The Duran Podcast - South Korea martial law and Ukraine weapons

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

South Korea martial law and Ukraine weapons

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what happened in South Korea, martial law from President Yun. Then he took back the martial law after the parliament voted against the martial law. And now he is being called on to resign. The question that I have is, is why did he do this? What caused him to announce martial law, to the surprise of everybody? No one expected this. He's very unpopular, President June, very, very unpopular.

He's also seen as pretty much a puppet of the U.S. I believe that's true. That's accurate. He's definitely under the control of the United States. He's the guy that's saying American Pie in the White House. Remember that with Biden there? Absolutely. That's President Yud.

Anyway, he calls martial law. The whole thing backfires on him. The opposition, which has a majority in parliament, they vote his martial law down, and now I believe his defense minister is being called on to resign. He's being called on to resign, or he will be impeached. And we have all kinds of chaos in South Korea. I think the interesting part, just to wrap up my intro Alexander, I think the interesting part about South Korea is that they're also being pressured by the United States as well as Ukraine to send weapons to Ukraine. I said a lot of weapons to Ukraine, including tourist missiles, I believe.

So there's an interesting Ukraine twist, I believe, to this story. And of course, we have the North Korean troops in Russia, right? The narrative of North Korean troops in Russia, which the administration of Yun has played a big part in propagating, which is also interesting. So anyway, a lot to unpack. What are your thoughts? Well, the first thing to say is that this martial law announcement did indeed appear to come completely out of the blue. And one of the most bizarre things about it, you absolutely like to say, by the way, that he's a very unpopular president. His poll rating is between 15 and 17 percent or was before the martial law decree. Now, he's very unpopular. And it's partly because many people, in South Korea, and I should say that I've been to South Korea, I know a lot of people from South

Korea, I have family connections with South Korea. A lot of people in South Korea, which is a highly educated and politically very sophisticated society, people in South Korea are interested in politics, they're interested in their domestic politics. There was a long history of very tough dictatorships in the 60s. 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, economically successful dictatorships, but dictatorships nonetheless, which people remember very well. So this is a very politicized country, more so than some other East Asian countries are, if I have to say. So it came out of the blue, he is unpopular, and the reason he is unpopular is precisely, as you say, because he has subordinated or is seen to have subordinated South Korea's national interests to those, not too much as the United States, but specifically the political agenda, the foreign policy agenda of the Biden administration and of the neocons in the United States.

Now, that includes forging an alliance with Japan and the United States, effectively against China. Now, this is a controversial issue in South Korea, to put it mildly, because Japan ruled Korea, the whole of Korea, in the first half of the 20th century. its rule there is remembered by many Koreans as extremely brutal. The whole position of South Korean governments was that South Korea would not establish close relations with Japan until Japan apologized and paid reparations for some of the things that the Japanese did in South Korea. and You just threw that all away because the American interest was to bring these two countries together and to face off against China. And having been to South Korea, I could say that yes, South Koreans do have mixed feelings about China. It is the colossus in the region. But they don't feel as strongly about China as they do about Japan. And China is, of course, South Korea's biggest trading partner. And

You know, has gone also along with all of the American policies on sanctions, sanctions against Russia, which were controversial in South Korea because South Korea had successfully developed a friendly relationship with Russia. That is not an overstatement, by the way. Relations between South Korea and Russia had become very friendly. And beyond that, South Korea has also imposed sanctions or gone along with some of the Biden administration's sanctions against China, particularly in exports of chips, semiconductor technology, that sort of thing.

And again, it's not widely known. People tend to think of the very advanced chips as being made in Taiwan. But they're also made in South Korea as well, principally by Samsung. makes them mostly for its own products, but it does occasionally export them, and it does occasionally sell or has occasionally sold and exported them to China. So there's a perception that Yun has been consistently subordinating South Korean policy to a US interest. And many people in South Korea and said this is a politicized society also feel that the sanctions, that the sanctions since the South Korea imposed against Russia have been one of the principal reasons for the rapprochement between Russia and North Korea, which obviously does not serve South Korean interests.

So there's been lots of criticism of him. There's also criticism of him because of the corruption or perceived corruption of his wife, which is assumed to be corruption that involved. him. He won the presidency by the narrowest of margins campaigning as an anti-corruption prosecutor. And of course, it's been a shock to many people to see that he does appear to be involved himself in corruption in some way. So this has lost him a great deal of support. And of course, in April there were elections. His party lost badly in the... the parliamentary elections and the opposition, which is very critical of him, won a big majority in the South Korean parliament. Never since then, there have been parliamentary battles. He's had

problems with legislation, problems passing his budget, all that sort of thing, and there'd been investigations of his wife. Now, all of that sets the scene for this announcement out of the blue of martial law. And one of the most bizarre things about that, announcement is that, of course, despite the fact that you have all of these political tension, the fact that he's unpopular, the fact that the parliament opposes him, the country basically is stable. The economy is stable. South Korea has got a very strong economy. There are many social problems in South Korea. The birth rate in South Korea has collapsed, for example. There's all of those concerns, but there was nothing, nothing that would appear to justify a declaration of martial

