Friday, December 21, 2018

Denied from the Start: Human Rights at the Local Level in North Korea by Robert Collins


Let me say that anyone who will work in north Korea with the Korean people outside of Pyongyang must read this report.  If you are going to be inspecting nuclear sites or conducting remains recovery operations or conducting operations after conflict or after regime collapse you should read this report and take it with you when you deploy (but only if the Kim family regime is no longer in power - do not take it to north Korea under any circumstances while Kim Jong-un and the regime remain in power).   Every Special Operations soldier - SF, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations - should commit this to memory.  Every NGO and aid worker should commit this memory.  Anyone planning operations in the human domain in  north Korea should commit this to memory.  And anyone who wishes to help the Republic of Korea achieve unification ( A United Republic of Korea (UROK)) should read this report as it will provide insight and assistance on how to overcome the indoctrination and reintegrate the Korean people living in the north back into the real world.  I hope that the ROK Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Unification and the Korean Institute of National Unification will translate this into Korea so Korean soldiers and Korean NGOs can benefit from the tremendous research that went into writing this report. 

Below the summary are some excerpts of my remarks I provided at the National Press Club when Robert Collins' report was presented by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.  I will try to revise my remarks and write a review of the report.  But until then please know that I strongly recommend this report.

Summary:
Denied from the Start: Human Rights at the Local Level in North Korea is a comprehensive study of how North Korea’s Kim regime denies human rights for each and every citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In doing so, this report examines human rights denial policies and practices. Local institutions are responsible for this denial at the schools, housing units, workplaces, and beyond. To justify this political approach towards shaping North Korean society, the North’s Party-state specifically focuses on loyalty to North Korea’s Supreme Leader and the KWP by incorporating regime-centered ideology into every fabric of socio-political life through these local institutions.  

Along with his previous seminal works Marked for Life (Songbun) and Pyongyang Republic, this trilogy forms the basis for understanding the human domain in the north and for the necessary area studies that must be conducted by everyone engaged in NGO work in the north, those who might have to conduct military operations, the intelligence community that is charged with making sense of what is happening inside the north and negotiators who not only must consider the nuclear threats but also the human rights abuses as part of a holistic negotiations strategy.  I especially recommend this to journalists who need to understand what life is like and how human rights are denied in north Korea so that they can accurately write about the conditions and horrors that are commonly experienced by so many Koreans living in the north every single day of their lives.

The penultimate point I would like to make is that this report lays out all the human rights violations of the regime.  They are so numerous.  But one crime really stands out to me that is perhaps the most egregious of all.  The basic family unit and structure is what is most under attack by the Party-state.  The fact that the Korean people in the north, children and parents alike, cannot enjoy the wonders, the love, and the protection of family surely has to be a crime against humanity.  It saddens me that these words are in one of the most popular children’s songs:

Our Father is Marshal Kim Il-sung
Our home is the bosom of the party
We are one big family
We have nothing to envy in the whole wide world.

Finally, A key question for all of us is when the Korean people in the north are freed how will a United Republic of Korea undo the indoctrination of the Korean people that has occurred over the past 70 years.  This report will contribute to the search for the ways to do that.

Yes, I am thinking beyond the Kim family regime.  My pessimistic assessment is that there will be no end to the nuclear program nor the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity by what we know as the mafia-like crime family cult called the Kim family regime until there is a unified Korea.  The Republic of Korea needs to prepare for the future of a United Republic of Korea and one of the most critical aspects of that preparation is understanding the plight of the 25 million Koreans living in the north.  This report makes a critical contribution to that understanding.  I commend it to every person who thinks about the Korea question.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Is the OSS Contribution to Special Forces a Result of Disinformation?

Is the OSS Contribution to Special Forces a Result of Disinformation?

David Maxwell

It pained me to read the latest issue of the USASOC Historian Office's publication Veritas and it pains me even more to have to write these words.  You might not be familiar with Veritas because it is not published on line, only in an expensive high gloss print publication.  The specific article in the recent edition is “The OSS Influence on Special Forces.”  The article can be downloaded HERE

The author's thesis is that since only 14 members of the OSS actually served in Special Forces their contribution was not as great as has been described over the years.  The author uses fashionable modern academic analysis focusing solely on data and numbers to reach this outrageous in this conclusion: “The result was concrete evidence of disinformation and exaggeration perpetuated by the active force and veteran associations.”  The only “concrete evidence” the author cites is the number 14.  (As an aside there were at least 15 members of the OSS who served in Special Forces from 1952 to 1954. His list fails to include Robert McDowell who served with the OSS in Yugoslavia.)

The author is trying to prove his thesis by relying on numbers.  However, he undermines his argument with this statement:
Therefore, the five former OSS instructors in the SF Department, constituting approximately one-third of the instructor cadre from 1952-1954, are the ones who provided the most influence from their OSS experiences on the developing forceBecause the five interacted with or impacted every soldier trained in the SF program at the school, they gave students undergoing instruction an exaggerated impression about the overall presence of former OSS veterans in SF.
What the author fails to recognize and appreciate is that the OSS was an organization known for two things: punching well above its weight, i.e., making outsize contributions from its small numbers; and for conducting effective influence operations. At its peak there were some 13,000 members with 7500 serving overseas which was less than one Army division while the Army fielded over 90 divisions in WWII. Its Morale Operations branch focused on “persuasion, penetration, and intimidation” to destabilize governments and mobilize indigenous resistance at the strategic and tactical level.

Rather than assess the numbers of OSS members in SF the author would do a great service by reminding readers that today’s SF assessment and selection, organization (especially the ODA), training, doctrine, and most important the foundational mission of SF, unconventional warfare, are directly related to and descended from the OSS.  For those interested I recommend perusing the USASOC web site OSS Primer and Manuals accessed HERE.  USASOC’s own website says: “Special Forces traces its roots as the Army’s premier proponent of unconventional warfare from the Operational Groups and the Jedburgh teams of the Office of Strategic Services.” I personally traced the development of SF doctrine and the unconventional warfare mission from the OSS to the present (then 1995) HERE.

Continued at Small Wars Journal here:

Giving Tuesday Recommendations

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