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To help make peace in Korea, the U.S. should follow South Korea's lead and apologize for its role in the devastating Jeju massacre.

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“U.S. engaged in shameful tactics employing many kinds of weapons whose use was banned by international law” by the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and later the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention."

There are more parallels between an unfinished 1950s war in Northeast Asia and an ongoing 16-year-old war in the crossroads between Central and South Asia than meet the eye. History has shown there is no military solution to either conflict, yet the Trump Administration has chosen bluster over diplomacy. The current US/South Korea military exercises, “a nuclear war game for the first time,” and more bombs for Afghanistan are just more steps along the path of endless war.

The Korean War was central to the militarization of our society and to the creation a national security state. It was an essential element in fostering racism, sexism and in the cutting of social programs - creating growing inequality. Today, the threat of a cataclysmic war between Washington and North Korea cannot be discounted. It is vital for the US public to know that North Korea has been asking for a peace treaty with Washington and Seoul for sixty-four years.

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Gloria Steinem was one of 30 women activists, including Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire and Leymah Gbowee, who crossed the demilitarized zone between the North and South on Sunday. Protesters say their campaign was naive. From May 19 to 25, a delegation of 30 women from 15 countries around the world will meet and walk with Korean women, north and south, to call for an end to the Korean War.

The historic resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba could be (and should be) a precedent for a new approach to North Korea - a country three times larger than Cuba, perhaps more strategically sensitive than the latter and involving a nuclear potential that demands serious diplomacy.