U.S. Supported Mass Killing – Can’t We Learn?

May 19, 2008

Yesterday I pointed to an Associated Press ‘IMPACT’ piece headlined Thousands killed by US’s Korean ally. It ran on the general Associated Press feed at Yahoo news. Like AP, I expected it to have some ‘impact’. Like AP, I was wrong.

The piece is the summary of a big investigative report that must have required quite some time and effort. There are a lot of new and so far unreported details in it.

In the early 1950s the South Korean dictatorial regime, under tutelage of the U.S., killed over 100,000 of its own people because they were suspected of being somewhat on the political left or otherwise not assumed loyal to the U.S. instantiated regime.

Just like German SS Einsatzgruppen killed ‘undesirable
people’ of their own blood in the 1940s – hundred-thousands of them – the South Korean a few years later did just the same. Unlike the Germans, the South Koreans were under U.S. control and the ‘incidents’ happened in attendence of
U.S. officers.

Several U.S. government institutions exchanged memos about this. Officers of the U.S. military and clandestine services attended mass shootings and photographed the outcome – see above. All this was kept secret for over 50 years.

White-clad detainees — bent, submissive, with hands bound — were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

One could imagine a country taking notice if such crimes done under its umbrella were finally aired.

The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials — to no obvious effect — but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean "internal matter," even though he controlled South Korea’s military.

But the AP piece sunk like lead. I searched some phrases of that piece in Google news: "South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind" – only three hits a day after this ran on the AP wire. Did anyone print this at all?

Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim.

My German ancestors in the 1930s/40s killed a lot of people in a crazy rampage and under a insane philosophy and state of mind we still try to understand. By we at least talk about this in the open and our media doesn’t shy away from reports about it. Hopefully this will help us to keep such pathologies in memory and never again take such path.

All people have such historic stigmas. Some acknowledge them, some don’t. I am worried about my U.S. friends. When there is so little echo to this now reported mass killings in the 1950s, how much sensitivity is there towards U.S. instigated, controlled and secretly photographed killing today?

Who, during the last years, directed the Badr brigades in their rampage on Sunni Iraqis?

Maybe we will learn about that only 50 years from now?

Posted by b on May 19, 2008 at 20:48 UTC | Permalink

Comments

it is clear from the very beginning of the u s empire & every step along the way to its rise & now its defeat – it has practiced extralegal, extrajudicial ways of dealing with the sovereignty of countries & their people
south korea was not the first country to acced to the wishes of empire & execute their own people, this had already been true in latin & central america & has been true there ever since. vietnam, indonesia & the phillipines were vast exercises in the massacring of people
on & on. bloody murder on every continent. very few countries untouched by the empires active venality
there can be no doubt that the greatest processus of massacre in iraq have been done by the empire or by its willing servants
those in western countries have lost too because they have been forced to live reduced lives because they have not been prepared to challenge the empire in real terms. the merest examinantions will show the direct hands of the u s empire in the worst of excesses. the failure to examine, understand & combat also constitutes a crime
ina most impoverished case of the spirit being destroyed once & for all – australia is a supreme example. from 1972 -1975 – that country tried to concretise a nascent independence – the constitutional coup of 1975 – the chile without blood – told australia & australians to shut the fuck up – to be silent. to keep busy & silent. that anhilation of the spirit – which has been part & parcel of contemporary western ‘civilisation’ – has been a death by another name

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 19 2008 21:11 utc | 1

Thanks for putting up this, b. When I was young (50s and 60s), there was not the slightest idea how close US (and allied) behaviour was to that of the Nazis. The Nazis were something apart. But it seems now there was little difference, except of scale.
The question I would like to ask you, b, as a German, is how does this sort of information make you feel about the Nazis? No-one denies Nazi crimes against humanity: they are clear. But what is one to feel when this sort of information comes out?
There’s also Iraq. I knew personally three members of Saddam’s regime, and I can bear witness to the fact that their sinister mentality was very close to that of the Nazis. Nevertheless, after all the efforts – and they were many – very few mass graves have been found. Rather it seems that more civilians have died in the five years since the US invasion of 2003, than in the twenty-four years of Saddam’s rule.
Where’s the difference?
Well, one point is the sinister mentality of gangsterism, which subsisted under the Nazis, ready to kill in large numbers in order to achieve vaguely defined ideological objectives, but really to pursue partisan power. The same was true of Saddam’s regime – but it seems he didn’t kill so many in the end. Stalin too. But also of Bush, or rather his entourage: after all, why is Cheyney called “Darth Vader”?

