I provide some background and analysis of the American air campaigns during the Korean War, I present mostly unknown information on American nuclear policies in Korea since 1953, and finally I ruminate on morality in warfare and on American responsibility for the prevalent exterminism of our age. The American air campaigns against North Korea ranged from the widespread use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and finally to the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war. This history is almost unknown even to most historians, let alone to the average citizen, and of course it never entered press analysis of the North Korean nuclear project in the 1990s. Instead, it was assumed that the only nuclear threat involving Korea came from P'yôngyang; indeed, such attitudes appear to be particularly strong in Japan. Given Japan's history as the only victim of nuclear attack, it would seem particularly important for Japanese citizens to understand the extraordinary devastation of North Korea in the early 1950s, and the history of US nuclear strategy in Korea since that time.