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A New Look at the Korean War

By John H. Kim

Starting this June and continuing for the next three years, the Pentagon will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War with special commemorative events in the United States and South Korea, spending several million dollars of our tax money. At the same time, the Pentagon faces the daunting task of reinvestigating the Associated Press report concerning the U. S. killing of several hundreds of South Korean civilians at No-Gun-Ri in late July 1950.

It's about time that we, American people, take another look at the 'Forgotten War' (a.k.a. 'Unknown War') and try to understand the real nature of the war so that we can do something to bring the war to an end. Many Americans erroneously believe that the war was over a long time ago. In fact, the war continues there in less obvious ways, such as military build-up, the propaganda war, and economic sanctions. The sad truth is that our government has been fighting the longest, most ferocious, unauthorized war in its history.

Even after a half century, the U.S. maintains about 37,000 troops at dozens of military bases in South Korea today. What we have in Korea is merely a precarious cease-fire agreement. We came very close to reigniting the war in 1994 and 1999. How long are we going to stay in Korea, and at what cost? When are we going to bring our boys home at last? How long are we going to ignore our responsibility for the tragic division of Korea and the Korean War?

For a full understanding of the Korean War, it is necessary to understand something about the history of U.S. policy toward Korea prior to the outbreak of war. Korea first emerged as a unified country in 668 A.D. when Silla annexed Paekche and Koguryo, ending the Three Kingdoms period. The U.S. first established diplomatic relations with Korea when it signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the Kingdom of Choson in 1882. However, the U.S. government soon proved not to be a real friend to the Korean people when Japan attempted to colonize Korea. Instead of restraining Japan's imperialist ambitions, President Theodore Roosevelt entered into a secret deal with Japan in 1905 (a.k.a. 'Taft-Katsura Memorandum') by recognizing Japan's domination of Korea in return for Japanese recognition of American hegemony in the Philippines.

This tendency of the American government to betray Korean interests again shows itself at the end of World War II. To halt the southward march of Soviet troops and secure U.S. influence on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee drew an arbitrary line across the 38th Parallel in Korea, asking the Soviet forces to stop there. Although American forces were in Okinawa at the time, the Soviet Union meekly accepted the demand, thus paving the way for the establishment of two separate governments in Korea as the cold war intensified.

In addition to the tragic division of Korea, the U.S. also refused to recognize the Korean People's Republic (KPR), a nationwide, progressive government organized by anti-Japanese nationalist Koreans before the arrival of American troops in South Korea in September 1945. Instead of cooperating with the KPR, the U.S. created a military government in its zone of occupation, outlawing the KPR and the popular People's Committees under the control of KPR.

Official American history has it that the Korean War started on June 25, 1950 when North Korean forces suddenly attacked the South under Stalin's orders. This is a gross misrepresentation of the origin of the war. According to declassified Russian documents, Stalin did not order Kim Il Sung to start the war. On the contrary, it was Kim Il Sung who sought permission to attack the South in case the North was attacked. The truth is that the Korean War started in 1945 when the U.S. suppressed the KPR government and imposed its military rule in the southern part of Korea.

During the American Military Government (1945-1948) and the period from the establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the South in August 1948 to the full-scale war in June 1950, the U.S. military and the fascist Rhee regime, allied with pro-Japanese Koreans, imprisoned or killed hundreds of thousands of Korean nationalists and socialists in order to establish a separate, pro-American government in South Korea. This savage repression resulted in bloody armed struggle by angry Korean peasants, workers, students, and soldiers all over the South. Major armed uprisings took place in Daegu, Cheju island, Yosu, and Sunchon. In Cheju island alone from 1948 to 1949, more than 30,000 Koreans were killed - ten percent of the population - by South Korean police and military forces and right-wing youth gangs under the direction of American military officers.

In addition to widespread guerrilla warfare in the South, major battles broke out between the North Korean (DPRK) and South Korean (ROK) armies along the 38th parallel in 1949. The first major battle, initiated by the ROK troops near the border city of Kaesong, began on May 4, 1949 and lasted four days, causing hundreds of casualties. Fighting also occurred in June 1949 on the Ongjin peninsula, the same area where the official Korean War would 'begin' one year later. Another major battle ensued in August 1949.

When the armed clash arose in June 1950, it was more or less a continuation of past conflicts. It was certainly not a surprise attack. Anti-communist dictator Syngman Rhee openly preached military unification of Korea by force. At the same time, the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung was preparing for a military counter-attack against the South. The United States was fully aware of the tense situation and took advantage of it, justifying the rapid and gigantic military build-up plan officially adopted in April 1950 (National Security Council resolution #68). When the fighting began on June 25, each side accused the other of starting the war. Despite this murky picture, President Truman labeled the civil war as the naked aggression of the communist world against a free nation, and intervened under the UN flag to avoid an official declaration of war in Congress. Truman characterized his decision as a 'police action,' setting a bad precedent for other U.S. military adventures, including the Vietnam War.

To American people of today, it doesn't matter much which side started the American Civil War. The important thing we remember is that the war was fought over the issues of slavery and the preservation of national union. Likewise, the Korean War was mainly a civil war of Korean people over the question of national reunification, which turned into an international military conflict upon the intervention of outside forces. Professor Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago, the author of two monumental books on the origins of the Korean War, sums it up the best:

"The Nogun massacre can help Americans understand what this 'forgotten war' was really about. It was a civil and unconventional war that had its origins long before June 1950, and the official repositories of historical truth in Washington and Seoul have been lying about its basic nature for half a century."*

*Bruce Cumings, "Korean My Lai," The Nation, Oct. 25, 1999