National SDS Endorses August 15th National Day of Action: "US out of Korea!"

Since the US invasion of Korea and even before that, the US government has spared no expense in intervening economically, politically, and militarily in the affairs of the Republic of Korea. They have funded and backed military dictatorship after military dictatorship, in spite of the dozens of uprisings that the South Koreans have led and in spite of the martial law, massacres, and austerity.

Trump has made his own contributions to this tradition. From economic coercion in the form of tariffs, to making Korea pay back the economic debt incurred by the US during the Korean War, and to imposing a THAAD missile defense system and conducting the Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises that have killed people, he has made interfering in Korean affairs a part of his agenda.

As for why the US government maintains this relationship, their motivations are clear: keeping Korea open to foreign-owned investment, and even beyond that, as a staging ground for US wars across Asia. In a moment of frankness, the US Air Force General Xavier Brunson called the Republic of Korea, known as South Korea, a "fixed aircraft carrier floating in the water."

There is mass suffering, senseless racist murders, and economic hardships in the US. Instead of our taxpayer money going to helping people in the US, it goes to conducting US war games in South Korea in preparation of using the land, the money, and the people of South Korea to carry out US wars. Since 2006, SDS has stood against US wars, interventions, and aggression which violate other countries' sovereignty, and we do the same here.

We in SDS say that the US goverment's dealings in Korea have been wrong for a long time and continue to be wrong to this day. We stand with our friends in Nodutdol and invite all to promote the August 15th National Day of Action. We unite with the demands to end the Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise in the Republic of Korea, to cancel the US-ROK military and government relationship, to say no to wars in the Pacific, and beyond all, to say:

US OUT OF KOREA NOW!