It's 2010 When you make any effort to dig down to the truth of the situation it is imperative to hear contrasting views. I make no representations about content except that note.
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US imperialism’s brutal war against the Korean people: 1945-1953
At the end of World War II, the U.S. government signed several documents pledging to withdraw all its armed forces from the Korean peninsula and to support the establishment of a “free and independent Korea” based on the sovereign will of the Korean people.But the U.S. government did not honor these commitments even for a second. From the first day that U.S. troops landed in Korea, they began to create the infrastructure for permanent military occupation. The patriotic Korean political forces which had fought the Japanese aggressors were systematically suppressed or killed. By 1948, the U.S. had installed a puppet government (based, in large part, on former collaborators with the Japanese) in South Korea and declared the partition of the country.
Not content with occupying the southern half of the peninsula, U.S. imperialism prepared and launched the Korean war with the goal of occupying the entire country. The Korean war was part of U.S. imperialism’s strategy of extending its colonial empire to the four ends of the earth by suppressing the national liberation movements and “containing communism.” Amongst other things, the U.S. sought to create a ring of military bases around China and the Soviet Union. In fact, the Truman administration planned the Korean war as a preparation for “rolling back communism” through an all-out attack on the People’s Republic of China.
Immediately after occupying Korea in September 1945, the U.S. moved quickly to accomplish its goal of turning the Korean peninsula into a U.S. military base. Near the 38th parallel, the U.S. started fortifying artillery positions and bomb shelters. Money was poured into the construction of military air bases, roads, and naval ports. Cheju island was placed under direct control of the U.S. army and its airport was expanded to accommodate B-29 bombers. Naval bases at Ryosu, Inchon, and Pusan ports were all rebuilt and expanded.
During this time the U.S. army command in Korea also began organizing a puppet Korean army in the southern half of the peninsula. A “Korean National Guard” was organized by U.S. military authorities, and an “English Military Institute” was created to train South Korean officers. In the Spring of 1948, President Truman agreed to the decision of his Security Council to increase military aid in order to “build and strengthen a South Korean army.” Soon afterwards, a conscription law was issued forcing Korean youth in all southern provinces into the military. By 1950, the U.S. had amassed a 100,000-strong south Korean army.
In addition to pouring in huge amounts of money in order to turn the peninsula into a U.S military base, the U.S. announced in early 1950 an official “Treaty of Mutual Defense” which called for the “defense and modernization” of the Korean army in the south. According to General MacArthur, the new South Korean military force was “the best in Asia” and the head of the U.S. military advisory group called it “the faithful watchdog guarding U.S. capital.”
Confident in its military position and strength, and not content with merely occupying the southern half of the peninsula, the U.S. then began a determined campaign of military threats and provocations against North Korea.
Throughout 1949-50, the South Korean president, Syngman Rhee, began issuing calls for a “northward expedition” and “unity through force of arms.” On October 31, 1949, for example, on the deck of the U.S. cruiser Setpol, Rhee stated that the “North-South division must be removed through war. We can occupy north Korea and achieve unification.” In a letter to a U.S. official on September 30th of that same year he wrote: “I think this is a golden opportunity for us to open an attack and wipe out the remnants in Pyongyang. Our people hanker for north-bound expedition.” And in a press interview in December he declared “In the coming year we will strive as one to regain our lost territory…we must remember that next year we should unify north and south Korea by our own strength.” Such statements were accompanied by the huge buildup of U.S. and South Korean troops in the summer of 1949.
In 1949, the U.S. military began launching combat operations, small border incursions, against the North all along the 38th parallel. Over 2,617 armed invasions of the northern territory took place that year, and U.S. reporters themselves began describing the situation as a “small war.” The head of the U.S. Military Advisory Group, Roberts, stated in October 1949 that “Attacks on the region north of the 38th parallel have been and will be made by my orders. In many cases, however, units launched attacks at discretion only to spend a tremendous amount of ammunition with no result whatsoever except to suffer heavy losses.”
Due to the failure of these “small wars” against the North in 1949, the U.S. was forced to temporarily halt the border aggression and revise its war plans. The new plans called for greater mobilization and concentration of Korean and U.S. troops along the 38th parallel, while at the same time calling for the immediate suppression of South Koreans opposed to U.S. occupation and aggression. A “mopping up ” campaign was launched in the south to suppress any opposition. This campaign resulted in the murders of more than 40,000 South Korean people in the months of December 1949 and January 1950 alone. Over 109,000 Koreans were killed in all of 1949. It was at this time also that the U.S. resurrected the notorious “National Security Law” to implement a fascist and terrorist environment throughout the southern half of the peninsula. According to his memoirs, President Truman at this time ordered Syngman Rhee to “stabilize” the rear of South Korea above all else.
