Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Korean War ("Korean Conflict")

As I have described before, the United States (and its allies) BOTCHED the aftermath of Wrold War II far worse than we ever botched the aftermath of our victory over Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 

Despite our (and British) monopoly of nuclear weapons, we let Joseph Stalin--even HELPED Joseph Stalin--estabish the Soviet Empire.  Stalin insisted that the Soviet Union had to have "buffer" zones in Europe AND Asia to keep potential invaders away from the Sviet Union  This resulted in the "dividing up" of Europe and elsewhere, with the Soviert Unon being given administration of Eastern Europe--soon consolodated into the Soviet Union. One of the countries divided (stupidly) between Stalin's USSR and the U.S. was Korea--at the 38th Parallel.  The USSR soon helped North Korea build a Communist military machine well beyond anything South Korea could match.  The Korean War could be regarded as a CONTINUATION of World War II--with the USSR as the new enemy . Patton wanted to consider the USSR that way, and he was right.  Korea was certainly a "hot war" part of the Cold War. 

On June 25, 1950, in a Sunday attack reminiscent of Pearl Harbor--except on land and not directly against the U.S.--North Korean forces flooded acress the 38th Parallel in a well planned invasion of North Korea.  The U.N. condemned the attack, and soon voted to send U.N. troops.  This turned out, of course, to mainly mean U.S. and British troops, under U.S. command (Douglas MacArthur).  Yes, those of you who know the U.N. may be AMAZED at this.  The "Anti-American, Despicable AP" never mentions it in the THOUSANDS--even TENS OF THOUSANDS--of words it has recently spewed out in anti-American propaganda about the Korean War (never officially a "war", but a "police action").  You won't find any metnion by the AP that this was officially a U.N. operation.  Now the Soviet Union had a VETO.  But the Soviet Union was (luckily) BOYCOTTING the U.N. at this time.  Therefore, the U.N. Security Council acted unanimously to condemn the invasion, and authorize/order U.N. action to resist it.  See Sunday's enty as to the AP article about alleged shooting of refugees.  I assure you.  I read as many ThOUSAND words as I could stand, and you would not learn ANY of this from the article--the purpose of the article being to label the U.S. as an EVIL country because our military allegedly shot up refugees.

What the AP does NOT tell you is that we, and SOUTH KOREA, almost LOST the Korean War before it had hardly begun.  By September, South Korean and U.N. forces (mainly U.S. forces) had been driven almost out of the Korean peninsula.  U.N. forces controlled about 10% of the tip of the peninsula.  They were in danger of being driven into the sea.  It is in this context that the truly despicable AP says that this "Korean Commission" determined that U.S. planes were "unjusfified" in attacking a village.  You can trust me on this.  EVERY anti-American allegation made before this South Korean Commission (more about that later) was repeated, WITH APPROVAL, by the anti-American AP.  There was NO contradictory, pro-American material, or explanation of the context of what was happening.

The "refugees" existed becaause the NORTH KOREANS WERE OVERRUNNING THE COUNTRY.  The entire survival of the country was at stake.  No one could worry too much about refugees, or the fate of individual villages.  The U.S./U.N. forces were DESPERATE to disrupt the supply lines of the North Korean forces, and to prepare the way for the counterattack in the works.  This meant BOMBING.  It meant BOMBING of ROADS.  It meant BOMBING of supplies.  Civilians were  GOING TO DIE.  You could, in hindsight, question the "justificiation" of individual raids or individual decisions by pilots.  But the situation was DESPERATE.  AMERICANS WERE DYING. A whole country was about to disappear under a Stalinist dictatorship (one of the WORST nt eh world today),

The DESPICABLE (I can't express the sheer CONTEMPT I have for these people at the AP) AP (and AOL) had the nerve to talk abut "justification" for individual bombing raids prior to the amphibious landing at Inchon.  To mention Inchon as merely an amphibious landing anciallary to a COMPLAINT about American bombing would get everyone at the AP SHOT in North Korea (under similar cirmcumstances).  I am tempted to shoot them myself, to put them out of their misery, if onely I did not believe in free speech and oppose murder. 

