Blowback

[Zardnaar]

I don't deny that is an aspect of the situation. But i am not sure you realize all the horror entailed in "putting the screws" in North Korea. The US officers in charge of bombing the place at one point said they had run out of undestroyed targets. The devastation reallly cannot be overstated, and not only in terms of its physical effects.

Well they should not have invaded.

Was are unpredictable, there's no guarantee you win (USA is the closest thing to that though, they lose the aftermath).

Kim had the choice to not invade. North Korea is poor because of self inflicted wounds inflicted by the regime.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I don't deny that is an aspect of the situation. But i am not sure you realize all the horror entailed in "putting the screws" in North Korea. The US officers in charge of bombing the place at one point said they had run out of undestroyed targets. The devastation reallly cannot be overstated, and not only in terms of its physical effects.

The war crimes issue and the Post war issues are not the same. Were the bombings in Korea "better or worse" than the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo? I would guess that the recipients would see little difference. The Korean War was mostly an extension of WW2 with new tech (jets and nukes) and a new enemy (China). What worked well against Germany and Japan was applied to Korea on a smaller scale. Question: did the worst of the bombing happen before or after the arrival of the Chinese in the winter of 1950-51?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well they should not have invaded.

This isn't really a discussion about shoulda coulda woulda. Please don't drag that into this this discussion. It does not contribute to the conversation.

 

[Crezth]

As I said, arguing over who did what to whom 75 years ago is just a perpetuation of past bad deeds to feed modern arguments about who is better or worse in the 21st c. The goal of the OP, as I see it, is to enhance the idea that the evil deeds of the US in Korea in the late 1940s has been hidden and Blowback is the bringer of truth. The reason to do that seems less to set the record straight, but to push more anti American hate and offset the bad press NK and its regime gets. Everyone wants "their side" to win. It happens at every level of communication. This thread (like many others) is just a way for Estebonrober to use a tool he likes to move the needle. I do the same. I do not think a multi hour paid subscription is an effective tool, but that is not my call.

My position is that the events of 70 years ago are over and done and they have influenced our present in some ways just like all the other events since than have. The present was not determined in 1946 but all the events of the post war years did drive the future down particular pathways. What the "great nations" do now will set a course for the future too. Similarly we could argue about the "greatness" or "evil" of Napoleon toward some final evaluation of him. That has been going on since 1800. I'd rather look at how he drove the changes that happened in 19th C Europe. The Vietnam war was an unmitigated disaster of cruelty, death and destruction that can be laid at the feet of the US and its foreign policy. At the time there were those that opposed it. They lost. 50 years later we can recognize it for what it was and how it fits into the global activities of the post WW2 world. It was a terrible atrocity that should not be repeated, but it is over and done and patching up the hate has been underway for some time now.

From my view this is all just affecting an air of greater naivete or wide-eyed wonder at the infinite possibilities of the future without actually considering those possibilities are really just finite. France is very unlikely to transform into a completely different country over night, for instance. But Camp of Saints was written in 1973 and still gets cited today. The situation predicted by that book is answered by the reality of Europe today in torpedoing migrant boats to ensure that the reality they fear coming to pass never actually does.

To the point: Vietnam and Korea are not actually merely in the past. This is what Estebonrober is trying to communicate to you. We live with the very real consequences of it right now. Questions that to you may seem obvious, like "But what did we learn from those wars?" are not actually so obvious at all. One can point to new military adventures, but supposedly one can always generate a new excuse for a new military adventure anyway. Rather we should look at the relationship the US continues to have with these countries today. One finds South Korea and Japan hold not just a little amount of American bonds. One also finds that there is a complex panoply of economic interests that continues to bind these nations to the US' powerful interest groups today. One also finds that the US' continued support for these client states forestalls or prevents any attempts at reform, where within those countries, the real wages for the vast bulk of the population are significantly lower than those of Western nations (25% lower than the US for Japan, more for Korea). There is then the matter of currency and how Japan's being beholden to the US forces an unsustainable convergence of Japanese prices towards means pegged downwards to the advantage of western investors, an issue well-known and talked about. This is real, and not relative. The US really does have some kind of suzerain power over these nations.