In order to cover-up its war plans, the U.S. State Department started diplomatic efforts at the U.N.. Turning truth on its head, U.S. authorities began accusing the North of “having aggressive intentions,” and began drafting a U.N. resolution and a “lawsuit” against North Korea’s “planned armed invasion.” U.S. officials worked feverishly to manufacture hysteria about an “Asian crisis” while attempting to portray North Korea as the aggressor. U.S. intelligence agents, posing as “independent U.N. monitors,” were deployed along the north-south Korean border to act as “third-person” reporters of any invasion by the North. In the first half of 1950, therefore, the threat of “invasion by the north” was used by U.S. imperialism to justify its increasing mobilization of troops and preparations for war. Continued at the blog
US Navy steps up pressure on China to bring North Korea to the negotiating table
[Commander-in-Chief Obama's decision to send the USS George Washington and supporting warships to the North China Sea is a full-court military press aimed at intimidating North Korea and putting greater pressure on China to bring North Korea back to the 6 country talks that have been suspended for months. North Korea's willingness to strike back at military provocations by South Korea (such as South Korea's continual military exercises along the border), and its willingness to expend enormous economic resources on its military and nuclear program are not simply "defensive." The North Korean government hopes to use the threat of its powerful military to South Korea to extract substantial economic aid and investments (such as the South Korean export zones that already exist in the North) from South Korea and the US in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program. It remains to be seen how successful tthe US political/military strategy will be.--Frontlines ed.]
Blackmail on Nepal by US Agency for International Development
Nepal Could Lose Out on Foreign Aid Due to Political ImpasseAmerica’s Failed War of Attrition in Afghanistan
At the summit, President Barack Obama said that 2011 will begin “a transition to full Afghan lead” in security operations, while the Taliban declared: “In the past nine years, the invaders could not establish any system of governance in Kabul and they will never be able to do so in future.”
India: Libraries discovered to be instruments of revolution
Somalia: African Union 2, civilians 0
The African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has admitted its troops opened fire on a group of civilians in the capital Mogadishu, killing two and injuring seven.According to a statement released late Tuesday, an AMISOM convoy leaving the airport ”accidentally” opened fire on a group of civilians near a United Nations compound. “We are not certain whether the soldiers were responding to a perceived threat to their own safety,” Force Commander Major General Nathan Mugisha said in the statement.
“However, all the soldiers involved have been … taken into a military custody while a full inquiry is launched into the precise circumstances that took place.” “AMISOM takes its responsibility for the safety of civilians in Mogadishu very seriously, and apologises for the fatalities that have occurred today,” he added. The statement was a rare acknowledgment that AU fire had killed civilians.
This isn’t just a student protest. It’s a children’s crusade
Those too young to vote, yet with their futures at stake, have organically come together to be heard
Portuguese workers walk out to protest austerity measures
Europe’s deepening debt crisis sparks a day of protests, strikes and clashes with police
Q+A-Why are U.S.-S.Korea drills so sensitive?
The U.S. and South Korean militaries are vastly better equipped than the North's, and experts say they would quickly win any war. The North's force of over a million troops easily outnumbers the U.S.-South Korean contingent, but its equipment is old and it barely has enough fuel to fly its fighter jets. The exercises also serve to underline the gap in technology.
Pyongyang regards military exercises by South Korea and the United States with genuine unease, fearing the manoeuvres could be a smokescreen for a real attack.The North customarily responds to such exercises with bellicose remarks. In July, it threatened 'a sacred war' if the allies went ahead with joint exercises. On Thursday, it said it 'will wage second and even third rounds of attacks without any hesitation if warmongers in South Korea make reckless military provocations again'.
The North says the exercises also violate its sovereignty and pose a major danger for the security of the region.
China has in the past given two reasons for its opposition to the drills. Firstly, it says they add to tensions in the region, which have been running high since the sinking of the Cheonan. Tuesday's shelling of a remote island village raised tension levels another notch. Secondly, China says the exercises threaten its own security, happening too close to home shores for comfort.
Beijing has also been irked by U.S. Navy ships engaging in surveillance in waters close to its coast.
