Work for Peace

From The Ramparts

Junious Ricardo Stanton

Work For PEACE

“Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe, Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace. Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex, But all they’re doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.
The Military and the Monetary, The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary. The Military and the Monetary,
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the planet into a cemetery.’ Work For Peace by Gil Scott Heron

The media hysteria about North Korea’s development of weapons demonstrates just how brainwashed and programmed we are. North Korea was designated part of the mythical “Axis of Evil” by the dim wit president George W. Bush and of course the corporate media regurgitated the NeoCon narrative and lies. Now too many Americans believe the North Koreans are our enemy and pose an existential threat to the world if not the USA.

Most people don’t know the ancient history of Korea nor the modern roles Japan and the Western allies played in the current situation in Korea. The Japanese first invaded Korea in 1592 as part of their imperial assault on the Asian mainland. They were successful because they has European weapons, muskets and pistols they received from the Portuguese and their soldiers wore metal armor. The Koreans fought using bows and arrows. During that invasion the Chinese came to the aid of Korea. They subsequently defeated and drove the Japanese out. The relationship and antagonism against the Japanese goes back centuries.

Japan again invaded Korea and made Korea a colony in 1910. The occupation lasted until the Japanese defeat in WWII in 1945. During colonization and after the war Korea was divided into various zones first by the Japanese who were later replaced by the Russians and Americans.

The country was divided and many factions attempted to control the government and land. In June of 1950 North Korean forces invaded the South and a vicious war ensued which left three million Koreans, over a million Chinese and 54,000 Americans dead.

The US bombed Korea to smithereens using the same strategies they used against Germany and Japan during WWII and later Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia: bomb everything in sight, indiscriminately kill civilians, animals, destroy the infrastructure and lay waste to the land. The war never ended. A cease fire exists and the North and South remain separated along arbitrary border lines imposed by outsiders called the “demilitarized zone” even though the boundaries are some of the most heavily fortified areas in the world!

The Koreans remember this carnage but the US propaganda machine trivializes the conflict and paints it as the “good” US versus “evil” Communism. Rarely mentioned are the horrendous atrocities committed by the United States. “The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America’s own leaders. ‘Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population,’ Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed ‘everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.’ After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.” The US War Crime North Korea Won’t Forget by Blaine Harden https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea-wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html?utm_term=.35f03bdc8ca3

The Koreans remember and this is why their leaders have taken the stances they’ve taken over the years. Unlike West Germany and Japan whose “constitutional governments” were created by the victorious US following WWII, North Korea is a sovereign nation. Remember there was no treaty to end the Korean War only a cease fire agreement!

Given this reality, given what the US and its allies have done to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, small wonder the North Koreans view the US as a ravaging predatory jackal. This is why they are taking frantic measures to protect and defend their sovereignty.

Unlike the US, North Korea has not invaded any countries since 1950. In this situation, the US is the aggressor nation, the bully, a global thug trying to take the world’s lunch money. Once we know the real history we can see the reason why the Chinese and Russians are trying to ratchet down the bellicosity, they know how vicious and genocidal the US can be/is.

Now that we know, don’t go for the North Korea is a threat okey-doke, don’t fall for the we’ve got to go to war flim-flam; give PEACE a chance. As Gil Scott Heron wrote/sang, “We’ve got to work for Peace, Peace ain’t coming this way.
If we only work for Peace, If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,
We’d have Peace. The only thing wrong with Peace, is that you can’t make no money from it.”