Posted by: Alex | May 19 2008 22:18 utc | 2

i am surprised neither by the extent or the depth of the crimes of the u s empire.
one day the story will be told. it may wound us but it will free us
struggle the most beautiful word in the english language

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 19 2008 22:41 utc | 3

Thanks for this, b.
–Gaianne

Posted by: Gaianne | May 19 2008 23:04 utc | 4

yes, thank you b. the amount of time it has taken for this particular nasty chapter to surface is almost as disgusting as the sound of crickets coming from the corporate disinfo engines.
this is more than a little embarrassing to admit in a forum as well-informed as MoA, but it’s something i tell people when i want to illustrate what an ignorant, midwest-suburban college freshman with good grades like myself learns during his first year of college: Japanese/Italian Americans were put in internment camps during WWII. at the age of 19 i seriously had no idea. scary?
but after mentoring a high school kid way more tech-savvy and globally aware than i was at that age, i have slightly more hope that the generation i straddle with X will be less susceptible to the imperial omissions and two-dimensional myths that’s now the standardized national factory called public education.

Posted by: Lizard | May 20 2008 0:15 utc | 5

i am not so sure, lizard – i am a producer of culture – the most loathsome part of culture is that it is manipulated & instrumentalised to hide away the facts. to demolish memory. to destroy common sense. to diminish human decency
to reiïfy forgetting as if it is an act of honour
the world of the cheney bush junta &ll the clowns who clock their clack – from berlusconi to blair – the hundred ‘leaders’ of this world that transform us daily into cretins with their vulgar venality – is only possible because culture has attached itself to the dead cadaver of this empire – as i sd the other day, like a slime eel
what we do at moa is breath by breath brick by brick – build memory & if not that at least fight against forgetting
a culture that has made the crimes of the empire possible – even inevitable ought to die with that empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2008 0:34 utc | 6

There is very good, and of course disturbing, Korean-made film that covers some of the massacres by the S. Korean regime, as well as the whole horror of war.
Tae Guk Gi, 2004

Posted by: biklett | May 20 2008 0:38 utc | 7

‘giap: yes, well, i guess from inside the rotting cadaver of the empire i sometimes cling to shards of possibility, which i know can be seen as being willfully delusional…not to mention, as a lizard, i believe i am closely related to that loathsome slime eel you mentioned earlier (lol?)

Posted by: Lizard | May 20 2008 1:06 utc | 8

i read this AP article (also CHARLES J. HANLEY, w/slight variations) on raw story this morning..it is gone from the front page now. only 5 comments.
Fear, secrecy kept 1950 Korea mass killings hidden

One journalist’s bid to report mass murder in South Korea in 1950 was blocked by his British publisher. Another correspondent was denounced as a possibly treasonous fabricator when he did report it. In South Korea, down the generations, fear silenced those who knew.
clip
How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?
Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a “public secret,” barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.
clip
Kim, whose father was shot and buried in a mass grave outside the central city of Daejeon, noted that in 1960-61, a one-year democratic interlude in South Korea, family groups began investigating wartime atrocities. But a military coup closed that window, and “the leaders of those organizations were arrested and punished.”
Then, “from 1961 to 1988, nobody could challenge the regime, to try again to reveal these hidden truths,” said Park Myung-lim of Seoul’s Yonsei University, a leading Korean War historian. As a doctoral student in the late 1980s, when South Korea was moving toward democracy, Park was among the few scholars to begin researching the mass killings. He was regularly harassed by the police.
Scattered reports of the killings did emerge in 1950 — and some did not.
British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan — then spelled Pusan — for London’s Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute.
Earlier, correspondent Alan Winnington reported on the shooting of thousands of prisoners at Daejeon in the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, only to have his reporting denounced by the U.S. Embassy in London as an “atrocity fabrication.” The British Cabinet then briefly considered laying treason charges against Winnington, historian Jon Halliday has written.
Associated Press correspondent O.H.P. King reported on the shooting of 60 political prisoners in Suwon, south of Seoul, and wrote in a later memoir he was “shocked that American officers were unconcerned” by questions he raised about due process for the detainees.

