Was the Korean War a mistake too?

2,448,095 soldiers died in Korea. The United States lost 33,000 soldiers!

South Korea - 595,000
North Korea - 1,316,579
China - 500,000
United States - 33,000
United Kingdom - 1,078
Turkey - 717
Canada - 310
France - 290
Australia - 281
Greece - 170 C
olombia - 140
Ethiopia - 120
Netherlands - 110
Thailand - 110
Belgium - 100
Philippines - 90

What was won? Even to this day, Korea is still a divided nation!

"What was won? Even to this day, Korea is still a divided nation!"


Yeah, but South Korea is a liberal democracy with a standard of living that rivals some of the less affluent Western European nations...


In North Korea they eat grass...

It's not fair to Viet Nam...


Viet Nam is a communist country with a per capita GDP of $2,700.00


South Korea is a liberal democracy with a per capita GDP of
$19,2000

althere there was MUCH "hidden background" story. But it was McArthur's decision to not only cross the DMZ with US troops, but to head straight to the Yalu and beyond, that transformed it from a "regional" UN affair to a major escalation in the Cold War. And as in VN, the latter phase was responsible for the majority of the casualties.

pnorman

I've been looking for new subjects to read - I favor non-fiction - next time I am at the library I'm going to get a book on that war - I'm embarrassed to say everything I know about it seems to come from MASH. My uncle Flavian (yes, Flavian) served in that action by the way.

A mistake? Cheney, Rummy and Gang must have studied all of them made in Korea and Vietnam -- and invented many of their own -- in order to create the quagmire that is Iraq.

We haven't won a single major conflict since World War Two. Wrong wars, fought at the wrong times, in the wrong places. Draw (Korea). Lose (Vietnam). Incomplete(Gulf War). Lose (Iraq Occupation).

thank you

That's what initially got me interested in the subject. It's still available at Amazon.com, so I ordered a new copy a few years ago. I also bought the 3 volume series in the Korean War by Bruce Cumings. That too is recommended. Here's a recent article by Cumings: http://www.kimsoft.com/2004/cumings-0412.htm

There's quite a bit about Korea, including the Korean War here: http://www.kimsoft.com/korea.htm

pnorman

the above cited Izzy Stone book is the BEST one to start with. It's no doubt "dated" in the light of later research, but he put his finger on much "funny" but significant stuff. And his sources were almost all US main-stream, although mainly from their European print editions. And it took RARE courage to put that book out in that McCarthy era. Regardles of ideologic slant, I attach great importance to such things.

Earlier on this thread, I gave the first phase of that war a "pass". I may have been too generous, but that's always a good starting point.

pnorman
On edit: Here's some more on post-Korean War events by Tim Shorrock: http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/kwangju3.htm
Here's what he wrote about them: "In conclusion, I never intended to draw a direct line between the Vietnamese resistance, the Japanese antiwar movement and the Korean uprisings of 1960 and 1980. But there are clear parallels, and all are linked to the legacy of the Cold War. For me pers onally, what the April 1960 and May 1980 uprisings taught me was that ordinary people can take history into their own hands. That is a message of hope and redemption that goes beyond ideology."

because they divide the thinking from the unthinking within nations.

There was a lot of passive and (not so passive) sabotage of Hitler's war effort in Germany at all levels -- right up to the General Staff -- but, practically none in Britain and the United States. The Allies ended up winning. That's a crucial lesson that needs to be taught at every level in the US, lest we end up like all the other divided, extinct would-be world empires.

Practically every war the U.S. has fought since 1945 has been based on a tissue of Right-wing lies and intrigue by cabals allied with powerful industrial interests. The Left was purged, and the American military and foreign policy establishments have been dominated by group-thinking zealots. That's why we've lost - the wars of Empire and ideological avarice divided this country, and you can't win in the face of determined opponents who know they are morally on the winning side of history.

On those rare occasions, such as in Afghanistan, where we've had a plausible claim to having a just cause and being a liberating force, we've done relatively well militarily, and have not faced massive long-term resistance and casualties. That's what distinguishes Afghanistan from Iraq. If we had simply stopped at hunting down Osama and kicking out the Taliban, we would have done okay in the eyes of the world.

I'm looking forward to the war trials of BushCo. Trials and punishment may, in part, vindicate us. The Germans greatly benefited from de-Nazification, and we could use de-Bushification.

But, we'll still have to pay, pay and pay for the destruction of Iraq. That put a permanent blight on America. I'm afraid it will make it even more difficult for us to protect our national interests in the future, on those occasions that it is really necessary.

Determining them to be LIES wasn't all that easy then. Most Americans, after having gone through WW2 just few years earlier, had considerable faith in the their leaders. And the Soviet Union (the Russian Empire, rather than any alleged "socialist" ideology) was a real threat, although nowhere near as much as it was represented by those who had a vested interest in the Cold War.

I agree with much of the rest of what you've written, but I'll stick with my earlier statement.

pnorman

True, he was an extraordinarily gifted, well-educated, and world travelled, and skeptical soul.

The system continues to exclude people like that from leadership roles, and relegates them -- when it's being benevolent -- to more or less ignored fringes, or subjects its independent thinkers to surveillance, harrassment, and jail when it's not?

No accident that Stone should write "The Trial of Socrates" as his capstone. Not his best work, by the way. But, it would behoove government to be less like government and more like a faculty Senate that rewards, protects and honors its iconoclasts.

Even those lacking Stone's accomplishments and background, can have an extraordinary effect ... with an instinctive sense of fair play and justice ... provided that they have that.