And above all, the current situation is directly inherited from the previous situation. By understanding the real story we can understand how the U.S. really interacts with these places and what the real impacts of U.S. foreign policy are. By refusing to do so, we merely consign ourselves to repeating the mistakes of the past and ensuring that no bad policy ever gets corrected - merely excused, with a ridiculous story - usually told by the people or conspirators responsible - about how "we've learned our lesson" and "we'll never do it again." In reality we seem to keep these pathologies going. Iran-Contra, Iraq-Iran, Kuwait, Iraq 2, Afghanistan, the everlong blockade of peaceful Cuba, continuous and baffling support for Israel - these things are all part of a broader pathology which was true of America in the past and is still true now. And maybe you can say it's true of all Empires. But this is the one the thread is about, and it's also the one we who live in it have responsibility for.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

So I skipped along part 1. Maybe it's because I found the tone of voice a little grating, or was turned off by unexplained observations like SK lives under "soul-crushing hyper-capitalism" or some such thing, but it didn't grab my interest.

My brief observation is that it sounds like other critiques of America during the Cold War I've heard: namely that their reaction to what the Soviets were doing was disproportionate, as communism was just a new experiment in reducing economic inequality a la the New Deal and thus should've been given the benefit of the doubt...

It's an outlook which reminds me of certain veterans of the Old South who thought the Civil War was primarily about tariffs and that the North was being unfair to them, an idea which persisted in some libertarian quarters (e.g. Charles Beard) for a while. No doubt it too will die out in the coming decades, perhaps after China implodes (?).

but if anyone wants to delve into a certain segment of what was actually presented, I'd be happy to listen...I know much less about the Korean War than WW2!

 

[Estebonrober]

Curious choice of words here. I think you have the two countries mixed up.

I do not good sir, this is the kind of ignorance of historical reality versus perceived reality. North Korea did not receive US aid until 1995, after the famine, while debilitating sanctions were in place, and woefully inadequate to even begin to mitigate the disaster.

 

[Estebonrober]

Interesting. So it was the impulsive Kim Il Sung who turned the US in an imperialistic powerhouse? I guess without the Korean war, the US would have stayed out of both Korea and Vietnam. Good to know where to place the blame. Kim was a soviet puppet and his KPA was trained and equipped by the soviets to expand their last minute invasion of Korean on Aug 8 1945. Kim was a diehard communist and ambitious to unite Korea under his leadership. By the end of 1950 he had lost the war he started and it was only with massive Chinese help that he survived.

Stalin and his ambitions were not idle post war. Not only did he force communism across all of Eastern Europe there were numerous communist insurgencies all across the world from the 1940s through the 1950s (and beyond). Some were successful and some weren't, but there was a persistent stream of them. Do you need a list? Much of the perceived US threat to the soviets was tied to the ongoing communist insurgencies that were popping up on every continent. Nobody in the post war years had today's hindsight about how things would unfold. The building blocks of the 21st C world were laid down during the Cold War brick by brick by world leaders who had no inkling of what they were actually building. Every step seemed appropriate and reasonable at the time.

Nikita Khrushchev's "we will bury you" speech in 1956 did nothing to ease the situation. The US was the nation who was reactive in the post war years while using the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Stalin was actively trying to overturn the postwar situation into a communist advantage. The US military industrial complex was built on the WW2 foundation in response to the aggressive spread of communist ideology. You do love to present the USSR as an innocent victim of US aggression. The Korean war, started by Kim Il Sung set the US on that path.

The KPA was not "trained and supported by the Soviets". This is jsut historically inaccurate. Kim was belligerent in his desire to unify what could rightly be described as foreign occupiers enforcing US entrenchment in Korea.

This second paragraph is more of why I've started down a long path of reading to try and understand how we got here. The reality is that while Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe was intense tt was not intense elsewhere and was mainly a fear and propaganda campaign executed by a small group of defense, intelligence, and corporate influences in the US. Socialist revolts are still breaking out all over the place and we still try our best to stop them with no good reason or coup/murder the leaders of such movements all across the planet. There are no Soviets anymore, who do blame now for these movements across the planet?

South Korea perpetrated multiple incursions and terrorist attacks, open calls for invasion of the North constant and loud the previous two years. how do you think the US would respond to two years of incursions and terrorist attacks from Mexico that involved literal mass murder?

... Hindsight is twenty twenty and part of that is to stop deluding ourselves into the lies of the past. The world, by the accounts of all involved, would have been radically different with Roosevelt leading the post war reconstruction around the world. By 1950 the cold war was in full gear and it very much was being driven by the US war machine.

 

[Estebonrober]

I did. A transitional struggle between people vying for power. Pretty common whenever change is happening. At some point stability of some sort sets in.

