Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
A little unfair to call it hypocrisy, the reasons why Roh has a state funeral but not Chun:
1. Roh finished paying off all his fines from his corruption charges and expressed regret for his role in the coup and the Gwangju crackdown in his last will. And the government views his contributions to Inter Korean relations positively due to the framework he created for dialogue during his presidential term which lasts until today. (nevertheless there was a low turnout at vigils around the country, showing how Koreans barely even bothered about him)
2. As for Chun, he never expressed remorse for his actions, going on to double down on the Korean far right view that the Gwangju protesters were communists from North Korea. He defamed a priest who testified that he saw army helicopters ordered by Chun firing on the civilians in Gwangju. Chun called the priest 'Satan wearing a mask'. Last year he was found guilty of defaming victims of Gwangju and received a suspended jail sentence. Chun appealed the verdict and was visibly ill when he appeared in court for the appeal in August.
Chun also never finished repayment of fines regarding his ill gotten wealth.
Thus, no state funeral for Chun.
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Yeah considering how much internal debate the Moon admin had over a state funeral for Roh im 0% surprised they didn’t honor a savage like Chun with one
Nobody except the most far right Koreans would want to hold a state funeral for the 'Butcher of Gwangju' because the public backlash would be too great, and I always wondered what was going on in the minds of Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung when they decided to pardon Chun and Roh?
Even the current conservative opposition is not sending any condolences and wreaths to this man which shows how universally reviled Chun is.
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Sergeant Foley
Banned
I should note the list of ROK Presidents buried at Seoul National Cemetery:
1.) Syngham Rhee
2.) Park Chung-hee
3.) Kim Dae-jung
4.) Kim Young-sam
Big question is whether Moon will be buried there when the time comes?
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As long as he does not end up in jail after he steps down next year, he is eligible to be buried in a national cemetery. They have a rule where former presidents who were jailed would not be eligible for burial in a national cemetery.
Sergeant Foley
Banned
Lee Myung-bak & Park Geun-hye both lost that privilege due to their prison sentences respectively.
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
Bob Dole’s death has me wondering what (if any) political ambitions Elizabeth Dole might have in this ATL.
This is a good q actually. Libby is a bit underused in a lot of ATLs considering how she was touted as the first female President for a number of years. A former VP’s wife would certainly have some cachet to probably snag at least a Cabinet job, maybe Governor of NC…RIP to Bob Dole
Did she get a cabinet position in Ford's first elected term? She might be a strong contender for the Republican nomination in 2000 in this timeline? Would she run for Senate (or Governor as was previously mentioned above) earlier than in our timeline?
She did not; after the hubbub over Bobby in JFK’s admin I don’t think Gerry would give his VP’s wife a Cabinet job. As the more charismatic Dole she’s probably a more polished political figure from the position of Second Lady, though (think of her as a more ambitious Barbara Bush)
Maybe she could become president of the Red Cross early? Or president of Duke?
Hell, it's unlikely, but I would get a massive kick out of her running against Jesse Helms.
Also, rest in peace, Mister Dole.
Hell, it's unlikely, but I would get a massive kick out of her running against Jesse Helms.
Also, rest in peace, Mister Dole.
Not to appear to revel in the banning of certain members, but it'll be nice to do updates on this again without 10+ questions per post about what various Korean political figures are doing, pseudo-apologia for the Chun Doo-hwan regime or slinging/advertising their own timeline, among other things. Not going to lie, that was a big part of what kept me from more recent content on this.
More BCM will continue shortly!
More BCM will continue shortly!
Closing Crises
Closing Crises
Since nearly the moment he was inaugurated for a full term, Ford's Presidency had seemed to be beset by ever-mounting foreign policy conundrums that mushroomed into full-blown crises; the perception of him on international affairs both domestically and abroad was one of an affable dolt, flailing in the wind as problems beyond his ability to address compounded without end. This was, of course, an unfair estimation; Ford's core national security triad of Secretary of State Bush, CIA Director Carlucci and National Security Advisor Scowcroft had managed to build a terrific working group, especially after Rumsfeld's "resignation" had removed one of the major roadblocks to their initiatives. They had worked hand-in-hand with Great Britain to help transition an end to white rule in Rhodesia peacefully, secured the Rose Garden Agreement between Egypt and Israel to normalize relations, peeled Somalia out of the pro-Soviet bloc, helped Iran (despite all its lingering and simmering problems) avoid plunging into all-out civil war between the regime and both its Islamist and communist opponents, and continued the policy of détente with the East, including improving relations with post-Ceaucescu Romania and nudging NATO allies to improve trade and cultural ties with Yugoslavia. The problem, of course, was that a lot of these successes were quiet ones, or qualified (the West, to say the least, was alarmed in March of 1980 when Joshua Nkomo and most of his ZAPU group in Rhodesia entered Abel Muzorewa's coalition in the Bulawayo Agreement, steering the government in a more socialistic, pro-Soviet direction), and that the failures - Panama and the rest of Latin America in particular - burned much more loudly.
