[A READER'S VIEW]Americans, don't quit Iraq

Lest Iraq become another Vietnam, more and more Americans are speaking out. Recently, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania touched off a heated debate by suggesting American troops withdraw from Iraq as quickly as practical.

Yet, President Bush is adamant about his objectives. In his speech last week at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Bush said, with tears glistening in his eyes, that American troops would not cut and run so long as he is the commander in chief.

Let me present another perspective that may help Americans view the current Iraqi situation from another angle.

Before I became an American, I was a poor South Korean boy who grew up in a rural village toiling in rice paddies and barley fields. Like many Iraqi children today, I know what it`s like to live in poverty, experience hunger, and witness all the horrors of war. I have a helpless feeling that Americans might abandon these Iraqi children, leave Iraq prematurely, and Iraq might follow Korea`s pattern.

Such feeling is spurred by my recollection of some historical facts. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the U.S. military, led by Gen. John Reed Hodge, trained South Korean police and military, just as Americans are doing today in Iraq.

Just as the U.S. military is trying to accomplish in Iraq with an election on Dec. 15, the U.S. military government midwifed the birth of the Republic of Korea in the South in July 1948.

Within two months, the Soviet Union set up the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the North.

Soviet Russia had the North Korean regime tightly organized with a well-trained and well-equipped army. The United States, on the other hand, had kept South Korea disorganized, with its military poorly trained and ill equipped, and a small constabulary for police duties.

At this point, no one knew whether South Korea could stand on its own feet to defend itself against Communist aggression, but Americans packed their bags and left Korea by July 1949. As if to invite a Communist invasion, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Democratic Sen. Tom Connally of Texas and Gen. Douglas MacArthur all declared that America`s "perimeter of defense" in Asia did not include the Korean Peninsula.

Barely a year passed before all hell broke loose. In the early morning hours of June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a well-prepared surprise invasion of the South. As the North Korean troops stormed south, U.S. troops had to rush back to Korea - to battle the Communist invaders in the most adverse conditions imaginable.

In the ensuing three years, the Americans suffered heavy casualties. More than 103,284 Americans were wounded, 5,178 Americans were taken prisoner or reported missing, and more than 33,600 Americans lost their precious young lives. Yet nothing was resolved.

Today, 52 years after the end of the Korean War, more than 33,000 American troops still remain in South Korea and Americans are still harried by North Korea, now armed with nuclear weapons. Another war might erupt at any moment in Korea.

If Iraq were to follow Korea`s pattern, the moment that American troops left, Iraq would be divided into two or three contending parts, a civil war would erupt, and millions would die. American troops would re-enter the Iraq war but nothing would be resolved, and half a century later, more than 33,000 American troops would still be there, holding the line against the evil enemy, with a new war possible at any moment. It is likely that Americans would suffer many times more casualties by re-entering Iraq than they have thus far.

More than 2,100 Americans have lost their lives and 15,500 Americans have been seriously injured in the Iraq war. Though these figures change almost daily, American casualties in Iraq are nowhere near those suffered in Korea. In the long run, Americans will be far better off if the United States stays the course and finishes its mission - to establish a strong, democratic Iraq, a bulwark in the Middle East against terrorists and insurgents. It would be tragic if the United States abandoned Iraq, as it did Korea in 1949.

Kwon Tai-hyung, Ph. D, is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama. - Ed.

By Kwon Tai-hyung