As for the Kennan telegram, a containment strategy is not new, the First Coalition against France in 1792 comes to mind, followed by several more. How much of the Soviet paranoia was just a transfer of Stalin's?

This is an enlightening parallel to draw actually considering what the French Revolution was inspiring across Europe and what socialism (and mainly fudging land reform) was inspiring across the world from 1900 to this day.

 

[Estebonrober]

Not at all. I have said nothing about the details of who did what to whom, when and why. Body counts and who was crueler in the past is a losing game and one can find all the examples one wants in just about every political transition that involves violent struggle. Using such mechanisms to condemn some and not others is a failure to recognize our ongoing human efforts to maintain or acquire power by any means at our disposal. It matters today in Gaza because there might be ways to not do it. (But I doubt it.) Holding generational grudges (economic, political, and racial) works against solving problems now. "None" of the perpetrators of the evil deeds in Korea during the 1940s are alive today. The world today is what it is and in places built on the legacy of those deeds. The powers still struggle to maintain and increase their control by whatever means they think they can get away with. Progress comes from trying to make small corners of the world better places people to live.

I want to reiterate, I'm not blaming a people anywhere for any of this in our pasts. I've been doing another deep dive into history mainly related around unions and trade groups and fell into a hole focusing on revolutions and then stumbled across this podcast on American Empire Blowback. The particular parts of this story struck me hard because my siblings are Korean (their Korean names kept as middle names from Korea Mee Jung and Jun Suk) and their literal relation to me revolves around how bad it was in South Korea well into the 1990s (proof you can have evidence of miseducation eating right next to you for decades and never realize).

While looking into some of this around trade unions and the red scare, because I was trying to understand how hard it is for Americans to this day to organize (something I think you are sympathetic to in this economy) this Korean War reality became aware to me. I appreciate all the responses even if I consider them reactionary in my opinion, because it is enlightening, Sadly, thus far, no one has really offered anything but the propaganda I'm already very well familiar with personally. The article you linked, in my opinion, only reinforced what I've been learning the past few months.

 

[Estebonrober]

"Look how poor North Korea is" has always struck me as a bit like the mafia gloating about how much richer the guy who paid protection money is than the guy whose store they burnt down bc he wouldn't pay.

This reality really hit hard, the infamous picture from space comparing the two sides of the parallel... had a dramatic impact on me as a huge space nerd and raised conservative.

 

[Estebonrober]

As I said, arguing over who did what to whom 75 years ago is just a perpetuation of past bad deeds to feed modern arguments about who is better or worse in the 21st c. The goal of the OP, as I see it, is to enhance the idea that the evil deeds of the US in Korea in the late 1940s has been hidden and Blowback is the bringer of truth. The reason to do that seems less to set the record straight, but to push more anti American hate and offset the bad press NK and its regime gets. Everyone wants "their side" to win. It happens at every level of communication. This thread (like many others) is just a way for Estebonrober to use a tool he likes to move the needle. I do the same. I do not think a multi hour paid subscription is an effective tool, but that is not my call.

My position is that the events of 70 years ago are over and done and they have influenced our present in some ways just like all the other events since than have. The present was not determined in 1946 but all the events of the post war years did drive the future down particular pathways. What the "great nations" do now will set a course for the future too. Similarly we could argue about the "greatness" or "evil" of Napoleon toward some final evaluation of him. That has been going on since 1800. I'd rather look at how he drove the changes that happened in 19th C Europe. The Vietnam war was an unmitigated disaster of cruelty, death and destruction that can be laid at the feet of the US and its foreign policy. At the time there were those that opposed it. They lost. 50 years later we can recognize it for what it was and how it fits into the global activities of the post WW2 world. It was a terrible atrocity that should not be repeated, but it is over and done and patching up the hate has been underway for some time now.

I thought I've been pretty clear about my intentions and even motivations into stumbling across this podcast (I linked free version btw). One of my points and your article I read earlier reinforces is jsut how much of this past from 70 years ago still ruins people's lives today. The main block to reunification of Korea is the US. I would hope that after Vietnam, clearly you realize our crimes there, you would be more wary about the propaganda pushed here home side both before Vietnam and since... It's not like we are not still perpetrating this repression worldwide to this day.

There was a presidential candidate assassinated in Ecuador recently was a socialist, his murderers (Columbians) were all recently murdered in jail... This is the kind of thing that when it happens you should be staring at it with a wary eye. Hsi campaign was for reform and worker's rights (long overdue in the region and part of why we have an "immigration crisis"). Wonder who's behind it? Actually, I don't, I'm convinced it is the US intelligence services until shown otherwise at this point. Every single other coup south of our border has led back to the CIA (or similar) for over a hundred years. This kind of past is what caught my attention as I try to unionize my profession.

