But if you're not going to defend it, then you're implicity accepting that the US did indeed treat the Koreans (South even more than the North?) with at least equal savagery as Hitler and Stalin treated Poland in WW2.
During hostilities? Sure, I can accept that. Post hostilities? Nah. The US didn't have an Auswitz in Korea.
Here's wikipedia: You disagree with it much? Civilian deaths and massacres Further information: Bodo League massacre, Seoul National University Hospital Massacre, No Gun Ri Massacre, Sinchon Massacre, Ganghwa massacre, Sancheong-Hamyang massacre and Geochang massacre South Korean soldiers walk among the bodies of political prisoners executed near Daejon, July 1950 Civilians killed by North Korean forces near Yongsan, August 1950
There were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean war committed by both the North and South Koreans. Many of them started on the first days of the war. South Korean President Syngman Rhee ordered the Bodo League massacre on 28 June,[116][320][321] beginning numerous killings of more than 100,000 suspected leftist sympathizers and their families by South Korean officials and right-wing groups.[322][323] During the massacre, the British protested to their allies and saved some citizens.[322][323]
In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the NPA retreat.[28]
R. J. Rummel estimated that the North Korean Army executed at least 500,000 civilians during the Korean War, with many dying in North Korea's drive to conscript South Koreans to contribute to their war effort.[28] When the North Koreans retreated north in September 1950, they abducted tens of thousands of South Korean men. The reasons are not clear, but many of the victims had skills,[clarification needed] or had been arrested as right-wing activists.[324]
In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the UN forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees. These soldiers disguised as refugees would approach UN forces asking for food and help, then open fire and attack. U.S. troops acted under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" policy against any civilian refugee approaching U.S. battlefield positions,[325] a policy that led U.S. soldiers to kill an estimated 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950) in central Korea because they believed some of the refugees to be North Korean soldiers in disguise.[326] The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission defended this policy as a "military necessity".[327]
Beginning in 2005, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has investigated numerous atrocities committed by the Japanese colonial government, North Korean military, U.S. military, and the authoritarian South Korean government. It has investigated atrocities before, during and after the Korean War.[328]
The Commission has verified over 14,000 civilians were killed in the Jeju Uprising (1948–49) that involved South Korean military and paramilitary units against pro-North Korean guerrillas. Although most of the fighting had subsided by 1949, fighting continued until 1950. The Commission estimates 86% of the civilians were killed by South Korean forces. The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.[73] Prisoners of war See also: Korean POWs detained in North Korea, Hill 303 massacre and List of American and British defectors in the Korean War A U.S. Marine guards North Korean prisoners of war aboard an American warship in 1951.
During the first days of the war North Korean soldiers committed the Seoul National University Hospital Massacre.[329]
The United States reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.[330][331]
The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon; these massacres were discovered afterwards by the UN forces. Later, a U.S. Congress war crimes investigation, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, reported that "two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes".[332][333][334]
Although the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their North Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese-run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of all U.S. POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to logistical difficulties. The UN POWs pointed out that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border, and that the Chinese withheld food to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrination programs.[335] According to the reports of China, over a thousand U.S. POWs died by the end of June 1951, while only a dozen British POWs died, and all Turkish POW survived.[336] The reason was, according to Hastings, that while the British POWs could help each other, the Americans thought sorghum, corn, and pickle, which were also the main food for Chinese soldiers, were livestock feed, and many refused to eat, partially because of their depression, called as "give-upitise" by British POWs. U.S. POWs also threw sick comrades out of their room to freezing outside. Turkish POWs felt most comfortable, as some of them even thought the food was better than what they ate at home.[337] Two men without shirts on sit surrounded by soldiers Two Hill 303 survivors after being rescued by American units, 17 August 1950.
Chinese claimed that UN soldiers helped anti-Communism POWs to torture Chinese POWs, such as to put anti-Communism tattoos on their body by force, so that they would have to refuse to be repatriated back to the north. They even killed Communist POWs in public, to frighten the others.[338]
The unpreparedness of U.S. POWs to resist heavy communist indoctrination during the Korean War led to the Code of the United States Fighting Force which governs how U.S. military personnel in combat should act when they must "evade capture, resist while a prisoner or escape from the enemy".[339][340]
North Korea may have detained up to 50,000 South Korean POWs after the ceasefire.[28][341]:141 Over 88,000 South Korean soldiers were missing and the Communists' themselves had claimed that they had captured 70,000 South Koreans.[341]:142 However, when ceasefire negotiations began in 1951, the Communists reported that they held only 8,000 South Koreans.[342] The UN Command protested the discrepancies and alleged that the Communists were forcing South Korean POWs to join the KPA.[343]
The Communist side denied such allegations. They claimed that their POW rosters were small because many POWs were killed in UN air raids and that they had released ROK soldiers at the front. They insisted that only volunteers were allowed to serve in the KPA.[344][341]:143 By early 1952, UN negotiators gave up trying to get back the missing South Koreans. [345] The POW exchange proceeded without access to South Korean POWs not on the Communist rosters.[346]
North Korea continued to claim that any South Korean POW who stayed in the North did so voluntarily. However, since 1994, South Korean POWs have been escaping North Korea on their own after decades of captivity.[347][348] As of 2010, the South Korean Ministry of Unification reported that 79 ROK POWs had escaped the North. The South Korean government estimates 500 South Korean POWs continue to be detained in North Korea.[349]
The escaped POWs have testified about their treatment and written memoirs about their lives in North Korea.[350] They report that they were not told about the POW exchange procedures, and were assigned to work in mines in the remote northeastern regions near the Chinese and Russian border.[350]:31 Declassified Soviet Foreign Ministry documents corroborate such testimony.[351]
In 1997, the Geoje POW Camp in South Korea was turned into a memorial.