{"id":15329,"date":"2020-11-20T21:58:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T02:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=15329"},"modified":"2020-11-20T21:58:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T02:58:56","slug":"korean-war-forgotten-lessons-with-great-photos-from-consortium-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/20\/korean-war-forgotten-lessons-with-great-photos-from-consortium-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean War Forgotten Lessons with Great Photos from Consortium News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Consortium News kindly reposted my Korean War piece with awesome art work.\u00a0 Wow! I had not seen almost any of these photos.<\/h3>\n

The Korean War\u2019s Forgotten Lessons on the Evil of Intervention<\/a><\/h1>\n
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The secrecy and deceit surrounding U.S. war crimes has had catastrophic consequences in this century, writes James\u00a0Bovard.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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With her brother on her back a war-weary Korean girl passes a stalled M-26 tank in Haengju, Korea, June 9, 1951. (U.S. Army, Maj. R.V. Spencer)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By James Bovard<\/strong>
\nJimBovard.com<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"T<\/strong>his year is the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict from which Washington policymakers learned nothing. Almost 40,000 American soldiers died in that conflict, which should have permanently vaccinated the nation against the folly and evil of foreign intervention. Instead, the war was retroactively redefined. As President Barack Obama declared in 2013, \u201cThat war was no tie. Korea was a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

When politicians or generals appear itching to pull the United States into another foreign war, remember that truth is routinely the first casualty.
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The war began with what President Harry Truman claimed was a surprise invasion on June 25, 1950, by the North Korean army across the dividing line with South Korea that was devised after World War II. But the U.S. government had ample warnings of the pending invasion. According to the late Justin Raimondo, founder of antiwar.com, the conflict actually started with a series of attacks by South Korean forces, aided by the U.S. military:<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 1945-1948, American forces aided [South Korean President Syngman] Rhee in a killing spree that claimed tens of thousands of victims: the counterinsurgency campaign took a high toll in Kwangju, and on the island of Cheju-do \u2014 where as many as 60,000 people were murdered by Rhee\u2019s US-backed forces.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The North Korean army quickly routed both South Korean and U.S. forces. A complete debacle was averted after Gen. Douglas MacArthur masterminded a landing of U.S. troops at Inchon. After he routed the North Korean forces, MacArthur was determined to continue pushing northward regardless of the danger of provoking a much broader war.<\/p>\n

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Brigadier General Courtney Whitney (left), General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (seated) and Major General Edward Almond (right) observe the shelling of Inchon from the USS Mount McKinley. (U.S. Army, Nutter, Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By the time the U.S. forces drove the North Korean army back across the border between the two Koreas, roughly 5,000 American troops had been killed. The Pentagon had plenty of warning that the Chinese would intervene if the U.S. Army pushed too close to the Chinese border. But the euphoria that erupted after Inchon blew away all common sense and drowned out the military voices who warned of a catastrophe. One U.S. Army colonel responded to a briefing on the Korea situation in Tokyo in 1950 by storming out and declaring, \u201cThey\u2019re living in a goddamn dream land.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chinese military attack resulted in the longest retreat in the history of America\u2019s armed forces \u2014 a debacle that was valorized by allusion in the 1986 Clint Eastwood movie,\u00a0Heartbreak Ridge.<\/em>\u00a0By 1951, the Korean War had become intensely unpopular in the United States \u2014 more unpopular than the Vietnam War ever was. At least the war, which President Harry Truman insisted on mislabeling as a \u201cpolice action,\u201d destroyed the presidency of the man who launched it. By the time a ceasefire was signed in mid 1953, almost 40,000 Americans had been killed in a conflict that ended with borders similar to those at the start of the war.<\/p>\n

Disasters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest disaster of the Korean war was that intellectuals and foreign-policy experts succeeded in redefining the Korean conflict as an American victory. As Georgetown University professor Derek Leebaert noted in his book\u00a0Magic and Mayhem,<\/em>\u00a0\u201cWhat had been regarded as a bloody stalemate transformed itself in Washington\u2019s eyes; ten years later it had become an example of a successful limited war. Already by the mid-1950s, elite opinion began to surmise that it had been a victory.\u201d Leebaert explained, \u201cImages of victory in Korea shaped the decision to escalate in 1964-65 helping to explain why America pursued a war of attrition.\u201d<\/p>\n