So says Charles J. Hanley and Chang Jae-soon in TIME:
The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it “would be permitted” to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces.
In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.
Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified “secret” and filed away.
Now, a half-century later, the South Korean government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating what happened in that summer of terror, a political bloodbath largely hidden from history, unlike the communist invaders’ executions of southern rightists, which were widely publicized and denounced at the time.
More on this later. In the meantime, read the rest on your own.
97 Comments
Although this was all a long time ago, the people killed were peoples mothers, fathers, grandparents, etc. I’m not saying the US Army needs to be blamed for doing the actual shooting, but the US and its citizens should be man enough to acknowledge the role its policies in the region had in creating/encouraging the circumstances for these kind of incidents.
It takes a big man to admit ones mistakes. Denial and abbrogation of responsibilities after so much time and so much suffering do not do the public reputation of the denier any good. And there is no reason why current serving US military personnel in Korea should feel guilt or responsibility.
Why does the flag next to my post say I am in Australia or New Zealand or one of those English colonies? Very strange.
It’s been known for quite a long time that the South Korean Armed Forces and Police executed thousands of ‘communists’ during the early stages of the Korean War and that the US did little to prevent this. Pictures of the mock trials and executions have been published over the years. So, I really don’t see why reporters are trying to make it sound as if it’s a new discovery. I’d be suspicious of the timing if I were American.
What actions has the South Korean government taken towards the South Korean commanders and troops who planned, ordered, and carried out the mass executions? I couldn’t find much about that in the article…
from the article, this guy says it best:
this is on par with US Vietnamese residents crying foul over the Vietnam war, and current Vietnamese residents too eager to have free trade with the US.
the US is free of any guilt or shame, and the South Korean leaders and followers who did the executions are ultimately responsible for what was a necessary act, when there was doubt and legitimacy about the ROK govt itself.
i’ll bet these generals did quite well financially after the war.
what are they asking for? A US apology and compensation?
satelite photos show bright lights in Seoul and South Korea, and North Korea can be mistaken as the open sea at night.
that is the US compensation, for the Korean War.
As for the Russians and the Chinese, they should be dug out of their graves, and be spat at.
wjk, I’d just like to compliment you on your excellent paragraph structure there. Also, I agree with you. South Koreans killing South Koreans is the responsibility of South Koreans.
ultimately, it was the koreans who orderdered the executions and triggered the weapons. sure, the US could have used its influence to stop it but in the end, it was the koreans who had the intent, to which they acted upon. south korea is responsible. but kudos to the british for doing their part to stop it.
Why does the flag next to my post say I am in Australia or New Zealand or one of those English colonies?
I guess it’s your lucky day
I’m not saying the US Army needs to be blamed for doing the actual shooting, but the US and its citizens should be man enough to acknowledge the role its policies in the region had in creating/encouraging the circumstances for these kind of incidents.
yonseibrian, the “role” of US policies in the region saved 50 milion people from one of the worst regimes in modern history. The US doesn’t need to apologise to anyone, certainly not here in the ROK. And you need to pick up a basic history book on the Korean War and give it a read.
nothing new here; you can set your seasons to hanley’s regurgitation of the events.
Yeah, the flag randomizing machine gave me France.
At least, apparently, from my home computer, one block away from this PC bang where I’m hiding from my in-laws.
I have to agree with yonseibrian on this one.
Before I take my Korea war history books back to the library I’ll try and find some quotes for you hoju_saram. Will Ridgway’s account suffice?
“Why does the flag next to my post say I am in Australia or New Zealand or one of those English colonies?”
Yeonsei Brian, Any initiative you took with your “heartfelt and sensitive” first comment went right out the window with your ignoramous and insensitive second.
They must let anyone weyguk with a pulse into that school nowadays!
the history of the American empire is replete with murderous rampages
e.g. see how they turned Samar into a howling wilderness..
http://www.filipinoamericans.n.....acre.shtml
The Pacification of Samar.
Due to the public demand in the U.S. for retaliation, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the pacification of Samar. And in six months, General “Jake” Smith transformed Balangiga into a “howling wilderness.” He ordered his men to kill anybody capable of carrying arms, including ten-year-old boys.
Smith particularly ordered Major Littleton Waller to punish the people of Samar for the deaths of the American troops. His exact orders were: “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn, the better you will please me.”
It was after the Japanese occupation, so blame obviously goes to the USA.
Nothing new here, let’s move on.
yonseibrian,
#10 had the answer. The American reporter has made a career out of using the chic of “declassified documents” and Vietnam-era My Lia Massacre outrage to get himself into print —- when what he reports has been known for decades.
On comment #8 — It is highly debatable whether the US could have stopped this type of thing - especially in this early period of the war when the US wasn’t much involved.
Even when the US was in full control of the war effort from the top level - it was not in control of Korean military units on the ground — US officers were not the leaders of Korean units….and Korean units were not merged with American ones.
Maharlika, before you start piling on the USA, you should read the article so you can make a sensical and relevant comment.
Yes, America is always the bad guy screwing up the world. Why, without America getting unncessarily involved, the world would be divided into three harmonious spheres:
1. Halcyon workers’ paradises under the Soviet system, with blissfully low carbon footprints.
2. Efficient 1000-Year Reich where the trains ran on time.
3. Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere with Asians living in harmony under the direction of their benevolent Japanese superiors.
