Genocidal Monsters Promise to “Protect” the People of the World

August 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

U.S. War Threats vs North Korea: Trump Puts World in Crosshairs of Nuclear War - This Must Be Opposed Everywhere! Read more

Case #93: U.S. Invasion of Korea—1950

The Crime: Mass murder of millions; carpet bombing an entire country into rubble; use of chemical weapons against civilians; repeatedly threatening use of nuclear weapons; wholesale rape of women.

In the Criminals’ Own Words:
U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay was an unapologetic mass murderer who directed the carpet bombing of Korea that, in his own words, “eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, and some in South Korea too.... Over a period of three years or so, we killed off—what—twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure...” LeMay also said, in defense of the genocide unleashed by U.S. forces in Korea, “... it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

See all the articles in this series.

On August 9, Donald Trump threatened to bring down “fire and fury” on North Korea. Defense Secretary Mattis spelled out what this meant, threatening North Korea with “the end of its regime and the destruction of its people” (emphasis added)—in other words, genocide.

In response to criticism of these threats, Trump said, “Frankly, the people who were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn’t tough enough. They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years, and it’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough.” (Emphasis added.) And he said, “Things will happen to them like they never thought possible, OK? He’s been pushing the world around for a long time.”

WTF?!?!

Let’s look at who actually HAS been “pushing the world around for a long time”—and is doing so today and now threatening nuclear war.

Let’s look at the real history—not the mythology of “American Exceptionalism” (a view that holds the U.S. is a special “force for good” in the world) that is the mantra of all U.S. ruling class politicians, and which is being taken to extreme levels by Trump. Let’s look at just some of what the U.S. has done in the world for the past 65 years.¹

In 1950 the U.S. invaded North Korea and, according to U.S. general Curtis LeMay, “burned down every town in North Korea” by 1952. About 30 percent of the total population was killed!

It invaded Vietnam with half a million troops, carried out mass rape and horrific massacres, dropped seven million tons of bombs (twice the amount dropped on Europe and Asia in all of World War 2), drenched the land in napalm (which burns people alive) and Agent Orange (which destroys crops and forests). Three million people died.

It orchestrated coups in Indonesia, Iran, Chile, Guatemala, and many other countries. In Indonesia alone, one million were murdered.

It invaded the Dominican Republic to suppress a popular uprising, killing thousands. It backed the military junta in El Salvador’s civil war, killing 75,000.

The U.S. invaded Iraq in 1991, destroyed much of its crucial infrastructure (like water purification systems and pharmaceutical plants) and then imposed sanctions for a decade, which by the admission of then-UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright caused the deaths of 500,000 children (which she said in a TV interview was “worth it”).

In 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq again—on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was a menace to the world—killed tens of thousands more and kicked off a civil war that has virtually destroyed that nation. Other Middle Eastern countries have been swept into the maelstrom, and the toll in dead, wounded and people driven from their homes in the region is now over six million.

Through this whole period, the U.S. has continued to develop and brandish its vast arsenal of thousands of nukes and has refused to renounce the “first use” of those weapons of mass destruction—and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

As horrific as all this is, it is truly just scratching the surface of U.S. crimes around the world, even as the imperialist rulers have continued brutal oppression at home. From the enslavement, torture and savage exploitation of millions of African slaves, to the genocidal slaughter of Native Americans, to the violent seizure of almost half of Mexico, and on up to today with the vast inequalities crushing the lives of tens of millions of working people; the mass incarceration of millions; the persecution of immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ people; the deepening degradation and dehumanization of women; and always, day in and day out, the steady BAM… BAM… BAM… of pigs murdering civilians, over one thousand every year, disproportionally Black and Brown.

Yes, the people of North Korea suffer under an oppressive regime, and like people everywhere, desperately need an actual revolution and a genuine socialist state. But it is the U.S. that has for centuries been a scourge plaguing and tormenting people here and around the world—and now endangers the whole planet.

1. Most of the incidents listed here—and many more through U.S. history—are described and documented in the revcom.us series American Crime. [back]

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