May 19, 2009 3:01 PM
National Security: Why Are Republicans Still Setting The Terms Of The Debate?
Posted by Tom Tomorrow
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Why do Republicans get to set the terms of the national security debate? Oh, let's think about this for a moment.
In the 20th century, Democrat Woodrow Wilson dragged the nation into WW1 then wimped out in the peace conference so badly that Congress buried the resulting peace treaty twelve feet under; subsequently, Americans came to believe that 116,000 of their brothers, sons, fathers, uncles, and nephews had been sacrificed on the alter of a deluded utopian's irrational vision.
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt dragged us into WW2 after spending the leadup to Pearl Habor making up whatever lie might convince the American people to support a declaration of war against Germany. With Republican Frank Knox managing the Navy and Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower smashing the Nazi war machine, FDR still managed to fly off to lah-lah land where a monster like Stalin was a nice honest man who could be trusted not to impose an iron curtain over eastern Europe. Oops.
Democrat Harry S Truman, for the first time ever, blatently ignored the Constitution to drag us into the Korean War then waited until MacArthur had finally flipped out publicly before he fired the man; the situation ultimately had to be rescued by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower who "convinced" the North Koreans to be satisfied with the present-day DMZ, a 50-year stalemate between a superpower and a sickly totalitarian nation.
Democrat John F. Kennedy stumbled between botching the Bay of Pigs invasion, issuing Kruschev an engraved invitation to construct the Berlin Wall, and was forced to do some fast talking to avoid the USSR building missile silos on the island he couldn't figure out how to invade with a blueprint from Eisenhower. Oh, and he started funneling Americans into Vietnam (again, violating the Constitution) on the advice of the perenially helpful Robert McNamarra (who always knew that the war would be a massive failure, if we're to believe him).
Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson ramped up the funneling of American soliders into a sausage machine while crossing his fingers and hoping that the Great Society would magically make everyone sit down and sing kumbaya together. Oh, and Gulf of Tonkin... classic work of un-Constitutional genius. Republican Richard Nixon would be one small step away from finsihing the war with the best victory that could be salvaged when Watergate caught up to him; a Democratic Congress later smiled and shrugged while the North Vietnamese finished off their southern brothers and began murdering them wholesale as Americans ran home with their tail between their legs.
Democrat James E. Carter watched approvingly as the major Middle Eastern American ally of Iran was replaced with an enemy then realized to his consernation that letting nutty theocrats run a semi-modern military with giant oil reserves wasn't the best idea in the world; Americans being held hostage while he wrung his hands and babbled about energy issues being the Moral Equivalent Of War was his first clue. Also, the USSR fearlessly invaded Afganistan and Nicaraugua was handed over to a Soviet puppet regime.
Republican Ronald Reagan celebrated his first day in office with the American hostages returned home. For the first time since the Cold War began, the USSR lost a client state in the form of Grenada and lost another when the Contras won in Nicaraugua. With the Republican administration supplying weapons, the Afganis were killing the Red Army at a fairly rapid pace. This Republican started us down the long road to anti-ballistic missile defenses and convinced Gorbachev that eliminating all medium-range ballistic missiles was a great idea (IMF Treaty of 1987). Oh, and he gave a really awesome speech about the Evil Empire... can't forget that.
Republican George H.W. Bush tossed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait face first with the rest following; Democrat William Jefferson Clinton would spend 8 years trying to find some way of dealing with Muslim terrorists bombing and murdering Americans without being obligated to actually get tough on them and we were rewarded with planes crashing into buildings.
Republican George W. Bush was a domestic weakling but under his watch, Hussein was brought down for good, Iraq was put on the democratic path (as was Afganistan although the jury is still out on whether either move was wise), and Muslims mysteriously stopped murdering American civilians.
So yeah, Tom... tell me again... why is there any doubt about why Republicans are the go-to guys whenever there's a national security question?
Well, let's see, Keith...
Woodrow Wilson was an evil man. No arguments there.
World War II. Yes, FDR supported England (on the quite reasonable grounds that it was better for America that the English do the fighting for as long as possible, keeping the Germans in Europe). I don't remember any Germans at Pearl Harbor, but I do remember Germany supporting the Japanese attack in public statements afterwards. As far as Stalin was concerned, we needed him to fight as much as possible against Germany, and we couldn't stop him from seizing Eastern Europe anyway, so protesting the fact would be useless.
