The headline is followed by the hook: “If we, as victims, vacillate, who will come to our aid? The response of the world depends on our next move.” Despite the fact that South Korea is currently in a state of national mourning for those who lost their lives in the sinking of the Cheonan naval corvette, Moon has no problem using the rhetoric of victimization to frame the conflict as a blatant act of aggression from North Korea.

The JoongAng Ilbo is one of the “big three” newspapers circulated in South Korea – and also one of the most politically conservative as well.

The use of napalm entered the scene during WWI. It was a weak form hosed from flamethrowers. It did not burn hot enough, long enough, and did not deplete the surrounding area of oxygen.

The ingredients to make napalm are composed of naphthenic and palmitic acids. When mixed together, they form a soap-powder-like substance. When mixed with ordinary gasoline that is used in automobiles, a jelly-like substance is created.

That jelly-like substance, now napalm, burns for a longer time, burns hotter than regular bombs, and sucks out the oxygen within and in close proximity of the blast area (s), thus creating carbon monoxide.

The new and improved napalm was then used in WWII, specifically in the Pacific campaign, on the island of Tinian. It was dropped on the city of Tokyo on March 9, 1945. Fires burned at about 1800 hundred degrees (lava reaches at about 2100 degrees Fahrenheit) and destroyed approximately 15 sq. miles.

Napalm is cheap to manufacture — a real gesture towards the goodwill of man and woman.

Napalm rained down on Korea during the Korean War in 165-gallon containers from U.S. aircrafts doing dive-bombing at about twenty-five feet for maximum effect.

Early in the Korean War, the use of atomic bombs was considered to contain the fighting, as it was used to attain Japanese surrender.

Remember, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945, respectively, along with the napalm bombing of the islands in the Pacific and Tokyo, were used to stifle the will of the Japanese to continue fighting. They achieved the desired effect, the Japanese surrendered finally.

Denied the use of one type of monster, hell was unleashed in the form of napalm. The conscience of the international community was assuaged by its use, as opposed to the atomic bomb, by convincing itself, probably, that napalm was somehow more humane.

The physical effects of napalm after combustion, besides death by asphyxiation, are burns and poisoning.

There are five levels of burns: first-degree (characterized by a painful reddening and swelling of the epidermis), second-degree (damage extending in to the dermis, accompanied by blistering), and third-degree (destruction of the epidermis and dermis extending in to the deeper tissue with loss of pain receptors), fourth degree (extending in to the deepest hypodermic tissues), and fifth-degree (the muscles).

Napalm burns are always fourth-or fifth-degree, especially if the victim is in very close proximity of the blanket area. The flame is like a surf breaking upon a shore.

Survival means living with excruciating pain and keloid (fibrous tissue overgrowth) of scar tissue.

Napalm combustion produces also carbon monoxide by eating up the oxygen within and outside the surrounding blast area. Carbon monoxide combines with hemoglobin and displaces oxygen in the blood that is essential to running vital organs like the heart and the brain.

Deprivation of oxygen is a toxic condition that paralyzes victims, who, even if they manage to escape the serious burns, will collapse, and, thus, be burned to death.

Loss of oxygen will make anyone gasp for breath but in the toxic environment, inhalation of the carbon monoxide would sizzle the windpipe.

Then there are the after-effects of carbon monoxide poisoning; dizziness, nausea, fatigue, headaches, convulsions, and insomnia.

AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM#: 77799 AC

Even if napalm was not deemed illegal or inhumane in conflicts involving the U.S. after the Vietnam War, there have been reports that incendiary bombs were used in Iraq during the early stages of the invasion.

To summarize, the properties of napalm evolved over time. During WWII, napalm was composed with naphthenic and palmitic acids mixed with gasoline. During Vietnam and the Korean War, napalm — a misnomer by then — contained benzene and polystyrene plus gasoline.

In Iraq, 2003, napalm bombs, the MK-77 Mod 5, is composed of kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene.

Unlike the moral and necessary outrage heard during the Vietnam War-era, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which is referred to often as the “forgotten war,” as well as the current occupation and fighting in Afghanistan and in Iraq, there seems to be a lack of/or effective necessary outrage to formally end the Korean War and to end the U.S. siege of the Middle East and Muslim countries.