So it was perhaps only fitting that a term defined by foreign and economic chaos that sprung up like a hideous game of political whack-a-mole would in its closing year face more. The first was in the continuing drama in the Korean Peninsula; Ford and Bush had been quietly concerned by the attempted assassination on Park, primarily out of worry that the North Koreans may launch an attack to take advantage of the near-coup in Seoul that had driven Park into Taiwanese exile. Fear of instability erupted further in mid-February, when the Hanahoe Revolt began - cadres loyal to General Chun Doo-hwan and henchman such as Roh Tae-woo organized attacks on key points of infrastructure around the country to attempt to seize power and push out the successor regime, mere months after Cha Ji-chul and his "special unit" had attempted the same. This fighting was much bloodier, killing upwards of 2,000 people - half of them civilian - and occurring in tandem with mass protests throughout the country against violence and military dictatorship. In this effort, the US eventually had to intervene, and despite the worst predictions of many Korean activists, they chose to put down the rebels. Chun fled to Okinawa much as Park had and them on to Hong Kong then Singapore; Roh was arrested and imprisoned for life. The Hanahoe Revolt was the last major military threat to the Choi-Jeung regime, which was able to hold controversial elections in late March for the balance of Park's term, through 1984, when the government tacitly promised they would hold some sort of open elections under some type of modified franchise while still leaving the autocratic Yushin Constitution in place. Democracy activists were not convinced, to say the least; but both Ford and Bush breathed another sigh of relief that the erratic and unpredictable DPRK had not launched across the demilitarized zone once again as South Korea threatened to consume itself in violence.
That Korea did not go hot came as a relief, because Saudi Arabia did. Sympathizers of the Mosque Siege and those outraged by its "blasphemous" and desecratory conclusion formed a terrorist group named al-Ikhwan al-Islam, drawing from the name of the House of Saud's famed paramilitary that had helped them secure the whole of Arabia for themselves, and thus making an implication with their name quite plain: that they, rather than the decadent royals, were now the true heirs to the legacy of the original Ikhwan. The Ikhwan staged frequent raids and bombings starting in February, most spectacularly burning farms around Ha'il and blowing up two pipelines in the Eastern Province while shooting Shia protestors in those regions, leading to Saudi Shias to arm themselves and form their own paramilitaries out of fear of being attacked by the violent Ikhwan. The destruction of the two pipelines made the threat of severe attacks on global petroleum infrastructure loom again, much as it had after the mass attacks in Venezuela just seven months prior, and oil, shipping and insurance costs worldwide spiked again, once more compounding the price and supply crisis now in its third year and driving inflation even higher, though oil prices would drop sharply after Ford announced that the United States would station a carrier group in the Persian Gulf in partnership with Iran and Great Britain to help defend oil tankers from being attacked, which seemed the next inevitable step. Inside Arabia, though, such moves just seemed to prove that the House of Saud was in a cabal with the decadent West; clerics, particularly of the very conservative Wahhabi school, began preaching against them for the first time. King Khalid's response in overriding [1] his family members who suggested a conservative turn to mollify the increasingly radical social elements and arresting dissident clerics seemed only to prove that point, and the Arab street turned increasingly restive - and Saudi Arabia's neighbors increasingly attentive...
[1] Khalid was about as Western in his lifestyle and tastes as the Jordanian monarchy at this time; the conservative turn across the Middle East had not quite happened yet, even if it was starting
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
I also found that to be incredibly annoying. I’ve experienced that myself with another poster in a past project and it was a draaaaaaag.
I hope the US clears their embassy in Saudi Arabia before things spin too far out of control. I have a sneaking suspicion that Wahhabi terrorism is going to become a far bigger issue to the West, far sooner than IOTL. It’s not just the resentment of the Saudi Royal Family, but of the “decadent” United States that seems to be the point at which they will rally around.
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Yes, though it’ll be a while before the Sauds completely lose the plot the way the Shah did; Mohammad Reza was way way WAY less popular with the Iranian street in the late 1970s than the Sauds were. Wahhabi terror is also something other ME dictatorships, which at this point are still primarily Arab nationalist, have much more incentive to crush in its infancy (as they were already doing IOTL with the Muslim Brotherhood) seeing as how revolutionary Shia terror was very much a creature of Iran and most Arab states with the major exception of Iraq have pretty small Shia minorities.
Speaking of wahhabi stuff i wonder will this affect indonesia or any muslim majority country in the long term