03/05/2023
Hi there to all my friends, colleagues, and followers. It's been a few minutes since I've communicated with you. Now it's time to reconnect. As you know, I like to dialogue with as many of you as possible, especially those of you that have served in the U.S. military, and also those who have worked for the government, in varying capacities.
That said, you all know, as well as I, that there's so much happening around the world, it can leave your head spinning. I'm referring to things like, the war in Ukraine, the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, where many thousands of innocent people died, and unrest in the Middle East. At home right here in America, many people are still struggling with inflation, and high medical costs. Mass shootings remain a big concern, and we also have to pay attention to threats to our democracy, to mention a few challenges. However, this News Letter will focus on Military News, and a National security-related topic I think you will find most interesting.
Military News!!
Food insecurity in the U.S. military: In my January 2023 Post about this sensitive topic, I highlighted food insecurity in the ranks of the United States military. I also pointed out that according to the Department of Defense, 24 percent of military families are consistently unable to afford enough nutritious food to live on. Given this unacceptable situation within the world’s most prosperous, and strongest military, I’d like to give an update on food insecurity.
There seems to be some movement in the U.S. Congress regarding food insecurity in the military. I read that a bill has been introduced by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, and a former Army helicopter pilot who flew in Iraq. Hallelujah!! Under this newly introduced legislation, low-income service members receiving basic allowances for housing could be eligible for food stamps. According to the senator, Service members who apply to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, also called SNAP, while receiving an allowance to cover off-base housing costs is often excluded from eligibility due to a formula that unfairly counts their housing as a source of income. But get this, the housing allowance is not treated as income by the Internal Revenue Service or considered when determining eligibility for other federal assistance programs. Senator Duckworth added, “The bill is a great, elegant solution. It isn’t creating a new program; it’s simply bringing an existing program in line to be consistent with the rest of the federal government.” This makes sense to me.
Sadly, a January study performed by the Rand Corp. found early- to mid-career enlisted personnel between the pay grades of E-4, and E-6 were the majority of those affected by food insecurity. Rand also reported the Army saw the most food insecurity while the Air Force saw the least. Let’s hope and pray that Senator Duckworth can push through the bill she recently introduced to assist our food insecure men and women in uniform and make them food secure in 2023!
South Korea
You may recall that I was assigned to installations in South Korea on more than one occasion. That said, whenever I stumble across articles on “The Land of the Morning Calm,” I enjoy reading them. This particular article focuses on a former U.S. Army installation, Camp Essayons, north of Seoul, the capital of South Korea, that will become a neighborhood park. The Army camp was located near Camps Red Cloud and Stanley. The park will be located in Uijeongbu. If you’ve ever served in Korea, you will know that Uijeongbu is one of the several locations north of Seoul that have a concentrated number of South Korean and American troops there to deter aggression from the north. Also, Uijeongbu is just about 30 miles south of the Korean DMZ. And if you’ve read the thriller, The Private Investigator, you will recall that toward the story’s end, the main character chases a fleeing North Korean spy to the DMZ in hopes to catch the bad guy before he attempts to crossover into the north. It is one of the high points of the thriller. If you're interested in reading The Private Investigator, check out Van Tellfaster (the author) on Amazon Books. You can grab a soft copy of the book or even a Kindle copy for really reasonable prices.
At any rate, according to what I read, the commissioned park will be completed by December 2025 and span 24 acres in Uijeongbu, which is surrounded by mountain hiking trails and wild life. One of the things I most enjoyed was waking up in the morning and viewing those majestic mountains that span the peninsula. Camp Essayons occupied the site until 2007 as the Army shuttered or partially returned around 40 outposts throughout the country and turned over the land to the South Korean government. Currently, the majority of the roughly 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea are stationed at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek and U.S. Army Garrison Daegu.
National Security
Chinese Police Stations:
When I first heard a recent discussion on C-Span’s Washington Journal that China has police stations in America, I couldn’t believe it. I actually thought I didn’t hear the pronouncement correctly. However, when a second person mentioned the same topic in a subsequent call on Washington Journal, it got my attention. So as usual, I researched the matter. What I found out alarmed me! Apparently, there are hundreds of police stations around the world that are manned with Chinese police officials, according to a new report by the human-rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders.
Get this; the report has uncovered three more Chinese so called, “overseas service stations” operating illegally on U.S. soil, after one of the stations was identified in, of all places, New York City in September 2022. According to officials in China, the purpose of the stations is to assist Chinese citizens overseas with administrative issues, but it seems this is not a true statement. Safeguard Defenders indicates their existence as “a severe breach of territorial and judicial sovereignty––even if they were to provide ‘only’ consular services such as the renewal of passports or driver’s licenses.”
Safeguard Defenders has also documented more than one case in which the Chinese outposts have played a role in illicit operations to force the repatriation of Chinese nationals wanted by the authorities back home. The documented activity links the stations to Beijing’s Operation Foxhound (a Chinese covert global operation whose purported aim is anti-corruption under Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping’s administration) and Sky Net global kidnapping campaigns.
A Madrid-based organization, working from Chinese public-source records, identified 54 stations in addition to those it had already found in a previous study, bringing the total number of known Chinese police stations to 102 such outposts across 53 different countries. In November 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated during a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S. was deeply concerned with the Chinese government setting up unauthorized ‘police stations’ in U.S. cities to possibly pursue influence operations. Wray, added, “I’m very concerned about this. We are aware of the existence of these stations.”
In my opinion, this is all very wrong. I’m confident that America doesn’t violate China’s sovereignty by placing police stations in cities throughout that country, declaring we are assisting American citizens. Nations legitimately assist their citizens abroad through the Consular services which are run out of recognized embassies, and I know the services that America offers don’t include intimidating our citizens, or forcefully returning them to America to be thrown into the slammer! This threat to our national security that has surfaced must be dealt with by our authorities; and done so swiftly.
See you soon. Enjoy your day everybody!
Larry
