Re: Chinese/Russian/N.K. Casualty

[<Jhk789@aol.com>]

In a message dated 2/14/2002 4:47:29 AM Pacific Standard Time, Home@DanSources.com writes:


> You are sure that there would have been no massive deaths? 
> That is a broad statement.  Where do you get your sources? 


No, I don't think there would have been mass deaths.
The result would have been similar to Vietnam's unification.
They could have prosecuted Rhee & some of his goons
who massacred the political prisoners in the South, but not others.
This is because Kim had unification talks with many S.Korean nationalist 
leaders in 1948. I would say Kim & his followers were more nationalists
than real communists. If US didn't intervene, Kim's government
of united Korea may have taken the road of Tito's Yugoslavia, and
probably much more liberalized than today's China.
It was the deadly war with the US which made their regime
more authoritarian and militaristic. But then US was more
interested in starting a war and expand its military budget than really
caring about the future of Koreans. I think the same goes for
Bush's thinking today too unfortunately.

It is true that the Korean War was fought as a civil war
within the Cold War context, and that's the tragedy for the Koreans. 
US just refused to let the Koreans determine their own future.

I got the civilian casualty figure from Martin Hart-Landsberg's 
book, Korea: division, reunification & US foreign policy (p.133).

John2