Oh yeah, that and the ugly capitalistic bastion of North America and maybe Great Britain (presumably the Latin Americans would have seen the wisdom of workers’ paradises or national socialism and converted in the meantime). What a utopia the world would be if it wasn’t for Uncle Sam ruining things.
As for the timing of the article/report, one can only speculate, but is there ever a good time to put out an article like this?
Since you’re not saying so, amybe you should just have a nice hot cup of STFU. Otherwise, the onus is on you to substantiate the claim that US policies in the region created/encouraged these kinds of incidents. One of the salient points of Bruce Cumings’ opus is that internecine brutality between North and South and left and right in Korea was independent of foreign influence; it’s not only part and parcel, it’s the crux of his civil war thesis re the origins of the Korean War.
#19 Wedge, it’s either 1 or 2, not both. The Russians beat the nazis (with British and US help). What America did in was stop the Russians going past Berlin.
#22: Perhaps they would have come to an accomodation a la 1917 with the Urals as the dividing line. Anyway, the point stands.
On Korean-on-Korean violence, see an International Herald Tribune piece by Choi Sang-hun titled From a brutal past, a South Korean village strives for reconciliation. It’s a look at how Koreans went after each other during the war, and their attempts at reconciliation.
Excellent comments overall. WJK, I don’t quite understand @6, referring to “U.S. Vietnamese residents” and “Vietnamese residents”, but as the point is ancillary, I’ll drop it. Reference Hanley’s article, it is worth mentioning that after June 1949, when the last U.S. combat unit pulled out of Korea, U.S. presence was limited to 500 or so personnel of KMAG. Given the tempo of operations, they had to be extremely busy, not to mention concerned with their own safety and survival. Perhaps someone has specific information on the actual numbers of KMAG advisors in the field, as I suspect that down where the rubber met the road, they were few, and widely separated from both each other, and their higher headquarters. By the way, the tactical radios of the period, even when jeep mounted, had trouble reaching more than 9 kilometers, unless you happened to be sitting up high on a mountain, and I’ll bet the Korean telephone system was overloaded. Ignoring the fact that an “Advisor” is exactly that, someone with zero actual authority to give orders to 3rd country nationals, I think Hanley’s problem is that he grossly misunderstands U.S. force levels in Korea at the various times, the informational penumbra under which those few were operating, the language problems (how many KMAG people even spoke Korean?), and the panic that reigns in any combat situation. And, more importantly, he has never learned the first law of land warfare: I.e., the first report is usually WRONG! This is because reports are taken exactly as sent, often by someone who has received it from someone else, who had a lot more on his plate than sending reports to higher. Once the panic or severe crisis has passed, which for US Forces in the Korean War would have been the period following Incheon until CCF intervention, and then after the lines had stabilized and Armistice talks were underway, the reports get better, even routine.
“the US is free of any guilt or shame, and the South Korean leaders and followers who did the executions are ultimately responsible for what was a necessary act, when there was doubt and legitimacy about the ROK govt itself.”
Necessary act? Korean police officers were dragging people out in the streets and beating them to death because they had received anonymous ‘tips’ that they were ‘communists’. Unscrupulous people were using this as a convenient way of settling old grudges.
I don’t understand why ppl need to take such polarizing views here. It’s tough being a superpower having to fight another superpower (at that time the Russians) who won’t hesitate to put a knife behind your back when you are not looking.
What happened happened. It isn’t something that the Korean Republic or the U.S. should be proud of however. The larger context is that it was the Cold War, which was a damn big deal in the 50’s and 60’s, and Korea was a hot battleground in that war. I feel bad for those families that survived, but sure as hell, the North Koreans had their own death squads and sure as hell they, and their Russian overlords, are not loosing any sleep over that history.
My grandfather, being a land owner, was on their hit list. He was able to escape when my great-aunt got the squad of NKPA soldiers sent to arrest him drunk on the family stash of soju and he snuck away into the woods.
Damn, I wrote something deep and insightful, posted it, and now it’s gone.
Sorry - posted this in the wrong thread:
Old news. Of course, the anti-American left in Korea will seize on even old news, distort it, and use it to whip up xenophobia, but old news it is nonetheless.
Lots of commentators point out that the US is in a lose-lose situation with its responsibilities in Korea. I agree, but it’s not so cut and dry: usually, the U.S. seems to intervene when it shouldn’t and sit on the sidelines when it should intervene.
Furthermore, the Korean left can argue persuasively that it has no reason to balance its commentary on the killings, because everyone already knows the ROK Army was complicit in lots of civilian killings. The only thing that’s “new” is the American presence at the scene.
Don’t mistake me for a fan of the Korean left. My point is merely that they’re sure to bring that up in their defense.
“Lots of commentators point out that the US is in a lose-lose situation with its responsibilities in Korea. I agree, but it’s not so cut and dry: usually, the U.S. seems to intervene when it shouldn’t and sit on the sidelines when it should intervene.”
Exactly. Who controls/has controlled things here? South Korean politicians or the US? It’s not a simple question to answer.
Richard Fernandez, “The Good Wars,” The Belmont Club, has some useful reflections on this story.
