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In "Making War, Thinking History," Jeffrey Record describes how North
Korea's invasion of South Korea caught President Harry S. Truman by
surprise. Still, and according to Record, Truman associated North
Korea's invasion with Hitlerism, Mussolini's Fascism, and Japan's
aggression right before World War II. Therefore, Truman believed that if
Communist North Korea's invasion would go unchecked, it would not only
encourage more invasions and aggressive acts around the world, but it
would embolden Communist nations to invade the United States, even
possibly leading to World War III.
This came to mind when a South Korean commission investigating U.S.
wartime atrocities during the Koran War (actually on 138 separate
occasions) found they were "militarily justified." Evidently, and in a
flurry of rulings that dealt with possible compensation and criminal
charges, the commission-which reflected the conservative South Korean
ruling party and which had greatly antagonized the United States-found a
lack of "credible" evidence in the majority of the atrocities. While
finding no evidence of illegality by the American military, the
commission then ruled that the atrocities and deaths resulted from
"military necessity."
But were the deaths really a "military necessity," or another "military
mistake" committed by another overly biased and imperial view of
history? Before becoming president, Truman had realized that almost all
current events in the affairs of governments and nations had their
parallels in the past. He believed that "no decision affecting the
people should be made impulsively, but on the basis of historical
background and careful consideration of the facts as they exist at the
time...and that the leader of any country...must know the history of not
only his own country but of all the other great countries, and that he
must make the effort to apply this knowledge to the decisions that have
to be made."
But whose and what kind of history did Truman apply in regards to the
initial stages of the Korean War? When deciding whether or not to use
force, Truman's basis stemmed from Nazi and Japanese aggression, the
Holocaust, and the firm belief that Russia wanted to dominate the world
through communism. Was it a gross error in judgment to link Korea's
effort at unification with the Third Reich's military ambitions, or with
Japan's imperial efforts and its surprise attack against the United
States mainland, (something Korea was incapable of doing)? Was Truman
mistaken to believe another Holocaust could occur on the Korean
Peninsula, and that Russian Communists wanted to control the world?
In thinking about peace and committing atrocities, one could argue that a
more accurate history would be America's need to keep intact thousands
of military bases (30,000) around the world that were established
during World War II. Would a better perception of the past be how the
United States became a superpower with a super weapon-the atomic bomb,
both of which changed the actual character and nature of millions
Americans for the worst (in my opinion)? Did Truman reflect on the costs
and consequences with regards to maintaining a permanent war economy
with tens of millions of civilians under arms, or at least dependent on a
vast military-industrial-scientific-intelligence complex? Was the U.S.
intervention in Korea an act of altruism and to protect human rights, or
was it a way to justify a continuance in mobilizing for armed
aggression and war profiteering?
Lee Chang, one survivor of the victims, and whose parents were among an
estimated 300 South Korean soldiers, railway officials, students and
other civilians killed when American aircraft bombed the train station
in Iri, claimed that the commission and South Korean Government were
cowering before the "big" U.S. Government. He further questioned if it
was O.K for Americans to bomb civilians by mistake without any
accountability or compensation. The commission also investigated
thousands of refugees and suspected leftists (some historians claim as
many as 200,000) who were rounded up and executed by U.S. and South
Korean troops.
Witnesses testified about American fighter pilots who indiscriminately
attacked refugee groups, killing them with machine-gun fire, missiles
and napalm. Declassified American documents show that refugees were
either crammed inside caves and suffocated by fires, or huddled on
beaches and shelled by American war ships. The commission found that the
attacks violated international law and rules set by the Geneva
Convention on war. It also sought reparations and compensation for the
atrocities. It is now obvious the commission was pressured by the
pro-U.S. South Korean government to re-track such statements. Many
witnesses claimed they were afraid to testify due to fear of
retaliation.
Seeing as none of America's wars since 1945 have been wars of necessity,
does this not, at least, nullify the argument of "military necessity"
in relation to the U.S. and its leaders and soldiers which committed the
atrocities? Historical analogies are very slippery slopes. They can
easily be misconstrued and non applicable from one historical situation
and time period to another. From Vietnam to the ongoing wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, American leaders have repeatedly used the fear of
Nazism and the Holocaust, along with Communist hysteria currently and
wrongly being applied to Islamic jihad, in trying to promote peace while
committing atrocities.
As the U.S. and South Korea prepare for land and naval war games in
order to send North Korea a clear and strong military message, and even
as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates visits the Korean Demilitarized Zone; since the end of
World War II, one has to question if the U.S. has reacted out of a
framework based on military and political hubris and from misconstruing
historical analogies, rather than from unbiased objectivity towards past
events and historical facts. If it is the former, then sadly the U.S.
has thought peace but committed many atrocities. Even more so, the same
could be said of North Korea, along with several other countries.
Source: WorldNews.com
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