PARDON MY RANT

South Korea

Whenever I confront someone who claims that America's wars abroad were fought for economic gain or to extend its alleged imperialist empire, I ask the person about the Korean War: What imperialist or economic reasons were there to fight in that country?   The answer I most often receive is, "Frankly I don't know too much about the Korean War."

 Here is a brief summery of the Korean War or “Korean Conflict” as it was known at the time.

Just five years after a war-weary America celebrated the end of World War II, Americans were asked to fight the successor-evil to Nazism, communism, in Korea, a country most Americans could not identify on a map or did not know anything about.  It was an earlier version of what happened in Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China backed a communist attempt to take over the southern half of the Korean peninsula -- the northern half had been communist since the end of World War II -- and install a Stalinist tyranny over the non-communist southern half.  South Korea was supported by the United Nations.

The war began in 1950, and an armistice (a ceasefire) was signed in 1953, but the war technically never really ended.  During those three years, over 36,000 Americans died in America's successful attempt to keep South Korea from becoming communist. And another 92,000 were wounded.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the Korean War.     North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.^[30] It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.^[31]
The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of South Korea in repelling the invasion, but within two months the defenders were pushed back to the Pusan perimeter, a small area in the south of the country, before the North Koreans were stopped. A rapid UN counter-offensive then drove the North Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of the North.^[30] The Chinese launched a counter-offensive that pushed the United Nations forces back across the 38th Parallel. The Soviet Union materially aided the North Korean and Chinese armies. In 1953, the war ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. Minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day.

I was stationed in South Korea in 1956 and 1957 at an Air Force Base known as K55.  That base is still there and is now known as Osan Air Force Base. 


OK, now to get to my point.  During my 12 months in Korea, the citizens of that war torn country were very friendly and very glad that we were there.  That was then, this is now.

For the past couple of decades, there have been many anti-American demonstrations in South Korea.  Each time I hear about one, I have to wonder: Do these people have any idea what the living hell known as North Korea is like?  Do these people understand that the United States is the reason they are so free and prosperous, completely unlike their fellow North Koreans who had the horrible luck not to be liberated by America?  Do these people know how many Americans died to enable them to be free?

So, forgive me for the contempt I feel for South Koreans who demonstrate against the United States and for the two-thirds of South Koreans who, according to a 2002 Gallup-Korea poll, view the United States unfavorably.  Whenever I see those anti-American demonstrators or read such polls, all I can think about are the tens of thousands of Americans who died so that South Koreans would not live in the communist hell their fellow Koreans live in.

Younger South Koreans want American troops to leave their country?  Do these young people not know that on planet Earth no other country suffers the mass enslavement, mass incarceration, mass death or the deadening of the mind and soul that North Koreans endure because of the psychopaths who run that country?

And if they do know all this about North Korea, how do they explain why South Korea is so different?

Here is a suggestion: The South Korean government should conduct a national vote of all citizens on whether America should withdraw its troops from that country.  Before the South Korean people vote, the United States should make it clear that if it withdraws its troops and North Korea later invades the South, we will send no troops to die again for South Korea -- but we will vote to condemn North Korea's aggression at the United Nations.

If a majority of the South Korean people wants us to leave, we should.

The beauty of such my suggestion is that if a majority of the South Korean people wants American troops out, we have no moral obligation to stay there. And if a majority wants us to stay, the South Korean left and other ingrates in that country should just shut the hell up.

I am acquainted with several American citizens who are from South Korea, and I have always admired their industriousness, work ethic and strong families.  But South Korea is surely has become one of the most ungrateful country in the world.