Anti-American Sentiment Well-Rooted
John Sileo
June 27, 2005
While speaking to a co-worker named James who was ex-military about America’s fifty-year involvement in North Korea, I quickly learned that I was ignorant of some of the facts about Korea’s revolution. I could never understand, although I never bothered to research it, why our military was in so many places around the world. I know America plays the world’s police, but why? Since James spent a tour of duty in Korea in 1965, he easily responded that South Korea was not strong enough to repel North Korea. He added, they asked us to help them and we have never left their side. Simple enough I thought.
Our break ended before I could make an important comparison. He may have explained the big picture, but that did not change my concern that we have meddled in Korea long enough to create some serious resentments. Moreover, I am afraid we have done this in other places too, but let’s just focus on Korea. Today’s world environment of hatred of Americans (and the West) is rooted in experiences like the Korean civil war.
That is just what it was, a civil war. We once had a civil war and no foreign power tipped the scales because they thought one side was better than the other was. Imagine this. In 1860 America, during our Civil War, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, or some other well-meaning nation show up with far greater forces than either the Union or the Confederates could handle and weighed in and won the war, easily. And they did it without even using all their weapons and might. They held back but they still tipped the war in their favor. How does that suit your feelings? How might you react to another country winning our internal wars?
Although I did not ask, I am certain James would have agreed with me that if they joined the union, ok, but if they joined the South, not ok. For most, it would depend on which side the foreign power supported. If it was theirs, they would love it, but if it weren’t I can’t imagine the anger. Picture Japan coming to the aid of the Confederates and repelling the North, and I can just feel all the pissed-off New Yorkers.
They would say ‘why in the hell are these people doing interfering in our war. What is their motivation? They need to butt out and take care of their own countries reform (Civil War movies would never look the same)’. This might be the kind of rhetoric you would hear by the defeated side. Some insightful people even on the winning side might feel this way, too.
In hindsight, many more people would agree that the interfering powers should have kept their business to themselves because of the resentments, on both sides, that would ensue in coming years, decades, and generations. This resentment, depending on which side the invaders fought for, how many homes they destroyed, and the volume of killed women, children, and men killed, could have reached enormous proportions.
In the end, our ability to have a revolution over slavery would have been thwarted by some other country. That is how it was and is in Korea and Vietnam.
Either way you might perceive it, there are resentments and hatreds that result from this, period. The worse part is; America has interference stories like this all over the world, including inside our very own borders. Examples include Columbia, Hawaii, Cuba, and several hundred Indian tribes, among others.
Interestingly, I am not necessarily against all these actions, but I do recognize their impact. North Korea wants to have a revolution in civil war in order to reform the government. Most of their people are for it. But they can’t because of us. Now they have nuclear weapons. That is a recipe for disaster. Over fifty years of holding them at gunpoint because we believe (and I agree) that the South is far more righteous of a people and should win their civil war. We must accept the resentment from North Korea and their people. Their leader, Kim Il Sung, said during the Korean War in 1950 that their “primary enemy was the American soldiers”. Nothing has changed.
And we have ruffled feathers in other countries in many other ways. For example, the American’s along with the Spanish combined to exterminate a large number of Indian tribes of North America and the Caribbean. Intentional or not, that is what resulted with our forces involved. America itself invaded, removed, genocide, and successfully assaulted Native culture. The most well-known of which was when we killed tens of millions of buffalo (perhaps the animal icon of America next to the bald eagle) in order to starve into submission several Indian tribes. It worked, the Native people gave up their land and way of life, except I am certain resentments still linger, not to mention what God might think. A few years ago, our courts granted a Sioux tribe $100 million dollars for our illegal taking of the Black Hills from them during the late 19th century. They declined the money because they wanted their country back. Who could blame them?
The building of the Panama Canal is another example. America deliberately staged a military coup in Columbia when Columbia wanted too much money for the rights to the Canal. We established a new nation called Panama. We had the assistance of the Panamanians on “the isthmus” (Panama) but that does not stop the resentments from Columbians. They lost part of their country by our interference! Later we gave them 25 million dollars for it but somehow I do not think that did the trick to stop their justified resentments towards us.
