Koreans in Iraq live in daily fear

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200312/06/200312060047239809900090409041.html

OKCHEON, North Chungcheong ¯ "Can you stop crying and just write everything down?" Choi Ha-young yelled over the phone as his wife, Chun Won-ja, fought back tears and took down the message from her husband, who was calling from near Baiji, Iraq, north of embattled Tikrit, former President Saddam Hussein' s hometown.

Mr. Choi is one of the more than 60 contract workers for Ohm Electric Co. of Seoul, which is now struggling to bring its workers home after two company employees were killed and two others wounded in an ambush by Iraqi guerrillas.

Company officials were arranging transportation for the bodies of the two dead workers, hoping they would return to Korea on Monday. The two injured men are to be transported to Germany for treatment.
According Mr. Choi's wife, the situation in Iraq remains precarious for Ohm's employees. "Every day bombs are going off and there aregunfights right near the project site," Mr. Choi's wife quoted her husband as saying. "We want to go home as soon as we can. The government ought to be working to make sure we are safe."
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"Contract workers" are contributing to and/or facilitating the
hostile environment. South Korea had to know that these people
would stand out and become targets--but hey, that's Politics
and if it would make chicken-lips in Washington happy, the
South Korean Gov't figured these men were disposable. Sick.

After DS1, Iraqis had restored all of the nation's power system in under 3 months, for a fraction of what these external contractors are charging.

So while Korean companies are brought in to fix the power to help persuade them to send military troops, Iraqis are left without jobs, and without opportunities to rebuild a life and a business.

It's not like the Iraqi's don't know how, or that they don't have the tools. Why South Koreans? (it's a rhetorical question...I know why...).

to the colonizers.

The pressure on South Korea as on other needy nations is the result
of Bush's desire to create the illusion that the world is not
horrified by what is happening, but is in fact contributing to a "just"
cause. Which is crap, but the only strategy available. Dead
Korean bodies don't show up on the 6:00 News. Cannon fodder.

Money doesn't matter in Washington. Wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld
who had the bright idea of dropping $100 bills from airplanes
in Afghanistan?--which were later fed to donkeys. Allowing
Iraqis to rebuild Iraq gives power to Iraqi people,who must be
kept subjugated--a dangerous tactic but creativity is not the
hallmark of military minds.

...you wouldn't know it from American media coverage.