Currently, the US Marines are in hot water over a massacre of a few dozen unarmed civilians in al-Haditha, Iraq, in retaliation for the killing of a Marine by the terrorists there. While this is a disgusting development, well covered in the blogosphere, this is far from the first time American forces, "in the name of defending freedom," were ordered to kill unarmed civilians. The My Lai massacre in Vietnam was a larger-scale example of such atrocity.
Another example was the No Gun Ri massacre in Korea. It was covered up by the US government and the South Korean fascists until 1999, when a new, leftist South Korean regime declassified it, and a subsequent Pentagon study concluded that it was a "horrible accident." But new reports say that it was a policy from the highest ranks of the US military to indeed shoot refugees, for fear of a few North Korean infiltrators. It was no accident. Hundreds, maybe thousands, died in cold blood.
This completely debunks the Korean-Americans' (and South Korean right-wingers') claim that the US went to war in Korea as South Korea's benevolent ally, determined to save their country from the commie menace at all costs (and therefore South Korea forever owes its very existence to the US). The US had only one objective, honestly; to maintain South Korea as a buffer zone for Japan, and nothing more. But just as the former South Vietnamese government officials, now exiled in Orange County, continue to cover up or minimize such atrocities as My Lai, the Korean-Americans and Korean right-wingers will continue to minimize the significance of No Gun Ri and other Korean War massacres.
Thanks to two of my favorite blogs, Angry Asian Man and Philobiblon, for alerting me to this report. Philobiblon does remind that the American record is nowhere as horrible as its enemies', but nevertheless, it is the worst among the democratic nations, and is hardly anything to be proud of.
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