April 24, 2006
LEARNING NOTHING FROM HISTORY (via Pepys):
Bush's Thousand Days (Arthur Schlesinger Jr., April 24, 2006, Washington Post)
The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure [emphasis added]. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' "This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don't . However, both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike against the Soviet Union in Cuba.
Just imagine how many tens of millions of lives would have been saved and how much better off the world would be today had we regime changed the Soviets in the 40s. Mr. Schlesinger's argument is that the hundred million killed by communism were a fair price to pay for a legal nicety. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 24, 2006 9:06 PM
It's an old story, an old sin. 'Do what you will;
My hands are clean.'
Schlesinger is still alive?
Posted by: erp at April 24, 2006 11:02 PMerp beat me to that question.
Posted by: Mikey at April 25, 2006 8:54 AM"both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to dominate Europe."
I'm not sure what is more amusing--the implicit equating of the military backgrounds of Truman & Eisenhower, or the characterization of "Stalin's ATTEMPT to dominate Europe." This is a prominent historian speaking?
Eisenhower was a WWI veteran, in that he was an Army officer, running training camps stateside. Truman was an artillery officer, if I recall correctly. To try and equate any of that into the decision making process of either him or Truman when something a little more recent...an event...can't quite remember the name of it, but it seemed really important at the time had occurred, well let me just say that Mr. Schlesinger has found his answer and is desperately fishing for something to support it.
Yeah. WWI was what drove Truman and Eisenhower's decisions in 1945 - 1946. Nothing between 1918 and then occurred that could have had any influence whatsoever.
Posted by: Mikey at April 25, 2006 11:01 AMb. Could you be thinking of DDE sending in the navy during the Suez Canal crisis?
Posted by: erp at April 25, 2006 3:31 PMI recall reading somewhere that Schlesinger was responsible for persuading JFK not to knock down the (illegal) Berlin Wall. Anybody know if that's true or not?
Posted by: Matt Murphy at April 25, 2006 11:31 PMMatt:
Never heard that, but Paul Johnson wrote that both Truman and Eisenhower would most certainly have knocked it down.
Of course, today's Democrats (for the most part) would have picked up trowels and helped pass the mortar and bricks.
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 26, 2006 12:22 AMjim hamlen:
Yes, I remember reading Johnson's comments on that. The Soviets were reportedly quite worried that the Americans would blast it down. In the end, they correctly put their money on JFK chickening out.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at April 26, 2006 3:17 PM