbrooke, then the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Carter Administration was very involved in the U.S. handling of the crisis in South Korea.  He was in the White House Situation Room on May 22, 1980 when a meeting was held concerning the Gwangju Uprising.  Mr. Shorrock was able to obtain a previously classified summary of that meeting.  "...the first priority is the restoration of order in Kwangju by the Korean authorities with the minimum use of force..."

That brings us back to the size of an infantry division.  Imagine trying to move two divisions, 30,000 soldiers from the DMZ to Gwangju.  That is a distance of nearly 200 miles.  How many vehicles does it take to move 30,000 men?  A lot.  So how is it that General Wickham and his staff could not know that this movement was taking place.  It would not go unnoticed by U.S. military personnel in the EMZ.  EMZ is a bit of a joke.  While the official DMZ is in fact demilitarized, the area south of the DMZ is one of the most heavily militarized areas in the world.  Hence the term "Extremely Militarized Zone."

The rebellion was put down but it damaged the Chun Doo-hwan regime.  In 1996, Chun was tried and convicted of Leading an Insurrection, Conspiracy to Commit Insurrection, Taking Part in an Insurrection, Illegal Troop Movement Orders, Dereliction of Duty During Martial Law, Murder of Superior Officers, Attempted Murder of Superior Officers, Murder of Subordinate Troops, Leading a Rebellion, Conspiracy to Commit Rebellion, Taking Part in a Rebellion, Murder for the Purpose of Rebellion and sentenced to death.  But the death sentence was commuted by then-President Kim Young-sam at the urging of Kim Dae-jung.  The same Kim Dae-jung who had been imprisoned as a dissident by Chun.  Oh yes, at the time, Kim Dae-jung was President-elect.  

The Gwangju Uprising didn't have an iconic image to make it well-known.  I like this particular image today.  It is the 5-18 Memorial Park in Gwangju.

The 40th anniversary of a relatively unknown massacre - Part 2

To gain proper understanding of the U.S. role in the massacre known today as the Gwangju Uprising, we have to understand the command structure of U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK - official name of South Korea) military forces.

The United Nations Command was formed in 1950 following North Korea's invasion of South Korea.  It remained the operational command structure for U.S. and ROK forces in South Korea until November of 1978.  At that time a new structure was formed.  The Combined Forces Command was stood up and since the day it was formed, a U.S. Army general has been its commander.

Does this mean that the military forces of South Korea are commanded by a U.S. general?  That would be the case if hostilities broke out on the Korean peninsula.  During peacetime, the two nation's militaries are supposed to be under their own operational control.

General Burwell B. Bell was the CFC/8th US Army commander from February of 2006 through June of 2008.  In 2012 he delivered a presentation at the Fourth Korea Foundation Global Seminar titled "The Evolution of Combined Forces Command."  In this presentation he said the following:

"So to reiterate, in 1978 two key defense commands were present in the ROK; The United Nations Command, focused on the Armistice Agreement, and the Combined Forces Command focused on preparing to defend South Korea should the north attack. Both were and are led by the same dual-hatted U.S. four star general. All South Korean and American Forces in South Korea were then, that is in 1978, placed under both the peacetime and potential wartime operational command and control of CFC, and, as such, the U.S. Commander. Because of this, South Korea's readiness to fight was ultimately the responsibility of the American Commander."

General John A. Wickham, Jr., was the CFC commander from July 1979 through June 1982.  He addresses this issue in regard to the Gwangju Uprising in his book Korea On The Brink: A Memoir of Political Intrigue and Military Crisis.

Pay attention to the fact that Richard Holbrooke wrote the foreword to this tome.

We know that the Chun regime sent military forces that were part of the Combined Forces Command to deal with the rioting in Gwangju.  This is what General Wickham wrote about that move in his book:

"We did know, however, that the ROK 20th and 30th Infantry Divisions, both of which had special training for riot control duty, were being withdrawn by Defense Minister Chu from CFC operational control. My permission to withdraw these units was neither sought nor required under the terms of the CFC agreement. Rhu told me that some units from the 20th Division were being dispatched patched by ROK authorities to the Kwangju area, but that the 20th Division's sion's troops had not yet been involved in suppressing the riots."

