Sharing a Hug, Saying Goodbye, and Praying
Most Americans today know whatever they know about the Korean War from the history books. Many associate it dimly with Harry Truman, a man the current inhabitant of the White House likes to think of whenever he pauses to ponder his own legacy in the long lens of history. For now, however, history must wait, as the vast majority of Americans are somewhere between feelings of dismay and anger about the terrible events reported daily from the hell that has become Iraq. As the first of our soldiers ship out, in accordance with President Bush's decision to "surge" more than 20,000 more brave young soldiers into Baghdad, the opinion meter now swings more dispositively toward the anger end of the scale than to that of dismay, and the words of a storied American general echo with grim portent. The general's name was Omar Bradley.
It may be this week, as Congress wrestles with the Iraq question and the competing resolutions that have been advanced to challenge President Bush's latest tack there, that Bradley's words will be summoned from the history books. For the record, here is what he said and the context in which he said it. Dwight Eisenhower's most trusted general in World War II, Bradley had been called to Capitol Hill to answer lawmakers' questions about a proposal by the obstreperous Douglas MacArthur to extend Truman's "police action" on the Korean peninsula across the border into China. What, the solons in the capitol asked, did Bradley think of that? The general, as was his wont, minced few words: "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."
The toll the war has taken in Iraq has been grievous, and one can only tremble and pray for the soldiers now preparing to deploy. Politics and war seldom make for congenial bedfellows. But so much has gone so wrong in Iraq that the public review of the Iraq policy set for this week is both timely and proper. Acrimonious as the debate may get, however, it should in no way be construed as a diminution of support for the troops now so much in harm's way.
This story appears in the February 12, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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