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What were you doing in history class the day your teacher covered the Korean War and why should we care that North Korea told its military to prepare for war against South Korea this week? Do you need your coffee before you answer that question? You're not alone.
When I heard Lisa Ling's sister Laura with another journalist, Euna Lee, had been imprisoned in North Korea last year, I thought it was political showmanship with shades of paranoia keeping them there. I missed the recent Oprah show about their captivity and the sisters' new book (Lee has a book also), but I was happy they were released. What a harrowing tale!
Furthermore, news of North Korea rattling its nuclear sabers--talk of testing and its kicking out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors last year--concerns me. I grew up during the Cold War with movies of the week about nuclear war and winter. While I hear the U.S. and Russia want to disarm, I also hear smaller countries scream foul, not so fast. Little nations want nuclear bats too.
North Korea's nuclear weapons haven't been discussed much in the latest stories about potential war, but it was only last June that the communist nation, citing U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea, declared things could go nuclear nasty, reports the U.K. Guardian.
Today the U.N., while not directly referencing the war threat, according to reports I've seen, said that North Korea exports nuclear missiles. The website Free Korea comments, "Axis, Schmaxis" at that news.
The sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, on March 26, which killed 46 sailors, set off our current potential nightmare in Asia. The U.N. investigation concludes that North Korea hit the ship. The small nation protests innocence and calls South Korean leaders "traitors." It further charges that the U.S. is behind the tension.
When North Korea is in the hot seat, eyes look toward China. That super power says it will not support the culprits and will stand by U.N. findings.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said May 25, the "international community has a duty to respond," and that the Chinese understand that the Cheonan incident is a serious matter. She also said that the U.S. looks forward to working with China.
And so, here we are. North Korea's saying saddle up and South Korea's nervously responding, "Bring it."
CNN reports, "North Korea warns it will meet war with 'all-out war'."
Educating a Young One About Korea
I must have been mumbling about history and this latest news of North Korea and South Korea talking war, and my son, 19, must have heard me. He said, "What? We were in a Korean war. Tell me about that."
I said, "Some people called it a conflict. Go ask your grandfather."
He resisted. My father, a World War II veteran, is 89, and sometimes hard to follow, but I insisted. "No, ask him. It'll make him feel good that you did."
About five minutes later, my son returned. "WOW!" he said. "Papa gives good information."
My dad placed America's entry into the Korean War in the context of his own life, telling my son that America entered Korea's "civil war," as he called it, around 1950, just after he'd started working for the U.S. Post Office. He also said he never thought it was a war, but a conflict.
"More of our meddling," he told his grandson. And then he started fussing about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and possible return of the draft.
But back to Korea. While some of us chuckled earlier this year learning that former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin didn't know why there was a North Korea and South Korea, to be fair, Americans in general don't know what they should know about our history and global politics. We Americans tend to be insular, so say some Europeans and the people who hand out the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Also, some people didn't come of age in the 1970s as I did, watching the hit TV show M*A*S*H, starring Alan Alda. The show was set in the Korean War but ran longer than the war itself. I loved M*A*S*H, but it didn't teach me the reasons for our involvement with Korea in any detail. It was a
