Wednesday, June 27, 2007
This Day in American History
On this day in 1950, President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict. He did so with the blessings of the United Nations Security Council which had asked for member nations to help South Korea repel the invasion from the North. What he did not have was a declaration of war from Congress. The Korean War was on, man, and it never ended (although there was a cease fire agreement on July 27, 1953).
Task Force Smith contained the first American troops to enter the fight, on July 5, 1950 and they got the snot kicked out of them by superior numbers of excellent troops and, even reinforced, were almost pushed off the peninsula. Although MacArthur brilliantly and completed defeated North Korea and occupied two thirds of that young country by Thanksgiving, when the Chinese entered the war in force, Truman foolishly forgot the lesson he seemed to have learned with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, namely, that nuclear weapons save lives in the bigger picture and longer run. We were sent packing and then fought hard just to get back to the original dividing line, the 38th parallel. The last years of fighting were the mid-20th Century version of trench warfare.
We should have nuked all along the Yalu as soon as we recognized the Chinese involvement and then all the military targets in Manchuria until the Chinese backed the heck out. We should have unified Korea and set the precedent/motto: Nemo me impune lacessit or perhaps an updating of the 1775 slogan: Don't tread on me, by adding unless you don't mind glowing in the dark. History would have been a lot different and better, at least for the North Koreans.
Ah, hindsight.
Task Force Smith contained the first American troops to enter the fight, on July 5, 1950 and they got the snot kicked out of them by superior numbers of excellent troops and, even reinforced, were almost pushed off the peninsula. Although MacArthur brilliantly and completed defeated North Korea and occupied two thirds of that young country by Thanksgiving, when the Chinese entered the war in force, Truman foolishly forgot the lesson he seemed to have learned with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, namely, that nuclear weapons save lives in the bigger picture and longer run. We were sent packing and then fought hard just to get back to the original dividing line, the 38th parallel. The last years of fighting were the mid-20th Century version of trench warfare.
We should have nuked all along the Yalu as soon as we recognized the Chinese involvement and then all the military targets in Manchuria until the Chinese backed the heck out. We should have unified Korea and set the precedent/motto: Nemo me impune lacessit or perhaps an updating of the 1775 slogan: Don't tread on me, by adding unless you don't mind glowing in the dark. History would have been a lot different and better, at least for the North Koreans.
Ah, hindsight.
Labels: Korean War
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 12:06 AM 