Who, during the last years, directed the Badr brigades in their rampage on Sunni Iraqis?
Maybe we will learn about that only 50 years from now?
this was my exact thought when i first read about the massacre. the hidden truth of cleansing baghdad of ‘subversives’. millions dead, all blamed on ‘terrorists’. without ‘terrorists’ creating the fog of war there would be no scapegoat.
makes my blood boil.

Posted by: annie | May 20 2008 1:52 utc | 9

Personally, I’m a bit surprised that this hadn’t gotten out to the English language press until now: stuff like this has been well-known and rather extensively written on in Korean for at least a couple of decades now. I am also a bit bothered by the eagerness to assign much blame to anyone besides the Koreans on this. The Koreans on both sides during the Korean War were extremely brutal and bloodthirsty towards each other during (and before) the conflict: indiscriminate massacres of suspected enemies or civilians suspected of collaborating with the other side were common and nearly all of it was prompted and perpetrated by Koreans themselves. In other words: like it or not, it was truly Korean domestic matter. Something I remember well from talking to my father is that, because of killings and counter-killings between pro- and anti-communist factions in his home village, depending on who held it, at least a hundred people were shot in a small village of just few thousand people, all without any foreigners being present and entirely carried out by the locals without directives from the outside. I’d heard quite a few stories like that from other places too. Granted, executions of already imprisoned political prisoners is different–but given the figures claimed, I suspect that many of these killings are of the local variety.
Why? I don’t know, other than, once people start resorting to shooting (and mind you that this began well before the beginning of the Korean War–both South and North disputed legitimacy of the other regime and supported armed insurgency movements in the other’s territory), for whatever reason, they can no longer expect the other side to yield or give quarter–and shootings are reciprocated, until it reaches a massive scale. The choice this forces upon us, then, is to choose between deciding that those behind these locally–be it Milosevic, Saddam, or Rhee–are evil and should be overthrown and punished by some righteous intervention backed by some nation state’s military might who’d crack down on the bad guys (e.g. Samantha Powers), or try to quietly alleviate the causes of the escalation somehow–even though, most likely, it’d be nearly impossible to achieve in most circumstances…or, I suppose, be cynical about it and turn a blind eye and ignore it in decisionmaking. I imagine the last option is unpalatable to most. The first has led to so many failures–for the simple reason that the root causes of the violence, however shocking it might be, usually lie within the “domestic politics” beyond “evil” people. Yet, it is the route that many have chosen and, in nearly all cases, helped accelerate the violence rather than abate it.
No, I don’t pretend that I know the answer, other than simply condemning and denouncing anyone doesn’t really help anything.

Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | May 20 2008 4:58 utc | 10

@Annie: I have wondered if one could determine the “boiling point of blood”
Is it when For example, some fellows get themselves (s)elected to the highest positions in the most powerful nation, promising “compassion”, “morality”, seeing “no child was left behind” and a bunch of other feel-good stuff. Then, as soon as they have the reins of power in their hands, they race down the street to do things not even hinted at in what they had sworn to the public that nearly elected them, setting secret plans in motion to secure the natural energy resources of that poor planet for themselves and their business cronies!
Is it when, in six short years, they waste the lives of four thousand Arrogant soldiers plus more than two dozen thousand wounded and maimed, not to mention a million dead in Wudda-Wreck — and when I say, “not to mention”, I mean not mentioned, at least in the approved media of the Bankers of Illusion
Is it when a trillion dollars are squandered to provide the military with toys that go “boom!” and turn humans into instant dog food — but funds are scrimped to give the wounded and maimed care, counsel and prosthetics for lost llimbs and wounded minds.
Or, to put it another away: does a relatively normal human puke before or after their blood reaches the boiling point?

