Angry Bear Eisenhower's “I Shall Go to Korea” Speech
リンク: Angry Bear.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Eisenhower's “I Shall Go to Korea” Speech
The nitwits at the National Review has moved from showing they flunked Economics 101 to showing they flunked History 101 with their attempts to smear Senator Webb. Jonah Goldberg finds a Youtube entitled Victory is Barren Without A Secure Peace. Did Mr. Goldberg notice the date? It’s June 1946 – the second anniversary of D’Day. Ike wasn’t talking about a Korean War that had not started. He was talking about World War II.
Now if Mr. Goldberg knew anything about history, he might have reminded us of the I Shall Go to Korea delivered on October 25, 1952 to which Senator Webb refers to here:
When the enemy struck, on that June day of 1950, what did America do? It did what it always has done in all its times of peril. It appealed to the heroism of its youth. This appeal was utterly right and utterly inescapable. It was inescapable not only because this was the only way to defend the idea of collective freedom against savage aggression. That appeal was inescapable because there was now in the plight into which we had stumbled no other way to save honor and self-respect. The answer to that appeal has been what any American knew it would be. It has been sheer valor-valor on all the Korean mountainsides that, each day, bear fresh scars of new graves. Now-in this anxious autumn-from these heroic men there comes back an answering appeal. It is no whine, no whimpering plea. It is a question that addresses itself to simple reason. It asks: Where do we go from here? When comes the end? Is there an end? These questions touch all of us. They demand truthful answers. Neither glib promises nor glib excuses will serve. They would be no better than the glib prophecies that brought us to this pass.
But read the passages before this. Eisenhower was very critical of what he saw as appeasement from the Truman Administration. One would think that a neocon like Mr. Goldberg would love to quote passages from this speech. Of course, there would be the price that the hacks at the National Review might have to pay by linking to this speech comes at the end. Eisenhower was promising that if were elected as President, he would find a way of bringing security to South Korea without continuing what he called “the costliest foreign war our nation has fought, excepting the two world wars”:
“We can-first-step up the program of training and arming the South Korean forces. Manifestly, under the circumstances of today, United Nations forces cannot abandon that unhappy land. But just as troops of the Republic of Korea covet and deserve the honor of defending their frontiers, so should we give them maximum assistance to insure their ability to do so. Then, United Nations forces in reserve positions and supporting roles would be assurance that disaster would not again strike.”
While President Eisenhower did succeed in ending the bloodshed and yet protecting South Korea, it would seem that Jonah Goldberg thinks the Eisenhower Administration failed in this regard. His stupidity leaves me speechless!