Tim Shorrock is a journalist who has written extensively and brilliantly on the Gwangju Uprising.  He wrote the following:

"Inside Gwangju itself, my stories had an electrifying effect. For years, its people had known that President Carter had agreed to release forces under the US-Korean joint command to put down their uprising. But until I obtained documents showing that Carter’s envoy in South Korea, William Gleysteen, had given advance approval to his plans to use military force against the students and workers swarming the streets in the spring of 1980, they had no idea of the depth of US complicity. The cables are now famously known in South Korea as the “Cherokee Documents” after the secret code name they were given at the time."

This is one of those cables.  Mr. Shorrock describes it as Mr. Gleysteen letting the South Korean government know that the U.S. "understood the need to maintain law and order and would not obstruct development of military contingency plans against the massive but peaceful demonstrations."

Tomorrow, we'll delve more deeply into what the U.S. knew, when it knew it, and what role it played in allowing the "Black Berets" to take part in crushing the uprising.

The 40th anniversary of a relatively unknown massacre

Some of the events in our planet's history are indelibly etched in our minds because of an image or images.

That is from April 30, 1975.  This is a photo of Vietnamese refugees being evacuated from Saigon as the city fell to what was then known as North Vietnam.  The building is often misidentified as the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.  In fact, it was the roof of an apartment complex that housed personnel from the United States Agency for International Development.

We all remember this one.  One student, never identified, stops a column of tanks advancing on protesters in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests there.

But this photo won't jog your memory.  It is from May of 1980.  It shows South Korean soldiers beating a protester in the city of Gwangju (we knew it as Kwang-Ju when I was stationed there in 1984/85).

To fully understand what transpired, it is necessary to go back to the time a few months before the Gwangju Uprising.  On 10/26/1979, South Korea's President Park Chung-hee was assassinated by the Director of the KCIA.  Less than two months later, a Korean major-general named Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a coup.  On May 17, 1980, President Chun expanded martial-law to the entire nation. The protests in Gwangju began on May 18, 1980 and the uprising lasted through May 27, 1980.  Just prior to this, the government arrested and imprisoned 26 dissident politicians.  Among them was Kim Dae-Jung, who would go on to a major role many years later.

Chonnam National University in Gwangju was where the uprising began.  Students gathered at its gates to protest the closing of the university by the government  (Reporter's note:  In March of 1985 I was present outside that university's gates when I saw riot police using tear gas to break up a peaceful demonstration.  My friend and I were gassed when we got too close, trying to take pictures.  My photos of the demonstration and the riot police breaking it up disappeared from the photo lab in the small village outside the gates of the U.S. Air Force Base where I was stationed.  When I asked the owner of the lab what had happened to some of my photos and negatives he just shrugged).

By May 21st the demonstrators had seized control of the large city and the military/police forces had withdrawn, setting up a blockade around the city.  May 26th found the military ready to retake the city, reinforced by military forces that had been withdrawn from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the border between North Korea and South Korea.

Those forces entered Gwangju on May 27th and soon after had control of the city.  How many died?  An "official" report from the Chun government placed the death toll at 170.  144 demonstrators, 22 troops and 4 police officers.  It should be noted that there are reports that soldiers killed police officers for having the temerity to release demonstrators.

The death toll is probably much higher.  Based on average death numbers there were over 2,000 more deaths in Gwangju during this time than was usual.  I've talked to survivors who said that hundreds and hundreds were killed.  Most estimates place the actual number of dead somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000.

Why is this event relatively unknown?  Tomorrow we will examine that question and whether or not the U.S. was involved in the decision to crush this rebellion, even though it began with the killing of unarmed demonstrators.