The North Korean situation is being sold to the American public like a showdown at the O.K. Corral in which America is Wyatt Earp (defending America’s and world peace ) and North Korea branded as an outlaw (using WMDs to threaten world peace and security).

If North Korea continues to be stigmatized as the bad guy, then no dialog, even at the Six-Party talks, would be productive to resolve the differences between the two states.

In the U.S. media, North Korea is lambasted for antagonizing the U.S. and its neighbors in Northeast Asia by conducting missile and underground nuclear tests, by selling its nuclear technology and weapons to enemy states of the U.S., and by ending sentences with words like “plutonium,” “nuclear,” and “uranium,” then the American public will regress in a defensive way and say to its government, “Let’s bomb them!”

Why a peace treaty now? Can think of five reasons: 1. to end the isolation of the DPRK. 2. To reunite families separated sixty years ago. 3. To alleviate any suffering the North Korean masses are/have been experiencing. 4. Allow all Koreans to be reunited so that North Korean citizens could join the world community. And 5, To end U.S. influence (military and economic,  specifically) on the Korean Peninsula.

In July 26-29, 1950, about 400 South Korean civilians were killed in the village by soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Korean War. Those shot were refugees trying to escape advancing North Korean forces by crossing U.S. military lines. The U.S. soldiers, under the command of General Hobert R. Gay, feared that North Korean soldiers in disguise might be among the refugees. (http://www.nogunri.net)

Some of the video contents are translated below:

<interview on the street>

Q: Have you heard of the No Gun Ri incident?

A: No Gun Ri? a murder incident? …something that happened in a countryside..?

…The number of bullets used in three days in No Gun Ri was 120,000, and the weight of them is in total 2650kg..

…These bullets were shot through the bodies of about 500 hundreds people in No Gun Ri…

…The estimated number of death is 400…

<The survivors from the incident>

-Ms. Yang: I have lost one of my eyes at that time.

I never look at a mirror because of my face.

-Mr. Chung: half of my face was gone because of the incident.

Since then I’m always reluctant to go outside of my house.

…people have sent letters to President Clinton and President Kim Young-sam..

Yet people who have survived from the incident and family members of the deaths were not able to receive any compensation from the government.

So a number of people decided to make this incident into a movie.

Yet, persuading survivors to provide testimonies for the film was uneasy.

It was also challenging to raise funds from the investors because everyone knows that this film will not be profitable.

It took us 8 years to finish the film. 8 years..

But we never gave up in the hope that by this film,  such a tragic history as No Gun Ri would never be repeated again….

** Note: you can donate 1만원 (9-10$) and place your name under ‘the contributors’ on A Little Pond website and at the end of the film. Please visit www.alittlepond2010.co.kr

** You can also visit the website of No Gun Ri incident: http://www.nogunri.net

The beach at Mount Kumgang resort

In the wake of the sinking of Navy Warship Cheonan, North-South relations intensify as North Korea pursues aggressive measures to pressure South Korea in to lifting its ban on tourism in Mount Kumgang. Last week, Pyongyang announced its plan to partially take over property at the Mount Kumgang resort and expel all existing South Korean personnel.

The North has been steadily increasing its leverage over the South Korean government since late March. Pyongyang initially threatened to freeze assets of private companies investing in Mount Kumgang tours (namely Hyundai Asan, the corporate enterprise running the tours) and begin “seizing South Korean-owned property.” North has also stated it will find another business partner and terminate all agreements and contracts if the ban continues.

After these statements were released, South Korean businessmen and North Korean officials convened at the Mount Kumgang resort to negotiate. According to bbc.co.uk, the businessmen were told that if Seoul did not reopen tourism “extraordinary measures” would be taken.

The demanding and threatening attitude of the North hints at the possibility of a deteriorating economic situation. While active, the Mount Kumgang resort earned North Korean tens of millions of dollars every year. The North has been struggling financially for years, and the currency reform last year only exacerbated the situation.

Escalating tensions have also hit Hyundai Group subsidiaries and other local companies manufacturing in the Kaesong Industrial Complex – company stocks declined 1 to 8 percent by the end of the day.

