Less than 1 min.Read

The American Nonfiction Writer

July 10, 2020

Published in Mainichi Shimbun
(Japan) on 25 June 2020
by (link to original link to original)

Translated from by Eric Stimson. Edited by Jamye Sharp.

The American nonfiction writer David Halberstam quotes the American soldiers’ slogan “die for a tie” in his posthumous work on the Korean War. It can be said about any of the soldiers that participated in that war. In any war, the deaths of civilians and soldiers are tragic and senseless. But at the end of the Korean War, after three years of destruction said to have included 4 million casualties, a truce left the front line almost the same as it was before the war. A new order, of course, could only be formed with the war’s end.

North Korea’s then-leader, Kim Il Sung, expressed his adventurous ambition to the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin before his attack on the South, “I want to try to touch the South with the tip of my bayonet.” Today marks 70 years since the surprise attack that started the war – a plan to take over the whole country in three weeks.

At the North Korean-United States and North-South summits several years ago, attention was drawn to whether a declaration to end the war, still in a state of truce, would be signed. But instead, the prospect of denuclearization in the North receded and now we welcome the war’s 70th anniversary in a tense situation brought on by the North’s military provocations against the South.

When the North blew up its liaison office, it also announced that it would take military action like deploying troops to Kaesong and Mount Kumgang. However, it refrained from following through on these threats. Is this a signal to the South, using both its war and peace gestures as has been done before? It is an upheaval 70 years in the making.

“A war … orphaned by history.” ("The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" by David Halberstam) Halberstam’s words only represented the American view of the Korean War. But 70 years since the war began, doesn’t it represent the disappointment with the casualties of a war that produced no peace?

米ノンフィクション作家、ハルバースタムは朝鮮戦争を描いた遺作で、米兵の言葉「ダイ・フォー・ア・タイ」を引いている。「引き分けのための死」。それは朝鮮戦争のすべての関係国軍民についてもいえよう▲どんな戦争でも民衆や兵士個々の死は悲惨で理不尽（りふじん）だ。さらにこの戦争は４００万といわれる犠牲者を出す３年間の戦禍の末に、戦前とほぼ変わらぬ境界で休戦となる。新たな秩序形成はもちろん、終結すらできなかった戦争だった▲「銃剣の先で南に触れてみたい」。当時の北朝鮮の指導者、金日成（キムイルソン）が南への侵攻を前にソ連のスターリンにもらしていた冒険的野心である。３週間で全土を制圧するもくろみだったが、きょうでその奇襲による開戦から７０年がたった▲先年の米朝や南北の首脳会談では、休戦状態にある戦争の終結宣言がなされるのかと注目された。だが、その後は北の非核化の見通しはむしろ遠のき、逆に北による韓国への軍事挑発の緊張状態の中で開戦７０年を迎えることになった▲先の連絡事務所爆破の折は、開城（ケソン）や金剛山（クムガンサン）への軍展開などの軍事行動をとると表明した北である。ここにきてそれを保留したのは、例によって和戦両様の顔を使い分けての韓国へのシグナルか。７０年間の年季の入った揺さぶりである▲「歴史から見捨てられた戦争」。ハルバースタムの言葉は、もっぱら米国の視点での朝鮮戦争観だった。だが開戦から７０年の歳月を経ても平和を生み出せなかった戦争の犠牲者の不幸も表してはいまいか。

This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link .