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | May 20 2008 6:01 utc | 11

On the ground in SoKo, this isn’t even a blip on the radar. It’s not news insofar as everybody already knows about it and it’s not discussed, at least not with waegukin (foreigners).
It really isn’t “news” to people outside of the Korean peninsula, either, except in its particulars.
I saw when Bernhard posted the story in the OT, and I knew that I really should comment on it. But what can I say? Shall I be impotently outraged anew? This sixty year old massacre isn’t the only one in modern Korean history… they occured regularly up until the 1980’s… and it’s not the first time the USA has been blamed for them.
There’s some value, I think, in spreading the word about these things, particularly when the USA rattles its sabre at sovereign nations. That the USA let these things pass with a wink and a nod from D.C. should have been the automatic response when the drumbeat about Iraq’s Hussein “gassing his own people” was used or criticism of the government of Myanmar seems to be heading in the direction of half-assed occupation disguised as “humanitarian intervention”. But SoKo isn’t the only example of a US ally who is or was supported despite distasteful “internal matters” (such as boiling dissidents alive… I’m looking at you, President Islom Karimov of Uzbekistan. And thanks for the use of your airspace.)
However, for the most part, I’m with Kao Hsien Chi at #10 above who says: “…simply condemning and denouncing anyone doesn’t really help anything.” What am I supposed to be feeling about this? And what good does my finger pointing in a general sense do?
Just “being aware” and promulgating these stories is a service, and I am grateful for it, b. But now, as the lackluster response to this story is made evident, so what? We live in a world in which horrible atrocities occur, have occured and will continue to occur. This particular one has no potential justice to come at the end… nor is it being used to leverage any specific social change. How am I supposed to respond to this?

Posted by: Monolycus | May 20 2008 6:52 utc | 12

This story is highly relevant with regards especially to Iraq. As it is good to remember the standard operating procedure of the post conflict client states attempts to create a monopoly of violence through the purging of rivals. This is going on in Iraq right now with the same acquiescence or even active involvement on part of the hapless occupation, and its Iranian underwriters in Basra, Sadr City, and Mosul. And after the latter bids the former an adieu, they will reap the blamed for the whole thing.

Posted by: anna missed | May 20 2008 7:41 utc | 13

Thanks to all for an interesting thread. I had read the story b highlighted before visiting MOA via a link from Mike Rivero’s WRH site, so the story was not entirely without echo. Admittedly it has been highlighted only by “alternative” websites, but by now the fact that the “mainstream media” systematically ignore significant news is no surprise to anyone.
At the risk of veering off-topic, I find myself wondering just how to characterize the drivel that spouts from “serious” news sources. Many years ago, after completing a university degree program, I felt that could permit myself the luxury of reading the National Enquirer, just to see what the contents of that supermarket check-out lane scandal-sheet were really like. For a couple of months I read each issue quite intensively, and naturally the “standard pattern” soon emerged: hollywood trysts, miracle cures and diets, abductions by aliens, etc. All in all not bad entertainment, and quite effectively written in view of its target audience. At the time, there seemed to be an abyss between “serious” papers like the NYT and such rags. While there is still a wide gamut in the depth and style of printed media (which now fortunately include blogs), broadcast media have become irretrievably mired in a National Enquirer slough. They provide info-tainment, not information or, still less, education.
Stories like the topic of this thread, or the recently released photos of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, or anything which would call into question the transparency or general excellence of U.S. governance can not, by their very nature, be covered in depth without endangering the very essence of the mediatic-governmental cohabitation. For example, a long term and extensively publicized investigation into the sponsors, mores, and finances of that incestuous community is unthinkable. Given the existence and flourishing of the blogs, all this would not be of great import were it not for the deleterious effects of this daily brainwash on the body politic. Heated diatribes launched by the various factions (Hillary, BHO, McCain) and given ample
media play only serve to obscure the fundamental agreement of all three with regard to the interlocking military, media, and moneyed castes, the latter, of course, calling the tune. The few who tried to raise such issues (Paul, Kucinich, Gravel, McKinney) have already been marginalized, their criticisms relegated to oblivion. One must give the puppet masters their due: they have ably conducted the American electorate to the “desired” conclusions, with barely a hint of overt oppression of dissent.
And so, to once again make contact with the nerve of this thread, it will continue to be perfectly correct (yea, necessary) to kill “terrorists” and other “bad guys” in the name of “freedom” and “democracy”. The complicit media will continue to supply feel-good justification and “moral outrage” whenever necessary to foster profitable imperial adventures, the crowd will continue to chant patriotic slogans, the band will play on, and the Titanic will steam towards its fatidic iceberg.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 20 2008 7:43 utc | 14

@Hannah K. O’Luthon…
I felt that could permit myself the luxury of reading the National Enquirer, just to see what the contents of that supermarket check-out lane scandal-sheet were really like.
Despite it’s title, ‘Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient!: An Insider’s Look at the Supermarket Tabloids by Jim Hogshire is a very interesting and perhaps, in depth look at propaganda and the CIA.