Mount Kumgang tourism was founded 12 years ago and is symbolic of the thawing of North-South relations through cultural exchange. However, tours were suspended in July 2008 after Park Wang-ja (53), a South Korean tourist, was shot and killed by North Korean guards on a beach near the Mount Kumgang resort – the North claimed Park was trespassing into military territory.

The seeds of the Korean War began to sprout at the end of WWII. Suspicions and tensions between two allies, the Soviet Union and the United States, ratcheted up over rightful claims over the spoils of war, and over which form of government and economy would be implemented.

The Soviet Union wanted a stake in Germany, the Eastern bloc countries, and Korea where it fought Nazism and Japanese imperialism, respectively.

The United States feared that widespread Soviet influence would result in an exportation of Communism.

To safeguard the world from what it considered Soviet intentions, whether real or imagined, to export communism, the foreign policy of the U.S. was concentrated on the “containment” of communism.

Thus, East Asia and Southeast Asia became the locales where major, hostile engagements were waged between two opposing ideologies.

Korea was the first causality under the designation of containment.

Before the outbreak of the war, Korea became a casualty first of the post-WWII new global order, when its country and people were bisected at a latitudinal line called the 38th. parallel by a unilateral decision made in 1945 by then president, F.D.R; a decision to which the Soviet Union agreed.

In retrospect, it seems that the liberators, in particular the champion of democracy, the U.S., had no faith in the Korean people to independently establish their own political system after thirty-five years, more or less, of Japanese so-called “protectorate.”

In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and agreed to oversee Japanese surrender north of latitudinal line. The U.S. arrived later that year, September or October, and occupied south of the line that included Seoul.

Hence, Korean self-determination was a non-issue.

With the division came separate governments in the new Korea. Under Soviet patronage Kim Il Sung, who fought as a guerilla against the Japanese in China, established a socialist ideology in the north; in the south, Syngman Rhee, a nationalist exile, returned and declared a Republic of Korea.

In 1948, under the supervision of the United Nations, an election in Seoul appointed officially Syngman Rhee as president of that Republic of Korea. Effectively, two separate Koreas were created that opposed each other ideologically.

As the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War approaches this June 25, 2010, the nation has yet to reconcile their dissension over the UN decision of 1948.

Regrettably, sixty years ago, on June 25, 1950, although the facts are still disputed, one of the biggest and tragic ironies of the 20th Century occurred when a civil war began. The North’s intention was to take over Seoul in an effort to reunite the country. They achieved part of their aim by reaching Seoul blitzkrieg-style but was repelled later by U.N. troops led by the U.S.

The “invasion” by the Korean People’s Army (KPA) was censured by the United Nations council on Korea as a “breach of peace.”

Then president of the U.S., Harry S. Truman, pledged U.S. armed forces, which coalesced with UN troops in a military effort to repel North Korean forces. In a precedent setting move that successive U.S. presidents have used in order send U.S. troops overseas and place them in an offensive position or in to direct action, Truman never sought a formal declaration of war from Congress.

For dramatic effect, let’s call what Truman asked Congress for was a Korean Peninsula resolution, in the manner of LBJ’s Gulf of Tonkin resolution for Vietnam. These resolutions express usually the resolve of U.S. determination to support freedom and to protect the peace of nations threatened by Communism (today its terrorism or Muslim fundamentalism), to pledge U.S. military and economic aid, to use economic and diplomatic pressure to destabilize the offending nation, and a request for a Congressional support program.

Hence, the official position of U.S. armed forces presence fighting in Korea in 1950 was labeled a “police action.”

That police action’s main goal was not to destroy the enemy’s will to fight, it was to repel and contain the communist forces of North Korea by any means necessary. In other words, to contain communism meant that the gloves would have to come off. That meant not a gentleman’s war. Honor was out-of-date.

The No Gun Ri incident was the result of the new global, political, world order: a cold war of clashes without formal declarations of war.

The bridge at No Gun Ri

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul, testimonies recount U.S. bombings and strafing on South Korean villages and South Korean refugees fleeing the fighting in 1950-51.