 

[Birdjaguar]

From my view this is all just affecting an air of greater naivete or wide-eyed wonder at the infinite possibilities of the future without actually considering those possibilities are really just finite. France is very unlikely to transform into a completely different country over night, for instance. But Camp of Saints was written in 1973 and still gets cited today. The situation predicted by that book is answered by the reality of Europe today in torpedoing migrant boats to ensure that the reality they fear coming to pass never actually does.

To the point: Vietnam and Korea are not actually merely in the past. This is what Estebonrober is trying to communicate to you. We live with the very real consequences of it right now. Questions that to you may seem obvious, like "But what did we learn from those wars?" are not actually so obvious at all. One can point to new military adventures, but supposedly one can always generate a new excuse for a new military adventure anyway. Rather we should look at the relationship the US continues to have with these countries today. One finds South Korea and Japan hold not just a little amount of American bonds. One also finds that there is a complex panoply of economic interests that continues to bind these nations to the US' powerful interest groups today. One also finds that the US' continued support for these client states forestalls or prevents any attempts at reform, where within those countries, the real wages for the vast bulk of the population are significantly lower than those of Western nations (25% lower than the US for Japan, more for Korea). There is then the matter of currency and how Japan's being beholden to the US forces an unsustainable convergence of Japanese prices towards means pegged downwards to the advantage of western investors, an issue well-known and talked about. This is real, and not relative. The US really does have some kind of suzerain power over these nations.

And above all, the current situation is directly inherited from the previous situation. By understanding the real story we can understand how the U.S. really interacts with these places and what the real impacts of U.S. foreign policy are. By refusing to do so, we merely consign ourselves to repeating the mistakes of the past and ensuring that no bad policy ever gets corrected - merely excused, with a ridiculous story - usually told by the people or conspirators responsible - about how "we've learned our lesson" and "we'll never do it again." In reality we seem to keep these pathologies going. Iran-Contra, Iraq-Iran, Kuwait, Iraq 2, Afghanistan, the everlong blockade of peaceful Cuba, continuous and baffling support for Israel - these things are all part of a broader pathology which was true of America in the past and is still true now. And maybe you can say it's true of all Empires. But this is the one the thread is about, and it's also the one we who live in it have responsibility for.

We live with the consequences of many things "right now". You are able to make a list of "50 things" that say "See all these prove x." while ignoring everything else. You have your agenda and lots of supporting evidence that shapes the discussion around what you want to convey: the evil US holds mighty sway over its feckless puppets and somehow the NK invasion of SK proves it. You connect multiple financial situations as proof of this power while ignoring a multitude of other connections that might well be in play and having an effect. It seems that your ideological goal is driving your argument to choose and shape the evidence your lean towards.

We all have our preferred sources of "truth" for evidence and a list of those sources that we do not trust or think are outright lies. We draw from those we trust. It is similar to how many Christians hold the bible as the best highest source of knowledge and when confronted with difficult questions, they go through and find 50 verses that clearly anchor their answers. If one believes that it is the great men of history that determine how the world unfolds, then one will find the great men and their stories to tell their story. Capitalists point to the "proofs" that capitalism is best for improving people's lives. You have your theory of history and have searched for ways to make it relevant as a tool to understand today's world. You have a story you want told: the US is pathological in its ongoing attempts to rule and unlikely to change without violence. You have connected the dots across time and space showing one version of reality that is not false, nor is it the whole truth. Like you I have connected a different set of dots and have different story to tell. Of course my story is more true than yours, because it is mine!

As you can see, I have avoided the quagmire of engaging in dueling proofs of evidence and kept my position of more generalized discussion. Understanding the past is important as a guide to not repeating mistakes, but it is not very good at forecasting the future. Our past 7 years should tell you that.

My role in shaping the world is rapidly fading beyond those with whom I interact with personally while yours is coming into maturity and influence across a much broader playing field.

 

[Estebonrober]

So I skipped along part 1. Maybe it's because I found the tone of voice a little grating, or was turned off by unexplained observations like SK lives under "soul-crushing hyper-capitalism" or some such thing, but it didn't grab my interest.

My brief observation is that it sounds like other critiques of America during the Cold War I've heard: namely that their reaction to what the Soviets were doing was disproportionate, as communism was just a new experiment in reducing economic inequality a la the New Deal and thus should've been given the benefit of the doubt...

