WHY NORTH KOREA HATES THE UNITED STATES | US bombs "killed 20 percent of the population".
The two superpowers victorious in World War II once fought shoulder to shoulder, but soon became rivals based on opposing ideologies.
The brutality of the Korean War has been largely ignored in US history, but the conflict has long shaped Washington's troubled political relationship with Korea, or the lack of it. While US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threaten to start a new battle in the region, the scars of the past seem to resonate more powerfully on the Korean Peninsula than in the West.
During the three-year war, which both sides accuse of provoking, the United States threw 635,000 tons of explosives into North Korea, including 32,557 tons of napalm, an incendiary liquid capable of devastating wooded areas and causing serious burns in North Korea. the human skin. In an interview conducted in 1984, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, director of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, said US bombs "killed 20 percent of the population" and "threw themselves into everything they to move in North Korea."
These acts have largely been overlooked in the collective memory of the United States, and have contributed profoundly to Pyongyang's contempt for the United States, especially its continued military presence on the Korean Peninsula.
"Most Americans are completely unaware that we have destroyed more cities in North Korea than in Japan or Germany during World War II.
... All North Koreans know this, for they are constantly instilled in their minds.
We never heard about it. "
