Posted on 08/29/2007 6:02:53 PM PDT by SJackson
Something tells me that President Bush did not write the speech he delivered last week at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City. For one thing, it was relatively coherent. For another, it was steeped in historical references that, while run through the ideological wringer of the neoconservative spin machine, displayed a historical breadth not frequently associated with the most intellectually disengaged president since Andrew Johnson.
But the one section of the speech that made me certain that Bush had nothing to do with its preparation was its attack on journalist I.F. Stone.
Comparing the current quagmire in Iraq with the Korean conflict of more than half a century ago — as part of a new PR campaign designed to build support for maintaining a long-term U.S. military presence in the Middle East, and to cynically portray himself as a principled wartime leader — Bush told the veterans, "After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South — and found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated ... and (the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate) later said 'it was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war.' "
Anyone who seriously believes that George Bush is familiar with the writings of I.F. Stone and the long and complicated history of U.S. military activity on the Korean Peninsula will surely be among that dwindling percentage of Americans that is convinced weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
If Bush was familiar with the Korean conflict, he would know that the war eventually became so unpopular that Americans elected a candidate who promised to end it. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, ran on a promise that he would go to Korea personally with the purpose of putting a stop to the folly that had come to be known as "Truman's war."
Eisenhower did just that. By the following summer, a rough peace was achieved. Unfortunately, more than half a century later, the U.S. continues to spend billions of dollars annually to maintain a massive military presence in the region.
Bush did not criticize Eisenhower in his speech to the VFW, presumably because he is no more familiar with the 34th president than he is with I.F. Stone. But if he does actually develop an interest in that period, the current president might be intrigued by some of his predecessor's statements from the era. "When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. ... War settles nothing," explained the old military man.
Eisenhower rejected the argument that keeping up the fight in Korea was necessary to protect America, and he counseled that a permanent commitment to fighting abroad would cost America dearly.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed," Eisenhower declared in the spring of 1953, as he was dialing down the Korea conflict. "This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. ... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin's progressive daily news source, where his column appears regularly.
That war settles nothing, the authors contension, I'm reminded of an Ike who not only recorded Nazi atrocities, but required the civilian population to march through death camps (is that un PC or what)to see what their complicity had wrought.
War settles nothing, nowhere, nohow, no that's not Ike.
Progressive=Liberal=Regressive.
BTW, where is the barf alert? ;-D
Only read the first two sentences, the author is a butt**le.
End of story.
Neither Japan or Germany has started a war since 1945, I would say that war pretty much settled their clock for them. Starting a war and then running doesn’t settle anything, you have to win it, totally, in order to settle something.
I do NOT believe Eisenhower said this. He damned well knew that war settled Hitler's hash quite nicely.
This jackass Nichols doesn’t appear to be very familiar with American history. Must be a DemocRAT.
I guess the author never noticed Ike had a very significant roll in fighting a war that was quite decisive in ending a particular political philosophy.
I.F. Stone was a flaming Communist who was in the pay of the KGB, as papers revealed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
That war settles nothing, I bow to our colleagues at Protest Warrior:
Other than ending slavery and defeating Nazism and stopping genocide, war settles nothing.
“War settles nothing.”
This is the same as saying there is no such thing as “survival of the fittest.”
The strongest do survive. That’s Nature.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
not yet ?
.
You, kind sir, have exposed your convenient revisionist leftie flanks in oh, so many ways with your silly little "Ike" column.
Time to get back to J-1.
La Quinta, CA (Yes...your foolishness is being spread from sea to shining sea)
War settles nothing? How many slaves do you own, Mr. Nichols?
Bush has an excellent grip on history. Even historians who met him say this.
This author is a dip.
___________
jnichols@madison.com
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington, and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Tell that to these guys:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.