Korean Job Discussion Forums

[butlerian]

There is an interesting article on the BBC News website about the Korean war, and also alleged atrocities committed by American forces.

Kill 'em All': The American Military in Korea
By Jeremy Williams
In September 1999 an investigative team from the Associated Press broke a story that shocked America. Fifty years before, they claimed, refugees caught up in the Korean War were shot and strafed by US forces. Jeremy Williams explores the repercussions of a brutal episode in Cold War history.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/korea_usa_01.shtml

[Ya-ta Boy]

Hmmmm....A news article from Sept. '99....7 years and a bit ago.

[ChopChaeJoe]

War is hell. I doubt many South Koreans view America as the bad guys in that war.

That said, it was a racist war.

[stevemcgarrett]

Here's another statistic of war casualties: 54,000 dead American soldiers and nearly double that number wounded.

Winning the Pulitzer Prize in journalism these days--like winning the Nobel Prize for same--isn't necessarily indicative of superior reporting. Some of the key informers were found to have been frauds. Moreover, Bateman's book (which is well documented unlike its counterpart) calls into serious question much of the reportage and most of the conclusions of the book referred to in this thread.

Were civilians caught in crossfire? Yes, and sadly but inevitably always are. Were American commanders bent on massacre? Hardly. Were some soldiers motivated by racism? Undoubtedly, although those who saw the savagery of the Japanese forces during the previous war and the North Korean forces might be forgiven for their views.

The Korean leftist movement in Seoul and its enablers, including the Leftist Guardian and their ilk in Britain (along with strange bedfellows in embittered or jealous nationalists who get a charge out of demeaning American military exploits at the drop of a hat), and some posters on this forum, would like the rest of us to believe in wholesale American slaughter during the war. And note how one reviewer of the Pulitzer book openly and repeatedly describes the American military then and now as animals, revealing unabashedly his own prejudices.

Bruce Cumings, who is an expert from the University of Chicago on modern Korean matters argues that the most heinous offense was the incessant carpet bombing. Perhaps, indeed. And so were the Allies forces (British night bombing by Lancasters being most prominent) of Germany during the previous war just as morally egregious? Or did the ends justify the means? Everyone in Japan shudders at the atomic bombings (but not at Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Manila, or Nanking, oddly enough) as do their leftist sympathizers and pacifists worldwide but in fact far more were killed in the months leading up to that eventful summer during incendiary raids on Tokyo-Yokohama. In the process of this carpet bombing, industrial sites were destroyed--and with it the ability to wage war. Same held true in Pyongyang and elsewhere on the Korean peninsula. Was it militarily if not morally justified?

From the hindsight of half a century I suppose we can safely look askance if not aghast at what our grandfathers did (and there were, after all, other UN forces present, albeit in smaller numbers). But the invasion from the north was sudden and sweeping and devastating in its scope. It was abetted by Chinese volunteers who were in the main pressed into service (I met two survivors in Beijing a few years back who spoke English who served as translators on the front near Inchon in 1952 who confirmed as much to me and they had nothing to gain in telling their stories.)

There were to be sure an inordinate number of incompetent and green officers in the field in 1950 and some overreacted. But it was also true that North Korean spies and saboteurs had infiltrated the ranks of the retreating American forces posing as civilians. That has been well documented, too. And for every so-called veteran informant they dug up there have been many more who have denied the allegations.

All this said, the "incident" was tragic and no doubt in the confusion that reigned at that stage of the war, orders were misinterpreted or taken at face value, or followed without thought. That is still wrong, but that is the tragedy of the Korean War, a war which American soldiers and their allies fought valiantly, for the most part, to prevent what we now witness in North Korea from happening below the 38th Parallel.

Mod Edit: Removed comment about topic unrelated to the post.

[Julius]

[ChopChaeJoe]

[bucheon bum]

[ChopChaeJoe]

There's a big difference between taking out infrastructure and war-making abilities and just killing everything in sight.

Remember that the us military evacuated a lot of these same north koreans when the chinese jumped in. Then we turned around and bombed them.

Also, it should be noted that McArthur had a great deal of respect for the Japanese; he had none for the Koreans.

He said he'd have the boys home by Christmas. I guess he didn't say which Christmas.

[bucheon bum]

[Nambucaveman]

The subject of this thread is The Korean War. Let's keep it on that topic.

NC

[gang ah jee]

[Hollywoodaction]

[Hollywoodaction]

[bucheon bum]

[Nambucaveman]

Yes, that's true BB. The reason I removed it is because someone was trying to inject their opinion about the Iraq War, which I personally thought was hijacking the thread a bit. Certainly it wasn't intended as what some believe it was.

NC