We Are Victims of U.S. Terrorism

A representative slogan used in South Korea's anti-American and anti-war activist circles, it is a political slogan that defines U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. foreign policy as 'terrorism'.

We Are Victims of U.S. Terrorism

Overview

"We Are Victims of U.S. Terrorism" is a representative political slogan used since the 2000s in South Korea's anti-American, anti-war, and peace movement circles. It is a phrase that condenses the claim that U.S. foreign military policy and the presence of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) should be defined in the context of "state terrorism," and that the Korean people are positioned as its victims. Rather than an official platform of a particular organization, this slogan emerged at rallies and protests, symbolically showing the conflict between perceptions of the United States and security discourse in South Korean society.

Main Content

Nature and Background of the Expression

This phrase is a slogan that positions "we (the Korean people)" as the subject, "the United States" as the perpetrator, "terror" as the nature of the act, and "victims" as the resulting status. In other words, it has a narrative structure that equates U.S. military intervention, the stationing of U.S. Forces Korea, the wartime operational control issue, and large-scale military exercises with "acts of terrorism," and emphasizes the harm to Koreans caused by them. Grammatically, it is an assertive declarative in the form of a noun phrase, designed to combine emotional appeal with the rhythm of a chant.

Context of Emergence

The 2002 deaths of middle school girls caused by a U.S. military armored vehicle (the so-called Mi-seon and Hyo-sun case; 미선·효순 사건), the subsequent anti-American protests, the 2003 movement against the dispatch of troops to Iraq, and the 2008 candlelight protests provided opportunities for this slogan to spread widely. Afterwards, similar expressions reappeared around every acute issue, such as opposition to ROK-U.S. joint military exercises, opposition to the deployment of THAAD, and the relocation and return of U.S. Forces Korea bases.

Users and Spread

It was mainly used at rallies by university activist circles, progressive civic organizations, peace and reunification movement groups, and some labor and social organizations. It spread through chants at offline rallies and printed materials such as banners, leaflets, and wall posters, and after the spread of the internet, it was reproduced through communities, online cafes, and social media.

Controversy and Criticism

The debate surrounding this expression is sharp. Supporters argue for the legitimacy of defining Koreans as "victims" on the grounds that U.S. military intervention actually caused civilian harm. Critics, on the other hand, point out that U.S. Forces Korea has contributed to South Korea's security and that the ROK-U.S. alliance has provided economic and diplomatic benefits, and rebut that defining an allied country as "terrorists" is a distortion of facts and anti-American agitation. In particular, because the term "terror" is a concept whose definition is contested in international law and academia, there are many criticisms that applying it to an allied country is itself political rhetoric.

Related Incidents

Mi-seon and Hyo-sun case (2002) and anti-American candlelight protests
Movement against the dispatch of troops to Iraq (2003–2004)
Movement against THAAD deployment (2016–2017)
Protests against ROK-U.S. joint military exercises and the issue of base return

Recent Trends

As of 2024–2025, this slogan has not spread as widely among the public as in the past, but it is reappearing in online content by progressive and peace movement circles amid trends such as the strengthening of South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation, discussions of extended deterrence, and the expansion of combined exercises in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations. At the same time, analyses that the appeal of traditional anti-American slogans has weakened due to generational change are observed, along with a tendency to reorganize them into an "anti-war and anti-imperialist" frame in combination with international conflict issues such as the Palestinian and Gaza situation. On social media and short-form platforms, it is increasingly circulated in the form of transformed memes rather than the original slogan.

Meanwhile, academia analyzes this slogan as a case where post-Cold War anti-American discourse and identity politics in South Korean society intersect, and treats it as a text showing the point of conflict between security/alliance discourse and human rights/peace discourse.