South Korea now a paragon of pro-Americanism?

Two countries for old men. 

Pro-American sentiment might be the highest in South Korea of all places, reports the Washington Post.

That might come as a surprise to people who went through the dismal days in 2002 when the South Korean sentiment toward United States was possibly at its lowest ever, owing mostly to the deaths of two middle school girls who were run over by the US Army tank and a lot of pent-up aggression in the run-up to the Iraq war that boiled over during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. All this was stoked by pro-Pyongyang leftists called chinboistas who were exacerbating it wherever they could.

But times change, as the article describes, and there's a lot more focus on the danger that North Korea poses — and the relative failure of the so-called Sunshine Policy — while at the same time Washington started to treat Seoul much more like a partner than a patron.

At heart, South Koreans are generally pro-American. The younger generation obviously cannot remember firsthand how responsible United States is for saving South Korea during and after the Korean War, but North Korea is certainly making them realize that the United States alliance with South Korea is still important today.

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