In recent weeks the Trump administration’s rhetoric towards North Korea has grown alarmingly aggressive, raising tensions between the two countries to a level not seen in decades. “Preventative war” is on the table, even though the South Korean government insists on holding veto power over any strike against its neighbor to the north.

Top officials maintain that there is a military solution to this stand off, despite admitting it would be “horrible”. A war with North Korea would mean a countless number of dead men, women, and children across both sides of the peninsula. But this is the logic of U.S. imperialism where a successful solution to a problem can include a massacre of innocents.

The Trump administration, like the administrations before it, does not care about the Korean people. Their aim is to maintain U.S. global hegemony over the capitalist order- an order that North Korea refuses to conform to, instead blocking with China and pursuing a nuclear program. The deaths of millions of Koreans from nuclear war, or hundreds of thousand from conventional weapons, are collateral damage, pawns to be sacrificed in a global chess match.

The history of U.S. military involvement on the Korean peninsula clearly demonstrates this point. The brutality of the Korean war is forgotten by those of us in the United States- an easy habit, as we never have to witness the carnage our government creates. By its own admission the U.S. military carried out horrible atrocities in both the North and the South. Air Force General Curtis LeMay, the head of Strategic Air Command during the Korean war has claimed that, “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population”. The United States dropped more bombs on the tiny Korean peninsula than they did during the entire Pacific Theater in World War Two. Cities, dams, crops, everything- the entire North of the country- was destroyed.

Not only air strikes, but on the ground mass killings were carried out by both the U.S. and South Korean military (with the approval of the U.S.) The No Gun Ri massacre is the most famous. On July 25th 1950 Korean refugees traveling south were strafed by U.S. aircraft. Chaos among the refugees broke out. As they fled toward tunnels beneath a concrete railroad bridge the U.S. 7th cavalry opened fire with mortars, machine guns, and rifles. Trapped inside the tunnel the refugees were subjected to constant gun fire. They dug, with their bare hands, into the ground to find cover. They piled the dead bodies of their friends and family on top of one another, creating human sandbags in a desperate attempt to shield themselves. The massacre lasted three days. Most estimates put the body count at around 300-400 people, almost half of which were children. No Gun Ri is just one example of the brutality of the Korean war and the atrocities carried out by the U.S. and their allies.

With the technology we have today, even assuming the use of conventional weapons and not nuclear war, massacres can be carried out much more efficiently. Recently Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned North Korea to, “ease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people”. This threat hinting at genocide must be taken seriously if it comes from the United States, a country that funded campaigns of mass terror in Central and South America, supported genocide in Indonesia, dropped hydrogen bombs on Japan, and wiped out 20% of the population of North Korea.

Provoking a war with the DPRK is incredibly dangerous, not for the United States but for the people of North and South Korea, Japan, and other South East Asian nations. These are lives that the United States does not value; lives the Trump administration is willing to risk in its maintenance of global dominance and personal pride. The U.S. has threatened to massacre untold numbers of innocent people, and it has a history of doing so. North Korea is far from a socialist society, it is a reprehensible dictatorship, but its people should be defended against annihilation.

Today is the start of a 10 day joint military exercise between the U.S. and South Korea. This in and of itself is a provocation. In the coming weeks and months Trump will continue to threaten the isolated country. We must be prepared for the event that the U.S. will go to war despite the wishes of its regional allies.

The anti-war movement is long dead. We cannot leave it this way. As we begin the process of rebuilding working class power we must not forget that a robust anti war movement is a crucial component to socialist politics. Unrest at home is the best insurance that our government will not start new wars abroad. It’s long past time for the U.S. left to rise to the occasion and rebuild our internationalist commitments. Capitalism and imperialism will never end if we don’t help to end them. They continue, hand in hand, as long as we allow them to continue.

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/