Posted on 06/05/2006 7:57:14 AM PDT by FreeKeys
Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history. The military struggle in Iraq (nearly 2,500 military deaths) is spoken of in as dire terms as Vietnam (58,219), Korea (54,246) or World War II (405,399). We bemoan the cruel injustice of $3 a gallon for gas in a country where three-quarters of people classified as poor have air conditioning and microwave ovens. We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.
George W. Bush has a better sense of history. Speaking last week at the commencement at West Point -- above the Hudson River, where revolutionary Americans threw a chain across the water to block British ships -- Bush noted that he was speaking to the first class to enter the U.S. Military Academy after the Sept. 11 attacks. And he put the challenge these cadets willingly undertook in perspective by looking back at the challenges America faced at the start of the Cold War 60 years ago.
"In the early years of that struggle," Bush noted, "freedom's victory was not obvious or assured." In 1946, Harry Truman accompanied Winston Churchill as he delivered his Iron Curtain speech; in 1947, communists threatened Greece and Turkey; in 1948, Czechoslovakia fell, France and Italy seemed headed the same way, and Berlin was blockaded by the Soviets, who exploded a nuclear weapon the next year; in 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea.
"All of this took place in just the first five years following World War II," Bush noted. "Fortunately, we had a president named Harry Truman, who recognized the threat, took bold action to confront it and laid the foundation for freedom's victory in the Cold War."
Bold action: the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in 1947, the Berlin airlift in 1948, the NATO Treaty in 1949, the Korean War in 1950. None of these was uncontroversial, and none was perfectly executed. And this was only the beginning. It took 40 years -- many of them filled with angry controversy -- to win the Cold War.
The struggles against Soviet communism and Islamofascist terrorists are of course not identical. But there are similarities.
"Like the Cold War, we are fighting the followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has territorial ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims," Bush said. "And like the Cold War, they're seeking weapons of mass murder that would allow them to deliver catastrophic destruction to our country."
The New Republic's Peter Beinart argues that Bush, unlike Truman, has shown no respect for international institutions. But the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were unilateral American initiatives, and Truman used the United Nations to respond in Korea only because the Soviets were then boycotting the Security Council. Otherwise, he would have gone to war, as Bill Clinton did in Kosovo, without U.N. approval. Bush did try to use the United Nations on Iraq, but was blocked by France and Russia, both stuffed with profits from the corrupt U.N. Oil for Food program.
But as Bush pointed out, we have worked with 90-plus nations and NATO in Afghanistan and with 70-plus nations on the Proliferation Security Initiative. We're working with allies to halt Iran's nuclear program.
"We can't have lasting peace unless we work actively and vigorously to bring about conditions of freedom and justice in the world," Harry Truman told the West Point class of 1952. Which is what we're trying to do today -- in Iraq and the broader Middle East, in Afghanistan, even Africa.
Reports of Bush's West Point speech noted that Truman had low job ratings -- lower than Bush's, in fact. But does that matter now? Bush, as Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis has written, has changed American foreign policy more than any president since Truman, and like Truman he has acted on the long view.
"The war began on my watch," Bush told the class of 2006, "but it's going to end on your watch." Truman might have made the same point, accurately as it turned out, to the class of 1952. We're lucky we had then, and have now, a president who takes bold action and braves vitriolic criticism to defend our civilization against those who would destroy it.
Must have been the pictures.
Agreed. Feckless misrepresentation by the Liberal-In-Chief.
The latest contortion concocted by Rove and Tony Snow to try and rescue their Amnesty scheme.
They both came up at virtually the same time, so I picked the one with the fewest replies.
lol
"Henry Wallace/George McGovern/John Dean Wing"
To be fair to Henry Wallace, he admitted that he was wrong about the Soviet Union when North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950. Wallace supported the Cold War from that point on and he would endorse Eisenhower over Stevenson and Nixon over Kennedy.
I didn't have any of those teachers......LOL!
And he put the challenge these cadets willingly undertook in perspective by looking back at the challenges America faced at the start of the Cold War 60 years ago.
Well of course if he really knew his history he would have spoken about how Wilson's request for Russia to stay in the war and Wilson's entry of the US into a war that was none of our business (the first attempt at 'spreading democracy') laid the groundwork for the Communist Party to come to power in Russia late in 1917. Of course inconvenient issues as actual history instead of State history aren't too popular are they?
bttt
BARONE IS ON CAVUTO NOW, TALKING ABOUT THIS ARTICLE!
It's all about ME, doncha know?
LOL! I do believe you just about nailed it there prairie.
American is NOT a theocracy.
Name ALL of the "freedoms", enumerated in the Constitution, that you have lost.
The president is NOT a "liar".
Jews don't accept Jesus as the messiah. Does that mean that Jews and Christians don't worship the same GOD? Did Jesus replace his FATHER?
A goldbug? It is YOU, who don't know history nor much about financial matters! ROTFLOL
As to public schools dumbing down children, YOU are a PERFECT example of that! Your entire post is grammatically incorrect, absent correct capitalization, misspelled words, and ridiculous conspiracy theories, that nobody but lefties and mordant idiots believe.
And the government is NOT responsible for your wages ( nor lack of getting a better job/wages ! ), nor for the price of tomatoes.
bttt
Thanks for the ping and the lovely use of the correct word for the jargogled naysayers. :-)
Then neither of you read many of the posts on FR. There have been lots of replies, stating that there should be NO immigration, legal or illegal, any more.
That's an excellent point. The UN and other organizations weren't of much use when the Soviets had veto power.
But Truman and Eisenhower did help to build up the Western Alliance and bring the US and Europe together against the Soviets. That's one reason why we were ultimately successful in the Cold War.
Today, so much of what's going on in the Middle East depends so completely on the US, so the results may not be as good. Changing the region is going to require a lot of effort on our part with little help from long-term allies.
history = no longer taught in schools - except revised & worthless - designed for training good little socialists
Guess we don't know that. I haven't seen them, or if I did, discounted them as DU "plants." Pro-Amnesty schills trying to besmirch the people of Free Republic.
Without rule of law, and fidelity to the Constitution and the laws, then the People have been fully disenfranchised, and the privelege of voting for representation or laws, become an empty exercise. Amnesty is clearly a destruction of American's right to self-rule...and an attack on the People's sovereignty.
Did you miss the part when Clintoooone was pres and both houses passed the Anwar drilling and Clintoooone VETOED it?
Have you missed all the vitriol of the foaming mouthed DimRats screeching about the poor caribou - have -
What am I doing - Grampa taught me better. He said, "don't get into a pis*ing contest with a skunk."
(Okay, Grampa)
yep - What ever happened to the kitty patrol?
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