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"Newman was very naive to discuss his partisan background with the North Koreans. The South Korean partisans were possibly the most hated group of people in the North, except for out-and-out spies and traitors from their own side."
"It seems absurd from a public relations standpoint to arrest an 85-year-old man who came with goodwill. But the North Koreans are still fighting the Korean War and grasp every chance they get to remind Americans that the war has never ended."
Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, Korea specialist

Certainly it would appear that 85-year-old Merrill Newman harboured fond memories of his time with the U.S. military when he was tasked with aiding and abetting the South Koreans in the American-Korean battle against the spread of detestable communism. That he would be considered, in the opinion of the North Korean embittered and hostile military to represent a war criminal is hardly surprising, given its testy relationship with South Korea, the United States and the world in general.

Excluding, needless to say, Iran and China. Mr. Newman, were he to have been interested in travelling to the Islamic Republic of Iran, might very well have risked being arrested for espionage, for spying, for planning some extreme and overt harmful act against the powerful and vengeful state. He might have been incarcerated and quickly given the benefit of capital punishment. Instead, he underwent the humiliation of reading out on a televised address an abject apology for his crimes against North Korea.

Travel to China might have earned him similar treatment. Although relations between China and the United States have been somewhat aloofly cautious, they have at times seemed almost cordial. Until, that is, China declared itself the rightful;y entitled owner of airspace over the South China Sea inclusive of islands in dispute between Japan which claims them, however inhabitable, and China which claims Japan has no rightful claim to them.

Age does not necessarily confer wisdom. And Merrill Newman, at the ripe age of 85, must be a very nice man, confused by what has happened to him, since he hadn't meant to engage in any skulduggery. He was just feeling fairly sentimental, reminiscing in his memory over the great friends he had made among the South Koreans with whom he had taken up common cause as allies of his country against their hissing cousins who were enemies of his countries' political ideology.

"Why did he go to North Korea? The North Koreans still gnash their teeth at the Kuwol unit", mused Park Boo Seo, former member of the Kuwol partisan unit. Still recalled and heartily loathed in Pyongyang while it is heralded with pride in Seoul for the patriotic harm done to the North during the war. After all, Mr. Park was left waiting, floral bouquet in hand, for Mr. Newman to arrive to a reunion with his former Kuwol gang. Thirty former guerrillas were there, awaiting his arrival at Incheon International Airport on October 27, from the North.

Mr. Newman had served as an advisor for Kuwol, one of many similar partisan groups established by the U.S. military during the Korean War. He trained the guerrillas whose exploits were said to have continued in attacks even after the war had ended. He is said to have ordered operations leading to the deaths of many North Korean soldiers and civilians. He was anxious to at long last meet up with his former comrades.

Mr. Newman had signed a book about the unit, in praise of its activities. He had written in it that he was "proud to have served with you". And the book contains a photograph of Mr. Newman that was taken within the last decade or so. The better to identify him with, obviously. He hadn't been involved in day-to-day operations, but oversaw guerrilla actions, giving the fighters advice, without being directly physically involved, the old fighters emphasized.

And now he's an international figure of great notoriety. My goodness. North Korea, in detaining and humiliating the elderly man, will have achieved its purpose. After spanking the United States yet again, it will declare Mr. Newman's mission to apologize to the Dear Leader and his impoverished, miserable people, completed. And he will be free to return to his family in the United States.

Labels: Celebrity, Human Relations, North Korea, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 05, 2013