Poorly fed, poorly clothed, and armed with the most primitive weapons — rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, mortars and bombs, sticks and stones — the enemy used snipers and attacked at night, creeping in darkness toward small American platoons, which they silently infiltrated.
Using the Americans’ shock at finding the enemy suddenly confronting them face-to-face, they simply overwhelmed America’s more heavily armed forces with their greater numbers.
Then, fighting furiously to the death or until the Americans were all killed or made to retreat, the enemy again stealthily crept forward to the next US platoon, aimed their clumsy weapons, and started killing American soldiers all over again.
This is not a description of US President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is the Korean War of 1950-1953, in which about 54,000 Americans died and America’s military more than doubled in cost and size. The Korean War was started by President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat who could not win it, and was terminated by Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower, a Republican who won the presidency by saying that he could not win the stalemated war, but he could end it.
“I will go to Korea,” Eisenhower assured American voters of all parties who were simply tired of the carnage, terrified of losing their children, and aghast at the war’s expense.
Americans voted him in.
And end the Korean War Eisenhower did, but not through bringing in better generals or more troops or more money.
Eisenhower used his own, personally led diplomacy that resulted in a signed armistice. Korea remained divided into a “democratic” south and a “communist” north.
Insurgent fighting, terrorism, and spying between them persist.
Technically, the war still continues.
Did anyone dare call first-term Eisenhower’s Republican Party “the party of cut and run?”
When Eisenhower was successfully re-elected president, his slogan was, “He got us out of Korea.”
Did anyone dare call second-term Eisenhower’s Republican Party “the party of cut and run?”
A few years later, another enemy, poorly fed, poorly clothed and less armed than the North Koreans and Communist Chinese used snipers, laid primitive traps of camouflaged pits and bamboo stakes in ambush, and furtively crept in darkness through the bush, killing US soldiers platoon by platoon.
So covert and yet omnipresent was the enemy, and so determined was its leadership which often hid in caves, that the US military sprayed deadly chemicals to defoliate the country so the enemy could neither run nor hide. But this is not a description of Bush’s wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is the Vietnam War from 1959 to 1975. American presidents Truman, Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson struggled to win that war.
In 1965, Democrat Johnson greatly escalated the war hoping to win it, reunite Vietnam, defeat its communist ideology, and prevent the “domino” theory that communism would spread across the world.
But although the US military won every Vietnamese engagement, the enemy was persistent, and America could not win the war.
Between 2 and 4 million people — 58,000 of them Americans — died.
Johnson declared he would not seek a second term, and Richard Nixon, a Republican, came to power promising to end the war with honor. By the time he withdrew American troops in 1973, his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated a diplomatic peace that was not unproblematic but saved countless lives. Even Nixon’s impeachment did not halt the Republican war-ending process, which continued under Nixon’s vice president and successor, Gerald Ford.
Ford lost the following election mostly because his pardoning of Nixon for Watergate crimes proved unpopular. But America was grateful he’d finished the war.
Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Did anyone dare call Nixon, Ford and Kissinger’s Republican Party “the party of cut and run?”
Ending an unwinnable war is not a “cut and run” operation. Rethinking the goals and strategy of a war that is proving difficult to win is not a “cut and run” operation.
And opening the debate on such conflicts is not seditious.
Seeking to stem the spread of terrorism through means other than President Bush’s war is not traitorous.
These are bold plans that require courage, intelligence, maturity, statesmanship, respect for one’s self and respect for the rights of others.
Not one leader in the present Bush administration — least of all President Bush himself — evinces these qualities.
Had Bush been president instead of Eisenhower, would we still be fighting in Korea? Had Bush been president instead of Nixon, would we still be fighting in Vietnam?
We would be a bankrupt nation without children, without wealth, without friends and without honor. We need a new leader who can pull us, and the rest of the world, away from Bush’s abyss.
