Sunday will be one month since 23 Korean Christian medical volunteers were kidnapped by the Islamist Taliban , while working in Gazing province in Afghanistan. Two of the male volunteers, one a co founder and minister of a large Christian church in Korea, were murdered. Two of the women have been released. The Korean government is reportedly "negotiating" with the kidnappers. Payment for the hostages is widely anticipated.
While press reports have declined in the US, the hostage crisis gets white heat coverage in Asia. Here in Los Angeles, an organization called Concerned Citizens for Korean Hostages in Afghanistan urged in a press conference the release of the captives. Many different religious groups joined in the demand for the release. The controversial Muslim Public Affairs Council MPAC [ see HERE at this link ] joined this group. Recently MPAC was listed by the US Attorney General’s office as an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case of funding Hamas.
In Korea, the society is clearly divided with the current political leadership extraordinarily left wing; including links to the North Korean government. However, there is a massive grass roots movement that may bring the country back to the center with the growing popularity of the Grand National Party leading in the Presidential polls for this November’s election. The GNP includes a coalition of Korean war veterans and a new generation of free marketeers.
The Left has savagely criticized the Christian medical workers for getting kidnapped! The medical workers are indeed Christian missionaries but do not directly proselytize. All are helping the sick and wounded in Afghanistan without payment. The victims are modern day Christian martyrs. They did not come bearing arms. Still the Korean government and some of its leftist allies in the US want to "exchange" the victims for crazed Islamic serial murders.
There is a glimmer of hope. An important Korean military general argued that if the government would send 5000 Korean troops they could liberate the hostages and annihilate the local Taliban. In fact, Korea is our 3 largest ally in Iraq with over 3000 troops and several hundred in Afghanistan.
Too many Americans continued to sleep and the democrats dawdle with the mounting evidence of the worldwide cruelty and militancy of the Islamists. Today, many more Koreans in Asia and here are aware of the growing cancer.