Yes, but I fat-fingered “1500″ instead of “1600″, so pass the salt!

Eight years war is usually found in Dutch sources as the “Tachtigjarige Oorlog”

A humbel bow.

Organic mortars are indigenous and readily available to every line infantry unit, both then and now.

Yeah, but they normally only fire into a hole in the ground.

Tsk, tsk, Lirelou; this error of yours completely discredits what otherwise would have been a sterling post.

Thirty Years War: 1618-1648, concluded by famous “Peace of Westphalia”, often cited today by students of International relations as the foundation of the modern notion of the nation-state’s inviolate sovereignity.

As in North Korea can build its nukes and it’s none of our damn business.

Let’s take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

Holy Roman Empires, now that I do look I see the following quote:

“…The Peace of Westphalia refers to the pair of treaties….signed in October and May 1648 which ended both the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War…”

“Eighty Years War”? I knew about the Thirty Years War, and the Hundred Years War — but the Eighty Years War is a new one on me.

Eighty years definitely takes us back to the mid-1500’s — and so you get to skate on a technicality, Lirelou. Turns out it is I who am in error, looks like I’ll have to eat my elaborately plumed cavalier’s hat. Oh well, what’s a mere century or two, after all…

Siege of Magdeburg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg

Bermudez does not address the exploitation of refugee columns by NK SOF. Rather he lays out the existence of Pak Hyon-yong’s Hoeryong guerrilla training institute, teh Kangdong institute, the infiltration of guerrilla forces into the south, and the specific units launched across the East Sea. This as a counter to H. Kim’s attempt to dismiss NK SOF in the rear as inconsequential. 7,000 is the strength of NK Division of the period. A minor point on Bermudez. He does his homework, but lists Kim Il-sung’s 1930s AND wwii guerrilla faction as the “Kaspen” group. I have checked with him, and this should read “Kapsan” group. The automatic spell check did not recognize a Korean name place.

“Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Two citations exist: “Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset” has been attributed to both Abbot Almaric Arnaud, supposedly his advice to the commander of Christian troops at Beziers, France, in 1208, when Simon de Montfort was cleaning out the Albigensian heretics. The version I heard attributed the saying to Pappenheim and Tilley, commanders of the Holy Roman Imperial forces at the seige of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years War in the mid 1500s. This case is more believable, in the Magdeburg was a mixed Catholic-Protestant city, and it makes sense that the question would have been asked by subordinate commanders in such a “crusade”.

Also popular among “wannabees” and rear echelon troopers back in the 1970s and early 80s. People who had never seen a real war, but had been raised on macho bullsh*t war movies like Rambo and Full Metal Jacket, and wanted to project what they thought was a badass attitude.

H. Kim. you have obviously never called on mortar support in combat, More to the point, it was much harder in the Korean war when the radios were nothing like todays, and wire was the normal means for passing fire commands to the mortar platoon. Korean war radios were primitive even by Vietnam War standards, when at least the transistor had replaced the vacuum tube. Ranges were extremely limited, and reception far more susceptible to atmospheric conditions. More to the point: Did they have mortars? Were the mortars linked up to the platoons? Did they have sufficient mortar ammunition? Did everyone have maps? And were these maps up to date and accurate? Had the mortar fires been registered? If this last condition had not been met, attempting to fire mortars behind refugees would have been equally dangerous. All those niggling little details that require time and effort, that an advancing enemy will do his utmost to deny you.

Case in point is the forensic evidence at the site showing the possibility of shooters from within the refugee column at No Gun-ri. The 7th Cav S4 logs show a Russian and Japanese rifles turned in the next day after No Gun-ri plus a ROK forensic team found shell casings from these types of rifles at the site during the investigation. No other battle took place at the bridge so this is evidence of possible shooters from the refugee column. None of this is considered evidence to the AP or people like H. Kim who so desperately want to believe.

Additionally witness statements from soldiers who were proven to be at No Gun-ri say they were fired at from the group of refugees which is what started the firing back at them. These witness statments were part of the 124 witness statements that were contrary to what the AP wanted to report.

