The "professional" media seems to be mired in Vietnam trivia, forgeries, shoddy reporting, and outright lies. Fortunately, we aren't "professionals" - so we can still bring you quality stuff.
Yesterday, our special analysis discussed the broad outlines of America's changed foreign policy since 9/11, and noted that the 2004 election may be about "The Bush Doctrine's" continuation or abandonment. We use the word "may" because we have some history for you. Specifically, 1947-1952, when The Truman Doctrine and "containment" were very controversial. Norman Podhoretz explains:
"When the Truman Doctrine was enunciated in 1947, it was attacked from several different directions. On the Right, there were the isolationists.... Their complaint was that Truman had committed the United States to endless interventions that had no clear bearing on our national interest. But there was also another faction on the Right that denounced containment not as recklessly ambitious but as too timid....
At the other end of the political spectrum, there were the Communists and their "liberal" fellow travelers who - strengthened by our alliance with the Soviet Union in World War II - had emerged as a relatively sizable group.... In their view, the Soviets had more cause to defend themselves against us than we had to defend ourselves against them, and it was Truman, not Stalin, who posed the greater danger to "free peoples everywhere."
....In the election of 1948, Truman had the seemingly impossible task of confronting all three of these challenges (and a few others as well). When, against what every poll had predicted, he succeeded in warding them off, he could reasonably claim a mandate for his foreign policy.... Even so, enough bitter opposition remained within and around the Republican party to leave it uncertain as to whether containment was an American policy or only the policy of the Democrats.
This uncertainty was exacerbated by the presidential election of 1952, when the Republicans behind Dwight D. Eisenhower ran against Truman's hand-picked successor Adlai Stevenson in a campaign featuring strident attacks on the Truman Doctrine by Eisenhower's running mate Richard Nixon and his future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Nixon, for example, mocked Stevenson as a graduate of the "Cowardly College of Communist Containment" run by Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson, while Dulles repeatedly called for ditching containment in favor of a policy of "rollback" and "liberation." And both Nixon and Dulles strongly signaled their endorsement of General Douglas MacArthur’s insistence that Truman was wrong to settle for holding the line in Korea instead of going all the way—or, as MacArthur had famously put it, "There is no substitute for victory."
Yet when Eisenhower came into office, he hardly touched a hair on the head of the Truman Doctrine...."
The rest of Podhoretz' article explains why he doesn't think we're likely to face the same happy outcome in 2004, and it's definitely worth reading if you have some time. Even though I had seen and even blogged much of the material he cites, I must say that seeing it all in one place made for depressing reading.
Podhoretz hopes that if the Democrats win we'll get a replay of 1952, and that his prediction about their abandonment of The Bush Doctrine will be proved wrong. My prayer is slightly different.
I pray that his proposition will not be tested until his prediction is certain to be wrong, or until the Democratic Party puts forward a better framework for addressing a future of terrorism, proliferation, and Wretchard's Damoclean 3 Conjectures. Returning to the approaches whose egregious failure was chillingly revealed on Sept. 11, 2001 just isn't going to cut it.
Joe:
Out of the mouths of babes (and Canadians ;-)) comes much wisdom. IMO a first step is acknowledging that taking the defense of the nation seriously is not (or not merely) a partisan issue. There has been a remarkable continuity of American foreign policy over the years across generations and across party lines. Mr. Clinton to his credit was in large part continuing the policies of his predecessors in office. The reluctance to confront terrorists with force directly was not unique to his Administration. Mr. Reagan shared that reluctance cf. Lebanon.
But the Democratic Party has a unique problem. A significant part of their base (I suspect about a third) would be hard put to find any circumstances under which they would defend the country with military force. Three of the Democrats running for their party's nomination for president (Kucinich, Sharpton, Moseley-Braun) took the position of immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq damn the consequences. Most of the members of my own family belong to this wing of the party.
Dave
Now I’m curious Dave where exactly do you fall on the issue of use of military force? Do you think that a third of the base could turn to a majority of pacifists?
Joe
Outstanding post. The link is well worth the read IMO.
USMC:
I don't have a problem with the use of military force per se and believe that to date in the WoT the use of force has been remarkably (and possibly excessively) restrained.
I honestly can't figure out what in the world a lot of Democrats are thinking these days. Some of my own family members (sisters and in-laws) believe that the whole War on Terror thing has been drummed up for GWB's political advantage. They are not very well-informed and not likely to get much better informed (and these are all extremely bright, well-educated people). They're still protesting the Viet Nam War.
Continuing from above. To give you an idea of the disconnect, I was watching Meet the Press a couple of months ago with one of my sisters and she commented that Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert were right-wing political hacks in the pay of corporate interests. This from a woman with a Masters degree and an IQ around 130.
Dave
I sympathize with you on that one. My oldest daughter has the same lofty beliefs for some reason and she's a product of our collegiate system as well.
All in all I guess there is a lot to be said about everyday common sense.
I also agree with you on your statement of talented and insightful people here at the WoC. Not only are they civil, their arguments are well laid out (regardless of belief). As for myself I'm just your run of the mill high school educated some college citizen that likes to spend his time playing with his grand child. Not to mention having an avid interest in politics local, state and federal due to the fact it affects my life as well as my families.
"This from a woman with a Masters degree and an IQ around 130."
IQ doesn't measure wisdom nor does it preclude someone from being ruled by emotion.
Greg F:
Funny, that's just what my mom said. ;-)