Review:
Hogshire believes tabloids are Rightist institutions that reinforce the “traditional patriarchal power structure.” E.g. tabloids’ “Rags-To-Riches” tales support the notion that anyone can succeed under capitalism if they are honest and work long hard hours. Tabloids’ “fat obsession” reinforce oppressive sexist standards of beauty. And “Fall of the Mighty” stories alleviate class antagonisms by assuring working class readers that the rich and powerful are always punished for their greed and wrongdoing. Hogshire also speculates about the tabloids’ CIA and Mafia ties in the 1960s. A short (147 pages), lively, and informative book despite its biases, by a former tabloid writer (who bites the hand that fed him)

.
They provide info-tainment, not information or, still less, education.
some,such as Van Morrison, call that entrainment…

CIA Origin National Enquirer? Eh?
“It would have been very natural for someone who just came out
of the CIA Psychological Warfare Division to appeal to the CIA for funding, or at least be qualified to obtain funding for some type of
propaganda operationsuch as a National Enquirer tabloid.”
– Terry Hansen, Author, The Missing Times

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 20 2008 9:34 utc | 15

It was posted here yesterday.

Posted by: beq | May 20 2008 11:11 utc | 16

Hannah,
You seem like an intelligent enough person. You do realize that the Rivero brothers, Mike and Matt, are the internet equivalent of a tabloid, don’t you?
While the whatreallyhappened.com site does feature many stories which many would agree should be more widely known, the site is let down by Rivero’s anti-semitic agenda, which he defends by claiming it is only an “anti-Zionist” agenda and in fact he is of semitic ethnicity himself. Among his claims are Holocaust-denial related arguments such as there being no gas chambers at Auschwitz and that the Nazi’s Zyklon-B cyanide-based gas was used only for the benefit of Jews as an anti-typhus treatment. Rivero goes so far as to claim there is no evidence for any genocide at all. His loose evidence is derived from the number of estimated deaths in the camps being revised from time to time. For Rivero, the Holocaust is just one of the many weapons used by the Zionist Global Conspirators to control us and to control history for their own end.
http://whatreallyhappened.wikia.com/wiki/Michael_Rivero
And that’s from a kinder review than I would give them. try Information Clearing House, instead.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
What’s alarming is that the U.S. and British did this in Indonesia with the PKI in the 60’s, on a much grander scale, perhaps 2 million, and no one talks about that either. It’s never been a secret. We had Muslims doing it for us then, killing commies. I’m not formatting this:
Mass killings and the end of the PKI
[…]
The systematic extermination of the party had begun.
Between 300,000 and one million Indonesians were killed in the mass killings that followed. [18] [3] The victims included non-Communists who were slain because of mistaken identity or “guilt by association.” However, the lack of information makes it impossible to pinpoint an exact figure of casualties. Many scholars today suggest that the figure is between 200,000 and 500,000. [19] Lists of suspected communists were supplied to the Indonesian military by the CIA. A CIA study of the events in Indonesia assessed that “In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century…” [20].
It must also be noted that the CIA was not the only party to the issue, and there was also British involvement in the events.
Time presented the following account on December 17, 1966 :
Communists, red sympathizers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves. The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies.
In some instances entire communities thought to be associated with the PKI [4] were killed, but more often there were blacklists that had the names of specific targets. These victims were killed nearby their villages and dumped in shallow graves or caves.[21] In some cases a victim was mutilated after death, based on Islamic beliefs. According to these beliefs, damaging a body after death also damages the soul, and condemns it, therefore preventing its return for revenge.[22]
Although the motives for the killings seemed political, some scholars argue that the events were caused by a state of panic and political uncertainty. Part of the anti-Communist force that was responsible for the massacres were made up of members of the criminal underworld, given permission to engage in senseless acts of violence.[23] Other motives have been explored, such as running amok or an allusion to Javanense puppet-play (wayang)[5].
Amongst the worst affected areas was the island of Bali, where PKI had grown rapidly prior to the crackdown. On November 11 clashes erupted between the PKI and PNI, ending in massacres of PKI accused members and sympathizers. Whereas much of the anti-PKI pogroms in the rest of the country were carried out by Islamic political organizations in the name of jihad, the killings in Bali were done in the name of Hinduism. Bali stood out as the only place in the country where local soldiers in some way intervened to lessen the slaughter.
On November 22, Aidit was captured and killed.
In December the military proclaimed that Aceh had been cleared of communists. Simultaneously, Special Military Courts were set up to try jailed PKI members. On March 12, the party was formally banned by Suharto, and the pro-PKI trade union SOBSI was banned in April.
Some of these tumultuous events were fictionalized in the popular novel and film The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Indonesia

