By Edwin Cooney
I begin this week’s commentary with something of a confession: I’ve always been drawn to people and events that strike me as being stark and/or dramatic.
When I was growing up, the mostly silent man with the big gun was an impressive as well as reassuring concept. He definitely outranked the teacher or the minister within my youthful and impressionable mind. The gun-toting policeman, I was assured by my teachers, was my friend. A grandfatherly General of the Army named Dwight D. Eisenhower was my president and thus my leader who safeguarded my liberty and my personal peace. At the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a “no nonsense” law and order man with the formidable name of J. Edgar Hoover whose lifelong mission was to protect me against domestic gangsterism, conspiracy, and insurrection. Finally, there was still another patriot whose service -- and that of his family -- went back to the time of the Civil War. He was a combination of patriotism, military and administrative brilliance, determination, eloquence, and principle all rolled into one splendid human being. His name was Douglas MacArthur.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas on Monday, January 26th, 1880 to Major General Arthur MacArthur and Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur, young Doug MacArthur graduated first in his class from the Military Academy at West Point at the age of twenty-three. Between 1905 and 1907, he was an aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt. Throughout his life, he was an achiever becoming Superintendent of West Point, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ultimately Commander of Allied Forces throughout the Pacific Theatre during World War II.
When I first heard his name, he had just been dismissed by President Harry Truman for insubordination after publicly disagreeing with administration policies and strategies during the Korean War. Five-year-old minds seldom comprehend words like “insubordination”. Thus to my young and impressionable rather than exceptional mind, General MacArthur was a hero, largely because most of the adults who influenced me thought he was a patriot whose sound advice was being recklessly ignored by—of all people—President Truman. I was even quite sure that General MacArthur was the actual composer of the song his prominence in 1951 raised to a renewed popularity: “Old Soldiers Never Die.” (Yes, indeed, there is quite a distinction between impression and knowledge.)
What it took me many years to understand was the magnitude of the conflict between General MacArthur and President Truman. General MacArthur’s mission was to win the Korean War as quickly and efficiently as possible. Thus, he advocated the bombing of the bridges over the Yalu River connecting North Korea with her much larger Chinese Communist ally. To the general, that made military sense and military sense was his profession.
President Truman, as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, as well as chief statesman and protector of the Western Alliance -- and perhaps of humanity itself -- had a broader global responsibility. His job was to weigh the effect in one area of world conflict against the likely responses to military actions by a powerful and insecure totalitarian opponent.
There was another and almost equally important issue at stake: most Americans realized—when their minds were free from fright and worry—that our “Founding Fathers” had placed the office of the President above the authority of the military. In this way, the President’s responsibility and accountability could both include and consider issues above and beyond military matters. Hence, if a military man, especially one as personally compelling, silver-tongued, brilliant, resourceful, determined and patriotic as Douglas MacArthur, was allowed to prevail over the civilian authority, our republican form of government might well be in serious danger.
Fifty-five and a half years have passed since the dramatic dismissal of General MacArthur by President Truman which angered a patriotic and fearful America. We are once again involved in another difficult and undeclared war through which we’re being led by an increasingly unpopular president. However, there is a parallel with the situation back in 1951 and 1952. That parallel, as I see it, has almost as much to do with you and me as it has to do with the actions of President Bush.
America was almost beyond outraged in April 1951 when Harry Truman—the man from Independence, Missouri, who looked and talked like you and me — fired the brilliant, dedicated, accomplished, erudite and impressive West Point-educated MacArthur. That outrage was based on a set of assumptions. The bottom line of those assumptions was that military victory over the Chinese and North Koreans would sufficiently frighten the Russians into meekly acquiescing to our determination and military might. What most Americans didn’t take into account and didn’t begin to recognize until weeks of testimony had passed by other highly respected military and diplomatic officials (such as Generals George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and others), was the predominance of the global picture of events versus the view from the local field of conflict.
Through the testimony of these experienced and well-respected men, many Americans slowly came to realize the prevailing world situation that warned against the very strategy then being advocated by the experienced, dedicated and articulate—but often vain—General Douglas MacArthur.
Hence the assumptions having to do with our understanding of today’s world situation come easily:
(1.) Many Americans assume that our leadership is getting its advice from the best informed and respected professionals. They expect that these people have objectively assessed the urgency and wisdom of the need for our involvement in Iraq. If such is the case, who are these well-respected and well-informed professionals? Can we identify them? If they exist, are we even capable of identifying them through the predominant haze of either conservative or liberal spectacles?
(2.) What do we assume about the resources and the stumbling blocks faced by our enemies? Do we really believe they’re capable of establishing a World Caliphate of Radical Islam? Is it likely that they’ll ever be capable of administrating such an empire should they somehow succeed militarily?
(3.) If Iran actually succeeds in developing a nuclear device, could she use it given the very short distance she lies from Israel without suffering severe fallout damage from her own nuclear explosion? Do Iranian leaders really think they would be allowed to survive after having visited a nuclear attack on Israel? (Even Adolf Hitler expected his people to live to enjoy a victory!)
(4) Americans are a justifiably proud people. Can we understand and recognize the pride other people have in their own countries and cultures even when their governments don’t consult 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before determining their own foreign policy? Or did we save the world from Communism in order to run it ourselves?
(5) Since most of us seem to understand that even highly principled individuals often lie to themselves—even when they don’t lie to others—do we assume that good nations don’t occasionally lie to themselves about their own needs just as good people often do?
(6) Does the torture of the radical justify a program of American torture? In other words does the end justify the means?
(7) Since we are a “democracy” or, if you prefer, since we’re a “republic,” where do our responsibilities—as individuals--begin and end? Might we be the equivalent of the good German people of World War II if we fail to ask sufficiently probing questions of our national leadership?
(8.) Are we under the assumption that our historic goodness to other nations and causes over the last century entitles us to slip up a bit and allow our frustration with a less than cooperative or grateful world to be expressed by pointedly ignoring world opinion?
(9) Must one culture prevail around the world in order for there to be peace? Is peace an absence of war or is peace a state of mind? (I can’t take credit for originating that concept.)
(10.) Finally, aren’t both proponents and opponents of our administration’s present policy guilty of assumptions about one another’s attitude toward America? Must America be perfect in order to merit our love? Those on the right insist that America is lovable and should be protected because she’s free and offers the beacon of liberty to others, while at the same time openly admitting that they’re taking the offensive in a domestic “culture war”. Simultaneously, those on the left too often deplore the very idea that America even possesses a system of national defense. They insist that because America’s performance hasn’t always lived up to America’s promises her system has as many flaws as any other form of government.
My trusty thirty-year-old dictionary defines assumption as supposing that a fact or notion or postulate is true. All of us assume from time to time since most of us aren’t privy to all of the information and aspects of national policy decision-making. It’s not only essential for us to assume, it’s even noble since we elect and thus put trust in our national leadership. However, assumption can also be dangerously misleading. Sadly, my view is that such is the case with regard to our Iraqi venture.
When I was young, that which was stark or dramatic made the greatest impression on me. However, when I was young I could afford powerful assumptions. Today I bear the responsibility of a voter and both my impressions and assumptions about issues require a greater degree of objectivity that is not always comfortable.
Today, since I’m not a soldier, my most powerful weapon in America’s defense is my vote. Hence, if impressions and assumptions are the primary building blocks of our votes, our votes become injurious rather than defensive of our liberties.
In order to be effective in battle a bullet must be accurately aimed. Hence on the domestic battlefield where ballots replace bullets, powerful impressions and powerful assumptions must always be steadied by sometimes painful objectivity.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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