Bush is no Truman
In a laudatory opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (Opinion, 9/01/06), writer Daniel Hennninger says, "(t)he parallels between Truman then and Bush now are eerily pertinent," comparing Bush's current actions to Truman's "limited war in Korea".
Truman and Bush are not militarily similar in any manner, contrary to the forced allegations of Henninger. It is just as well that his column is entitled "Wonderland"; Alice would be at home here.
First, Truman presided over a police action that was endorsed and nominally presided over by a coalition of willing U.N. members. It was a sanctioned U.N. action. In addition, there was the niggling detail that North Korea had actually invaded South Korea, thereby evoking a legitimate military response to this aggression. The invasion of Iraq fails these tests.
The article goes on to state, "What occurred on 9-11 was off the charts of human experience". What jingoistic hyperbole, Mr. Henninger.
The bombing of civilian targets in WW II by all the belligerents was "off the charts", leading to millions of civilian casualties. The "terror bombing" of 9-11 was preceded by some as-yet unmatched historical episodes which one could say provided the foundation for what could be accomplished by projecting missiles from the sky upon unsuspecting targets. When terror comes to the "Homeland", everybody implodes. What ethnocentrism.
Tell the people of London, Hamburg, Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Hanoi about "off the charts" bombing experiences, and they'll understand the fullest implication of the term.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/
Truman and Bush are not militarily similar in any manner, contrary to the forced allegations of Henninger. It is just as well that his column is entitled "Wonderland"; Alice would be at home here.
First, Truman presided over a police action that was endorsed and nominally presided over by a coalition of willing U.N. members. It was a sanctioned U.N. action. In addition, there was the niggling detail that North Korea had actually invaded South Korea, thereby evoking a legitimate military response to this aggression. The invasion of Iraq fails these tests.
The article goes on to state, "What occurred on 9-11 was off the charts of human experience". What jingoistic hyperbole, Mr. Henninger.
The bombing of civilian targets in WW II by all the belligerents was "off the charts", leading to millions of civilian casualties. The "terror bombing" of 9-11 was preceded by some as-yet unmatched historical episodes which one could say provided the foundation for what could be accomplished by projecting missiles from the sky upon unsuspecting targets. When terror comes to the "Homeland", everybody implodes. What ethnocentrism.
Tell the people of London, Hamburg, Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Hanoi about "off the charts" bombing experiences, and they'll understand the fullest implication of the term.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/
posted by rangeragainstwar at 3:15 PM
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