U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK), Their Realignment and the Damage Caused by Them PDF
Ko You Kyong
Bureau Chief, The Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by US Troops in Korea
In 2004, South Korea and the United States of America concluded agreements on the
redeployment of U.S. bases in South Korea1 that mainly consisted of relocating the US Second
Infantry Division and the Yongsan Base deployed near Kyongi demilitarized zone (DMZ) to
Pyeongtaek.
In virtue of these agreements, the current number of over 37,000 US troops stationed in ROK will
be reduced to about 28,0002 and a total of 17,081ha of land used by the USFK including 4,026ha
for bases and 13,054ha for training will be returned to South Korea in exchange for 1,197ha of
land in Pyeongtaek area provided to the USFK.
The number of US bases and troops are reduced, but the USFK’s capabilities will be enhanced.
In fact, the USFK have invested 11 billions dollars to increase their functions in weaponry and,
through a reorganization of their troops implemented in accordance with Pentagon’s plan for a
reform of armed forces, they have transformed themselves into a system capable of rapidly
projecting troops into areas of war.
The core of the USFK realignment is the change in their nature: i.e. a transformation from fixed
forces stationed on Korean Peninsula to mobile forces. It means also their transformation into
regional forces in North-East Asia that goes beyond the dimension of defense of Korean Peninsula
and embraces the concept of preemptive strike.The ROK can now be involved in interventions into conflicts regardless of her intention or will.
US, South Korea to hold war games Sunday amid tension
The four-day joint exercise will start Sunday in the Yellow Sea, and involve a naval strike group spearheaded by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington.The carrier, with 75 warplanes and a crew of more than 6,000, left a naval base south of Tokyo Wednesday.
'War Games' They might have some unscheduled Live Fire Exercises at this rate.
Poll: Americans Oppose Going to War Over Korea
Obama Administration officials made a big show of pledging to commit American soldiers to a potential resumption of the Korean War, and the head of the US Air Force even offered to “pitch in” if South Korea started launching bombing raids against the North. But a new Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll showed a large majority of Americans are averse to getting involved in a new Korean War. The poll also showed massive opposition to the US taking it upon themselves to “punish” North Korea for affronts against the South.The poll also showed growing opposition among voters to the planned “permanent” bases in Afghanistan and the possibility of such bases in Iraq, suggesting the era of knee-jerk support for America’s ever-growing collection of overseas bases is coming to an end.<
Study finds high pollution levels at most U.S. bases in S. Korea
Link - Web of Trust Warning on PDF - a Veterans Info site ! Privacy only
By Franklin Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, February 11, 2006
“Return of U.S. bases is the subject of negotiations between [South
Korea] and U.S. officials,” said David Oten, a USFK spokesman in Seoul.
“It would be inappropriate for us to comment on the specific issues
being discussed while these negotiations are ongoing.”
The ministry’s report, according to Hankyoreh, said most of the U.S.
installations are seriously contaminated by leakage of oil and heavy
metals. It said levels of oil and lead were four times those permitted
by South Korean environmental standards, the newspaper reported.
When South Korean environmental officials did soil tests, 14 of 15 U.S.
installations showed levels of metal pollutants that were an average of
four times the permissible level.
The officials were part of a South Korean-U.S. environmental survey
team, USFK said.
Among installations tested were camps Page, Garry Owen, Stanton,
Grieves, Howze, Giant, Edwards, and three ranges, Texas, Oklahoma, and
North Carolina, the report said. The Army since has vacated the camps
for eventual return to South Korea. The three ranges continue
operating, a 2nd Infantry Division spokesman said.
According to the newspaper, the survey showed that soil contamination
levels at Camp Page in Chuncheon stood at more than 100 times above the
permissible level. Samples from all eight installations tested for
ground water pollution revealed toxins that exceeded permissible
levels, the newspaper reported.
In 2005, ministry officials told the National Assembly’s Environment and
Labor committee that 14 of 15 U.S. installations tested for soil or
water pollution needed some measure of environmental clean-up.
“Camp Page in the city of Chuncheon tops the list for oil leakage
pollution among those bases,” Kang Sung-min, chief aide to Korean
National Assemblyman Kim Hyung-ju, told Stars and Stripes on Thursday.
The ministry’s soil tests were made in connection with the eventual
hand-over of many U.S. military installations to the South Korean
government.
The Worldwide control of humanity's economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultmately consist in a process of global subordination.
Where is the Threat?
The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined "the State of the World" by focussing on so-called "level of threats" which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.
Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualised the greatest fraud in US history, namely "the Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the "free market" has unfolded.
Where is the Threat?
The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined "the State of the World" by focussing on so-called "level of threats" which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.
Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualised the greatest fraud in US history, namely "the Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the "free market" has unfolded.
Major elements of the conquest and world domination strategy by the US refer to:
1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,
2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy). The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.
Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases
The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.
1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,
2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy). The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.
Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases
The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.
Known and documented from information in the public domaine including Annual Reports of the US Congress, we have a fairly good understanding of the strucuture of US military expenditure, the network of US military bases and the shape of this US military-strategic configuration in different regions of the World.
The objective of this article is to build a summary profile of the World network of military bases, which are under the jurisdiction and/or control of the US. The spatial distribution of these military bases will be examined together with an analysis of the multibillion dollar annual cost of their activities.
In a second section of this article, Worldwide popular resistance movements directed against US military bases and their various projects will be outlined. In a further article we plan to analyze the military networks of other major nuclear superpowers including the United Kingdom, France and Russia.
In a second section of this article, Worldwide popular resistance movements directed against US military bases and their various projects will be outlined. In a further article we plan to analyze the military networks of other major nuclear superpowers including the United Kingdom, France and Russia.
I. The Military Bases
Military bases are conceived for training purposes, preparation and stockage of military equipment, used by national armies throughout the World. They are not very well known in view of the fact that they are not open to the public at large. Even though they take on different shapes, according to the military function for which they were established; they can broadly be classified under four main categories :
a) Air Force Bases (see photos 1 and 2);
b) Army or Land Bases;
c) Navy Bases and
d) Communication and Spy Bases.
Military bases are conceived for training purposes, preparation and stockage of military equipment, used by national armies throughout the World. They are not very well known in view of the fact that they are not open to the public at large. Even though they take on different shapes, according to the military function for which they were established; they can broadly be classified under four main categories :
a) Air Force Bases (see photos 1 and 2);
b) Army or Land Bases;
c) Navy Bases and
d) Communication and Spy Bases.
The network of US military bases is strategic, located in prcximity of traditional strategic resources including nonrenewable sources of energy. This military presence has brought about political opposition and resistance from progressive movements and antiwar activists.
Demonstrations directed against US military presence has developed in Spain, Ecuador, Italy, Paraguay, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and in many other countries. Moreover, other long-termer resistance movements directed against US military presence have continued in South Korea, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, Cuba, Europe, Japan and other locations.
Demonstrations directed against US military presence has developed in Spain, Ecuador, Italy, Paraguay, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and in many other countries. Moreover, other long-termer resistance movements directed against US military presence have continued in South Korea, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, Cuba, Europe, Japan and other locations.
The Worldwide resistance to US foreign military bases has grown during the last few years. We are dealing with an International Network for the Abolition of US Military Bases.
The NO BASES Network organizes educational campaigns to sensitize public opinion. It also works to rehabilitate abandoned military sites, as in the case of Western Europe.
Survey: Americans question role in Korean peninsula
Americans are growing weary of the country's many security commitments overseas and increasingly feel that U.S. allies need to do a better job of taking care of themselves. And while more support a long-term military presence in South Korea than in Afghanistan or Iraq, most Americans feel U.S. forces should not get involved in conflict between South and North Korea.
( That's as stupid as it gets. Put armed people in place globally to control matters - and complain and bitch about the fact it is 'unappreciated'. Who says 'Americans' don't understand British understatement ? )
US Military Facilities: Korea
South Korea pays the price for big US bases
The Land Partnership Plan of 2002, agreed by ROK and the USA, has re-organised forces into fewer but bigger bases and training areas. Bases previous clustered on the Demarcation Line have been closed, but the expansion of bases further south increases the capacity to send highly trained troops to other Asian 'theatres'. Finally, ground combat duties have been transferred to the ROK army, thereby reducing the likely numbers of US casualties. In 2003 the US Second Infantry Division was moved south from Yongsan to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek while under the 2004 Relocation of US Bases Agreement, the ROK government undertook to forcibly evict farmers (which it did in 2005-06).
