F F 38th parallel

T T

F F On and off fighting

Stalemates happened

T T

F F General Douglas
MacArthur

T T

F F Wanting to bomb China and

talking smack about
President Truman

T T
When North Korean forces invaded the South in a surprise attack on
June 25, 1950.

A U.N. council meeting, coincidentally lacking a Soviet voice due to a

boycott by the Russians, authorized a military action by way of a
US-based Peacekeeping group.

After nearly being wiped out, pushing to the top of the peninsula, being nearly
wiped out again by the Chinese, and finally reaching a stable point, MacArthur
had larger ambitions. He wanted full-scale bombing and invasion of China,
and when he spoke out against U.S. policy, he was recalled.

With an armistice dividing the country into two halves. The North backed
by Russia and China, and the South backed by the West.

The war was by all means not a loss, yet the failure to eradicate
Communism from the country would brand Truman as weak.
Ironically, the war was the main reason the U.S. military was
improved and strengthened, as it was given the pretext to do so.
 Western warmongers invaded
the homeland of Korea without
cause of justification; war for
war’s sake.
The much larger North Korean
force approached the
disorganized and chaotic
South under false pretexts,
pretending to be for peace
while preparing for war.

I put more stock into textbook B, because it has actual statistics to back up
some of its claims. Textbook A also uses lots of words designed to appeal
to the audience’s emotions, not their heads, which makes it unreliable.
Both documents seem at least somewhat biased, however.

Third party primary/secondary sources from groups who didn’t have

something at stake, as that anger or greed tends to leak into writing and
make it faulty. A perspective from the US Ambassador to South Korea
would perhaps be less biased, for instance.
No, we should not have invaded China. Invading mainland China would be
a blunder, given that war with Russia would become all but inevitable.
Furthermore, China was not any more guilty than the US was in the
Korean conflict. To say that they deserved bombing and invasion would
be no more logical than to say as much of the United States. MacArthur
wanted war, wanted to fight, and he was determined to reach for it.
Thankfully, he failed.