Judging by the type of weapons and the area the 7th Cav was in, the shooters were probably South Korean communist guerrillas moving within the refugee column who had been active in the Yongdong area prior to the start of the Korean War.

However, none of this matters to people like H. Kim who so desperately want to believe that they are willing to deny massive historical, witness, and forensic evidence saying otherwise.

The simplest way to settle this is to excevate the site and find the 400 bodies. Imagine the forensic evidence 400 bodies would leave yet no one wants to dig. I wonder why?

There wasn’t anybody else available to be thrown into the battle, H. Kim.

The alternative was to concede the loss of ROK to the Communists; Truman wasn’t willing to do that, especially since the properly constituted ROK government of Syngman Rhee had formally requested US assistance.

Even the very best trained current US infantry battalion is probably not going to be able to apply individual civilian-police team SWAT-type discrimination between the “bad guys” and “hostages” in a major firefight; that seems to be the standard you are expecting.

(For that matter, even the SWATs can’t always do it; for an example, see one of the History channel “Shootout” episodes, the one they aired yesterday (Sun) here in CONUS, about a major hostage episode in a Sacramento area “Good Guys” electronics store. A lunatic group of 4 “oriental bad-boy” gang-bangers took about 40 plus hostages; they ended up killing three and wounding about a dozen more, when the SWAT team assault following unsucessful negotiation was not completely successful).

Maybe the ROK Army can do it though, in a future combat situation; that’s why I say that the sooner we can get our US ground forces out of there, the sooner worried ROK civilians can breathe easy.

And congratulations, you managed to get in a ad hominum reference to “assholes”. I suppose that will get another one of your responses deleted; too bad, as I think it deserves to remain “on the board” here, as an indication you sense some of the weakness of your argument.

Your arrogance makes you assert your invincibity to rational argument, but of course nobody ever concedes anything in one of these internet debates anyway. I think it’s important to respond as though it could, though, for the sake of any “bystanders” who might be here reading and wondering.

Especially since our current US administration does such a poor job in standing up for our position in the world.
if I could have my way in the matter, the US President/Secy of State/Secy of Defense would hold a major news conference to lay out a comprehensive case in defense of these Korean war “massacre” allegations.

As if yours isn’t? Hey, it takes one to know one.

Ah, the tu quoque. Off to an auspicious start. In point of fact, I have refrained from asserting whether or not the principle of double effect would apply in any particular case. I laid out the principle, which has well over 2,000 years of moral philosophy behind it, and opined that it could well apply in such a situation.

And don’t tell me about “moral justification” — there is none when it comes down to shooting unarmed civilians.

Correction: there is none when it comes down to intentionally shooting unarmed civilians.

And as for double effect being moral rationalization, I think I’ll cast my lot with Aristotle, Aquinas, More, Suarez, et al. I’ll leave you to your fantasy world where all is black and white. Where the guys who shoot into a mixed crowd of civilians and enemy in a desperate attempt to save their own lives are the guilty ones, while the evil SOBs who created that detestable situation come in for nary a slap on the wrist.

…sounds like so much Monday morning quarterbacking to me.

As if yours isn’t? Hey, it takes one to know one.

And don’t tell me about “moral justification” — there is none when it comes down to shooting unarmed civilians.

What your really talking about is moral rationalization — for which there is aplenty.

And rationales being like excuses, which are like assholes, I guess everyone does have one.

Mortars dude…it’s a reference to mortars. Grunts are not limited to direct fire weapons (machine guns). Organic mortars are indigenous and readily available to every line infantry unit, both then and now.

And you’re missing the point, dude. If for whatever reason indirect fire was not getting the job done, the defenders would be morally justified in resorting to direct fire even in the knowledge that civilians could, even would, be harmed as a result. And given that you weren’t there, the implicit contention that the threat could be suppressed solely by indirect fire sounds like so much Monday morning quarterbacking to me.