WHy do we not speak about our crimes against other countries?
The Korean War
“In 2008 the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation commission found 1,222 instances of mass killings, with at least 215 of these involving U.S. troops or airplanes massacring unarmed civilians. At Cheongwon in central Korea, up to 7,000 people were slaughtered.” The U.S. committed an uncountable amount of acts designated as “war crimes”, including widespread use of chemical and biological weapons such as the plague, and intentionally destroying hydroelectric dams that provided drinking water for 75% of the population. In total around 5 million Koreans lost their lives. Source |
Around 10 percent of Koreans, or slightly more, were dead. In the DPRK about 2 million civilians and 500,000 military had died according to Halliday and Cumings.i That is more than one of every four human beings exterminated in a three year span. Others give lower figures, but still produce shocking mortality rates such as 1 in 5, though there is the ever-present confusion of specifying only “casualties” without distinguishing killed and wounded. One estimate is that one ninth of North Korean civilians (1,000,000 people) were killed in air raids alone.ii Additionally, according to Stueck, “[i]n property, NorthKorea put its losses at $1.7 billion, South Korea at $2 billion, the equivalent of itsgross national product for 1949. North Korea lost some 8,700 industrial plants, SouthKorea twice that number. Each area saw 600,000 homes destroyed.”iii The urbandestruction in the DPRK was unparalleled before or since, “at least 50 percent ofeighteen out of the North’s twenty-two major cities were obliterated. A partial tablelooks this:
Pyongyang, 75% Chongjin, 65% Hamhung, 80% Hungnam, 85% Sariwon, 95% Sinanju, 100% Wonsan, 80%.”iv |