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The United States targets civilians. When will the United States apologize for its war crimes? When will US citizens stop its war crimes?

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From Global Research
By S. Brian Willson

Originally published in 2001: When will the United States apologize for its war crimes?

U.S. President Clinton’s recent refusal to explicitly apologize for the murder of Korean civilians by U.S. military forces during the Korean War is another lost moment of desperately needed “American” honesty.

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The United States inquiry, and Clinton’s statement of mere “regret,” was focused on only one crime scene at a particular location. It implied that the deaths were merely unfortunate rather than part of a systematic pattern that cumulatively murdered as many as three million civilians. Careful examination of the empirical record reveals multiple dozens, perhaps a couple hundred, massacre sites at various locations throughout the entire Korean Peninsula. The suggestion of malicious intent is incontrovertible. There was an overwhelming pattern of systematic targeting the Korean people, with no serious effort to distinguish “civilians” from “combatants.”

This should come as no surprise! Beginning in 1945 the U.S. record in Korea is horrendous! It would behoove our political leaders, and academicians, to learn an authentic history of Korea. Simply relying on popular comic book demonization of North Koreans without recognizing the U.S. role in creating the conditions that led to the war in the first place continues a tragic disservice to history. When the Japanese were finally defeated on August 15, 1945, the vast majority of the people who resided on the Korean Peninsula immediately began to celebrate, then organize for a return to Korean sovereignty after 40 years of hated foreign occupation. When the U.S. immediately insisted on creating the peninsula as a Cold War arena with the Russians, people throughout Korea organized resistance, at first nonviolent, later in the form of a guerrilla war. The U.S. created a puppet government, similar to what it later did in Vietnam, and between 1945-1950 oversaw the systematic repression and murder of hundreds of thousands of Koreans who rightfully demanded independence. That U.S. military and political policy to this day does not understand this fundamental Korean history continues one of the most tragic chapters of the Twentieth Century.

During the Korean “hot” war, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the U.S. Air Force to “destroy every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” south of the Yalu River boundary with China. Massive saturation bombings alone, especially with napalm and other incendiaries, murdered perhaps 2.5 million civilians. Major General William B. Kean of the 25th Infantry Division ordered “civilians in the combat zone” to be considered enemies. The famous July 25, 1950 Fifth Air Force memorandum to General Timberlake declared that adherence to Army orders to “strafe all civilian refugees [have been] complied with.” USA Today (Oct. 1, 1999) and the New York Times (Dec. 29, 1999) reported from declassified U.S. Air Force documents the “deliberate” strafings and bombings of Korean “civilians” and “people in white.” In the August 21, 1950 issue of Life, John Osborne reported that U.S. officers ordered troops to fire into clusters of civilians.

U.S. racism has been an unfortunate but tragic feature (along with arrogant ethnocentrism) of the origins of the U.S. American Republic. This institutionalized racism has substantially contributed to the cruelty of a long imperial history under the rubric of “American Manifest Destiny” that has engineered well over 400 overt military, and as many as 6,000-10,000 covert, interventions in over 100 countries. Directed toward the Korean (and later Vietnamese) people, who we regularly called “gooks,” racism helped justify commission of a gruesome, almost unlimited and careless war. In Korea this included use of germ warfare and the regular threat of dropping nuclear bombs. The highest law officer in the land, President Truman’s second Attorney General, J. Howard McGrath, referred to the Koreans as “rodents.” During World War II, massive saturation bombings in Germany and Japan had been conducted with no pretense of striking only military targets. This precedent legitimized bombing with no concern for civilians, despite explicit prohibition by the U.S. Field Manual 27-10 Rules of Land Warfare. Such indiscriminate saturation bombings were routinely and relentlessly continued in Korea.

The roots of U.S. racism are deep and historic. The defining and enabling experience of the Republic of the United States of America continues to be the genocidal elimination of the human beings who originally lived on our lands. Eurocentric racism and so-called divinely inspired ethnocentrism have been inherent characteristics facilitating the “development ” of our civilization. This development has been accomplished through a long history of exploitation of land, labor, and natural resources that first began on the North American Continent, but now stretches to every corner of the globe.

In the early 1600s Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony referred to our original inhabitants as “subanimals” and “beasts” worthy only of “extermination.” Puritan leader John Endecott of the Massachusetts Bay Colony regularly ordered “death” to the Pequot Indians. Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, refers to our original inhabitants as “merciless savages” and George Washington termed them “beasts of prey” to be “destroyed.” European settlers regularly called them “brutes” or “vermin” to be “destroyed.” General William Tecumseh Sherman in the 1870s ordered “extermination” as the “final solution” to the “Indian problem.”

During what we call the Spanish-American War U.S. forces fought against Filipino citizens, calling them “goo-goos,” while murdering upwards of a half million of them under orders such as “burn and kill the natives” issued by General Jacob H. (“Hell-Raising”) Smith to U.S. Marines.

