There is a pervasive myth, fueled by U.S. media and school curricula, that the United States is a benevolent force on the world stage, and never the aggressor. It takes a book by Howard Zinn or direct personal experience of state repression to open American eyes to the imperial history of our country.
In that vein comes Stansfield Smith’s new article at Counterpunch.org, “North Korea’s Justifiable Anger.”
Smith counters the one-sided narrative about the present conflict with a brief history lesson on the United States’ ongoing imperial aggression on the Korean peninsula:
Would the US government and people get a little “irrational” if a foreign country that previously had killed millions of our people, sent nuclear capable stealth bombers off the coasts of New York City, Washington DC, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, there to fly around for a month in preparation for a possible nuclear attack on us? For what is called, in warped US language, war “games”?
The US may have killed 20% of the population of Korea, said General Curtis Lemay, who was involved in the US air war on Korea. If so, that is a higher rate of genocidal slaughter than what the Nazis inflicted on Poland or the Soviet Union. The Korean War may be unknown ancient history to us, but it is no more ancient history to Koreans than the Nakba is to Palestinians.
Read the rest here.
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