Posted on 01/06/2016 4:07:20 AM PST by Nextrush
"In war there is no substitute for victory" were the words of General Douglas MacArthur as he spoke to a joint session of Congress in 1951 after being fired by then President Harry Truman for wanting to use tactics aimed at winning the Korean War like America's previous wars had been won.
Democrat Harry Truman had the power to fire MacArthur, but he didn't have the ability to survive the backlash and was forced to withdraw his name from consideration for re-election in 1952.
The Republicans nominated General Dwight Eisenhower, who won in a landslide promising to do something about the Korean War. But Eisenhower didn't have victory on the battlefield in mind.
Republican Eisenhower's strategy to get results at the negotiating table in talks going on between the participants in the Korean War was pretty simple. He threatened the use of nuclear weapons. It worked and an armistice was signed to stop the shooting.
But the North Korean "Kim" regime learned a lesson from that and worked tireless through the decades so they could be in the same position as Eisenhower was in 1953.
Threaten its enemies with the use of nuclear weapons to get negotiations going with benefits like aid to prop up North Korea's anemic economy.
Times change but the story doesn't. Democrats do bad things and Republicans don't fix the problem.
They picked these tactics up from their experience with Eisenhower in 1953.
Probably because they're tired, or afraid, of being characterized as "heartless old meanies" when they do fix a problem.
Oh poor babies
What a tough tough job for them, to be called names
Why, no wonder they cower and quit
MacArthur wanted to expand the war into China. Truman rightly gave him the boot.
Eisenhower did a great job in a lousy situation - he was a guy that truly understood that spending American treasure and lives should only be done in pursuit of our _vital_ interests.
China was the enemy in this war having intervened to help the Norks, it would have made sense to bomb their territory where supplies and air attacks were coming from like MacArthur wanted to do.
But it wasn’t going to happen because the Korean War was as much a United Nations ‘police war’ as the war in Afghanistan right now is where there has been a UN sanctioned “International Security and Assistance Force” operating for over a decade with no ‘victory’ in sight.
Eisenhower stopped the shooting but taught the North Koreans an idea they are coming back at South Korea and United States with in modern times as edging closer to ballistic missile capability aimed at the United States.
Republicans are the junior partner of the Ferral Government oligarchy ...
BUMP history, current events - enemies foreign, enemies domestic.
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