For most of us, Korea is ancient history or a distant memory. But for those who don't know, Gen. Douglas MacArthur led a rather brilliant, successful counter attack against North Korean insurgents and regular army in 1950. By fall of that year, UN and US troops had driven the communist invaders out of South Korea, clear back across the 38th parallel, and had them on the run to the China. The Chinese didn't particularly like the idea of having a capitalist state on their border, and they began sending strong signals that they would intervene if MacArthur's advance continued. McCarthur counseled Truman to ignore the threats. The Chinese however, made good on them.
After a skirmish or two, the Chinese attacked with at least six divisions. They overran lead elements and encircled the bulk of UN forces. What had been relatively obscure geographical names, the Yalu River and Chosin Reservoir, were etched indelibly into the American psyche. I bet there's a few people here on this very site who can fill you in personally on what it was like.
When MacArthur was held to account for his previous advice and headlong rush toward communist China, he replied, with some justification, that we were 'fighting an entirely different and wider war' now. Mac went on to recommend massive conventional air-strikes inside Red China and limited use of tactical nuclear weapons. He locked horns with Truman and was soon relieved of command. The rest is history.
Iraq is often compared to Vietnam, and at times Korea. But there are striking asymmetries in those strained parallels. For me one of the most glaring concerns the rationale. We can argue about the wisdom of those conflicts, the men who undertook getting the US involved, or the hypothetical scenarios about what might have happened if ..
But one thing we can all agree on. There really was a communist threat. The USSR really had the capacity to destroy the United States with the touch of a button and China had the manpower to swarm all over Asia. Stalinism and later watered down versions really were nightmarish totalitarian systems. And the insurgents in both Vietnam and Korea really were allied with the larger communist states of the Soviet Union and/or Red China. I can at least understand the rationale for Korea and Vietnam. To say it another way, there reallly was a rationale.
In that historical context, reading or hearing a bunch of yelping GOP crybabies incessantly screeching in craven horror that Al Qaeda is the worst, gosh-darn biggest bad-ass threat we've ever faced is, frankly, an act that has grown tired and embarrassing. And when they yammer, time and time again, that it's not enough for them to be quivering under their beds, they insist the entire country crawl under there and obsess along with them, while they lay in fetal position swaddled in their faded George Bush security blanket squawking in fear, it's enough to make Burt the Turtle duck and cover in disgust.
And of the dreaded Al Qaeda itself? They have no nukes that we know of. They sure as hell don't have hundreds or thousands of sea and land-based ballistic missiles tipped with thermonuclear warheads. Even on their home turf, they have no standing army of millions upon millions poised to rout US forces.
Al-Qaeda can kill people using modern day kamikazes and suicide bombers. They can knock down buildings, if they're lucky. They can damage subways, maybe collapse a bridge. That's a real danger to people and property. But Al Qaeda as it currently exists can no more destroy our nation than the next incarnation of Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. We're talking about a bunch of religious maniacs who squat in crude bunkers, shitting and pissing in the back of caves, holding an AK-47 and a cheap video camera. That doesn't hold a candle to this:
H-bomb test Castle Bravo shown to rough scale behind lower Manhattan with the two World Trade Centers for reference. The skyline has actually been made larger (By maybe a factor of ten as near as we can figure) for purposes of clarity--in actual scale it would be so small you wouldn't be able to recognize it. Now multiply that by a thousand to get a handle on the cold-war. Yes, 9-11 was a shocking tragedy, as was Katrina, Oklahoma City, and the nation rightfully mourned them all and many more like them. But in even a limited nuclear exchange with the former USSR, there would have been no nation left. Photo work by Karen Wehrstein.
Anyway, I digress ... In contrast, nothing like that cold-war dynamic can be said to exist in the case of Iraq. Saddam had zero to do with 9-11. He had no nuke program, he had jack for WMDs. More importantly, he didn't even have operational ties to Al Qaeda.
Soon, the failure of the escalation/surge will be evident to anyone. Maybe it will be a spectacular tragedy along the lines of Black-Hawk Down on steroids. Maybe it will just be continued WIAs and KIAs. And we hope that when that happens, finally, Bush/Cheney will be stopped, and the troops in Iraq will come home.
I don't think it will be that easy....
I don't pretend to know what drives Bush's obsession -- seriously, psychologists and historians will be arguing about that for the next millennium or two. But one thing is clear from his actions: He isn't ever going to give up on his war, no matter how many die, no matter how much treasure is spent. So, get ready for new slogans, as the Bush loyalists repeat carefully crafted, shrill MacArthur-esque soundbites that we're fighting a 'whole new regional war' in which 'our very survival is at stake.' Get ready to hear about the evils of Sunni or Shia or Kurds, the Grave and Gathering Threat that a Regional War presents to mom and apple pie. Forget that Bush and his merry band of hopelessly inept neoclowns created that mess in the first place. Ignore the documented fact that they were warned a regional war could explode, forget that they pooh-poohed the idea.
Goddammit! Don't you Dirty, Pussy, Liberal Hippies understand this is a WHOLE NEW WAR that we have to fight no matter what???!!
I don't think the public will buy it. But by the same token, I don't think Bush and Cheney will give a shit, either.
Even when the wreckage of the last ideological hurdle to national sanity is cleared, what worries me are the specifics of the withdrawal we all know is coming, sooner or later. Our men and women in Iraq are at the shit end of long, perilous supply lines, surrounded all the way by grass roots Arabs and Shiites that don't care for them at all. And safely pulling out one-hundred thousand plus troops from deep inside that complex, hostile territory isn't going to be a breeze. It's a nightmare of military logistics. Pull out troops and equipment in the wrong order, the whole thing becomes a shooting spree, a bloodbath, a giant reverse drive by several hundred miles long. I can hear the excuses now; no one could have predicted the intensity or scope of the insurgent operations against our redeploying forces ...
Does anyone think the crew that couldn't handle Katrina, the guys who wouldn't allow the word 'insurgent' to be uttered at meetings, have taken careful inventory and developed a comprehensive plan for how we will bug out of Iraq in a safe, orderly manner? Or will it be a fucked up, leaderless, free for all of congested frantic armor and traffic racing south under intense fire leaving pockets of our soldiers, sailors, and marines behind in the confusion? IOW, yet another unnecessary, deadly Bush cluster-fuck.
One thing the troops had going for them in Korea is that despite his shortcomings, MacArthur did know combat tactics, and he demonstrated good judgement on who he chose to entrust with onsite operational command. Marine and Army units caught by the Chinese advance successfully fought their way out of a grim situation at enormous cost. What could have easily been the worst massacre in US military history turned into the greatest fighting military retreat ever seen. One must be wary of blanket parallels. And yes, it's true that the Al-Anbar or the Green Zone are no Chosen Reservoir. But then again, George Bush is no Douglas MacArthur. And that's saying it nicely.
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