Posted on 03/21/2006 9:37:47 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
A reader e-mails Andrew Sullivan:
"I believe that if you compare the conduct of the Iraq war by the Bush administration with the record of Lincoln during the Civil War and Roosevelt during World War 2, the record will show that Bush is doing a better job than either Lincoln or Roosevelt.Check out 'Battle Cry of Freedom' by James McPherson, a history of the Civil War era. Lincoln faced continuous vilification by the Democrats and did not think until late in the campaign that he would win re-election. The Union military during the Civil War lost dozens of major battles and suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties due to incompetence and bad decisions going all the way up the chain of command to Lincoln. Reading 'Battle Cry of Freedom,' you realize nothing ever changes, and that Bush is doing better than Lincoln when the two are compared. The confederate raiders like Quantrill were as bad or worse than the insurgents operating today, and Lincoln’s suddenly changing the reason for going to war, from saving the union to freeing the slaves, was as controversial and criticized as the decisions made by Bush. The critics in 1862-1864 ridiculed the idea that slaves could be made free men, even as critics today ridicule the idea that Arabs can have a modern democratic government.
Ku Klux Klan terrorists were active in the post Civil War south to such a large extent that President Grant, 1869-1877 kept large numbers of federal troops in the South and needed to conduct fairly large military campaigns against the Klan. When President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South as part of his deal with the southern states to win the presidency, the KKK was able to terrorize and keep black Americans deprived of their civil rights until the 1960s. Even though the remnants of the confederacy were still fighting 100 years after the civil war, Lincoln is not regarded as incompetent for failing to prevent the depradations committed by the KKK.
In World War II, the US marine corps suffered major casualties at Iwo Jima and Tarawa because of bad planning and leadership, on even simple matters of sending in reinforcements and pre-landing bombardment. Hundreds of army soldiers drowned in a D-day practice landing because their backpacks were too heavy. The Army suffered heavy casualties at Omaha beach on D-day because it was not scouted properly. The Army was undermanned at the battle of the Ardennes in 1944 because the USA deployed 100 fewer divisions than the planners said was necessary. The lines were stretched so thin because of the shortage of infantry that the Germans successfully broke thru during their 1944 winter offensive, Bradley and Montgomery gambled that the germans would not attack in the Ardennes sector.
When the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe after WW II, Roosevelt (and Truman) were blamed for awhile for not preventing this in the aftermath of the war. In addition, communist governments took over in China, North Vietnam, and North Korea, as a result of the destruction of pre-existing dictatorships in Japan and Germany. Even though Roosevelt failed to plan against the communist takeovers in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam, he is not considered incompetent.
I would argue that by any fair, realistic comparison with past wars, the Bush administration has run the Iraq war with a minimum of American military and Iraq civilian casualties, and has accomplished as much as Lincoln or Roosevelt accomplished in their wars. The news media of the time never complained about America firebombing Japanese and German civilian populations."
Winning the piece is another story. The Democrats have it right. If that evil Republican president by the name of Truman, (watch out for MEGA SARCASTIC SPEW!) had been replaced by a Demoncrap the following would have occurred. Peace Treaty signed on May 15th 1945. Europe would have been replenished and resurrected by May 16th 1945. Of course those slanty eyed heathens who surrendered to MacArthur on Sept 1, 1945 would have taken longer to re-educate and it probably wouldn't have been until Sept 3rd '45 for the reconstitution to occur
I'm sorry but the whoo hah needs to stop. We're doing the best we can and the "War" Protestors need to get a life!
If you are judging "better" by a body count, then the WOT has less of a body count. Just because someone has better technology to work with that doesn't necessarily make them a better overall leader.
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