Even though such indiscriminate killings were indisputable, the U.S.’s official position is that U.S. soldiers sent during the early period of fighting were young and inexperienced, not like hardened veterans from WWII. Their actions amounted to confusion, fear of communist infiltration, and the lack of any knowledge of Korean history and culture.

In short, the inexperienced U.S. soldier couldn’t distinguished a South Korean from a North Korean, unless, of course, the latter were wearing a uniform emblazoned with some kind of communist insignia.

Despite U.S. disputations, an article written in The Associated Press discovered evidence that shows it was U.S. policy to fire on refugees indiscriminately so as to prevent communist infiltrators.

The two key pieces of evidence are an order from General Keane and the Muccio letter. In the order by General Keane the last paragraph reads: “All civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly.”

In current parlance, civilian deaths are seen as collateral damage.

Flickr photo set by Ray Cunningham-Oct. 4, 2009; Brutalized Bodies at Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities

Regardless if its a police action or a “war,” indiscriminate killings are inhuman. It is no excuse to say that one was under orders, or it was for God and Country.

If the Korean War does not formally come to an end, there could never be any peace on the Korean Peninsula, only a state of hyper-alertness. Hostilities have remained cold due to the signing of an Armistice. Fear of the outbreak of fighting is being used to justify expanding military budgets in both the U.S. and South Korea and continued U.S. military presence on South Korean soil.

Peace can never be found at the tip of a bayonet.

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There are over 10 million Koreans who have their family members on the other side of Korea.

In 2000, when the president Kim Dae-jung was in office in South Korea, the two Koreas initiated the ‘Separated Family Reunion’ plan and held 17 meetings so far to have a reunion for selected family members from South and North Korea.

The following is a BBC news report with photos of the separated families reunion in 2002.

“I heard that you had a mistress when you were living with me. Isn’t she your wife? Did you bring her with you here?”, a tearful Chung Gwi-up, 75, asked her long-lost husband, Lim Han-un, 74, while holding his hands.

Gwi-up had refused a second marriage and supported her parents-in-law after her husband disappeared during the Korean War.

Hwang Sun-ok left her sick daughter, Kim Sun-sil (right), in the care of relatives in the North, but was prevented from ever collecting her child after the border was sealed after the war.

On their reunion, Sun-ok produced a ring and a necklace she had carefully kept as wedding gifts for her daughter. “Mother, it’s a bit too late but thank you,” smiled Sun-sil.

“Sister Shin-ho! Sister Shin-ho! You are alive,” her younger South Korean sister Bu-ja, cried, as they embraced. She attended the reunion in the place of their 93-year-old mother, who died two days ago.

“Until the moment of her death, our mother could never close her eyes peacefully without seeing you,” Bu-ja told her sister. Lee Shin-ho sobbed as she knelt in front of a portrait of their mother.

One of Bu-ja’s relatives repeatedly praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and was heard to say: “It’s the Yankees alone who have forced us to live apart.”

All smiles as South Korean Yun Kum-chul meets his long lost North Korean sisters.

Soon they were up and dancing.

These relatives, briefly brought together after decades apart, will probably never see each other again.

Lastly, here are several questions that we can think about:

1. How severely do you think these Koreans have been affected throughout their lives—physically, emotionally, and psychologically—due to separation?
2. What would have been both implicit and explicit consequences of the separation and their personal level of impacts to the entire society in both South and North Korea?
3. In consideration of the first two questions, do you think the issues of separated families are substantial enough to call for an action to sign peace treaty and prevent another war in the Korean peninsula? Do they draw your attention to take some actions?

Ahn Jung-guen

Today, marks the 60th anniversary of Ahn Jung-geun’s passing. Ahn, a Korean independence activist was sentenced to death for assassinating the first Prime Minister of Japan, Ito Hirobumi.

Ahn Jung-guen is rememberd in South Korea as a national hero for smuggling a gun in his lunchbox in order to assassinate Hirobumi on a railway platform in Harbin, Manchuria. Upon firing 6 shots, Ahn waved the Korean flag while shouting for Korean independence before getting arrested by Russian guards.

After the assassination on October 26, 1909, Ahn was evenutally sentenced to death by the Japanese colonial court in Ryojun China.

