1st Hard Evidence U.S. Condoned Korean Slaughter

Associated Press continues to follow the story being unravelled by South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, investigating war crimes and atrocities long kept secret from the Korean War of the early 1950s. Their latest story follows an earlier report last May, which I also discussed here.

The latest news continues the grisly tale of uncovering mass graves, and unearthing formerly classified documents. The number of leftists, political opponents, and just plain innocent citizens killed at the orders of then South Korean President Syngman Rhee, shortly after North Korean troops invaded the south. The number killed is estimated to be from 100,000 to 200,000 people, many of them lined up above hastily-dug trenches and shot by military police. Some apparently were buried still alive.

There were no charges or trials for these victims. Furthermore, though U.S. officials definitely knew about the killings, and maybe condoned or even ordered some, a number of U.S. military personnel seem to have had foreknowledge of the killings. The full story of U.S. involvement awaits the declassification and study of hundreds of previously classified documents.

The bulk of the evidence thus far shows that while some U.S. commanders on-site had qualms about the killings, General Douglas MacArthur, in charge of U.S. forces there, saw the killings as an "internal matter". Other officers appeared to approve, at least conditionally.

In what is the biggest exposure thus far of U.S. involvement, in an uncensored version of a narrative of events written at the time by U.S. adviser in Korea, Lt. Col. Rollins S. Emmerich admits he gave advance sanction to summary executions in the city of Busan (now Pusan). According to the AP report, a a South Korean regimental commander wanted "to execute some 3500 suspected peace time Communists, locked up in the local prison". Lt. Col. Emmerich at first thought such atrocities unnecessary, but then seemed to change his mind. (Emphasis in bold added)

"Colonel Kim promised not to execute the prisoners until the situation became more critical," wrote Emmerich, who died in 1986. "Colonel Kim was told that if the enemy did arrive to the outskirts of (Busan) he would be permitted to open the gates of the prison and shoot the prisoners with machine guns."

Later that summer, hundreds of prisoners apparently were summarily executed in Busan.

There are plenty of atrocities to go around. A North Korean report describes the killings of 1,000 prisoners in Incheon in June 1950, supposedly at the orders of a U.S. military adviser. A British communist journalist at the time reported U.S. forces were supervising "the butchery" at Daejeon. One U.S. officer invited another to come witness the "turkey shoot" outside the city. While the officer so invited apparently declined, others went and took photos of the killings. (Warning: these are gruesome photos.) Today, U.S. historian Bruce Cumings at the University of Chicago finds the U.S. guilty of collaboration in the Daejeon killings, and also of a cover-up. Of course, during the Cold War the U.S. labeled all communist reports of massacres in Korea as "lies".

But, it was the United States that was involved this time in massive lying, covering up serious war crimes by its South Korean "ally", who was being sold to the world as a supposed democratic alternative to the godless communists. As I wrote when this story first broke last spring:

After "shock and awe" in Iraq, the carpetbombing of Vietnam, the mass executions of the Phoenix Project, and the thousands imprisoned and untold tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other "global war on terror" U.S. prisons (including the detention of thousands of minors), after these revelations and many, many more, it is time that Americans woke up and began to accept the reality of their history. That history is far bloodier than they care to imagine, and the fact that atrocities of this magnitude were done by or under the guidance of Americans is a hideous truth that we must not hide from.

More importantly, we should not let those implicated in crimes past and present escape without accountability. A civil commission of the most respected Americans -- none of whom should be from government or the military, as they are too tainted -- should be assembled to investigate the full extent of U.S. involved war crimes. This should include the evidence about use of biological weapons by the United States, as well, during the Korean War. [The cover-up of this aspect of the war has been implicated in the origins of the U.S. torture program at Guantanamo and throughout Bush's "war on terror" gulag.] The use of torture post-9/11 should also top the agenda.

We cannot have a clean start, a la Obama, without facing the truth, as ugly as it may be. I ask all of you: are we really a genocidal country? Do we let mass murder go unpunished? How has it come to this, that one has to even ask such questions in this day and age? Speak out now. U.S. militarism has led us to the gates of a moral holocaust. It is happening now.

New Reports: U.S.-South Korean Killing Fields, 100,000+ Executed

Associated Press is reporting shocking news of mass graves being uncovered in South Korea. The expose is partly due to the work of a South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The mass executions of many tens of thousands took place in 1950, only weeks after North Korean armies invaded the South. One mass grave was exposed by a typhoon a few years ago. Recently declassified U.S. documents showed the Americans had taken pictures of a mass killing outside Daejeon. As reported at ABC News:

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial....

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is "very conservative," said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

There are supposedly an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, yet to be unearthed. And while U.S. military and CIA documents discuss the killings, officially, the U.S. maintained executions were reportedly the work of the "murderous barbarism" of the North Koreans. But evidence now suggests the executions were ordered by U.S.-installed puppet President Syngman Rhee. (Rhee was the OSS's man in Korea during World War II. The OSS was the precursor to the CIA.) General MacArthur, leading "allied" forces in Korea, called the mass executions an "'internal matter', even though he controlled South Korea's military.

The Cover-Up, and What We Must Do Now

How could this have been covered up so long, you ask? A former Air Force intelligence officer tried to tell the story in a 1981 book. The late Donald Nichols told of witnessing "the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon," 20 miles south of Seoul." Another story on the subject by AP describes how reporters tried to tell the story back in 1950, only to have it denied and covered up.

British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan — then spelled Pusan — for London's Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute.

Earlier, correspondent Alan Winnington reported on the shooting of thousands of prisoners at Daejeon in the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, only to have his reporting denounced by the U.S. Embassy in London as an "atrocity fabrication"....

Associated Press correspondent O.H.P. King reported on the shooting of 60 political prisoners in Suwon, south of Seoul, and wrote in a later memoir he was "shocked that American officers were unconcerned" by questions he raised about due process for the detainees.

These mass killings were goddamned war crimes of an immense, killing fields nature. The South Korean government and army of that time were basically creations of the United States. U.S. officers were present at some of these killings (that we know about already), and covered up what they knew -- covered up mass murder!

After "shock and awe" in Iraq, the carpetbombing of Vietnam, the mass executions of the Phoenix Project, and the thousands imprisoned and untold tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other "global war on terror" U.S. prisons (including the detention of thousands of minors), after these revelations and many, many more, it is time that Americans woke up and began to accept the reality of their history. That history is far bloodier than they care to imagine, and the fact that atrocities of this magnitude were done by or under the guidance of Americans is a hideous truth that we must not hide from.

More importantly, we should not let those implicated in crimes past and present escape without accountability. A civil commission of the most respected Americans -- none of whom should be from government or the military, as they are too tainted -- should be assembled to investigate the full extent of U.S. involved war crimes. This should include the evidence about use of biological weapons by the United States, as well, during the Korean War. The use of torture post-9/11 should also top the agenda.

We cannot have a clean start, a la Obama, without facing the truth, as ugly as it may be. I ask all of you: are we really a genocidal country? Do we let mass murder go unpunished? How has it come to this, that one has to even ask such questions in this day and age? Speak out now. U.S. militarism has led us to the gates of a moral holocaust. It is happening now.