law. I mean, he's the target of corruption investigations, but that's not so unusual in South Korea, by the way. And again, that doesn't justify declaring martial law. There's been issues about the budget. That doesn't justify declaring martial law. And he didn't give any real reasons why martial law should be declared at this time. He said that the opposition is in league in some way with North Korea, but again, they provided no evidence for that. And anybody who knows anything about South Korean politics would know that this is an absolutely fantastic claim. The opposition party does, is politically on the left somewhat. It does want. It does want. better relations with North Korea, but to assume that they are somehow controlled or subordinate

in North Korea is absurd. So he didn't really provide any real reasons why he was declaring martial law. Of course, he did so also at 2 o'clock in the morning. And again, that was, you know, very unexpected by many people. So he declares martial law. And it's clear that what he was talking about when he declared martial law was, the dissolution of the Parliament, Parliament would no longer function, the media would be brought under control. He was quite openly talking about arresting opposition leaders because of their supposed connection to North Korea. He was, in other words, promising and extremely tough draconian crackdown on South Korean society. In effect, practically,

a return to military rule and a kind of coup. And as I said, all of this, to all appearances, out of the blue. Now, there have been many attempts to try and explain this as an impulsive decision by a president who's back politically is up against the wall, his wife is under investigation, all of those things. I don't think that really makes very much sense either. actually. And the thing that I think makes one wonder about the real explanation for this event is the fact that clearly he did have some support from within the military for what he was doing. So the chief of staff and the defense minister back his declaration of martial law. The defense minister is a personal friend. He has now taken responsibility for the decision. He says,

it was his idea, which again begs many questions. The military did act. A special forces unit was sent to the South Korean parliament to enforce the martial law decree, to prevent parliament from working, and one assumes eventually to start arresting opposition leaders. So this isn't something that came out of nowhere the president acting in complete isolation. He clearly had some discussions with some people about it. But what he faced was united opposition across South Korean society, every section of South Korean society, apart from the military, came out against this. The media did. The labor unions did. Much of the business community did. I believe the churches. South Korea, by the way, as a very, very strong Christian community.

Anyway, they all opposed this. The parliament managed to fend the military off and they held a vote which overruled the martial law decree, which they are entitled to do, and basically support for what has all the appearances of a presidential coup collapsed. So the military were called off. The defense minister took responsibility and resigned, but the president insists that he's going to remain in office. He's continued to conduct cabinet meetings. He's acting as if nothing happened. And his own party, which still has around 100 seats in the parliament, continues to support him and says that they will oppose any impeachment moves against him. We will see whether that holds. But obviously, he is completely discredited. And he's staying in office is now going to create a deep crisis within South Korea. So this was disastrously misjudged affair. And that brings us back to that question that you asked me. Why did it happen? Now, I don't know, and we will no doubt get investigations. But on my own channel yesterday,

I floated a theory and I want to stress this is only a theory because I don't have any evidence to support it up to this point. But I think that partly this was done in order to make it possible to do the thing that you said, which is sell and transfer arms to Ukraine. As you said, the president of his team had been very, very noisy talking. up the question of North Korean troops in Russia and North Korean troop in Kusk. They've already supplied through roundabout means shells to the Ukrainians against South Korean laws. They wanted to use the so-called presence of North Korean troops to justify sending more weapons to Ukraine. Clearly, they were backed in this by the Biden administration, which had going to have problems, supply weapons

to Ukraine that we all know about. And the problem that they ran out to up against is that this is contrary to South Korean rule. The opposition parties are vehemently opposed and South Korean society is overwhelmingly opposed by margins of over 80% according to opinion polls. So how do you do it? How do you get weapons to Ukraine? The only way you can do it, The only way you can do it is dissolve the parliament, establish some kind of presidential regime, disregard the laws, talk up North Korea, sell the arms to Ukraine. And it seems to me that that is as good an explanation as any you will find for the explanation for explaining what happened. And it also explains something else, which is the eerie silence of the

Biden administration. As all of these events were playing out in South Korea, South Korea being a critical U.S. airline, the Biden administration, did they condemn what the president was doing, did they criticize it, to express concern about it, did they say the president might have overstep. Did they do anything like that? No, they didn't. They gave all the appearance that they were intensely relaxed about what was happening in South Korea. And certainly there are many, many people in South Korea who now assume that they use something in advance about it. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. The silence from the Biden White House is a giveaway. That's what this is about. I agree with that. The,

That's why I was talking about the, yeah, Ukraine and the tourist missiles and the weapons. Obviously, that's what this was about. We don't have any evidence. But if you put the pieces together, this was about getting weapons on the behest, on the orders of the United States getting all those weapons to Ukraine. And it was the majority government and parliament that was blocking this initiative, this effort to get weapons to Ukraine. Let's not forget that Yermak was in South Korea about a week and a half ago. Correct. And what was he, what was he asking?

