I can't believe there would be Koreans that call General MacArthur a War Criminal.

South Korea is not ruled by Kim Jong-il today only because of General MacArthur's Inchon landing. There is no question that without the Inchon landing Punsan would have eventually fallen and North Korea would have won the war, or the U.N. forces would have had to do something just as drastic as the Inchon landing. Either way it would have been MacArthur leading the strategy and forces.

Well, it looks like the idiot protestors have now forced the city of Inchon to spend over $31,000 to install two cameras to watch the statue.

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History has a tendency of being forgotten or skewed when convenient.

It's the same idiocy that has people denying that Nazis gassed Jews during WW II.

I wonder what "crimes" MacArthur committed during the war that have these left-wing activists calling him a War Criminal.

Is there some sort of "bigger picture" in all this? Would taking down the statue be of some effect in the long run?

This is from an op/ed piece ... but basically there are claims he (Mac) ordered the massacre numerous civilians during the Korean War.

This is from a blog post with some more tidbits on the whole Mac issue.

Thanks for the info, Bob. That cleared a few things with the protestors' beef against Mac.

However, I don't think there has ever been a "perfect" General in any war. They all have done great things, bad things, made mistakes, had luck, etc. It just seems like a common sense thing to me. And it still draws me to that "bigger picture" theory. I find it hard to believe these protestors would risk their lives solely on the purpose of taking a statue down...and then party with soju, giving each other high fives. There's just gotta be more to it! There's gotta!!

yeh, well the protests are just a part of the puzzle for anti-us people in general who want to kick the US off the peninsula.
I don't think they really care about Macarthur.. it's just convenient :P

Thanks for the great links Bob!

I will listen to people as long as they speak intelligently. As soon as they say silly things I usually tune them out. For instance:

Comparing the U.S. in Korea to the Japanese occupation is not only silly, it makes them sound uneducated. Here is how the Japanese occupation started.

Then the ruling government was forced into signing over Korea to Japan.

Here was a typical response to pro-Korea rallies.

Then during World War II, the Japanese forced millions of Koreans into forced labor. As many as 800,000 of them died!

Seem silly to compare the U.S. in Korea to the Japanese occupation?

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We need to get Penn & Teller to make a video on this issue!

One of the specific claims back at the 9/11 Inchon protests at the statue was made by the folk singer who penned the ever-lasting and popular "****ing USA". (The man is a graduate of Korea's Harvard, by the way).

In a new song he wrote for the 9/11 protest, he used a claim that MacArthur told Marines and others involved in the Inchon landing that they would have three days to rape and pillage as much of Seoul and area as they wanted before having to straighten up and fly right.

He said he got the info from an academic source. Some diligent reporter tracked it down, and the quote was from a source that referenced a North Korean history book which had Mac. saying that...

The same folk singer wrote a song about how if you want to know real life, go to Pyongyang and see the lives of the good people of North Korea.

The war criminal tag accepted by a more average, non-dedicated anti-US Korean is tied to a general setting ---- it centers around the idea of Nogunri - that such incidents were common at the hands of the US military in during the war, and by incident, they mean the US soldiers being ordered to slaughter civilians because they viewed Koreans like non-humans.

The average Korean would not call Mac. a war criminal. I think it is still just a minor percentage of especially college aged people who would say it and believe it.

But, a majority of Koreans do want to believe the worst case senerio about a Nogunri --- that it was simply mass murder.

The percentage that want to believe such things were common probably varies with the mood in the society.

I'd say for roughly 50%-70% of the people or more, a Mac. and Nogunri and such issues don't mean much unless it is for a short period of venting when the press is talkinga bout them a lot.

For the remaning groups, most might like to believe there were truly cold blooded massacres, but they are focused more on today and see things as a historical event rather than something they should do something about today, and they don't really like to think about it much.

5%-10% or fewer however are the truly anti-US kind who beleive something must be done about these crimes that the US has been doing for the past 60 years ----- the closer you get to people born between 1965-1985 - the more you'll find the true believers and the closer you get to university kids --- and I think some of the university true believers recover some sanity as their post-college years increase.