The news story that South Korean singer Psy expressed an anti American song at a performance in 2004 in which he states American Soldiers should be killed “slowly and painfully” has just recently been brought to the attention of the media. However, the most viewed artist on You Tube has emphatically apologized for the performance. Nevertheless, it has been eight years since his comments and he is just now apologizing! Is this to prevent monetary losses or is he really sorry?
The singer stated that like many South Koreans he was outraged about an accident in 2002, in which two young girls were hit by a military convoy and a South Korean mission worker that was killed in Iraq because the S. Korean government was sending troops to help the U.S. The question still remains if Psy lived in the U.S. for a significant part of his life and was also educated in the U.S. wouldn’t he have a better understanding of who makes the decisions as to where the military is sent? It's the American public who vote for the congresspeople and the President, they tell the military where to go!
The anger is acceptable, but being a public figure his words have a much greater impact. The U.S. military in South Korea has a significant stronghold in the country, which has been there since the end of the Korean War. The relationship has always been positive and although incidents do occur, the U.S. does ensure a stable military footprint for the country against its northern communist neighbor. Luckily, the incident will not have any impact on the relationship between the two countries, but maybe young performers will take note of this event.
Psy is scheduled to perform at “Christmas in Washington” which will be attended by the Obama family who will still attend the function and Psy will still perform. Luckily for Psy there will not be any protests or demonstrations over his comments. It seems that the American public is forgiving of a young and dumb public figure – it’s probably because we have so many of them.
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