It's an outlook which reminds me of certain veterans of the Old South who thought the Civil War was primarily about tariffs and that the North was being unfair to them, an idea which persisted in some libertarian quarters (e.g. Charles Beard) for a while. No doubt it too will die out in the coming decades, perhaps after China implodes (?).

but if anyone wants to delve into a certain segment of what was actually presented, I'd be happy to listen...I know much less about the Korean War than WW2!

China is as communist as Apple Inc. This kind of geopolitical and economic awareness is part of the problem. I'm not personally a communist but this kind of thing is just blatantly false.

Oh and South Koreans literally refuse to have kids because they remember how terrible it was to be a kid in South Korea, and it has not gotten better....it is worse for working adults, especially when considering time vs compensation ratios. I would not want to work there, and I do not think they should be forced to work those kinds of hours.

 

[Zardnaar]

China is as communist as Apple Inc. This kind of geopolitical and economic awareness is part of the problem. I'm not personally a communist but this kind of thing is just blatantly false.

Hey we agree on something. China's more fascist than communist these days.

Pretty much ticks all the boxes xenophobic, militaristic, totalitarian, ethno nationalism. Only redeeming feature they haven't really invaded anyone since 79.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The KPA was not "trained and supported by the Soviets". This is just historically inaccurate. Kim was belligerent in his desire to unify what could rightly be described as foreign occupiers enforcing US entrenchment in Korea.

Soviet Korean Units​

Just after World War II and during the Soviet Union's occupation of the part of Korea north of the 38th Parallel, the Soviet 25th Army headquarters in Pyongyang issued a statement ordering all armed resistance groups in the northern part of the peninsula to disband on 12 October 1945. Two thousand Koreans with previous experience in the Soviet Red Army were sent to various locations around the country to organise constabulary forces with permission from Soviet military headquarters, and the force was created on 21 October 1945.[10]

Formation of National Army​

The headquarters felt a need for a separate unit for security around railways, and the formation of the unit was announced on 11 January 1946. That unit was activated on 15 August of the same year to supervise existing security forces and creation of the national armed forces.[11]

Military institutes such as the Pyongyang Academy (became No. 2 KPA Officers School in Jan. 1949) and the Central Constabulary Academy (became KPA Military Academy in Dec. 1948) soon followed for the education of political and military officers for the new armed forces.

After the military was organised and facilities to educate its new recruits were constructed, the Constabulary Discipline Corps was reorganised into the Korean People's Army General Headquarters. The previously semi-official units became military regulars with the distribution of Soviet uniforms, badges, and weapons that followed the inception of the headquarters.[11]

The State Security Department, a forerunner to the Ministry of People's Defense, was created as part of the Interim People's Committee on 4 February 1948. The formal creation of the Korean People's Army was announced four days later on 8 February, the day after the Fourth Plenary Session of the People's Assembly approved the plan to separate the roles of the military and those of the police,[12] seven months before the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed on 9 September 1948. In addition, the Ministry of Defense was established, which controlled a central guard battalion, two divisions, and an independent mixed and combined arms brigade.[13]

 

[Crezth]

We live with the consequences of many things "right now". You are able to make a list of "50 things" that say "See all these prove x." while ignoring everything else. You have your agenda and lots of supporting evidence that shapes the discussion around what you want to convey: the evil US holds mighty sway over its feckless puppets and somehow the NK invasion of SK proves it. You connect multiple financial situations as proof of this power while ignoring a multitude of other connections that might well be in play and having an effect. It seems that your ideological goal is driving your argument to choose and shape the evidence your lean towards.

We all have our preferred sources of "truth" for evidence and a list of those sources that we do not trust or think are outright lies. We draw from those we trust. It is similar to how many Christians hold the bible as the best highest source of knowledge and when confronted with difficult questions, they go through and find 50 verses that clearly anchor their answers. If one believes that it is the great men of history that determine how the world unfolds, then one will find the great men and their stories to tell their story. Capitalists point to the "proofs" that capitalism is best for improving people's lives. You have your theory of history and have searched for ways to make it relevant as a tool to understand today's world. You have a story you want told: the US is pathological in its ongoing attempts to rule and unlikely to change without violence. You have connected the dots across time and space showing one version of reality that is not false, nor is it the whole truth. Like you I have connected a different set of dots and have different story to tell. Of course my story is more true than yours, because it is mine!

