I posted this in response to the Iranian PressTV video debate Why did North Korea sentence President Trump to death? (18/11/17) I was still downloading the 400Mb MP4 video file to watch it faster off-line, so I still haven't watched it.
However critically we may judge recent actions by North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the vast crimes committed by the United States since September 1945 against all the people of Korea, both in the North and the South.
In a seeming paradox, in September 1945, after the surrender of Japan, the United States military forces, which occupied the south of the country, installed in power a government, largely made up of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese against their own people, that is, against the Korean resistance who had fought against the same common enemy against which the United States had also fought since 7 December 1941. President Roosevelt (FDR), who had led the US in that war had died in April 1945. His successor, Harry S. Human, was much more a glove puppet of those in the military-industrial complex not sympathetic to the war aims of FDR. So, after the end of the war, US military forces acted to suppress those popular resistance forces who had fought against Japan and Nazi Germany in Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Greece, Italy, France and elsewhere.
The repression in South Korea was particularly savage. The popular resistance to that repression extended into what is referred to as the Korean War which began on 25 June 1950. In that war Koreans faced gound forces from the Uited States, France, the UK, Australia and a number of other allies. The United States' Air Foce (USAF) bombarded North Korea so much that it began to run out of targets to find. As perversely attested to by USAF commander General Curtis Le May (aka Dr. Strangelove) not one building higher than one storey was left standing. 25% or possible eve 30% of North Koreans died in that war.
The US refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. Every year, the North Korean military commanders have to take careful precautions should the annual practise invasion (aka 'military execises'), conducted by the South Korean military forces and the US occupation forces, turn into a real attempt by them to achieve what they had previously failed to achieve by 27 July 1953.
Lionel doesn't grasp criminality of threatened war against Korea
Whilst I appreciate some of the information given by Lionel about North Korea and that he truly doesn't want to see war break out, I still find some of this disappoining.
At 4:50 minutes into this video, Lionel claims that the north Koreans "have been girding their loins for war since 1945". Whilst it is true that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) are very well prepared to deal with any threatened aggression by the United States, it is not something they have ever sought. As shown elsewhere in this discussion, the Korean conflict originated in September 1945, when US occupation forces, paradoxically, installed Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese as the government of 'South' Korea, whilst brutally repressing Koreans who had resisted the Japanese. The subsequent war against 'North' Korea in which between 25% and 30% of the population were killed exceeds what even the Nazis inflicted against any one nation.