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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5964407

This one was supposed to come out tomorrow because I already published an essay Sunday, but I must have messed up somewhere. Anyway since we're talking about Korea a lot with the hostilities ramping up around the DMZ I think it's very timely that you get to read this piece ASAP!

  • tocopherol [any]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Good post stalin-approval

    In the US we are taught not to think about the Korean War. In school we hear endlessly about WW2 and the Nazis, they maybe mention the Korean war slightly but basically no more than "fun fact, the war never technically ended!" I had never heard of the atrocities, the motivation, what really caused it or any of that in school, except they showed us how North Korea has no electricity and is evil so whatever happened it's implied the dirty commies probably deserved it.

    A pretty skillful move by US imperialists to be honest, can you imagine a unified Korea allied with the USSR during the cold war?

    • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      2 months ago

      Thanks for reading! They mentioned it in my high school history classes as part of the Cold War, but we basically spent maybe two classes on it and then moved on as "nothing major happened". The Battle at Chosin Reservoir wasn't "minor" though. It's still called the Forgotten War nowadays in the West because our involvement didn't last very long compared to WW2 and Vietnam and it gets kinda sandwiched between the two. I doubt that for Koreans it was as silent as it is for us.

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      I don't remember if there were even questions about it on the AP test. My APUSH teacher was great, but he didn't spend much time on it. We only had around half a week to cover Vietnam because everything starts to get scrunched up towards the end of the year. That meant Korea was limited to trivia questions (like you said).

      You have to seek it out on your own during and after high school to find anything of substance. US sources are also not very good. They don't mention things like the labor strikes preceding the war. Nor do they acknowledge southern leadership was comprised of Japanese collaborators. These were the main reasons for the war, but the cause among English sources is "North Korea just did that. They spontaneously sent an army to kill everyone in the south. Nobody knows why because Kim Il Sung was a dictator."