The media claim that North Korea is trying to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. Yet the United States, which opposes this strategy, has used or threatened to use such weapons in northeast Asia since the 1940s, when it did drop atomic bombs on Japan.

THE forgotten war – the Korean war of 1950-53 – might better be called the unknown war. What was indelible about it was the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States' air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war. Yet this episode is mostly unknown even to historians, let alone to the average citizen, and it has never been mentioned during the past decade of media analysis of the North Korean nuclear problem.

The singing of Japan's national anthem Kimigayo, an ode to the emperor, and the flying of the Hinomaru flag, both evocative of Japan's colonial era, have become flashpoints of conflict in recent years as the Japanese government presses to reincorporate these controversial emblems in a variety of public events. Nowhere has the conflict been more intense than in the public schools. The struggle by music teacher Sato Miwako to preserve her conscience in the wake of a 1999 national flag and national anthem law offers insight into issues of colonialism, war, and historical memory as well as contemporary nationalism. It also addresses both ethical and constitutional issues. This article appeared in Sekai, November 2003, pp. 38-46. Tanaka Nobumasa is a Japanese journalist.