Unfortunately, the list goes on.
I agree with James, my co-worker, I am glad some foreign country like Japan did not enter our civil war on the side of the revolutionaries (the South). I do not like slavery.
Our break ended before I could make an important comparison. He may have explained the big picture, but that did not change my concern that we have meddled in Korea long enough to create some serious resentments. Moreover, I am afraid we have done this in other places too, but let’s just focus on Korea. Today’s world environment of hatred of Americans (and the West) is rooted in experiences like the Korean civil war.
That is just what it was, a civil war. We once had a civil war and no foreign power tipped the scales because they thought one side was better than the other was. Imagine this. In 1860 America, during our Civil War, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, or some other well-meaning nation show up with far greater forces than either the Union or the Confederates could handle and weighed in and won the war, easily. And they did it without even using all their weapons and might. They held back but they still tipped the war in their favor. How does that suit your feelings? How might you react to another country winning our internal wars?
Although I did not ask, I am certain James would have agreed with me that if they joined the union, ok, but if they joined the South, not ok. For most, it would depend on which side the foreign power supported. If it was theirs, they would love it, but if it weren’t I can’t imagine the anger. Picture Japan coming to the aid of the Confederates and repelling the North, and I can just feel all the pissed-off New Yorkers.
They would say ‘why in the hell are these people doing interfering in our war. What is their motivation? They need to butt out and take care of their own countries reform (Civil War movies would never look the same)’. This might be the kind of rhetoric you would hear by the defeated side. Some insightful people even on the winning side might feel this way, too.
In hindsight, many more people would agree that the interfering powers should have kept their business to themselves because of the resentments, on both sides, that would ensue in coming years, decades, and generations. This resentment, depending on which side the invaders fought for, how many homes they destroyed, and the volume of killed women, children, and men killed, could have reached enormous proportions.
In the end, our ability to have a revolution over slavery would have been thwarted by some other country. That is how it was and is in Korea and Vietnam.
Either way you might perceive it, there are resentments and hatreds that result from this, period. The worse part is; America has interference stories like this all over the world, including inside our very own borders. Examples include Columbia, Hawaii, Cuba, and several hundred Indian tribes, among others.
Interestingly, I am not necessarily against all these actions, but I do recognize their impact. North Korea wants to have a revolution in civil war in order to reform the government. Most of their people are for it. But they can’t because of us. Now they have nuclear weapons. That is a recipe for disaster. Over fifty years of holding them at gunpoint because we believe (and I agree) that the South is far more righteous of a people and should win their civil war. We must accept the resentment from North Korea and their people. Their leader, Kim Il Sung, said during the Korean War in 1950 that their “primary enemy was the American soldiers”. Nothing has changed.
And we have ruffled feathers in other countries in many other ways. For example, the American’s along with the Spanish combined to exterminate a large number of Indian tribes of North America and the Caribbean. Intentional or not, that is what resulted with our forces involved. America itself invaded, removed, genocide, and successfully assaulted Native culture. The most well-known of which was when we killed tens of millions of buffalo (perhaps the animal icon of America next to the bald eagle) in order to starve into submission several Indian tribes. It worked, the Native people gave up their land and way of life, except I am certain resentments still linger, not to mention what God might think. A few years ago, our courts granted a Sioux tribe $100 million dollars for our illegal taking of the Black Hills from them during the late 19th century. They declined the money because they wanted their country back. Who could blame them?
The building of the Panama Canal is another example. America deliberately staged a military coup in Columbia when Columbia wanted too much money for the rights to the Canal. We established a new nation called Panama. We had the assistance of the Panamanians on “the isthmus” (Panama) but that does not stop the resentments from Columbians. They lost part of their country by our interference! Later we gave them 25 million dollars for it but somehow I do not think that did the trick to stop their justified resentments towards us.
Unfortunately, the list goes on.
I agree with James, my co-worker, I am glad some foreign country like Japan did not enter our civil war on the side of the revolutionaries (the South). I do not like slavery.