Civilian Deaths in War

Re your article about the controversy over the U.S. Army’s killing of civilians in the Korean War (“U.S. Won’t Apologize for No Gun Ri, Officials Say,” Dec. 22): The United States does not want to set a precedent that can lead to many claims for compensation arising from deaths during wartime.

Our society still suffers under the illusion that there are perfect solutions to problems, solutions enabled through sufficient training and advanced equipment. This can be said for “surgical strikes” in Vietnam, peacekeeping in the Balkans, even gang abatement in the Rampart Division of the LAPD. We fail to realize that there are situations beyond our human capacity to handle in a civilized manner. Our failure to realize this keeps leading to extreme reactions, guilt, recrimination and, at times, compensation.

With regard to No Gun Ri, people should be compensated for war deaths as a humanitarian gesture, not because of guilt for an extreme reaction to an atypical situation. If “compensation” is a bad word, then an endowment can be set up for a war-crimes prevention institute in Korea, the job of which would be to sound alarm bells before an atypical situation leads to an uncivilized reaction anywhere in the world.

VAN AJEMIAN

Los Angeles