Important, Relatively Little-Known Facts and Ironies Relating to the Korean War

# Korea has never attacked any other country. It has, however, been the victim of repeated attacks and interference throughout history.

# At the end of World War II, Korea was the only state not responsible for aggression that became divided (like Germany). Japan, which had occupied Korea for forty years and attacked many of its neighbors, was not split up. In fact its economy and sovereignty were enhanced by the Korean War due to a choice of U.S. policy to build up Japan. So Japan gained tremendously from the Korean War. Its strategic military and geopolitical significance was illustrated by the manner in which it served as the vital rear base and sanctuary for U.S. operations throughout the Korean War, and later for the Vietnam War. The war substantially boosted Japan's economic recovery, while destroying Korea. Vietnam, however, also became divided at a later date as a direct result of the War. The French had stubbornly insisted on restoring its pre-war colony following Japan's defeat. The Vietnamese fought a fierce war of liberation for her independence from France, militarily defeating the French forces in May 1954. The July 20, 1954 Geneva Agreement created a "temporary" provisional demarcation line at approximately the 17th latitude to be in effect only until mandated unifying elections were to be held in July 1956. Tragically, however, due to illegal United States belligerance in preventing the mandated unifying elections, the 17th latitude remained in effect for twenty-one years until the Vietnamese militarily defeated the U.S. in April 1975, similarly to what they had done to the French in 1954.

# Syngman Rhee, the very unpopular and unpredictable U.S. puppet leader for the South, was a big, big winner in the war. The U.S. intervention saved his political career by entrenching him as South Korea's leader even though he had little popular support.

# In February-March 1952, officials from China and North Korea accused the U.S. of dropping germs from the air, including plague, anthrax, cholera, and encephalitis, which was vehemently denied by the U.S. Subsequent elaborate research has disclosed the truth of these accusations. See Endicott and Hagerman's excellent twenty-year study (1998) listed in the bibliography below.

# The total number of Koreans, North and South, killed during the war now seems to exceed 5 million people, or about 17 percent of a total 30 million population at the beginning of the war. Nine million people lived north of the 38th Parallel at the beginning of the war, and as many as 3 to 3.5 million of them were killed. This kill ratio of one in three may be the heaviest losses due to war any nation has ever endured in history.

# The Armistice signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, was signed by representatives of North Korea, China, and the U.S. Rhee refused to sign but agreed that for ninety days he would not disturb it, after which he claimed he would be free to start the war with a military invasion of the North. To contain Rhee, U.S. acquired direct control over the ROKA, which in turn contributed to the tragic long-term U.S. occupation of Korea.

# The Geneva Conference where resolution of Korea was discussed following the cease-fire, April 26-June 15, 1954, was a unique occasion when the foreign ministers of all five leading world countries met at one place (U.S., U.S.S.R., France, China, and the United Kingdom, among others nations represented at the conference).

# Geneva was the only international conference of its kind ever attended by North Korea.

# According to representatives of delegations from Canada, France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom at Geneva, the U.S./Rhee representatives were intent on preventing any acceptable peace settlement from being realized, despite allegations to the opposite by U.S. diplomats.

# Though some prisoners of war on both sides were badly treated, the documented evidence discloses that the U.S./U.N. forces were responsible for more deaths of prisoners, and more violence, than the North Koreans and Chinese were with their U.S./U.N./South Korean prisoners. Only the U.N. side applied violence to prevent repatriation.

# The U.S. was shocked by the fact that an estimated 70 percent of its POWs had collaborated in some way with their captors. Many had made confessions, including the to the use of germ warfare. Very few North Korean and Chinese prisoners collaborated with their U.N. captors, even though they were subjected to more brutality and violence. Many of the U.S. POWs recanted, of course, once released, but many, surprisingly, did not.

# Despite Japanese and U.S. denials, the Chinese and North Koreans were aware that the U.S. government protected from World War II war crimes prosecutions, the top Japanese germ-warfare scientists and technicians who had experimented on Chinese and Korean (and some 300 U.S.) prisoners a few years before. The reason: So that the United States could utilize their technological and scientific knowledge for its own military and intelligence purposes, similar to the program the U.S. secretly implemented for the Nazis. Some of this imparted knowledge was believed used against Chinese and North Koreans in the Korean War.

# After the war, South Korea had one of the largest military forces in the world with approximately 600,000 soldiers. The numbers in the North were uncertain but not thought at the time to be much at variance with numbers of Rhee's forces in the South.

# Since the war, the South Korean military has been the only foreign armed force in the world under direct U.S. control. This was literally true until 1994, and remains de facto to this day. There currently are 37,000 U.S. troops at 100 installations in South Korea.

# There are no foreign troops in North Korea and have not been since the Russian military departed in 1948.

# From shortly after the end of the war to the early 1990s, South Korea was the only place in the world where nuclear weapons were pointed at a non-nuclear nation. Until the 1990s, North Korea had no nuclear program. The status of their nuclear program is unclear, but they seem to not yet have any completed, launchable nuclear weapons.

[link to www.brianwillson.com]