Korea wasn't a war. Truman attempted (perhaps too much) to work with McArthur before realizing the General could not respect any higher authority. And since Eisenhower merely confirmed the goals of the Truman Administration, shouldn't he be included in your little diatribe?
Kennedy applied in good faith plans left by the Eisenhower Administration re the Bay of Pigs. You are correct, trusting a Republican President was a bad idea. And despite your twisting of the incident, Kennedy did get the Russians to remove their missiles, without a major war, and without conceding anything.
Again, Vietnam was not a war. Johnson was wrong in trying to fight it; so was Eisenhower on forward. The conflict violated prior treaties, and was not 'winnable'. (Although I doubt anyone realized that at the beginning).
Carter was not the best President. But really, did the Soviet Union do themselves a favor by invading Afghanistan; or did they prematurely end their country? And I wasn't aware the Nicaragua was dominated by anyone except us and (very rarely, until we stop it) their own people.
Candidate Reagan makes a corrupt bargain to get prisoners returned, denies it later. Reagan also violates the law re Nicaragua. Grenada was never a Soviet satellite; I believe it was English. And Soviets as Evil Empire: pot calling the kettle black.
Reagan also armed Islamic militants to fight the Soviets, and forgot to get the weapons and organizational training back.
Bush Senior provokes a war with Iraq, then fails to remove Hussein.
Did you mistake your dates? September 11, 2001 was during Bush Jrs. Administration. Blaming Clinton for everything is a nice tactic, but it was Bush who attacked Iraq rather than Saudi Arabia (where the terrorists came from). Iraq is a broken satellite of ours, not even a real country anymore; and I guess you're ignoring all the civilian contractors who are still being killed in Irag and Afghanistan. Why fly over here when your targets are right next to you?
The GOP are the go-to guys for questions involving the American Empire, because they support the causes of the rich and powerful against the average american. The Democrats do the same, but they're more reluctant and every now and then make noises and meagre efforts to help the average american. Obviously any efforts to even suggest the average american has any say in foreign policy must be crushed immediately, and the GOP are very good at hammering the average american and making them think it's a good idea.
The right-wing distortion and revision of history is disturbing. Such pernicious revisionism leads us to keep repeating the mistakes of our past.
#1: WWI started in 1914 focused on Europe. Wilson called upon the United States to be neutral "even in spirit," but few Americans were able to remain impartial. For two years the president made every effort to avoid war. Even after the unarmed British liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine with a loss of almost 1,200 lives including 124 Americans, he argued: "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight."
In 1916 he was reelected. He defeated the Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes by an electoral vote of 277 to 254. The campaign slogan "He kept us out of war" probably won him more popular votes than any other factor. After the election Wilson tried to end the war by active mediation. The Germans, however, resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. On April 2, 1917, the president asked Congress for a declaration of war. Before a joint session of the two houses he read the solemn words, "The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. . . . We are accepting this challenge. . . . The world must be made safe for democracy." On April 6, Congress declared war.
He fought hard for the principles laid out for the League of Nations but the right-wing Republicans in the Senate blocked approval. Complicating matters was Wilson's stroke which made it impossible for him to personally lobby for the League of Nations.
#2 FDR struggled mightily to support the Allies while keeping the powerful domestic Isolationist movement appeased. He knew that war between the US and Germany was inevitable but he would not declare war on Germany unless provoked. Even after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, FDR asked for and received approval for a declaration of war with the Empire of Japan but no mention made of Germany. It was Hitler who decided to declare war on the US. So on December 11th, both Germany and Italy declared war on the US and the US Congress reciprocated declaring war on those two countries.
FDR and Churchill had to deal with Stalin. The fear was that Stalin would quit the war in the East and make a separate peace with Germany. If the Soviets had quit, we would have not been able to invade France in 1944 and it is doubtful we would have ever successfully invaded Fortress Europe since the USSR bore the overwhelming brunt of the war with Germany. There is not enough room on here to school you in the intricacies of diplomacy and warfare tactics used during WWII.
#3 Truman quickly marshaled UN forces to oppose the North Korean Communist invasion of South Korea. He appointed General MacArthur as commander of the UN forces. If MacArthur had followed Truman and the Pentagon's directives in stopping near the 38th Parallel, the Chinese would not have entered the war as MacArthur drove UN forces up to the Yalu River. The massive influx of Chinese regular army forces drove the UN forces back. Truman did the right thing in relieving MacArthur of his command. It was Truman and his team that came up with the policy of Containment against the Communists and history has proven his strategy to be correct.
