-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Jim heartfield Enviada em: segunda-feira, 26 de junho de 2000 07:27 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Korea's blessing
On 25 June 1950 the news was relayed to members of the American occupation headquarters in Tokyo that 'the South Koreans have attacked North Korea' (R Gunther, The Riddle of MacArthur, p165), making good a threat by South Korean Defence Minister. 'If we had our own way', he told a press conference the previous year, 'we would have started up already. We are strong enough to march up and take Pyongyang in a few days.' (New York Herald Tribune, 1 November 1949) The sudden collapse of the South Korean forces and the North Koreans seizure of Seoul ensured that the conflict would always be remembered as a surprise attack by the Communists.
In the event, the allied preparations for the surprise attack were extensive. Republican spokesman John Foster Dulles had visited Seoul to pledge support for the south, 500 US military intelligence officers were posted on the border and British Field Marshall Slim was in conference with Australian defence chiefs in the weeks before the war. John Hickerson, Assistant Secretary of State for the United Nations told the Senate Appropriations Committee on 5 June 1951 that the resolution naming the North Koreans the aggressor was already drafted before the conflict began.
When US Commander General John Hodge landed at Inchon on 8 September 1945 following the surrender of the Japanese, he was surprised to be met by representatives of the Korean People's Republic, newly formed by popular peasants committees and released prisoners of war. Refusing to recognise them, Hodge restored Japanese police and government officials to rule over a Korea whose division had been agreed by Roosevelt and Stalin. Against the protests of Canada and Australia, America tried to consolidate partition with an election in the South in May 1950 - only to see their puppet Syngman Rhee lose all but 14 seats. Rhee needed a war to consolidate his grip on events.
It was American president Harry Truman, though, who most needed the war to justify the new policy of 'containment' of communism set out in National Security Council Memo 68. Truman needed a spectacular threat to convince congress to commit as much as 20 per cent of America's GNP to the military. War in SE Asia meant that America could justify its policy of supporting Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang guerillas based in Formosa against the newly created People's Republic of China under Mao Tse-Tung. The Korean people north and south were sacrificed to an ideological campaign against the red hordes.
With the Soviet Union boycotting the UN General Council, America had General Douglas MacArthur's Eighth Army enter the war as commander of the 'UN forces' - though he only ever reported to the US. Purportedly on the side of South Korea, the liberation of Seoul was so destructive that the America ruled out the possibility of elections for fear of the result.
'The difficulty is that there is a strong probability of an over-all Communist majority if the elections were held before the communization of North Korea had been undone, and before a UN construction programme had assuaged the bitterness of North and South Korea against the destruction of their homes during their liberation by UN forces.' New York Times, August 24, 1950
While controversy rages today about whether the US committed atrocities, the record at the time is unequivocal. 'We were grounded' Major General O'Donnell, commander, Far Eastern Air Bomber Command told a congressional enquiry on 25 June 1951. 'There were no more targets in Korea.' British military journal Brassey's Annual records: 'The war was fought without regard for the South Koreans, and their unfortunate country was regarded as an arena rather than a country to be liberated ... The South Korean, unfortunately, was regarded as a "gook," like his cousins north of the 38th parallel.' (The Armed Forces Yearbook, 1951)
Having driven the North Koreans back over the 38th parallel, MacArthur goaded communist China to enter the war with bombing raids in Manchuria. The arrival of the Chinese Army in the North led to an extraordinary tactic of withdrawal in the face of an invasion that never happened. MacArthur ordered the evacuation of Seoul leaving 'no facility standing which the enemy might use' (New York Times 4 January 1951). Despite the scorched earth policy, the Chinese invasion never took place. Associated Press correspondent William Barnard was in an observation plane over Seoul: 'We flew over Seoul and found a dead city ... there was not a single sign of life' (New York Herald Tribune, 6 January 1951)
The scorched earth policy was not designed to win friends: 'When the Koreans saw that the Communists had left their homes standing in retreat while the United Nations troops, fighting with much more destructive tools, left only blackened spots where town once stood, the Communists even in retreat chalked up moral victories.' New York Times, 15 September 1950
The point of MacArthur's retreat was to keep the case for the implementation of NSC 68, with its extensive commitment to militarising the Pacific alive. Red scares galvanised the US establishment. US General Van Fleet said in 1952 'Korea has been a blessing. There had to be a Korea either here, or some place in the world.' (UP, 19 January 1952)
Filipino Benigno Aquino, later murdered by President Marcos, reported on the war, concluding in 1952: 'To the rest of Asia the American looks like the Frenchman, the Britisher, the Dutchman. To Asians, these people are the symbols of oppression. And many Asians would prefer Communism to Western oppression.' (James Hamilton-Paterson, America's Boy: The Marcoses and the Philippines, p 167)
Fifty years on, the economic success of South Korea has reversed that preference, but it has also made the Cold War bogeyman of North Korea redundant. South Korea's victory celebrations are muted, as the country seeks reconciliation with the North. America will have to find another justification for the militarisation of the Pacific.
IF Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1952 Bruce Cumings (ed), The Origins of the Korean War, 1981 Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, 1986 Tony Kennedy, 'South Korea's take-off', Confrontation, Summer 1988
-- James Heartfield
-It seems South Korea attacked first? What are your sources? It´s a fact that the UN recognized the Seoul government as the only legitimate govern for Korea. It could be a first step for a forced reunification, but it´s difficult to believe that the SK Army attacked first. They had very poor equipment and morale and no airforce at all... I would say instead that both sides were thinking about going to all, but the NK Army attacked first.
Aleandre Fenelon