Blaming General MacArthur

In an opinion poll, conducted recently to mark the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, more than 30 percent of young people in South Korea said they believed that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the United Nations forces during the war, was responsible for blocking the Korean people’s effort to reunify their country.

From the point of view of most older South Koreans who experienced the war, the opinion of the young people, came as a complete shock, I am sure.

Admittedly, the young people were born long after 1950 and therefore had no experience of that awful war, launched by the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung to communize the South. They have also grown up in a free and affluent society, which their grandparents and parents worked hard to build up in the 1960s and 70s from the rubble of war. Moreover, they were educated by teachers, many of who are leftists, who have apparently tried their best to brainwash their students with their pro-Communist and pro-North Korean view of the war.

In any case, the young South Koreans apparently believe that MacArthur foiled the “attempt by Koreans to unify their country,” when he launched the tactical maneuver in which the U.S. and South Korean forces landed at Inchon from the West (Yellow) Sea on September 15, 1950 and attacked the occupying North Korean force, recapturing the capital city of Seoul within a few days.

The surprise attack also cut off the North Koreans’ supply line, completely isolating the Communist forces in the South. Within about ten days, the North Koreans had either surrendered or beat a hasty retreat, crossing the 38th parallel that had originally separated from the South from the North.

The U.N. forces then marched north, all the way to the Yalu River that separated the Korean Peninsula from China, nearly succeeding in unifying the country.

But then, the Red Chinese forces, hundreds of thousands of them, crossed the border and surged into North Korea to fight the U.N. forces alongside the North Koreans. They eventually pushed the United Nations forces near to the original dividing line of the 38th parallel before the two sides came to an armistice agreement in 1953.

So, if MacArthur’s Inchon landing frustrated reunification efforts, as those young South Koreans believe, the Chinese Red Amy that invaded Korea, should also be viewed as responsible for blocking the Korean people’s effort to unify their country.

I wonder why those young people so conveniently forget this fact and unfairly shift the blame for the division of their country only on General MacArthur.

It’s incredible as well as deeply saddening to realize that those young South Koreans are blaming the American commander and the United States for blocking the reunification of their country instead of expressing appreciation to MacArthur and being grateful to the United States for helping their country remain free and build up its democratic system and economy.

Would they rather live in a country that is one huge gulag for all practical intents and purposes, starving or living in utter inhuman conditions under the cruel and merciless dictatorship of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il? The answer, of course, is clear; no one who wasn’t forced to would want to live in constant fear and complete darkness like that.
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