#4 JFK was uneasy with the Eisenhower/CIA plan to invade the Bay of Pigs. Unlike other Republican Presidents, JFK stood before the American people and took full responsibility for the failure. NATO and West Germany were concerned at the alarming rate of refugees using Berlin as a means of escaping Communist countries. The tensions over Berlin were a powder keg that was close to triggering a military confrontation that would have led to nuclear war on the European Continent and then worldwide. The Berlin Wall was a face saving measure for the Soviets and East Germans that relieved pressure at that flash point which allowed war to be averted.
Khrushchev & the Soviets felt surrounded by NATO nuclear missiles and bombers. They saw Cuba as an opportunity to balance the scales which drove the decision to put medium range ballistic missiles on that island. He did not think that JFK would stand up to him after the missiles were in place. He didn't count on the CIA U2 program catching the missile sites being built. JFK walked a fine line between a full scale invasion of Cuba and leaving the missiles in place. The right-wing pushed hard for invasion which we now know would have resulted in the use of tactical nukes by the Soviet forces on Cuba. That would have triggered a retaliatory response from SAC and WWIII would have been over in thirty minutes. The use of a "quarantine" was genius as it gave both sides some breathing space to consider their options. Khrushchev wisely ordered the missiles to be removed and JFK and Khrushchev forged a bond that led to a thaw in relations between the US and USSR that culminated in the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Who knows what else they could have accomplished if JFK hadn't been assassinated. As a Historian, I can tell you the only reason we are still here is thanks to JFK's calm leadership and measured response.
As far as Vietnam, it started back with Ike, went through JFK, LBJ and finished with Nixon. It would take pages to even skim the surface of this topic. As far as Reagan winning the Cold War, that is a well-known urban myth. Thomas Jefferson said that an educated informed citizenry was the only way that a Democracy could survive otherwise it would be easy for demagogues to use popular media to sway the masses into acts of ignorance. The Bush years and Fox News prove Jefferson a wise man.
Ignorance favors the right-wing Republicans as fear mongering and historic revisionism always fails against the rational educated Progressive. Tom's "This Modern World" is just one effective tool in communicating reality to the masses in the hopes that reason will prevail.
So the Republicans are the "go to guys" when it comes to national security???
A question I'd like to ask you guys: Where's Osama???
Forgive a Limey for adding his observations; but it seems just from observing this discussion why the Right in the US can dictate the terms of discussion.
You have a Right-wing which radically increased the insecurity of the US and west in general by invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. It did this over and above the level that Al Queada required for its attacks on the US, presumably incited by the policies of both Clinton and Bush I, arguably Reagan and Carter.
But when a right-wing batshit moron like Keith baits you lot, you go for it like a bull to a rag. Defending the indefensible racists and idiots who have flown the Democrat banner, you make yoursleves incabapable of attacking the Cheney's who still skulk around unprosecuted and (unbelievably) influential.
Democrat history is very weak when it comes to killing people in defence of the American empire. Don't fight where you are weak; attack where your enemies are weak - the current security climate created by imperialist politics. That requires you adopt an anti-imperialist politic, which is, I assume, why you feel more comfortable talking about guys who've been dead 80 years rather than the chap you just voted in.
Charming, Nolarobert, but laughably untrue.
#1: Wilson preached neutrality while doing all he could to support England. When England started the starvation blockade, Wilson ignored it and condemned the German retaaliatory blockade. When England armed their merchant ships, Wilson demanded that Germany treat them as unarmed vessels. When Ameircans insisted on traveling on belligerent ships through a war zone, Wilson threatened Germany for torpedoing British ships carrying Americans. In every possible way, Wilson was a pro-British lapdog who pretended to want peace.
As to Versailles and the League of Nations, don't get me started. Republicans told Wilson to go to hell when he brought back a mockery of a peace treaty and objected to the League of Nations on the basis of Article X which would allow an American president to send soldiers to fight without Congressional approval. They did a great service by killing both treaties and Wilson, in a pique over being slapped down, betrayed the French by not even asking Congress to ratify the French Guarentee Treaty that would protect France from Germany.
#2. War between the US and Germany was IMEVITABLE? You expect me to accept with a straight face that a minor sea power that couldn't even scratch the Royal Navy or destroy the Royal Air Force was prepared to invade the US? You have such a pitifully ignorant view of history that I don't know how to adequately respond to your claims.
