Korea: March 17, 2003

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The anti-American demonstrations once so common in South Korea have disappeared and that U.S. soldiers can now walk the streets of Seoul again without looking over their shoulders. While the radical fringe continues to paint the Americans as the root of all evil, the mainstream South Korean public was sobered by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's recent remarks that U.S. troops may be cut and repositioned. Combined with North Korea's saber-rattling, those in the South still want the American troops to go away - but not just yet. One can only think of the lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem, "Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.. ." - Adam Geibel