How many millions were killed by the Communists in North Korea?
I see, they rallied to the Northern cause but they were all innocents with no communist leanings.
And liberals think we should be part of a global world and there is no difference between us and anyone else and they the rest of the world is a better palce to live.
Stupid liberals.
This is a left wing commission which prospered under the now discredited socialist regime. This is just blowback by the press trying to discredit the new conservative government, and to portray our allies as evil, even dating back to the 1950’s.
I’m not buying that the US supported this, which was so inelegantly expressed in the very first sentence.
My dad was in Korea at that time with the 1st Marine Div.
He saw and delt with the atrocities of the North Koreans and Red Chinese but guess that doesn’t count
I DON’T BELIEVE IT !!!!
It's always safe to throw feces at the civilized......
CHARLES J. HANLEY is the SAME leftist propagandist who has written about how truthful and forthcoming Joseph Wilson and his “CIA” bimbo wife were — and still denies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction — IN SPITE of the corpses of thousands of Kurds KNOWN to be killed by chemical weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION...
It’s a pity there isn’t a “Court of Journalist Credentials” where EACH year Journalists must PROVE their articles were TRUTHFUL and based on FACTS, not talking points.....
I think what actually started this (North Korean Invasion) is when "Secretary of State Dean Acheson's public statement in January 1950 that Korea was outside the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia." Truman's secretary of state.
Now you know why the current generation of ROK civilins see America as their number one enemy and not the North.
Liberal NGOs inflate sketchy memories and extrapolate upward to insure more funding comes their way.
No doubt bad things happened as always does in war, but AP doesn't even try to balance the story with how many millions of ROK civilians were slaughtered by DNK and ChiComms, nor how many U.S. and allied troops where killed defending Korea against the invading Communists. Nor how many millions of free (and Communist) world citizens were spared from the ravages of nuclear war, by the East and West battling it out in proxy wars in Korea and other countries where the Communists tried to take over, instead of firing nukes at each other directly.
Certainly sad for these people's families, but their loss saved millions more.
I was there 52-53 and not involved in the civilian sector, and where I was, more interested in keeping my head down. But I do know the ROK military didn't fool around. If they found a suspected spy, a mamasan in the hills directing artillery fire or a ROK soldier showing a reluctance to move forward, they were summarily shot - no trial, no Guantanamo. But, the ROK army was good - with them on your flank there was no need to worry.
I was there 52-53 and not involved in the civilian sector, and where I was, more interested in keeping my head down. But I do know the ROK military didn't fool around. If they found a suspected spy, a mamasan in the hills directing artillery fire or a ROK soldier showing a reluctance to move forward, they were summarily shot - no trial, no Guantanamo. But, the ROK army was good - with them on your flank there was no need to worry.
I was there 52-53 and not involved in the civilian sector, and where I was, more interested in keeping my head down. But I do know the ROK military didn't fool around. If they found a suspected spy, a mamasan in the hills directing artillery fire or a ROK soldier showing a reluctance to move forward, they were summarily shot - no trial, no Guantanamo. But, the ROK army was good - with them on your flank there was no need to worry.
Often, that behavior from Americans was simply a response to an even more vicious and unethical opposition, such as the Japanese who feigned surrender to ambush Americans or who tortured prisoners or the as a reaction to what they took a look around the concentration camps that they liberated. Sometimes, it was simply individual soldiers going off the deep end or lacking in the experience and judgement to do the right thing. And there are always a certain number of nuts who make it into the military, especially when there is a widespread draft.
I point this out not to impugn the veterans of those wars, who were still generally paragons of virtue for their day and still worthy of admiration. I point this out to highlight just how admirable our current military is that the best the press can come up with to impugn American soldiers and Marines is Abu Ghraib and using a Koran for target practice. Compared to any military in the history of the planet, including our own, the American military today performs like angels.
While atrocities are, regrettably, a part of warfare, there is some reason to view this report with a bit of suspicion.
The AP correspondent who co-authored this account, Charles Hanley, was part of a wire service “team” that won a Pulitzer in 1999 for their “expose” of a U.S. massacre of South Korean civilians at No Gun Ri in the summer of 1950.
The circumstances of both events were somewhat similar; the North Koreans were rolling south; the ROK Army had, essentially collapsed, and U.S. forces arriving on scene were trying desperately to establish defensive lines after the debacle of Task Force Smith. There were many reports of NK guerillas blending in with the hordes of refugees, heading south.
Hanley’s initial report created quite a stir, but an Army Ranger-turned-history professor at West Point was less than convinced. While Major Robert Bateman conceded that some ROK civilians had been killed at No Gun Ri, he disputed the accuracy of key portions of the AP story, provided by a solider who was supposedly there, Edward Daily. Bateman later proved that Daily was not at No Gun Ri, and his version of events was patently false.
Bateman also demonstrated that the U.S. policy to “shoot” refugees was not widely disseminated and indistinct, at best. While the AP later corrected their version to omit Daily’s account, they accused Bateman of a “tiresome” campaign to undermine their reporting. They also later produced a document which claimed the policy on shooting refugees was disseminated within the U.S. command structure and even broadcast over radio nets.
However, the document does not indicate to what degree the policy was disseminated, what radio nets carried the message and which units actually acknowledged receiving the directive and complying with it. In other words, the policy document discovered by the AP—after Bateman’s critique appeared—is not a complete vindication for the wire service.
It’s also worth noting that Hanley did everything he could to discredit Major Bateman, lobbying his publisher to cancel the Army officer’s book contract, and even complaining to historians who offered Bateman’s work a positive review.
For the problems with Hanley’s original No Gun Ri account—and his attitude toward those who would criticize his work—Hanley’s latest expose deserves similar scrutiny. Almost 60 years after the fact, memories get fuzzy and you can only wonder if there’s a Korean Edward Daily among those cited by the AP.