Lyman Frank Baum, author of the ever popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), called for the “annihilation” of all Native Americans.

Another name for our racism is native-hating, whether “Redskins,” “Niggers,” “Chinks,” “Japs,” “Greasers,” “Dagoes,” “Wops,” – or “Gooks.” The fact is that from the very beginning the people whom our European ancestors were demonizing, both here and abroad, were real human beings, tragically caught in the path of merciless “American Manifest Destiny.” Under any legal or moral definition, virtually all would be considered “civilians,” until some chose to defend their sovereignty and land from the invaders and exploiters from the West in which case they became “combatants.”

With the advent of aerial bombings during World War I, the number of civilians murdered in war dramatically increased. The bombing of civilian targets by U.S. forces preceded similar crimes by Italy in Ethiopia in 1936-37 and Germany in Guernica, Spain in 1937. The U.S. used aerial bombings in Haiti in 1919 and Nicaragua in 1927 in efforts to rout native people resisting U.S. occupation forces, murdering countless civilians in the process, always disregarding the cries of the people for due recognition. The stage was set for the massive indiscriminate bombings of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Serbia/Kosovo.

This cultural trait also contributes to a long pattern of misrepresentations and out-and-out lies. For example, in 1973, as part of the Paris Peace Accords ending the U.S. War against Vietnam, Henry Kissinger, representing President Nixon, promised the Vietnamese over $4 billion in reparations as part of the cease-fire agreement. The United States dishonored that agreement, consistent with Native Americans’ long-standing conclusion that the “White Man speaks with forked tongue,” citing the U.S. government’s violation of each of the 400 treaties signed with the Indigenous.

President Clinton came close to apologizing to Guatemala in 1999 for the earlier decades-long role of the U.S. in supporting repressive forces that murdered over 200,000 Mayan Indians. He stated that U.S. policy was “wrong,” even as it continues to support economic policies destined to preserve miserable poverty there. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara confessed in his book, In Retrospect (1995), that what the U.S. did in Vietnam was “wrong,” though he did not acknowledge that we had violated moral or legal codes. When Clinton’s Defense Secretary William Cohen visited Vietnam in March 1999, he explicitly refused to apologize. Clinton, during his visit to Vietnam in November 1999, also failed to issue an apology or to explain why the reparations promised in 1973 have never been paid.

The question continues to beg: when will the United States ‘fess up to its long history of crimes against humanity, thereby revealing that a genuine humility has replaced U.S. arrogance? Failing that, the lives of all the people of the world, including our own, are endangered by an arrogance continually nourished by insidious racism that seeks to mercilessly spread its unwanted “neoliberal” values. The American Way Of Life (AWOL) inevitably creates rage among billions of people who resent the forced imposition of U.S. values and policies.

An apology by the United States, followed by an offer of appropriate reparations to the Korean people, would be a tremendous new omen for a peaceful world based on mutual respect and justice.

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Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website: brianwillson.com. His recent book, “Don’t Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies” is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir, “Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson” was published by PM Press (2011). A documentary, “Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson” was produced in 2016 by Bo Boudart Productions.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-46 tank, at Haengju, Korea (Public Domain)

https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-united-states-apologize-war-crimes/5939653

The US is juggling chaos and coordination in order to contain China

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An exceptional, in-depth article on the threats to China, and the U.S. involvement.

From Oriental Review.org
By Andrew Korybko
March 16, 2015

It’s no secret by now that the US is dead set on containing China, yet it’s shying away from engaging in a direct confrontation with it. Instead, the US is managing a dual policy of creating chaos along China’s western and southwest reaches, while coordinating a containment alliance along its southeastern and northeastern periphery. Central Asia, northeast India, and Myanmar represent the chaos components, while the ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’ of Japan and the Philippines are the coordinated ones. In this manner, the US is literally surrounding the country with hostile situations and states (with the obvious exception being the Russian frontier), hoping that this can disorient China’s decision makers and consequently pave the way for the external destabilization to infiltrate inwards. Amidst all this plotting, China isn’t sitting on its hands and behaving passively, since it has three specific strategies in mind to break the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) and counter the US’ Pivot to Asia.

Cultivating Chaos

The western and southwestern strategy of the CCC is to create a destabilized ‘rimland’ capable of infecting China’s vulnerable peripheral provinces with contagious chaos. This section examines how American grand strategy in Central and West Southeast Asia is designed to do just that, while a previous publication by the author already explored the prospects of a chain reaction of Color Revolutions emanating from Hong Kong.

Turkmenistan:
The Central Asian ‘hermit state’ is identified as the country most vulnerable to a transnational Taliban offensive sometime in the future. Should this come to pass and the country is not properly prepared to defend itself, then the disastrous consequences would immediately spread to Russia, Iran, and China, as was explained in a previous article by the author. Pertaining to the latter, this involves the massive destabilization of China’s regional gas imports from its largest current supplier, which would of course have negative reverberations in Xinjiang, the ultimate target of the US’ Central Asian chaos policies as they apply to the People’s Republic. The more endangered and insecure China’s continental energy imports are, the more reliant the country becomes on receiving them via maritime channels, which given the US’ naval superiority, places them directly under Washington’s control in the event of a crisis.

