From: dfo@tko.vtt.fi (Foxvog Douglas)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: Korean War (Was: Re: A pacifist's call for conditional ...Somalia)
Date: 30 Dec 92 09:48:48 GMT
Organization: VTT

In article <29DEC199220345961@reg.triumf.ca> orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON) writes:
>Douglas Foxvog (dfo@tko.vtt.fi), commenting on my reply to Bud Hovel's
>comments on Doug's original posting (got that?) [my ** emphasis] : 
>>>(e.g. as
>>>a front for the U.S. invasion of South Korea) when it did not (e.g. was
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>Misleading phrasing.  The US invaded the occupied South Korea in the
>>**same way it invaded France** on D-Day in the refered to invasion [It also
>>invaded Japanese-occupied Korea at the end of WW II.].  It was sheer
>>Soviet stupidity to allow this to have the imprimitar of the UN by
>>walking out of the Security Council, allowing the US with its allies
>>(UK, Taiwan, and France) to have their way.

>This comment relates to a point also raised by John McCarthy.

>Security forces installed and directed by the U.S. killed about
>100,000 people in South Korea before the beginning of the Korean
>War (I believe a modern reference is "Korea: the Unknown War" by
>Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, 1988).  

I have not heard these figures and am surprised that they are so
high, but do not doubt them.  I did not argue that the South Korean
govt. was praiseworthy.  

>The U.S. intervened in
>support of a murderous right-wing dictatorship, hardly analogous to D-Day.  

The invasion was similar, landing troops into an area occupied by an 
invader.  The allied government being supported was far different.

>I haven't yet studied the history of the Korean War in sufficient
>depth so as to be able to refute all the "standard lies" in detail (I
>*have* done this for the U.S.-Vietnam War), but I know enough to
>recognize them. 

I stated no opinion on US involvement in Korea.  My comment in no
way supported it, i just was noting a misuse of terminology.  As a
matter of fact, i do not support that US intervention, which should have
been clear in my original article.

>The U.S. support for the feudal warlord Chiang
>Kai-Shek in China is discussed in some detail in Gabriel Kolko's "The
>Politics of War: U.S. Foreign Policy 1943-45"" (1968, reprinted 1990),
>and it would be a startling anomaly if the situation was markedly
>different in Korea during 1945-50. 

>>>whatever one
>>>thinks of the state of U.S. domestic democracy.  (BTW, this is true generally
>>>of *all* the Western industrial democracies.) 

>>And all other nations as well, no need to single out "Western"
>>"industrial" "democracies".  Negate any or all of those terms and the
>>statement will apply.

>True, but then the point I was trying to make is lost -- which is that
>*even* in (approximate) domestic democracies, there is *no* democracy in
>the conduct of foreign affairs.  This is generally assumed *a priori*
>for countries which are not domestic democracies.  

Then you should have made that point.  It appeared to me that you were
indicating something that was especially evil about "Western industrial
democracies".

>Ron Balden


-- 
doug foxvog     
dfo@tko.vtt.fi