Posted by: nevermind | May 20 2008 11:43 utc | 17

it is very simple for me
either the u s empire is a beast
or we are

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2008 17:07 utc | 18

@Alex – 2 The question I would like to ask you, b, as a German, is how does this sort of information make you feel about the Nazis? No-one denies Nazi crimes against humanity: they are clear. But what is one to feel when this sort of information comes out?
The Nazis were not really special except in one aspect: they were efficiant.
Other people at other times have gone on brutal rampages against their own people and their neighbors. No country seems to be imune against such. There were certain reasons for that to happen in Germany at that time. (WWI and the unjust peace of Versaille, followed by hyperinflation, hunger, massive unemployment, internal strife, unstable governments …)
What differed with the Nazis, (or some might say Germans in general,) was the efficiancy with which they waged war and with which they killed their own compatriots. The holocasut was industrialized killing. Highly optimized for efficiency and “throughput”. Before people were gased, they were “used up” in labor camps and industries attached to the camps.
That makes it different from Ruanda or Pol-Pot. Stalin’s Gulag system has some similariy though.
So how I feel when such information comes out? That has nothing to do with Nazi’s. I feel that war is the biggest crime in this world as it has the worst possible consequences for human beings on a very large scale. The Korean acts were part of the “Cold War” which wasn’t really cold for a lot of U.S. and USSR proxies.
We must use such information to warn against war, to warn against idiological boneheadiness and its consequences. We have to teach about the consequences of war and the story about Korea does this. I believe that learning about this can give some adverse feeling against any war. (The U.S. media seem to believe the same as they seldom feature such stories – at least not when the U.S. is involved.)
Teach your children … give them books (scroll down and click through)

Posted by: b | May 20 2008 17:26 utc | 19

b
it is also that the genocide like all genocides is prodoundly rascist in conception
the english & the french were not angels in the industrial slaughter of human beings in the first world war. wiping away generations after generations of men
the colder logic came from the u s empire who waited for the declining imperialisms to vanish altogether(which they did) & hope for the soviet union to be vanquished. u s imperialism funded nazis right up to the last moment & there are many scholars, financial scholars who suggest that it continued throughout the war. it entered the war not for any heroic reasons, nor ones of justice – certainly not of anti fascism – for what is u s imperialism other than the highest stage of fascism
the russians did the winning for the whole world. their dead 30 million attest to that & yes russia acted as a brake to some of the worst excesses of the empire – the invasion of iraq is simply not possible with a soviet russia
imperialism would like to describe itself as adventurous & innovative but it is the contrary – it is small minded & has the force only of a thug. imperialism takes whatever it want – only when it can be done easily. when they are confronted – & world history is our judge – they retreat to the homes harnessed with horror
in lebanon – it wants it easy – thankfully the oppossition with nasrallah as one of its leaders can forestall that
every day the victories that the empire seeks will turn into disaster. as they are doing this day. as they will. this night