Here are his concluding remarks:
“I’ve written elsewhere that what really distinguishes veteran’s reunions isn’t the stories they tell but the secrets they keep. That goes for both the good and the bad. Were the Korean killings a crime? They very probably were. And why are they being declassified now? Because everyone involved is either dead or too old to be held to account . . . . How does one weigh the act of cold blooded murder against the backdrop of the of the armies of Kim Il Sung bearing down on your position? Pray that you never find out. There are situations in which there are no good solutions.”
Read the entire piece, which is not very long, and form your own opinion.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Typical of Koreans in Korea, blame someone else for their sins. Apologies to those who don’t do such things. It seems that the majority does though.
Koreans did it to Koreans. They should be lookiing inside themselves for answers and blame.
After the last few years of Korean hate towards America, I now believe the UN/US shouldn’t have helped Korea at all…especially after reading the shit in that article.
What a waste of 54,246 American lives.
I think the killings were completely understandable, given the following circumstances - (1) the ROK’s knew that a Communist victory would have meant their summary executions, perhaps along with their entire families (as happened a lot after the Communists won in China) and (2) they probably thought they were going to lose. Are they bad people for carrying out the killings? Not necessarily. Rules of war exist to impose a price for not conforming to them. If one party breaks the rules, the other party is not bound by them. By summarily killing non-Communists in their power, the Communists forfeited any right their followers had to protection in territory held by the ROK, especially in the context of a hot war in which food was scarce and infiltration by large enemy units common.
“What a waste of 54,246 American lives.”
You mean Vietnam?
The Korean War had 36,516 U.S. deaths.
Now this got me thinking last night. Has there ever been a time when the US has suffered a strategic defeat because they refused to cooperate with someone whose tactics were “less than exemplary”?
There’s a few cases where it has blown up in their faces; Chiang Kai-shek, Batista, Reza Pahlavi, Chretien, Mobutu, the Somozas, Saddam and the Mujahedeen.
Then there’s a few cases where it’s been bad but by and large they’ve gotten away with it; Sukarno and Suharto, the Sauds, Pinochet, Rhee and friends.
Perhaps not holding onto Diem was a mistake? And maybe the Americans didn’t have any friends in Mogadishu because they refused to talk nicey-nice with the local warlords?
Rugova seemed like a decent guy. And I’m really pulling for Karzai. Musharraf is a hard one to place. First category or second?
The other thing I want to say is, apart from Zhang Fei’s “they started it” excuse, and the various “ends justifies the means” reasoning, those of you who say there was little the Americans could do to stop it, might like to comment on this part of the article.
“It was the British who took action, according to news reports at the time. On Dec. 7, in occupied North Korea, British officers saved 21 civilians lined up to be shot, by threatening to shoot the South Korean officer responsible. Later that month, British troops seized “Execution Hill,” outside Seoul, to block further mass killings there.”
Now the British don’t have a completely clean copybook. They’d just come out of India and many were on their way to Malaya. It only takes a small action to save someone’s life, but there’s food for thought at least.
I don’t have enough information about the killings or the environment around the killings or international law at the time…and I’m sure the same goes for almost all of us here…
…but I’m also confident the majority of us know that South Korea, from 1948 on, and even earlier, was hotly contested ground with communist elements, supported by the North, doing all they could to disrupt the society to bring down the South Korean government.
We also know that Kim Il Sung thought the war would be short in part because he counted on a wholesale uprising in the South. He over estimated how many Southerners were with him, but he did have a following that did rise up. (They had risen up before too).
I think there is no question that many innocents were killed in the South Korean government round ups…
…but what should have been done with those who weren’t innocent?
The North Korean military used as a key battlefield tactic the dressing of soldiers in civilian clothing to pass through allied lines. It also used real local subversive elements to do the very same — to act in a military fashion….
What do you do with those people?
We still don’t know. Look at Gitmo. They probably had a clearer idea of what to do with them in 1950 and back in World War II.
Despite what the US Supreme Court seems to think today, the Geneva Conventions specifically placed such “fighters” outside its mandate for the rules of war in handling POWs.
Given today’s sensibilities, and the reality of global terrorism, it would be nice if the world community could sit down and hammer out some revised guidelines to augment the Geneva Conventions in this area in which they fall short.
But it ain’t going to happen.
And with today’s sensibilities, we will never know how to interpret actions like those in 1950 or future occurances when armies playing by the rules are faced with fighters who aren’t…
Comparing the US military and the British military is like comparing ladies and gentlemen.
OK, I’m just kidding folks.
Has anybody else read about the French (and perhaps British too) military officers sent to observe the Jeju Uprising in 47-48 and learn about the anti-guerilla stategies (mix of american/japanese strategies).
Tricks learned there went to Indochine, Malaya, back again to Vietnam, etc, etc.
Do I need to find a link or is this common enough knowledge here?
Not wanting to diss you nice comment usinkorea, but am I alone in finding the term “rules of war” oxymoronic?
I’m sure there are similar accounts of similar action by US field commanders at lower echelons that Hanley doesn’t report because it doesn’t fit into his agenda.
Eujin,
Comment #35 shows the weakness. Do you actually believe the US had controlling influence in all those examples?
You clearly seem to do.
This thread had me thinking about something yesterday and Eujin’s comment brought it back big time:
I remember shortly after 9/11, I caught on C-Span a speech by Chompsky, in New York, where he said his usual and he got a near-rock star ovation from a full house. It was amazing. The guy who had presented him, a media critic from FOX news’ Sunday show about the media, came back on stage and was in tears.