As you can see, I have avoided the quagmire of engaging in dueling proofs of evidence and kept my position of more generalized discussion. Understanding the past is important as a guide to not repeating mistakes, but it is not very good at forecasting the future. Our past 7 years should tell you that.

My role in shaping the world is rapidly fading beyond those with whom I interact with personally while yours is coming into maturity and influence across a much broader playing field.

So is your position actually "There is no such thing as objective truth and we can't know it and we have to just support our governments blindly until the day we die?"

I am constructing narratives that explain things. It is just like when Newton shows the phenomenon that brings apples to Earth is called gravity. This is like the gravity of politics and history that I'm laying down for you. And not just me, frankly, but everyone else in this thread who is capable of the nuance to understand that the reasons the US undertakes certain actions are knowable, predictable, and preventable. It isn't just random. But it requires you to come in and deal with the subject matter with proper methodological rigor and not the slippery positions you advocate. The past 7 years, too, are explainable and understandable without throwing up your arms and praying to old pieties.

 

[Zardnaar]

So is your position actually "There is no such thing as objective truth and we can't know it and we have to just support our governments blindly until the day we die?"

I am constructing narratives that explain things. It is just like when Newton shows the phenomenon that brings apples to Earth is called gravity. This is like the gravity of politics and history that I'm laying down for you. And not just me, frankly, but everyone else in this thread who is capable of the nuance to understand that the reasons the US undertakes certain actions are knowable, predictable, and preventable. It isn't just random. But it requires you to come in and deal with the subject matter with proper methodological rigor and not the slippery positions you advocate. The past 7 years, too, are explainable and understandable without throwing up your arms and praying to old pieties.

It's more when you pick an outcome, cherry pick the the evidence you like for said outcome and dismiss or fake news opposing evidence.

I don't deny American crimes in cold war more lesser of two evils. After the 1920s and 30s its also why i reject political extremism of the fascist and communist variety.

I lean more towards horseshoe theory, consequences and realpolitik. Mostly as an observer I have 0 agency in what XYZ does and very little in my country.

 

[Estebonrober]

Hey we agree on something. China's more fascist than communust these days.

Pretty much ticks all the boxes xenophobic, militaristic, totalitarian, ethno nationalism. Only redeeming feature they haven't really invaded anyone since 79.

Well, I'm glad we found something lol. At least they did land reform, the whole land reform thing is going to be coming back around soon, I'd imagine considering the robber baron capitalist squeeze being put on most working families these days. I look for it first in places like England, here is to hoping they finally get rid of that stupid monarchy this time...

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, I'm glad we found something lol. At least they did land reform, the whole land reform thing is going to be coming back around soon, I'd imagine considering the robber baron capitalist squeeze being put on most working families these days. I look for it first in places like England, here is to hoping they finally get rid of that stupid monarchy this time...

Well I kinda feel the fascist term is over used.

Eg USA I don't regard as fascist as it lacks the totalitarian part and state control over the media.

This is not a full throated defense of the USA it does lots of crappy things. These crappy things are not unique to fascism, communism or whatever political/economic system one picks. And there's a distinction between Fascist/Nazi regine as well.

China hasn't really been Communust as such since about 79 even as flawed Communism as attempted.

 

[Estebonrober]

Oh, I'm sorry they provided unifroms and gave them permission to form their own law enforcement in the short period of time the Soviets occupied North Korea after WWII... meanwhile behind the facade of this innocent looking bookstore....

Camp Humphreys (Korean: 캠프 험프리스), also known as United States Army Garrison-Humphreys (USAG-H), is a United States Army garrison located near Anjeong-ri and Pyeongtaek metropolitan areas in South Korea.[3] Camp Humphreys is home to Desiderio Army Airfield, the busiest U.S. Army airfield in Asia, with an 8,124 feet (2,476 m) runway.[4] In addition to the airfield, there are several U.S. Army direct support, transportation, and tactical units located there, including the Combat Aviation Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The garrison has an area of 3,454 acres (1,398 ha) and cost US$11 billion.[5] Camp Humphreys is the largest U.S. overseas military base, housing some 500 buildings and amenities.[6]

Camp Humphreys - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Oh looky its America's largest military base overseas... lol snark aside, I jsut want to bring you around again to the point that my curiosity around this is not the cold war machinations itself, by the red scare in the mid and late forties that was all locked in to one degree or another, my curiosity is why and how the red scare was produced in the first place, as it jsut feels very very fake, Socialists worldwide were very weak and the USSR itself never stood a chance against the US and all of western Europe.