Indeed, Germany declared war on America in a fit of madness but Hitler had a long list of American provocations to cite in support. FDR's lies concerning the USS Greer and USS Kearney. His placement of American soldiers in the territory of a nation with which Germany was at war (Iceland). Tasking American planes to help the RAF locate the KMS Bismark. Presenting as fact a ficticious map that supposedly showed German plans to invade the US (of which no evidence has been found to support in 60 years of looking).
In return, I have no room to school YOU in the truth of which you are astoundingly ignorant. Suffice it to say, America and Britain gave Poland to a greater monster than Hitler after Britain used Poland as their excuse to go to war; the hyocrisy is earthshaking.
#3. Truman declared war unconstitutionally by calling it a "police action" and then stuck with a blatently insubordinate commander until MacArthur became too much to handle; he ought to have tossed him out when he disobeyed orders. They applied the strategy of "containment" too soon and thus we have two Koreas to this day.
#4. The only reason that JFK ever had to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis was that he couldn't be bothered to implement the plan to remove Castro and in his first meeting with Kruschev convinced the Soviet leader that he was a weak president. Committing an act of war (a blockade) then calling it something else was the best he could think of and eventually had to buy off the USSR by removing missiles from Turkey and pledging never to try and get tid of a Communist client state right off our southern coast. Kennedy's skirting of the law was carried forward with the commencement in earnest of the Vietnam War
Ultimatly, as you have shown, ignorance favors the Left to whom the truth is an enemy. It is fortunate for y'all that most people seem to think that history begins this morning; otherwise, you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that Democrats can safeguard the United States.
I guess I'm grateful for the support, Mewshkin, although I find it amusing that you call me the batshit moron when the other commentators are so hilariously ignorant of the topic.
Keith, in the case of Korea it was a joint action by several other nations through the UN security council. In that case while it can be argued that the war was declared unconstitutionally there is at least some precedent as part of the UN charter, which we all signed, talks about joint military actions by the security council in the name of world peace and stability.
And the Cuban Missile crisis happened more because Kennedy was foolish and listened to the hawks who came before him and wanted to use the Bay of Pigs strategy. The problem was that they hadn't accounted for Castro understanding that just as he was ousted so too could he be ousted. He worked on internal security and set up enough pillboxes and other fortifications to make a guerilla group, especially one that was barely fully trained, say uncle pretty quick. Not to mention that the removal of the Jupiter Missiles from Turkey was a joke, the things were old and out of date, there had been talk of removing them before that. And what woudl you have preferred? There was a real risk of nuclear exchange, and our president had the not insignificant task of not only looking out for our national interests but also of being the caretaker of the most horrific weapon the world has seen which has the power not only to end wars but to end worlds.
You are right, Epyon, that the UN Charter provided Truman some cover for his strictly-speaking unconstitutional actions. But while many people understand this and some even say it, no one tends to apply this to an earler occassion: the debate over Article 10 of the League of Nations. Many people still argue that the Republicans were just being cowrdly isolationists who tossed out Wilson's proposals just to be spiteful but do not really look at what the Republicans argued. In a very real sense, the Republicans of 1918 foresaw exactly how the United Nations would be used to allow a president to circumvent Congress' exclusive power of war declaration to take military action. They argued that Article X would make a mockery of this power and they were right; Congress has not declared war in any major military conflict undertaken by the United States ever since the League of Nation's successor (the UN) was agreed to. Their fears came true, just 30 years late.
I would have prefered that the Cuban Missile Crisis had never been allowed to happen in the first place. Castro was no fool but even a poorly-trained army can be effective with airplanes buzzing around overhead blowing up pillboxes and shooting up the enemy with virtual impunity. Kennedy let the Bay of Pigs go forward without any apparent intention of giving it a chance of succeeding and was rewarded with the Soviets deciding to defend their new client state in a beautiful position to threaten the impotent United States by sending nuclear missiles. It's fortunate that a president unable to summon the courage to prosecute war plans vigorously was clever enough to commit an act of war (which is what a blockade is) and then call it something else to avoid war. One cannot help but wonder what would have happened had the blokade-by-another-name was challenged but Kennedy got fabulously lucky and got to stop war at the low, low price of reducing the defense of an American ally (the Jupiter missiles, at that time, were not the least bit obsolete) and agreeing not to try to remove a Soviet-supplied client state in an absurdly easy position to threaten American national security. Kennedy won in the press but Kruschev exacted a fabulous bribe for his apparent loss.
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