Violent protests against the importation of US beef to South Korea continue to rock the nation’s capitol as thousands of anti-US protesters opposed to the deal clash with riot police:

For more than a month, downtown Seoul has been a scene of lawlessness as it has been occupied by protesters every night, and inconvenience and anxiety of ordinary citizens are growing. But the government, preoccupied with trying to gauge public sentiment, has been largely in abeyance.

On Wednesday night, protesters pelted police with dirt and bricks, broke the windows of police buses, and tied the buses with ropes to pull them from the barricades in scenes reminiscent of the democracy protests of the 1980s. Pushed to the ground by protesters, riot police troopers had their shields and helmets snatched and were kicked and trodden on. Some were seen pleading with the protesters, saying if they returned without their shield and helmet they would be confined in the lockup.

More pictures of these violent protests can be viewed here and here.

The number of protesters has been reduced dramatically in the past week as most of the Korean public abandoned the protests when Korean President Lee Myung-bak signed an improved US beef deal that addressed most of the publics’ concerns about the safety of US beef. This has left nothing but the hard core anti-US groups to protest against the beef deal. These same groups are the ones that were largely behind the misinformation campaign against US beef that caused the Korean public to become concerned with the safety of US beef in the first place.

These groups are notorious for their violent anti-US protests that have included everything from trying to tear down statues of General Douglas MacArthur, celebrating the 9/11 attacks, to launching epic Braveheart style battles against the relocation of US forces in Korea.

Here is a picture of the violent protests against the US military relocation in Korea:

Here is another picture of these groups trying to tear down the MacArthur Statue in Incheon:

Finally here is an image of the Hanchongnyun group celebrating the 9/11 attacks:

It just so happens these groups have been linked to a North Korean spy ring that was helping to organize violent anti-US movement that was uncovered two years ago.

Now these same groups are out assaulting policemen and destroying property in the streets of Seoul all in the name of stopping the importation of US beef. The fact of the matter is that these people do not care about food safety and their real agenda is to intimidate the newly installed conservative government in order to advance their own anti-US agendas.

What really bothers me about these protests is the fact that the riot police being assaulted and brutally beaten by these thugs are young conscripted men conducting their two year mandatory service to their country. To get an idea of how badly these young conscripts are being beaten by these thugs I highly recommend everyone watch this video of the protests.

These young men get paid no more then $40 a month to be assaulted and beaten by these thugs while the Korean government does little to stop them. The Korean government finally announced today they would begin arresting these violent thugs. It seems like this would have been a good idea a month ago before the thugs took over the streets of Seoul and destroyed so much property and injured so many people, not to mention causing great harm to the national reputation of South Korea.