So, I thought, “Fine. Let’s have it…”
I went to the college library and got all the tell-all books on the CIA I could find. Most of them covering South and Central America. But the one item that stood out as representative of all I found was this: it was an interview with a CIA operative who was a liason with the Vietnamese intelligence and military services.
The CIA guy talked about how he would show up in one region and find out the Vietnamese had been doing a lot of dirty poo, and the CIA guy said he’d give the Viet guy hell saying that such information was unreliable and turned the locals against them and helped the North Vietnamese elements recruit and so on. But the CIA guy said as soon as he’d leave the same thing would happen.
Now, to the writer of this tell-all book , the CIA guy was blind to his complicity in the bad doings in Vietnam. To me, however, after I finished all this reading, I came away from those books even further from a Eujin point of view than when I started….
It’s fascinating to me - and this can cut both ways - that the people who fall within the same general area of Eujin’s way of thinking — are the same who advocate “diplomacy” with North Korea.
Rory,
I’d like the links (seriously) for what you are talking about.
I’d like to have seen the US KMAG officer who would shoot a Korean unit commander in the head in front of his Korean troops…
No. There are clearly rules of war. They have been codified. And they are in bad need of revision in today’s world.
In places like WWII, I am sure the US and allies used tactics that were clearly spelled out as beyond the rules. I guess the French resistance would be an example here…
….but in those days….given the rules…you pretty much knew what was going to happen when someone in or aiding the French resistance was caught - or some other allied operative working behind enemy lines.
Today, it seems clear the idea is that the Geneva Conventions would apply to those operatives too - and they should have been shipped off to German POW camps like allied airmen shot down on a bombing run…
…but that surely isn’t what they thought (and did) back then or how they read the Geneva Conventions — which to me do clearly spell out that the operatives were to be considered as falling outside the rules of war and thus ineligible for the provisions covering what they spelled out were legitimate soldiers.
So, back then, when the German officer ordered an operative shot in the head, it would not have been considered a war crime.
Rounding up groups of civilians to shoot as a warning after an operative had completed a mission - like the two who killed General Hydrick (sp?) (I just finished watching the HBO movie Conspiracy again) — would have been.
Sperwer #40, I’d tend to agree with you, but it would be good to dig up some specific examples just for the record.
Also, it would be good to dig up examples of Muccio or Ridgway or even MacArthur reading the riot act to Rhee or the ROKA. “Yes, we are here to defend your country but we don’t approve of some of your methods.”
usinkorea, #41, no I don’t think the US had controlling influence in all those examples. As I said before, I tend to agree with yonseibrian’s comment. If you associate with jackasses sometimes it reflects badly on yourself. People slam the Chinese for supporting the Sudanese and Zimbabweans. And rightly so. I don’t think the Chinese have a controlling influence in those cases. They do however try to ship them arms. Reflects badly on the Chinese.
No one in their right mind tries to deny that situations like Abu Ghraib are detrimental to the overall mission. The other day an Iranian friend of mine sent me a couple of links comparing Iran Air Flight 655 with KE007 (it was some anniversary). I thought about taking it up with him but realised it wouldn’t help. What do you want me to do? Tell him to fuck off?
Eujin
When you say things like “they have gotten away with it” it kinda muddles what you might have to say — making it seem like you are giving a hefty portion of the responsibility for the bad things that went on in that long list of names you gave.
Especially when you pull out an example in the immediate follow up comment about the British doing something to stop the killings in Korea — giving the impression, again, that the US could have done much to stop what took place in that long list of names…
that should be “giving a hefty portion….to the US”
Ah, OK, I see. Sorry if it was unclear. What I was trying to say was that certain regimes that had “friendly relations” with the US became very unpopular in their own countries because of their policies and this led to uprisings that installed regimes that did not have “friendly relations” with the US. Saddam and the Mujahedeen maybe were just supplied with weapons and then turned against the US.
What I meant with the list of them “getting away with it” was that the regimes weren’t so unpopular that they were overthrown. Supporting these regimes did not backfire on the US. I did not mean to say that the US “got away” with human rights violations.
If I am thinking of the right two events, the Iranian and Korean passenger plane incidents are interesting to consider together.
With the US shoot down, there were video and voice recordings available immediately after the event supporting the US military contention that it had mistaken the passenger plane as a threat and shot it down.
With the Russian shootdown, if that is the incident we are talking about, that type of evidence wasn’t available until the end of the Cold War when the Soviet archives opened up and the US declassified intelligence intercepts listening stations, I believe it was, in Japan had recorded.
Those showed, contrary to the HBO movie about the incident made before the archives were mined, the Russians knew it was a passenger plane before they shot it down — and they were acting in a Cold War zone - not a hot one like in the Gulf at the time of the other shooting.
#48 — Thanks for the clarification and #48 is clear enough to read back and see it in the other comments….
There is evidence in Hanley and Chang’s report that the US did protest executions and the like. But the story from Busan in the first paragraph is indicative of a certain “ambiguity” in the face of South Koreans eager to eliminate their political opponents.
A similar sort of thing turns up in Ridgway’s book “The Korean War”. pp. 95-96, discussing the second evacuation of Seoul
“My specific orders to General Palmer therefore were to instruct his MPs that if civilians refused to stay clear of the highway, the MPs were to fire over the heads of the refugees, and if this failed to stay the tide, the MPs were, as a last resort, to use their weapons directly against the offenders.”
Or on p. 212, discussing the POW uprising on Geojedo,
“I thereupon directed General Van Fleet in writing to establish order in the prison camps immediately and to maintain it thereafter, using whatever force was required, even tanks.”
These are authorizations to subordinate officers to shoot civilians as a last resort or to use whatever force necessary, including tanks, against POWs armed only with home-made spears and Molotov cocktails. And these are the things that Ridgway felt he could own up to in 1967.
Dear usinkorea
The ‘news’ about french and other military observers is old, so if you are limited to English you might want to consult Scalapino’s Communism in Korea or Cumings’ Origins of Korean War vol 1. Other wise get you hands on some more recent books such as Park chan-sik’s 4.3 and Jeju history, Hur Young-seon’s Jeju 4.3, or try online to the guys at Jeju 4.3 Research Institute or any of their publications. Like most things Korea, very little is in english on the web, where most information is produced by english teachers and former GI’s such as yourself. (no offense
)
Just a pointer, and try not to take this the wrong way, but do try to be polite when approaching the latter group, they are a wealth of information and help and are very passionate scholars, if they see that you are truly a sincere amateur historian they will help for all they can, although is you appear to be the ‘yankee muckraker’ that you appear here then they will probably give you short shrift.
#49 usinkorea. Yes, you’re talking about the right incidents. There are I believe tape recordings from the cockpit of the Iran Air Flight where the USS Vincennes is warning them to stay away, but they obviously didn’t realise they were talking to them. And I think that the Russian pilots sent up to intercept KE007 correctly identified it as a Boeing 747, but it too was not responding to their attempts to contact it and they shot it down.
But the Soviets were acting over USSR airspace whereas the Vincennes was, needless to say, quite a way from the US. And while Reagan called the shooting down of KE007 a “crime against humanity [that] must never be forgotten” the US has never formally apologized for 655 nor accepted any wrongdoing.
OK, the sources for the last bits are wikipedia, but I wasn’t about to get into a dispute with an Iranian about it.
I can’t believe people are seriously trying to deny these facts. It is one thing not to apologize, and americans would not be alone in having not apologized for past wrongs, but to deny the FACTS is a bit weak in this information age. We all know this happened with US knowledge, the only argument could only be the level of US responsibility. In this I have to side with YonseiBrian and Eujin which appear to be the only people in this thread with anything more than pedestrian knowledge of these events.
Don’t people read books anymore?
The US’ role in the division of the Korean peninsula and the establishment of the right wing authoritarian regime in the south can NOT be denied, ipso facto its responsibility for the crimes committed by its puppet/client/proxy state in the years just after its ‘departure’.
Please people, if you are interested in these things, get your hands on a freshman korean history reading list, there are children reading the Internet.
…Rory…(notice I dropped the patronizing ‘dear’ part)…
with sources like Cumings, even his more scholarly Origins of the Korean War, your not dealing with cut-n-dried “truth” as you say.
And since we’re talking about muckraking, I’d think your “puppet” and “proxy” fit in nicely.
We ARE talking about level of US responsibility, but such a discussion is not going to be fruitful.
I (and others) would be dismissed as too American (or ignorant of facts).
And others would be dismissed as bias in the other direction — leading them to twist things as many here know is Bruce Cumings’ habit….
(It has been a long time since I read Scalapino and can’t remember enough to say anything about his work)
You say puppet and proxy — both as if the US directly controlled Korea or wanted the South Korean government to do as it did. And you seem to speak of such a thing as “truth” but it is highly debatable at best.
Someone above in the comments mentioned that one central theme in Cumings’ scholarly book is that the origins of the Korean War goes back into the colonial and late dynasty period…
….I have some problems with the way Cumings lays that out as well, but it is clear that Korean society was not the unified mass waiting for freedom and democracy — as the current theme in South Korean society often seems to want to view the pre-Russian/pre-American occupation.
How bloody or mild — long or short — would Korea’s period of turmoil post-Japanese colonization have been had the Americans and Russians stayed out?
(How would the Japanese have gotten out - if they would have gotten out - without such an intervention….???…)
Some of the post-colonial nations still haven’t gotten their act together after decades……..some of them are on the list Eujin provided earlier — and in that light - the US (and USSR) has been given levels of blame for their plight too.
So, I doubt anybody is going to define the clear cut “truth” any time soon….
#53
In the Russian case, as I understand it, the recorded communications show that the the Russian fighter pilots identified the aircraft as a passenger plane.
In the HBO movie, before the records were made available, an American Air Force analyst argued that the Russians had confused the plane with a US spy-plane that had been flying in international airspace for hours earlier.
In the US case, the Iranian plane was shot down by a missile fired from a ship after having been falsely identified as a threat.
…in the US case, it was a fatal error for which the US should be held accountable — but not the same as in the Russian case — if my memory isn’t faulty and the records do show the Korean plane had been properly identified as civilian.
The US case is more like the bombing of the Chinese Embassy during the military action in Kosovo — (but in that case, it was part of a direct military operation in a hot conflict — unlike patrolling the Gulf…)
A serious quick question for some who would like to answer:
What are the puppet governments the US is currently controlling?
Are we Americans the puppet masters in Afghanistan and Iraq?
How about in South Korea right now?
Japan? We’ve got a boat load or two of US soldiers stationed there — and the Japanese economy is still heavily attached to that of the US….
Where else…???
I suggest you get a high school debating society text on rhetoric and logic.
The “fact” of the Us role in the division of peninsula (which is a very, very complex “fact”, btw; maybe you should look into texts a little more sophisticated than those in freshman history) does not “ipso facto” make the US responsible for the crimes committed by the regime that acquired power in the South after USMGIK withdrew, since (again, as you would know if you had anything other than a Korean History for Dummies understanding of it) the Korean puppet had a disconcerting ability of self-determination and self-locomotion.
I’m serious about the question in #58
For example — if I’m not mistaken, the vast majority of heroin sold around the world originates from the poppy fields of Afghanistan…
….given the amount of “control” the US has in Afghanistan - and/or given the amount of strength the US has - how much “control” we might guess the US could exert over Afghanistan, if it “wanted to”….
How much can we blame the current Bush administration for the world trade in heroin???
I recall something about UN supervision of 1948 elections in Korea that resulted in the government of the Republic of Korea. So maybe it is all the UN’s fault? I think I read it in a book though… about the UN supervision of the election I mean…
If I have implied somehow that this period in Korean history is simple and black and white, I’m sorry , for it is far from such.
But then there are these amateaur historians Sperwer and Usinkorea, It seems you are both US military/former US military/ peace corp? Am I right, because I’ve just so heard this kind of drivel from many of my students that were cashed up for college after a tour in Korea and a taste for the place. It would be stupid to think that the US military and government would want you to think any other way than you do. Heaven forbid free thinking troops.
Many do some good research and even move on into academia, however some never manage to shed their earlier brainwashing and scrape though before going back to the military or on to jobs in the government or ‘interest’ groups.
You guys seem fairly interested in Korean history, did you ever think of going to college and trying your luck to see which kind you’d turn out as?
And please get over the Cumings thing, no disrespect to the man but your issues with him are so 1980s.
There is a level of US responsibility in these events. I don’t care for determining how much, its not my business to do so, that is for the US people and their government to try to determin for themselves. But for the sake of bilateral relations the US has to man up and stop stop playing the jilted lover, especially after trying to get its leg over every counrty it could over the last 60 years.
#54,
Maybe, but I read somewhere that Rhee Sung Man’s behavior was so erratic that his wife felt compelled to keep the US embassy up-to-date behind his back.
Minor points for Eujin. Reference your laundry list of U.S. “supported” regimes. Cuba’s Batista was not among them. We had cut off all military aid to Cuba prior to Fidel’s coming to power. Likewise, in Nicaragua, military support for the Somozas was cut back in the 30s, and kept at minimal levels until the mid-70s, when a Texas Congressman managed to increase those levels. Carter put a moratorium on training Nicaraguan troops at U.S. installations, but there were still a large number of Nics in various US military course pipelines by Sep 78, when Somoza called all the troops home to fight. This allowed the FSLN to paint the Somoza regime as a US proxy, when in fact the near opposite was closer to the truth. As for Chang Kai-shek, I’m not sure that has ever “blown up” in our faces. The government he founded is stable, developing democratically, and prosperous. It’s citizens on either side of the political fence far prefer CKS to MZD.
Just some minor points from a 1978 Nicraguan Commando trainer.
I see nobody has taken up my question of what puppet regimes the United States currently controls…
I think it would be a good question to consider, because looking around at what is going on today might give us some sense of how things perhaps worked back in the day…
Actually, USINKOREA, I believe “puppet regime” is a holdover from the Cold War when the left mindlessly regurgitated the term attributed by the Soviets to any government that the U.S. was assisting in any fight against Communist sponsored guerrillas or Communist Armies. Conversely, those supported by the Soviet Union were, ipso facto, “freedom fighters”. But, you knew that.
Yes. And the democracies also labeled any Soviet backed group as a puppet too…
…it’s just interesting how the way the Cold War came to an end didn’t instruct us better.
Also, this is why I want (seriously) to get into a discussion about what puppet regimes might be out there or not — at least in Iraq and Afghanistan - but we could probably find some fertile ground for discussion elsewhere…that might help us understand the past…
….Like in how some South Koreans (and some expats) describe Korea traditional history as being like master-and-servant to China….
That is a common theme, but given how even powerful nations like the US (or perhaps even the USSR) found it hard to “control” even nations greatly dependent on them — I question how much China dominated Korea in the past….
For anyone that is interested I have now posted a response to Hanley’s article over at my site that should provide some added historical perspective.
#61
That’s it? That’s all you got? A lot of impertinent ad hominem drooling? I can’t speak for USINKOREA, and I’m loathe to even address your spew insofar as it regards me. Suffice it to say, you’re not even close in your attempted characterization. What’s more significant is your recourse to ad hominem attack. It’s you who needs to “man up” and make a respectable argument instead of laying on the pompous invective of someone who (mistakenly) thinks he’s too educationally and morally superior to have to.
Really? If that’s the case, I suggest that you get a nice hot cup of STFU and keep your mouth busy entertaining yourself rather than wasting our time with your third rate simulacrum of political correctness.
lirelou #63, thanks for the comments. If you really were a commando trainer in Nicaragua we should talk sometime, perhaps not on a blog devoted to Korea though. Were you in country when the Sandinistas came to power? And what are your opinions of Daniel Ortega? Maybe we should talk elsewhere.
The idea with the list was to give a list of regimes that had been supported by the US but became unpopular with their domestic populations leading to a regime change that was less “friendly” to the US. I think the Batista regime qualifies in this regard, as perhaps does the Diem regime although both were, as you point out, cut off before their ultimate fall from power. Just a quick copy and paste from wikipedia;
“U.S. Ambassador to Cuba Arthur Gardner later described the relationship between the U.S. and Batista during his second spell as President:
“ Batista had always leaned toward the United States. I don’t think we ever had a better friend. It was regrettable, like all South Americans, that he was known-although I had no absolute knowledge of it-to be getting a cut, I think is the word for it, in almost all the, things that were done. But, on the other hand, he was doing an amazing job.[12] ”
See, he was a good friend of the US but it was known that he was “getting a cut”, even if the Ambassador had no “absolute knowledge” of it.
As for the laundry list, I slipped Jean Chretien (Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003) in there just to see if anyone was really going to read it and think about it. But you obviously did read it and think about it so thanks.
I’m sorry to have further inflamed this thread and caused you insult Sperwer, its just that as the arguments presented by yourself and USinkorea appeared so pedestrian, I had presented a suggested reading list, only to have had Cummings (an elementary text of all things??) thrown back at me.
What is wrong with you, if somebody has a different opinion or is aware of facts that differ from your beliefs, you tell them to STFU (see yonseibrian above)? I don’t really care what you believe on this topic as perceptions of the general US public concerning Korea is not really my field and your beliefs appear so far from current academic discourse on Korean history to be inconsequential, however if you are truly interested, I was merely suggesting a few books on the Jeju Rebellion you may decide to look into if you are interested in expanding your knowledge in this field. USinkorea specifically requested further information (seriously) from me.
Lets both try to keep this debate civil, avoid personal attacks, and refrain from biting the hand that feeds you.
Oh and I forgot, Chiang Kai-shek is on the list not for Taiwan, but for losing the mainland. Just ask the Republicans in 1950.
Just curious as to what that means.
Sorry Robert, I can’t seem to fix my server problem, you might want to delete one of the above posts. I’ll get one of my tech guys onto it from this end. Keep up the good work.
By ‘biting the hand’ i was referring to my attempt to assist fellow commenters learn more about this issue (upon request), only to have it rejected by blockheads.
Quite an angry blog you have here Robert
The level of responsibility rests equally with the Syngman Rhee government and the American military. I’m by no means defending the actions of those troops in reagrds to the slaughter of these people. However, during the early part of the war the country was a mess. The Americans along with the Korean military officials grew nervous of the threat that came from free moving refugees. They concluded that north Korean agents or guerilla fighters were penetrating the south disguised as refugees. American troops, in 1950, were given orders to shoot at these people on site. Koreans troops were given the same orders by their chain of command. President Rhee was an extreme rightist. Anything that clashed with his world view was a threat that needed to be eliminated (sound familiar)? And, at the time, American civilian officials cared little and just filed the reports away and threw away the key. So with that thinking in mind, we got events like the Bridge at No Gun Ri by the (ill equipped and ill trained) American 7th Cavalry and other similar south Korean military round-ups of people deemed to be communist. It was finally stopped by the next general, Matthew Ridgeway who took command after Douglas MacArthur went home. All in all, it was a screw up from the get go because there was no plan, and the plan that was hatched by the over zealous Rhee government was piss poor anyways. The Americans were just as at fault for not telling Rhee to piss off. We just fell right behind him because we didn’t have a better plan, either. We took the simple route in 1950. But, hopefully, things have changed and people realize that. It was a tough war and things were not done properly by either side.
There are no US puppet governments. Japan, south Korea and Germany are all functioning countries. Iraq and Afganistan are led by leaders we picked to lead, but are on their own agenda. The Iraqi PM’s trip to Iran is evident of that. We can advise them, but they are not our puppets by any means.
The division of the Korean peninsular is not as complex as people think it to be. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, the Soviets declared war on Japan. Japan surrendered and lost all her land gained through the war including Korea. With the Soviets moving fast through northern China and into Korea, the Americans didn’t want them to get near Japan for fear of communism speading to that now weakened country. We stopped them at the 38th line and came to a compromise. Soviets north of the 38th and Americans south of the 38th. What you do in “your” land is your business. Korea was too weak to do anything about it, so we divided it in half. It was better than giving the Soviets control over all of Korea. The domino theory was the way of thinking back then, and we needed to stop the Soviets at all costs lest all of Asia fall under the Red flag. It’s not that complex.
“Heaven forbid free thinking troops.”
Painting Peace Corps and military members with the same brush….Quiet a damn feat!! Bravo!!
Cumings so 80s…….You brought the man up to justify yourself.
And now, level of responsibility is not your cup of tea — you just want an up or down vote on responsibility….
…..How much do courses you teach cost?
“only to have it rejected by blockheads.”
Dear Rory,
Maybe you should try to avoid personal attacks yourself…?…
Sincerely,
An Ignorant blockhead
#76
The complexity comes in when you consider the state of Korean society at the moment of division.
The common surface view on the division usually implies that, had the Russians and Americans not divided the peninsula, the Koreans would have been united and prospered - prospered even more than what South Korea has managed.
This leads to hypotheticals, and that is always weak ground to tread, but it could be worth discussing.
We could look at other post-colonial nations.
