June 30,
2008: The South Korea government is
beginning to realize why there is such a vigorous anti-U.S., pro-North Korea
movement in a country that was devastated by a North Korean invasion 58 years
ago. The reason is that most (OK, 51 percent) of South Korean teenagers know
little about the Korean War (1950-53). After all, this was their grand-parents,
or great-grand-parents war. The reason for the ignorance is the education
system, dominated by leftists who have, over the decades, played down the
unprovoked and savage North Korean invasion in 1950.
The South
Korean Communist Party was outlawed in 1946, by the American occupation forces,
for using violence to try and gain control of South Korea. But the South Korean
Communists went underground, and some remained after North Korean forces were
driven out in late 1950. After the war, North Korea sent agents and money south
to keep leftist organizations going. Suppressing the bad memories of the Korean
war (the North Koreans were exceptionally brutal, ask any South Korean over 70)
was a typical communist Information War ploy, and it has paid big dividends by
creating a generation of teenagers who can be convinced that the Korean War was
all the fault of the United States (who had withdrawn its troops just before
the North Koreans invaded, and that was
not a coincidence.) After the Cold War ended, the Russian archives were opened
a bit and it was revealed that the Soviets had convinced the North Koreans that
the Americans would not defend South Korea. When that didn't work out, the
Russians talked the Chinese to come in and keep the UN forces from taking
control of North Korea. That operation cost the Chinese half a million dead,
and a grudge against the Russians that led to decades of bad feelings. But the
South Korean educational system has managed to purge most of this from the
curriculum, or downplay the teaching of it in the classroom.
The Big
Lie technique not only lives, it thrives, and you can see it happening in South
Korea.