Ahn’s actions were an act of protest against the Protectorate Treaty (1905), which officially handed over Korean diplomatic Sovereignty to Japan, and eventual annexation. Ahn’s remains have yet to be found in China and brought back to the country he sacrificed his life for.

However, Ahn’s legacy lives on today in textbooks, oral history and annual commemoration ceremonies. The fact that one man’s devotion to Korean independence and Pan-Asianism is still celebrated, points to the necessity of resolving historical issues on the Korean peninsula.

아아 잊으랴 어찌 우리 이 날을
조국을 원수들이 짓밟아 오던 날을

맨 주먹 붉은 피로 원수를 막아내어
발을 굴러 땅을 치며 의분에 떤 날을

이제야 갚으리 그 날의 원수를
쫓기는 적의 무리 쫓고 또 쫓아
원수의 하나까지 쳐서 무찔러
이제야 빛내리 이 나라 이 겨레

아 아 잊으랴 어찌 우리 이 날을
불의의 역도들을 멧도적 오랑캐를
하늘의 힘을 빌어 모조리 쳐부수어
흘려온 갚진 피의 원한을 풀으리

이제야 갚으리 그 날의 원수를

쫓기는 적의 무리 쫓고 또 쫓아
원수의 하나까지 쳐서 무찔러
이제야 빛내리 이 나라 이 겨레

아 아 잊으랴 어찌 우리 이 날을
정의는 이기는 것 이기고야 마는 것
자유를 위하여서 싸우고 또 싸워
다시는 이런 날이 오지 않게 하리

이제야 갚으리 그 날의 원수를
쫓기는 적의 무리 쫓고 또 쫓아
원수의 하나까지 쳐서 무찔러
이제야 빛내리 이 나라 이 겨레

The DPRK, which is known by many appellations such as the “hermit kingdom” and “rouge state,” has invited Western tourists on to its soil since 1987.  Numbers from the Associated Press put the range of American visitors to 2000. 

The Koryo Group, a China-based organizer of tours to the DPRK, was sent a communiqué from North Korea stating that the numbers of American tourists allowed to visit this year (2010) will increase. Specific details on the increase have not yet been released.

However, the Koryo Group has conducted tours in the DPRK with American tourists for several years now, including an events tours last year during the 2009 Mass Games. According to Nicolas Bonner, who founded the Koryo Group, 280 Americans attended that event last year.

The Koryo Group offers both group and independent tours. Listed on its website are important dates and events worth a tourist’s time. For example, trips are organized around Kim Jong il’s birthday celebrations in April; on Victory Day in July, which is the celebration of the anniversary of the end of the Korean War; and on Liberation Day in August, which include celebrations from Japanese colonial rule.

Tours are organized also to visit natural wonders, such as to Mt. Paekdu and Mt. chilbo.

Although North Korean doors are open for free cultural exchange, and the U.S. government has no restrictions in place to stop U.S. citizens from visiting the DPRK and sees no threat to its citizens from the country that has been deemed part of an “Axis of Evil,” the issue of a peace treaty becomes even more pressing between the U.S. and the DPRK, and among the DPRK and its neighbors in Northeast Asia, namely South Korea and Japan.

A peace treaty would ensure the safety of American citizens visiting the DPRK, as well as encourage a free exchange of ideas and development of genuine relations between North Korean citizens and American visitors. Moreover, a peace treaty would reunify a split Korea and bring peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The current state of affairs denies Western visitors to the DPRK from hearing the narrated stories of its masses.

Both the Koryo Group and North Korea stand to profit from the tourism enterprise during an apparent cold-war standoff, given the fact that the DPRK has remained steadfast in its continuance of nuclear proliferation and has been testing ballistic missiles.

Cultural exchange in the form of Mass Games is a right step toward peace, but the Ma

ss Games seems more of a sideshow to the main attraction of nuclear war-games between the DPRK and the U.S. The latter game is not a prospect for peace and continuing cultural exchange.

But war games, nuclear and otherwise, are what the United States and North Korea are playing while both of its citizens entertain each other through curiosity, while being compelled to remain cold war bait.

Nodutdol welcomes feed back on the issue of a peace treaty between the U.S. and North Korea. If any visitors have gone to North Korea, send us some photos.