We could also look at how divided Korean society was before the end of colonization — for example, the inability of the different governments in exile to work together.
We’d also have to think about what would have happened with the occupying Japanese had neither the Soviets or Americans come in.
In Cumings Origins, as noted above, and since Rory brought him up as an exemplar, he lays the seeds of the “civil war” back into the last dynasty. But he also depicts the immediate period after Japanese defeat as one in which countless “people’s governments” sprung up every where, from cities to hamlets to factories, and Korea was well on its way to settled self-government before the USSR and US stepped in.
That is one of the areas I have the most problem with in Cumings work. I discussed this with a Korean prof once who lived in that time period, and he said such events did take place spontaneously across the nation, but then I said I could imagine such things popping up in isolation, but you were not going to have coordination on a regional much less national level — without some form of groundwork having been laid well before 1945 — and he agreed.
And how was such regional and national cooperation going to happen smoothly given the divide between power groups (and communists - capitalists) — and what we saw happen in post-colonies the world over?
You mean a sort of return to the pre three kingdoms period with multiple little self governing city states coming into existance? I could see that happening what with the Korean regionalism and all. But, what about the former King of Korea? The only reason he lost power was because of Syngman Rhee. Do you think he would have come back to power like the pre-Japanese era if it weren’t for outside influence?
It is too hard to think about “without outside influence” because even without direct influence on the ground - as the US and USSR’s troops and officials and money and material - you also had other types of influence like developmental loans, political recognition, and so much more.
In many post-colonies, indirect influence coupled with internal power groups was enough to keep a society in disarray - sometimes for decades.
You could reasonably argue a whole variety of “what ifs” - even contradictory ones.
But the reality is that Korea was divided socio-politically before 1945, had been controlled by the Japanese for several decades, and the different power groups in Korea were going to receive some form of support from outside.
I doubt the Korean monarchy would have been re-established given the length of the Japanese occupation and Korean society’s view of the monarchy at the end of the 19th and into the early 20th century.
76 You have it summed up quite nicely. The U.S.A. didn’t expect a war over Korea and got involved only to defend the nation worth defending- Japan. MacArthur was shrewder than given credit by historians. He would do anything to defend his legacy in Japan; even if that came down to defending the southern Korean peninsula.
That is all true. Hmmm…however, what happened happened. We can only learn from what led to the division of Korea and Germany too for that matter and try to apply it to future situations in other countries. I suppose that’s what diplomats do…~^^ The fact is that Korea was way too weakened by the Japanese to fight it and nobody in Washington or Moscow gave a flip about the bottom end of the deal (the people). All Stalin saw was the act of proselytizing communism to the world (Korea was ripe for it at the time) and Truman the domino theory of world communist domination. Both were foolhardy and only saw the top end of things. Very interesting points nonetheless.
@75:
You are repeating the Charles Hanley version of these orders. When the issue was refugees was first raised the US Ambassador Muccio held a meeting with the US Army, the Korean government, ROK Army, and Korean police to draft a refugee control policy. This is what they came up with:
There wasn’t just simply orders to shoot civilians. There was actually a lot of thought put into a policy to handle refugees that was agreed upon at the highest levels from officials in each country.
After the policy was released battlefield commanders heavily used the Korean police to clear areas before any orders were issued to shoot refugees that were moving towards US lines.
Blame for killing of refugees lies on the North Koreans where it is proven fact that they forced refugees by threat of being shot to move towards US lines in order infiltrate operatives and compromise the US soldiers positions.
#82
Truman’s domino theory was pre-division of Korea.
And the world community has tried to learn from the mistakes of Korean and Vietnam. I remember when the Kosovo/Bosnia events occurred, the leadership in many influencial nations and mulitnational organizations wanted to avoid assigning spheres of influence that could result in an even more fractured and checkerboard situation in that area.
My point in the last couple of comments is mostly that — these questions are incredibly complex but people tend to void that complexity when working from hindsight.
#83
And in today’s environment, not only are the US troops and commanders responsible for the killings, any captured North Koreans dressed in civilian clothing waging war — should be treated as POWs or taken to a US federal district court to be tried for possession of a fire arm and possibly attempted murder or murder - depending on how successful their infiltration operations happened to be before being caught……
@84 Exactly. Bullet #1 says that if they (the refugees) continue to advance towards US lines, they will be shot. Being in the Army today and looking back at the Army of 1950, I’m sure those orders were carried out in the spirit Ambassador Muccio had intended. With all due respect, the American force that was plucked from parade detail in Japan and thrown to the nork wolves in 1950 were scared witless. Down at the unit level, blunders were committed by local commanders and NCO’s that led to mass deaths because the orders were not fully understood. Whenever an order like that is given, screw ups are bound to happen. We also forget that the south Korean forces were equally brutal in rooting out leftists believed to be communist sympathizers.
The domino theory preceded Korea, but was instrumental in US foreign policy right up through Vietnam. Korea was an after thought to American leaders. Korea was even originally left out of the US defence plan following WWII. Sorry to say, but we fought the Korean war to prevent Japan from going red.
We may try to avoid complexity, but sometimes simplicity works much better. I understand the mechanics of the Muccio letter, but if those same orders were given to troops in Iraq, what would the world say to that? In hindsight, shooting civilians warned or not, seems like a hasty plan. That policy would never be implemented in today’s warfare. That’s why I said it was piss poor.
“Rory”, stop posting under my name.