South Korea, Not So Stable

Like most Americans I guess I’ve more or less assumed that South Korea is a pretty stable political entity—despite the presence of another Korea to its immediate north. Events of last week suggest that South Korea is no more stable than, well, the UK, France, or Germany. Arnaud Bertrand has always struck me as a pretty reliable source, careful about his own sources. So get a load of this:

The Blue Roof @BluRoofPolitics

National Assembly's Defense Committee met to question the generals who participated in Yoon Suk-yeol's self coup attempt, which is revealing some truly shocking stuff. Thread:

9:10 AM · Dec 10, 2024

To arrest key liberal leaders including Lee Jae-myung, the military dispatched the HID unit, the special forces whose main task is to assassinate major North Korean leaders in case of a war. They are normally near the DMZ, but were just outside of Seoul on Dec 3.

The HID unit were not dressed in the ROK military uniform. Instead, they were given a false North Korean uniform. The plan was to have the HID unit either assassinate Lee and others, and if that failed, have the "rescuing" South Korean soldiers to kill both Lee and the HID unit.

The Defense Minister's original plan was to provoke an attack from North Korea, then use that as an excuse to declare martial law. To that end, South Korean military flew several drones over the Pyongyang sky, spraying propaganda fliers. North Korea did not attack, however.

The drone incursion happened in early October. Dem lawmakers say the South Korean military collected the drones that were not shot down, and burned them down to destroy evidence.

Yoon Suk-yeol directly commanded the military at the scene of the National Assembly to arrest the lawmakers. The president personally called Cdr. Gwak Jong-geun and told him: "They don't have quorum yet. Get in there and drag them all out."

During the coup, helicopters carrying special forces headed to the Assembly were held up at the capital no-fly zone, because the Air Force was not aware of the coup plan. In the end, the Air Force never approved the flight; the Army forged the approval order.

Initial preparation for the coup began as far back as July 2023, as the military compiled the reference materials for operations under a martial law situation and produced a manual around that time.

So Arnaud comments:

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

Absolutely batshit crazy. This is from the audition of the generals who participated in President Yoon's failed coup attempt in Korea. They reveal that "the Defense Minister's original plan was to provoke an attack from North Korea, then use that as an excuse to declare martial law. To that end, South Korean military flew several drones over the Pyongyang sky, spraying propaganda fliers."

This didn't work out because simply because North Korea did not attack.

9:39 AM · Dec 10, 2024

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

Many questions also need to be asked about the US involvement in all this. This was planned during months, and given the extremely tight relationship between the US armed forces and the South Koreans' (and the US's well documented habit of spying on their "allies"), it'd be quite hard to believe the US didn't know about this...

9:57 AM · Dec 10, 2024

I’m frankly gobsmacked. I think that’s the right word?

Now, regarding the instability of other vassal entities …

unusual_whales @unusual_whales

BREAKING: The Bank of England will hide the identities of any pension funds, insurers or hedge funds bailed out under a new financial stability tool to prevent a wider crisis engulfing the economy, per Bloomberg.

3:41 PM · Dec 9, 2024

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

Britain is an utterly broken society run by a civil service that is corrupted at the deepest level - not even about money, its just raw arrogance - and a political class that have basically no clue what is going on. It’s pretty sad. 

4:27 PM · Dec 9, 2024

The “adults in the room” around @Keir_Starmer turned out to be the most cynical grifters on the planet. If you’re an utterly incompetent fund manager just move to this joke country and they’ll bail you out - until they run the value of their fake money into the ground.

Right, because whose business is it who gets bailed out?

Looks like it’s time rewatch the whole Yes, Minister/PM series for the umpteenth time. Those were innocent days, when we could laugh at this.

Then there’s this:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT