End the Korean War

“With the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean war approaching, the failure to conclude a formal peace treaty is a major entry in the Encyclopedia of Ridiculous Facts. All these years later we find ourselves upholding, memorializing, and mimicking the crazed behavior of Syngman Rhee, the South Korean dictator who did his best to torpedo the signing of an armistice. As the prospects for a ceasefire brightened, Rhee repeatedly defied the US, and the UN, threatening to withdraw his troops from UN command and go on fighting. Massive bribery and a mutual defense pact that ensures South Korea’s status as a US protectorate-in-perpetuity succeeded in changing his mind, but not before several thousands more had been killed in a war that ground up four million human lives. On account of Rhee’s stubbornness, and then on account of our own, the Korean peninsula has been enveloped in a time warp: the cold war ended in 1989, but in the land known as the Hermit Kingdom time has stood still.” (01/13/10)