Kyrgyzstan:
The chaotic threat originating in Kyrgyzstan is more tangible than the one in Turkmenistan, as the Map_of_Central_Asiamountainous republic directly abuts Xinjiang. When looking at the US’ destructive Central Asian strategy, it becomes evident that it has an interest in ushering in the collapse of the Kyrgyz government via a new Color Revolution in order to, among other things, create an Uighur terrorist haven that can enflame the externally directed ethno-religious insurgency against Beijing. From the perspective of American foreign policy, then, a crisis in Kyrgyzstan is a geopolitical lever that can be ‘pulled’ to activate more instability in Xinjiang, with the aim of potentially luring the People’s Liberation Army into a quagmire. In the general scheme of things, both Central Asian republics, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, are essentially anti-Chinese weapons waiting to be (de)constructed by the US for use against the strategic province of Xinjiang, with Uzbekistan also playing a similar role if it implodes (or is prodded to do so by the US).

Northeast India:
In this corner of India, which could culturally be considered the northwestern fringe of Southeast Asia, the myriad ethnic tensions and bubbling insurgencies there could make the leap from being a domestic to an international crisis. The author previously assessed that one of the repercussions of last year’s Bodo-inspired violence was to destabilize the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) trade corridor, which would negatively affect Beijing’s plans for a ‘Bay of Bengal Silk Road’. Internationalizing the situation, however, could see ethnic warfare emboldening militant non-state actors in Myanmar, with the end goal that they finally destabilize Yunnan Province, the most culturally diverse area in China that has even been liked to “a perfect microcosm” of it. Although there is no evidence that has yet been procured to suggest that the US played any role in instigating the latest violence in Assam, it doesn’t mean that it can’t do so in the future, especially now that the die of ethnic tension has already been cast. This Damocles’ Sword is continually hanging over the head of India’s decision makers, since they understand that it can be applied against them in the event that they resist Washington’s pressure to commit more closely to the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC).

Myanmar:
The greatest conventional threat to China along its southern edge (notwithstanding a hostile India) lies in the overspill of ethnic warfare from Myanmar into Yunnan. This is actually already happening, since the recent violence in Kokang (Shan State) has forced thousands from their homes and into China as refugees, where they are reportedly being seen as ‘burdensome’ to the authorities. Quite obviously, China comprehends the vulnerabilities of Yunnan to Xinjiang-like external destabilization, albeit manifested in a different manner, hence its sensitivity to what may be the reignition of Myanmar’s civil war. After all, the unexpected outbreak of violence has yet again delayed the country’s long-awaited peace talks from being concluded, which were reportedly set to be finalized prior to this.

Now, however, other ethnic groups have become emboldened by the clashes, and are sending their own fighters and mercenaries to Kokang, which has also been put under martial law. It now looks like the fragile nationwide peace process is on the verge of being completely shattered, and the fighting may spread to other ethnic regions if their respective militias decide to take advantage of any perceived government setbacks in Kokang to launch their own offensives. All of this would lead to the deterioration of Yunnan’s security and the influx of thousands of more refugees, some of whom may even be militant-affiliated and intent on starting their own uprisings inside China. It is this factor that scares Beijing the most, namely, that Yunnan’s jungles could one day become home to Xinjiang-like fighters intent on throwing another corner of the country into chaos.

Chaotic Patterns:
Making sense out of this grand chaos is the fact that it does follow some semblance of order in terms of US strategy. The countries in focus are along China’s western and southwestern edge, which is already j09-xinj-340ripe for ethnic provocations. Additionally, two of the states abutting the targeted provinces, Kyrgyzstan for Xinjiang and Myanmar for Yunnan, are inherently unstable for their own reasons, thus making them ‘ticking time bombs’ that could be prodded by the US to explode on China’s doorstep. As regards Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northeast India, their destabilizations are tripwires for the two main ‘bombs’, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar, although the disruption of any of the three aforementioned areas does undermine China in its own right. In short, this vector of American grand strategy is aimed at the destruction of key peripheral states surrounding China in order to chip away at the strength of the central government along its own peripheral areas, two of which (Xinjiang and Yunnan) are susceptible to outside-directed destabilization aimed at ethnic agitation.

Coordinating Containment

On the other side of China, the US is crafting a Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) to confront Beijing and provoke it into a Reverse Brzezinski intervention in the South China Sea (if it isn’t dragged into one in Myanmar first). Japan and the Philippines are the centerpieces of this strategy, and South Korea and Vietnam are envisioned as playing crucial roles as well. Let’s take a look at Washington’s plans for each highlighted country, as well as how they all fit together into the bigger picture:

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