South Korea
Kang Kyu-hyung
Chosun Ilbo
Koreans are scapegoating Douglas MacArthur, said Kang Kyu-hyung in Seouls Chosun Ilbo. Most of us were raised to revere the American general. We were taught that he saved our country, first by defeating Japan in the Pacific War, then with his strategic genius in the Korean War. But many now say that this admiration is unjustified. When a few lawmakers proposed that Incheon International Airport be renamed MacArthur Airport, protesters demonstrated in an Incheon park. They tried to knock down the parks MacArthur statue by force, calling him a warmonger and saying that he was to blame for the partition of the Koreas as well as for massacres of civilians. None of that is true. Such revisionism is just another facet of the anti-Americanism that is currently in fashion. Todays conventional wisdom holds that Korea would be united today if only the U.S. hadnt intervened in the war. The argument is emotional, not rational. Our anti-Americanism is juvenile. Its the kind of hatred that arises from unrequited love.