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2008 17:55 utc | 20

the site is let down by Rivero’s anti-semitic agenda, which he defends by claiming it is only an “anti-Zionist” agenda and in fact he is of semitic ethnicity himself. Among his claims are Holocaust-denial related arguments such as there being no gas chambers at Auschwitz and that the Nazi’s Zyklon-B cyanide-based gas was used only for the benefit of Jews as an anti-typhus treatment.
nevermind, ‘such as’? i wonder why the source, wikia (who are they?) didn’t provide any links or quotes? frankly i am hardly familiar w/the site tho i have heard of it. from your link…
His WRH website is among the top ten ranked daily political news sites on the Internet. It might be fair to consider it like the “new york times ” of internet news
really? could this be true? the top ten? geez, i guess i have really been missing out. none of the popular sites i frequent link to this source. i had noooo idea.
kao_hsien_chih The choice this forces upon us, then, is to choose between deciding that those behind these locally–be it Milosevic, Saddam, or Rhee–are evil and should be overthrown and punished by some righteous intervention backed by some nation state’s military might who’d crack down on the bad guys …or try to quietly alleviate the causes of the escalation somehow–…or, I suppose, .. turn a blind eye and ignore it in decisionmaking.
you forgot the option of joining the party by actually supporting the perpetrators! i like monolycus’s comment
such as boiling dissidents alive… I’m looking at you, President Islom Karimov of Uzbekistan. And thanks for the use of your airspace.) i guess that would fall into the blind eye category.
I am also a bit bothered by the eagerness to assign much blame to anyone besides the Koreans on this.
eagerness? what strikes me as evidence of complicitness is the clear attempts to suppress the truth. why? if there was no culpability, why threaten treason for exposure? had it been the north it would have been slimed all over the press, no?
like it or not, it was truly Korean domestic matter……the simple reason that the root causes of the violence, however shocking it might be, usually lie within the “domestic politics” beyond “evil” people. Yet, it is the route that many have chosen and, in nearly all cases, helped accelerate the violence rather than abate it.
hmm, i will have to chomp on this concept. not sure i concur, in the least. ‘root cause’ could go back as far as man’s basic instincts. one could invade a country, massacre a bunch of people, and then rely on their basic instinct of survival or revenge as ‘root causes’ for the ensuing violence that results.
if one is preparing for a civil war, it stands to reason the perpetrators of of that war may choose to identify all potential enemies. however, carrying it a step further and murdering them especially in the thousands is not something one can really hide from one’s allies on the ground. given that we have actually trained people to identify and kill leftists as a tactic to push thru right wing agendas w/regularity i just find it interesting you point out the eagerness factor. to me, it was a natural response to be revolted and wonder why, if we knew, we didn’t try to stop it.
similar to the death squads in iraq which we went to great lengths to hide from the public for a good long year before they became exposed.
anna missed This story is highly relevant with regards especially to Iraq.
my take exactly. because of the internet, i have hope people who determine the truth is worth covering up, will not be so successful.
chuck does a relatively normal human puke before or after their blood reaches the boiling point?
another tough question i will have to ponder!

Posted by: annie | May 20 2008 18:02 utc | 21

annie
this again for me is very simple
the nazi state was conceptually & objectively a murderous state – which tried to destroy jewish & slavic life altogether
the u s empire is implicitly & objectively a murderous empire whose desire is the resources of the anhilation of the ‘other’ wherever s/he opposes that desire
the israeli state is a racist state whose entire history has turned upside down the sad & honourable history of the jewish people transforming it into a barbarism – of whom their german & austrian master death 1933-45 – could be proud – in every way israels racism is informed by its role as a victim
i am an antifascist, i am an anti imperialist, i am antizionist – one is connected to the other

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2008 18:28 utc | 22

& to paraphrase pablo picasso, i came to communism – as if to a fountain

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2008 18:31 utc | 23

empathy fatigue is a viral meme sent out to alleviate those of us paying attention from caring too much.

Posted by: Lizard | May 21 2008 5:01 utc | 24

amen lizard

Posted by: annie | May 21 2008 7:40 utc | 25

r’giap…. thump thump thump goes my little beating heart when you address me.

Posted by: annie | May 21 2008 7:59 utc | 26

“A Gleam of Light in Asia”
“The West’s best news for years in Asia”
“there is now hope where only two weeks ago there was despair”
what was the excitement , what were people enthusing about ?
guys were celebrating the great work of “our kind of guy” suharto, after the 1965 bloodpath.
what’s so great about butchering almost a million peasants ?
coz — its a “”savage transformation of Indonesia from a pro-Chinese policy under Sukarno to a defiantly anti-Communist policy under General Suharto”
mad albright would have approved , “the price is worth it”

Posted by: denk | May 21 2008 16:59 utc | 27

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