Inchon was not merely an "amphibious landing".  It was one of the most brilliant operations in the history of war.  It was one of the crowing achievements of Douglas MacArthur as a military commander.  It was a massive roll of the dice. It is not too much to say that the FATE of South Korea rested on Inchon.  If Inchon had failed, there would be NO South Korea today.  And the wretched AP has the nerve to talk about "unjustified" bombings prior to Inchon.  I wish those people lat the AP would tell that to the face of Amiercan soldiers who landed at Inchon. I would PAY to see that. 

The couterattack at Inchon was, again, one of the most successful in the history of war.  By Octover, U.N. forces were INVADING NORTH KOREA.  North Korean forces were being routed.  MacArthur had triumphed with an operation worthy of any general in history. 

You should know what happened next.  Hubris set in--or too much trust in poliiticans, depending on your point of view.  MacArthur did not believe that the Chinese would intervene as his forces approached the Chinese border.  MacArthur thought he could militarily defeat any such intervention by boming bridges IN CHINA.  He was never allowed to do that, and he was WRONG in his belief that the Chinese would not intervene.  They did.  MacArthur criticized Truman for not allowing himn to do what he miliarily wanted to do, and MacArthur was relieved.  We ended up in the present stalemate in Korea.  Still, South Korea was saved, BECAUSE OF INCHON.

Yes, this is all HISTORY.  But the despicable, anti-American AP (and AOL) have brought up this "history" as CURRENT "IMPACT" "news" THREE TIMES in the past two months.  The first two times, the AP tried to (unbelievably) BLAME the U.S. for SoUTH KORENA macine gunning of prisoners as the North Koreans were pushing their way toward conquering all of South Korea.  This THIRD anti-American view of HISTORY--without context--blames the U.S. military for not paing enough attention to the risk of civilian deaths.  That is FIFTY EIGHT YEARS AGO.  It is, indeed, history--hisotry involiving a military fighting for its very existence (in Korea, anyway). 

There is NO excuse for treating this as "current news"  It is for historians.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to evaluate bombing raids 58 years later.  There is actually MORe reason to question many World War II raids, including the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden.  Sherman said:  War is Hell.  You can't start acting like people were monsters who did what they felt was necessary, IN A JUST WAR WHERE THE LIVES OF THEIR SOLDIERS WERE AT STAKE.  That applies to both World War II and Korea.

I can't tell you how strongly I feel about this.  There wil be more entries on this during this week, and it is 99.99% certain that the Associated Press and AOL will have the Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate point to them yet again next Saturday.

.

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My take on this:

http://journals.aol.com/slapinions/Slap-Inionscom/entries/2008/08/06/my-objections-to-an-ap-story-on-the-korean-war/2499

Anonymous said...

Dan is the master of more measured, calmly reasoned entries than you usually see in this blog.  I recommend his entry on this subject to you.  For example, he actually COUNTED (or estimated carefully) the number of words in the AP article (1800).  As Dan notes, this is more words than ANY recent article from the AP on the threat posed by North Korea NOW--much less on the historical and current evils of North Korea.  Dan refers to an AP article on the present threat of North Korea, which takes up only 700 words.  There is almost never any mention of North Korea as a STALINIST dictatorship almost universally agreed as one of the most repressive and unscuccessful governments on the face of the Earth.  In comparison, in this 1800 word article, the AP dismisses South Korea as a "right-wing dictatoriship" prior to the "recent democratization".  The whole purpose of that particular agenda based item was to assert this as an "explantion" of why these evils committed by this evil county (U.S.A.) were hushed up for all of these years.  See today's new entry (in preparation) for more analysis of the despicable, anti-American AP article.