I make no self-serving claims myself along those lines. I was 22 years of age at that time, and had been drafted and was taking basic training at Fort Ord. My major act of non-comformity then, was to openly subscribe to The Nation. (That was duly noted by my betters). And here is what surprised me then, and is still a cause for some wonderment: I found that I. F. Stone book in the BASE LIBRARY!! It blew my mind of course, but I eventually doped out the probable reason. In that book was mention of a General who had served in Korea with considerable distinction. He had taken his unit on the offensive, and was getting mentioned favorably by the correspondents. At that time, Gen. McArthur was screwing up and looking pretty bad. That General (McGruder, I think) was fucked around by McArthur and soon sent back to the States ... to guess where? ... Base Commander of Fort Ord of course. That's "circumstantial" of course, but I suspect that book in the Base library was HIS act of "non-conformity".

pnorman

In this universe, "a tissue of right-wing lies and intrigue" had nothing to do with Korea or Viet Nam. Harry Truman, JFK, and LBJ were certainly NOT members of a "right-wing cabal", nor examples of a purged Left (OK, JFK could be considered "purged" in retrospect, but he was purged after he sent Special Forces into Viet Nam).

As it is, you are agreeing with the Pubs if you think that Korea was "wrong".

KOREA

On June 25, 1950, 90,000 North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea.

US president Harry Truman (D-MO) appealed to the United Nations for assistance, and the UN Security Council approved the deployment of military forces under the command of US Gen. Douglas MacArthur. At the time, conservative Republicans said that Truman had violated the US Constitution by going to the UN, instead of getting a declaration of war from Congress. (Sound familiar?)

Truman did not run for re-election in the 1952 election, and Dwight David Eisenhower (R-KS, generally considered a moderate Republican) was elected easily. Ike went to Korea after the election as President-elect, and started the wheels in motion leading to the cease-fire of July 27, 1953.

VIET NAM

Between 1945 and the end of the Truman administration, the President publically supported the French colonialists in Indochina. Eisenhower provided small amounts of military aid (money and "advisors") to South Viet Nam betwen 1954 and 1960, and used the CIA in an attempt to destabilize North Viet Nam. At one point he also discussed, but rejected, the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in Viet Nam. John F. Kennedy (D-MA) committed US Army Special Forces ("Green Berets") into Viet Nam as "advisors", with the number of US troops standing near 16,000 at the time of Kennedy's death.

Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) increased our presence in Viet Nam upon taking office. On July 27, 1964 he ordered 5,000 more "advisors" in-country, bringing US troop strength to 21,000. Using the Tonkin Gulf incident of August 1964 (a combination of provocation of the North and non-existant attacks on US ships), LBJ obtained a resolution from Congress allowing him to increase military operations as he may deem necessary (also familiar, eh?). With resolution in hand, LBJ sent 175,000 troops into Viet Nam in the next 18 months.

A personal note: my father was among the troops sent to Viet Nam in 1965.

In the 1968 Presidential election, Johnson refused to run for re-election (much like Truman in 1952), and Richard Nixon (R-CA) was elected with a promise to withdraw from Viet Nam. His strategy of Vietnamization was very similar to Bush's postwar strategy in Iraq (train and support the local army, and reduce American troop strength). The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, officially ending US involvement in the war.

Another personal note: I think "Iraqification" will work about as well as Vietnamization did. I don't think you can make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

"All politicians are liars" or something to that effect.

midwestern state. (He put down Kerry and voted for Bush) I asked him the other day what did we win in Korea, and he went ballistic on me..

what the lying liars have always done, since the french revolution, is locate discussions outside of the historical background (which, btw, THEY seem to be only writers of!) North Korea, like Syria and Lybia and Cuba and China and a host of lesser others has been demonised and consigned off to the side somewhere, as if greedy piggy is only one with legitimacy...i know virtually nothing about N Korea, but i do know most of the threat of force is maintained yearin/yearout by the US and the regime in the south, which has killed tens/thousands of ITS citizens in maintaining the one party rule (again, this was with 2 communist giants as near neighbors, though USSR now has devolved and PRC hardly qualifies as 'communist')
one of the smartest items found in the bible is the 'how can one remove speck of sawdust from neighbor's eye when there's a TREE in their own?' Yet the 'christian' countries have done nothing but that, while lying constantly to its own people. N Korea could well be a poor but happy(?) society for all we know: when mad albright, the mass killer from clinton's administration, visited N Korea a few years ago, there were NO REPORTERS with her, though the N Koreans had prepared for the usual hysterical onslaught of 'ratfinks' ...some suggest that the reality is so different from the lying liar product that there's a secret agreement not to release any news about N Korea unless it's awful. Bushinc has power in USA because of lotsa reasons, but NONE have been truly discussed in pigmedia...the same might be true of NK, but then again, there were no terrorists on 911 except the punks in suit and ties with prepared scripts, so who is one to believe, the evidence or what pigmedia claims is the evidence (fresh cooked up in langley, prolly!)
Sorry for being skeptical, but the 'pig in the poke' the US bought on Nov 7/00 was a real OLD ham!

Still, if Korea re-unifies, things will get very interesting indeed.

...would be an absolute disaster, and it would be a slap in the face for American and other soldiers who died to keep North Korea from destroying South Korea.

He lacks the military and economic power to forcibly reunify the country...

I'm against the US going to war against anyone at this point. We don't have moral authority and it will be a war for profit, no doubt. Also, it's not fair for us to pick on little guys and steal their oil, natural resources, etc.

There is no question that North Korea is a horrid regime. Vietnam was different than Korea and the two really can't be compared in the same ways.