July 17, 2006

A few things forgotten...

If you like history, be sure to read Noemie Emery's piece, The Inconvenient Truth About Truman. Both parties happen to be claiming the mantle of Harry lately, but there are lots of inconvenient facts being forgotten. Especially by "liberal hawks" like Peter Beinart, who are peddling an airbrushed Truman...

...Humility was not a factor in these calculations, nor was the theory that American power was less than legitimate when used unilaterally. Dean Acheson, Truman's secretary of state, had little use for the United Nations, which had already been rendered impotent by the split in the Security Council, and Truman shared his opinion, being prepared to go into Korea without its consent. He did get its consent, only because the Soviet Union blundered by boycotting the Council. But as Max Boot reminds us, "Truman had already committed air and naval forces to combat before the vote," later writing to Acheson that without the U.N., "We would have had to go into Korea alone."

At the time, of course, the liberal hawks did not impress their observers as deferential to others. Truman was seen (rather like Bush) as being headstrong and cocky, Acheson as imperious and arrogant. Neither did Roosevelt or Kennedy strike people as being obsessed with his own or his country's shortcomings. Humility, deference, and multilateralism did not take pride of place in the Democratic lexicon until well after the party's mid-century triumphs, more or less at the same time it began losing elections....

Plus Korea makes Iraq look like a model of clarity, restraint, competence and low casualties. And there was never any hand-wringing and self-loathing over the use of nuclear bombs to end the War...(thanks to Betsy Newmark)

Posted by John Weidner at July 17, 2006 7:08 AM
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