Weapons. He was asking for weapons. Why? Because of the North Korea. The whole North Korean troops thing is serving multiple purposes. That's why they created this narrative so that it can greenlight attack comes into Ukraine, so that they can get weapons to Ukraine from South Korea. Yeah, that, this explains all of this, the attack homes.

into Kyrsk, the North Korean troops in Kursk, all of this stuff. The martial law explains the North Korean narrative. I agree. I mean, to me, to me, I mean, there is no other explanation that satisfactorily explains what happens and which makes any kind of sense of this affair. Bear in mind. They're getting so desperate. They're getting very desperate.

Go ahead. I get to you. I mean, the point is, the Pentagon is very short. arsenals are depleted. We have repeatedly seen that in Europe and in the United States, increasing output of weapons is proving incredibly difficult. The Europeans have basically failed here. The United States has achieved some marginal improvements, but no way near enough. And we now have a new administration coming in Washington in January, which wants to bring the arms flow to Ukraine, to a stop. So Biden and his team remain as obsessed and committed to project Ukraine as ever. So where

can they find weapons for Ukraine? The Europeans have failed. The United States, they're going to cease to be the rulers of in a few weeks' time. The only country with the industrial resources and the stockpiles that might be able to help Ukraine, at least for a couple of months, maybe a year is South Korea. So talk up the story of North Korean troops in Russia, in Kusk region. Very bitter comments about this now to the BBC from Ukrainian soldiers, saying they've never seen any, Ukrainian soldiers in Kusk region. They've never seen any North Koreans.

The Daily Mail fabricated an image, Alexander, the UK. Did you see that? Yeah, absolutely. They fabricated an image of... I don't want to cut you up. Yeah, the desperation out of the UK and the collective West is off the charts to prop up this North Korean troop narrative thing. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And just to go, a Ukrainian soldier said very difficult to kill and capture a North Korean soldier in the Kusk forest. especially if they're not there. That's the Ukrainian soldiers are saying. So, you know, this whole narrative that was created a couple of weeks ago, and which has been plugged relentlessly ever since, trying to get justified, providing justification for missile strikes against Russia and intended to get the spigot on South Korean weapons switched on so that they could start to flow to Ukraine in order to keep Ukraine fighting for another year

so that even more Ukrainians can die to keep Project Ukraine afloat. And all that alongside this relentless campaign to get the Ukrainians to reduce their conscription age. So that's what it seems like to me. I mean, that's the only explanation I could think of. I was at a very, very pro-American president, who's consistently sacrificed South Korean interests to play along with the neocons. He's gone along with what the Americans want. He found that South Korean laws, opposition in the parliament, opposition in wider South Korean society, He made it impossible to supply the weapons to Ukraine.

So you try launching a presidential coup to make it possible in the dying weeks of a dying administration. Yeah. My final thoughts on this is it reminds me of Nord Stream in Germany in a way. You know, all these countries are so, these leaders are so captured. Yeah. that they're willing to destroy their countries, their economies. This South Korean president, Yun, destroyed his own administration. Marshal law, removing the parliament, arresting opposition parliament members, opposition party leaders, all because of Ukraine.

It leaves me speechless. It really does remind me of how Germany has destroyed itself. And now South Korea is destroying itself because they have to get well. weapons to Zelensky? I know. I know. Of Zelensky, you know, Dolman, this figure who, as I said, everything must be sacrificed to. What was it?

The words since Shakespeare and Julius Caesar, upon what meat does this our Caesar feed that he has grown so great? I mean, you know, Zelensky towers over the Western landscape. This extraordinary man, this, well, you do all your clown shows about him, this man who goes around in a khaki shirt and talks these incredible, rambling incoherent sentences and makes all these astonishing demands. And he must be appeased and he must be supported and he must be propped up. This war must be kept going relentlessly.

But you see, there is a difference. I mean, in Germany, wider society, the media, the population, the population, the population, the business community, they went along with it. And we see the disaster that has played out in Germany. South Koreans, South Korea is a very different society from Germany. They will always assume that Asians are very disciplined, very hardworking, very compliant. South Koreans are extremely disciplined people, extremely hardworking, but they, you know, they will push back. back, they will defend their democracy, their constitutional system, and the interests of their

country. If you go to South Korea, which I have done, you find what a profoundly patriotic people they are and how strongly they will defend the national interests of South Korea, and in a way of career as a whole, which is a complicated story, which I'm not going to go into in this program. But I mean, Korea nationalism exists, and it is a factor in international affairs and one which should not be disregarded. It exists, but they have a president

who's not even close to being a Korean nationalist. Absolutely. Not just a president, because we see that certainly sections of the army were prepared to support this. And as anybody who knows South Korea, also knows there is an enormous deep state in South Korea built up during the long decades of the dictatorship. It brings together, you know, police agencies, intelligence agencies, military officers and all kinds of, a whole apparatus has been created there.

And of course, it is every bit as, you know, united to, you know, the hip to the American deep state, as any, deep state in Europe is. Yeah, well, we know why the military in South Korea, parts of the military in South Korea were keen on the idea of, we're hot on the idea of getting weapons to use him. We know. We know. Everyone that's watching this video knows how I. Exactly. All right. We will end the video there. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitch, Telegram, Rock Finn, and X. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch,

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