Enlargement of the Training Areas and Ranges and Intensified Usages – Damages Spread
1) Training Areas
US bases in the northern part of Gyeonggi-do are being vacated but the USFK-only training area and ranges are being expanded - at Rodriguez Complex Range, Dagma North Training Area and Story Range troops train for Iraqi and Afghanistan. Various safety issues have emerged from the constant military training and exercises, and nearby villagers complain of increased noise levels and ground vibration.Villagers near the now-closed Firing Range in Maehyang-ri demand compensation for the damage suffered. An August 2008 mental health report found a much higher suicide rate than the national average and also higher incidence of psychological disorders. Although neither government has paid any attention to the mental health of civilians residing near training grounds, such consequences are likely to continue long after the firing range or training grounds have been closed.
The joint use of training grounds has required the expansion of the ROK training areas for USFK use - Mugun-ri Training Area (the Twin Bridges Training Area) doubling in size. Since October 1997, this training area has been used by the USFK 13 weeks out of the year (91 days).
Noise pollution has increased drastically as the USAF brings squadrons to Kunsan from elsewhere for intensive exercises: in 2007 from Hollomon, New Mexico, and Aviano, Italy; in 2008 from Shaw, South Carolina. The June 2008 'Max Thunder' joint USAF-ROK exercise in June 2008 involved forces based at Kunsan, Okinawa, Guam and Idaho.
It is hard to prove scientifically a causal connection between aircraft noise in the Kunsan area and various human health problems or the sudden death of livestock. However, the evidence is accumulating.
In 2007, 23 bases were returned to the ROK under the relocation agreement - but without undergoing thorough decontamination. The US ignores ROK regulations, applying its standards of Known, Imminent and Substantial Endangerment to human health. In some places contamination levels are 100 times above the limit set by Korean law.
The SOFA between the US and the ROK has been an unequal agreement with grave costs to the ROK; however, due to the consistent efforts and campaigns of civic organisations in the ROK, certain aspects of the SOFA have been altered. The amended SOFA now contains a clause regarding environmental damage caused by military usage, requiring the USFK to clean up contamination before handing over bases that are being shut down.
Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases
South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.
A group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.
“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.
Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases – America the shameless
In some sense, the women’s allegations are not surprising. It has been clear for decades that South Korea and the United States military tolerated prostitution near bases, even though selling sex is illegal in South Korea. Bars and brothels have long lined the streets of the neighborhoods surrounding American bases in South Korea, as is the case in the areas around military bases around the world.
Jeon, 71, who agreed to talk only if she was identified by just her surname, said she was an 18-year-old war orphan in 1956 when hunger drove her to Dongduchon, a camp town near the border with North Korea. She had a son in the 1960s, but she became convinced that he would have a better future in the United States and gave him up for adoption when he was 13.About 10 years ago, her son, now an American soldier, returned to visit. She told him to forget her.
“I failed as a mother,” said Ms. Jeon, who lives on welfare checks and the little cash she earns selling items she picks from other people’s trash. “I have no right to depend on him now.”
“The more I think about my life, the more I think women like me were the biggest sacrifice for my country’s alliance with the Americans,” she said. “Looking back, I think my body was not mine, but the government’s and the U.S. military’s.”
U.S. bases in S. Korea on high alert
U.S. military bases in South Korea have been put on high alert for the second time in three years as a precaution after North Korea announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing from the 1953 armistice that ended the fighting in the Korean War.
The Broken Rifle
War Resisters International
European Network Against Militarism - Against NATO and War
- Editorial
- Afghanistan: the crucial question for NATO
- Come to Lisbon. Protest against the NATO summit in Portugal
- NATO’s short and crisp Strategic Concept
- War tax resistance: Inland Revenue threatens WRI
- Women-against-NATO - Making a Feminist Case
- Is war necessary to obtain justice?
- No to War – No to NATO
- NO to the new NATO strategy! Active for Global Peace, Disarmament and the End of NATO
- Against the war in Afghanistan – and/or against NATO?
- War starts here – about Northern Sweden as a training ground for war
- WRI Council 2011 in Luleå, Sweden
- A European Antimilitarist Network
- The Broken Rifle
Published on Thursday, January 15, 2004 by TomDispatch.com |
by Chalmers Johnson ( Chalmers Johnson died a few days ago. Tom Engelhardt wrote a piece citing him as a source of wisdom to be missed ) As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize -- or do not want to recognize -- that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire -- an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order. |
Counterpoint
Late in the war Orwell wrote:
Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries….
…Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough…
…All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty….
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