The AP’s Charles Hanley gives a recap of some of the findings Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is looking into atrocities committed during the Korean War (by US and South Korean forces, anyway). There may be new findings in there — I’m not really sure — with lots of big numbers. What I find interesting, however, is this:
Family survivors last month met with the U.S. Embassy for the first time, saying afterward they demanded an apology for alleged “direct and indirect” American involvement in the killings.
Declassified records show U.S. officers were present at one killing field and that at least one U.S. officer sanctioned another mass political execution if prisoners otherwise would be freed by the North Koreans. Uncounted hundreds were subsequently killed, witnesses reported.
(HT to Hamel)
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Apology: “Sorry we saved your country from becoming part of a starving dystopian death cult.”
ouch! . . . still for one American representative to sit down with anyone that still feels the loss and to comfort them would be a decent thing to do — so long as both sides are honest in their intentions.
My initial instinct was the same as Wedge’s, particularly when I read that Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is involved. These are the same people that absolved Korean POW camp guard torturers of any guilt, even though the guards tortured allied soldiers of their own volition, and nothwistanding the fact that the scum had already been tried 50 years earlier.
On the other hand, this bears at least a cursory examination:
Other once-secret files show that a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel reported giving approval to the killing of 3,500 political prisoners by a South Korean army unit he was advising in Busan.
Via the AP, and not the Korean T&RC, which is important. Long time ago, but I concur with R.Elgin.
I vaguely remember that the guy in Busan was discussed on ROK_drop some time back. I’ve forgotten the details but it was contingent on something else happening, like the city being overrun by the enemy, and this never happened so the guys survived. It doesn’t sound new to me anyway. There’s probably more about it on ROK_drop.
These anti-American conspiracy myths are invariably fed by poor scholarship. Take the No Guun Ri “massacre” in which false claims were made that US soldiers were under high level policy orders to shoot at civilians when, in fact, nothing of the kind occurred.
This isn’t news, is it? People are yet again demanding that the US apologize for Korean soldiers committing atrocities against fellow Koreans while some in the US military may or may not have known about it. Funny how the US government is supposed to shoulder sole responsibility for actions by Koreans.
ROK has a many article about these journalists and their repeated sensationalist articles.
Here’s a good one to start with:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/07/08/.....ons-again/
Many more on there about No Gun Ri.
#3
It may be in the AP but it’s by Charles Hanleyb(see No Gun Ri and his Pulitzer) so it might as well be a press release from the worthless “Truth” and Reconciliation Committee.
Thanks to everyone for recommending reading my writings on this subject. I have read through Hanley’s latest article and there is absolutely nothing new in it and I find it distasteful his headline exploiting the deaths of children.
Anyway I have a posting up on it at my place:
http://tinyurl.com/5jq5wx
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