[UNZ] The story of a black American Army private who ditched a tour of the DMZ and ran into North Korea has taken over the news cycle due to its novelty value, but the incident is an opportunity to discuss the anarchy and dysfunction the United States exports to its satellite states through its 750 overseas bases in 80 countries.
According to recent news reports, 23-year-old "defector" Travis King, has been the aggressor in multiple acts of violence against Koreans while stationed in the country. King’s record has multiple incidents ranging from beating up a man at a night club, menacing Koreans on the street with threats and racial slurs, and attacking police officers.
Under America’s Status of Forces agreement (SOFA), it is difficult for local authorities to prosecute US military personnel when they prey on locals. Korean prosecutors went easy on King by ordering him to pay for the police car he damaged, which he refused to do.
US authorities, who get the last say when it comes to punishing military contractors and staff for crimes in surrounding areas, often treat the citizens around them with contempt. Look no further than the case of King, who was supposedly in custody being escorted by military police to be flown to the United States to face further punishment, yet somehow wound up on his own three hours away from the nearest airport to go sightseeing at the DMZ.
Many large US military bases abroad are microcosms of America, featuring Taco Bells, hip hop dance clubs, lots of drugs, and plenty of crime mirroring US racial issues. There are now 55,000 US troops in Okinawa, Japan, 28,500 in South Korea, and 33,000 in Germany, and contrary to the Washington foreign policy establishment’s claims, this presence is not seen as a welcome security buffer against supposed geopolitical threats, but instead commonly rejected by locals as forced occupation, national humiliation, and a source of anarchy.
It is no secret that domestic US military installations such as Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, and Fort Hood, which are the most racially integrated communities in America, are warzones full of black and Mexican gang activity, rampant homicide (including above average rates of interracial crime), and sexual assaults (including against men). Whites on base commit crimes too, sometimes as accomplices of blacks or Mexicans in drug related crime, but this occurs at or below the proportion of European descended soldiers.
Not as much is known about how this moral degeneration inside of the military effects populations abroad, where the US government has enormous sway over client regimes that actively help in covering up the scope of local atrocities and criminal behavior in order to avoid upsetting the population. 
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