Comment on How come nobody does anything about North Korea?
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 days agoYou’re acting like North Korea and South Korea existed as separate, established entities prior to the Korean War. That’s nonsense. It’s projecting the modern state of affairs back into the past. The Korean War is when those entities were established as such. The were communists and anti-communists distributed throughout the whole of Korea, and neither side was interested in setting up a partition that would carve the country in two, until a compromised was negotiated effectively ending the war.
The Republic of Korea had governed the whole of the country, and the leadership was made up of compradors who had been propped up by fascist Japanese invaders and who had switched teams to being running dogs of the US as soon as it became convenient. The revolutionaries rose up against them, first attacking in the north and establishing a foothold before moving south. At this point, the US, seeking to assert dominance over a country thousands of miles away, intervened with one of the deadliest bombing campaigns in history, with an extremely high ratio of civilian deaths, many killed by biological and chemical weapons.
Even if the US hadn’t been so brutal towards Korean civilians, it still had no business getting involved. This whole argument of “defensive” wars thousands of miles away is nonsense. It’s the same argument the fucking Roman Empire used to justify conquering Europe:
There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.
-Joseph Schumpeter
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
The peninsula had been divided since 1945 and they had their separate governments since 1948. Korean War started with the North attacking the South in 1950.
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Again, neither side saw the partition as a permanent solution, both claimed the entire peninsula. The decision to partition the country was not made by Koreans, but by negotiations between the US and USSR. Koreans have a right to self determination, which includes not having to accept a foreign-imposed partition of their country. The US has absolutely getting involved in an internal conflict, it was pure imperialism.
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
The right to self-determination I suppose didn’t include South Korean who North Korea attacked?
Objection@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
If Koreans wanted the South Korean government, they could’ve fought for it. On their own. Without Americans coming in and dropping bombs and chemicals and slaughtering civilians in pursuit of their own interests, in defense of their propped up comprador regime.
Again, it was an internal matter for Koreans to settle among themselves. I have yet to see you provide any reason for the US to get involved. And even if they did have a valid reason, it certainly doesn’t justify the way they conducted the war.
The only thing close to resembling a justification that you’ve said is “the North attacked first.” But that doesn’t really matter to me. Revolution is inherently aggressive and revolution is not always bad, therefore, being the aggressor doesn’t always make a side bad. But even if I did consider the North to be in the wrong, we’re not the fucking world police. We had no business getting involved there. Why on earth should we send soldiers, ordinary people, to go off and fight and die on a completely different continent just to further the geopolitical influence of the US government, and the billionaires that control it?
Tell me, who were the beneficiaries of our intervention in Korea? Ordinary Koreans? The ones we dropped chemical weapons on even if they weren’t involved in the war? Ordinary Americans? What the hell did we get out of? No, the beneficiaries were the South Korean bourgeoisie and fascist collaborators and the American bourgeoisie, and no one else.