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Associated Press: Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign
toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take
seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89. Eugene McCarthy
challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination
during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's
withdrawal from the race. The
former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some
ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who
wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books. McCarthy died in his
sleep at an assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had
lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael. "He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was
compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said. So Why Did Support for War ‘go South’? By Col. Daniel Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.), Foreign Policy in Focus, December
9, 2005 “To
say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the
evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on
the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are
mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On
the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few
months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big
gasp …” Walter
Cronkite, February 27, 1968 “I said to the President, ‘We're not winning the war.' And
he asked, ‘Are we losing?' I said, ‘Not yet' … he couldn't hear it.” Former Bush administration
high official, late 2004 The most
frequently-cited reason for the rapid waning of public support for the second
Iraq War is casualties. This is not an inconsequential consideration, to be
sure; many in Congress, both Republican and Democrat, have expressed deep
emotion when recounting their visits with families of those killed (2,130 as of
December 5) and with the wounded. However, casualties
are more often the revered symbol of deeper currents, ones that take longer to
appear, but once articulated by a respected and trusted public figure, generate
an irresistible power that eventually sweeps all before it. Before television,
before radio, such public figures tended to be writers, orators, or humorists.
Statesmen, as opposed to politicians, might be quoted, but normally in support
of the position espoused by the quoter - and invariably long enough after the
death of the honored personage that his less edifying pronouncements have been
forgotten. Murrow and McCarthy These musings surfaced in
mid-November when “Good Night, and Good Luck” hit movie houses across the
United States. The film recounts events leading to the March 9, 1954 broadcast
of See It Now , hosted by
legendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow. That broadcast revealed quite
clearly the often-unfounded, destructive tactics of Senator Joe McCarthy (WI)
in his crusade to uncover communists in the U.S. government and the army. Even
Dwight Eisenhower hesitated to take on McCarthy publicly until after the Murrow
broadcast and a subsequent disastrous public relations appearance by McCarthy
on See It Now in which the
Senator's unethical methods were laid bare as he attacked the press. Until that point, the press, apparently intimidated by the
reception accorded a February 9, 1950 “Lincoln Day” speech by McCarthy, had
been more supine than critical. McCarthy's claim that the State Department
employed 205 known communists or individuals with questionable backgrounds
resonated with the public as an explanation of why the United States,
victorious in World War II, was now on the defensive. (Remember that the early
1950s were unsettled times with spy trials, the Korean War, and Moscow's
acquisition of “the bomb”—all of which seemed to validate McCarthy's
accusations.) Murrow's commentary provided enough political cover for the
Senate to investigate the investigator, and in December 1954 McCarthy's
colleagues finally mustered the courage to rebuke him for bringing discredit on
the Senate.
Cronkite and Vietnam Fast-forward 14 years to February
1968, to the fourth year since major U.S. combat formations first began to
arrive to fight another Asian war (Vietnam). In the aftermath of the Tet
offensive of 1968, another highly-regarded journalist stepped forward with an
editorial on the war's conduct (above). President Johnson, on hearing Walter
Cronkite's conclusion that the war could not be won, reportedly remarked that
in losing Cronkite he had lost the country. The proof came in the March 1968
New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary in which Johnson garnered only 49
percent against the 42 percent for —ironically—another McCarthy (Eugene).
Confronted by such a sharp division, on March 31, declaring that “No other
question so preoccupies our people … [as] peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia,”
Johnson affirmed he would neither be a candidate nor accept his party's
nomination for president for the November 1968 race. But “peace” was to remain elusive under Richard Nixon. A war
that may well have started for U.S. combat units because of a cover-up was
perpetuated by more lies, cost additional casualties among U.S. troops for five
years, and in the end was “lost” as North Vietnamese forces swept into Saigon
in April 1975. Murtha and Iraq Skip a further 30 years to
November 2005. Representative John Murtha (PA), a Marine Corps veteran of
Vietnam and an unswerving Pentagon supporter, surprises the nation by making an
impassioned call for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. While others in Congress
had earlier opposed the continued U.S. troop presence in Iraq, the policy
reversal of a proud veteran and military hawk for pragmatic reasons (inadequate
strategy) and as a matter of conscience (unnecessary casualties), created a
shock wave. Compared to the casualties in Korea and Vietnam, the number of war
fatalities in Iraq remains low. But the charge by Murtha and others—a charge
that was already circulating broadly in public discourse—is that these deaths
stem from premeditated public misrepresentations of already-flawed intelligence
on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction developments, stockpiles, and programs as
well as knowingly false innuendos that Iraq gave direct support to al-Qaida linked
terror groups. These three fundamentally different events are connected
both in their shape and in the reactions they spurred. McCarthy's was an
anti-communist crusade to purge the U.S. government. Conducted in parallel to
the anti-communist hot war being waged in Korea, the hearings relied on
distrust and fear to intimidate and prevent formation of a unified opposition
and enabled McCarthy to ride roughshod over the innocent, traditional justice,
and truth. Johnson's identification with the seemingly endless
“anti-communist” Vietnam War suggested his “stay the course” posture would soon
split the nation as it had split New Hampshire Democrats. In Iraq, “stay the
course” has split the United States but along party lines rather than within
the party in power. Moreover, just as Johnson and his inner circle missed the
overarching nationalism of the Vietnamese struggle, so too did Bush and his
ideologues fail to recognize the force of this same current among most Iraqis. Fifty-eight months elapsed between Joe McCarthy's Lincoln
Day speech and his censure by the Senate (and 49 months between the speech and
Murrow's broadcast). Johnson had only 40 months between his election in
November 1964 and his announcement that he would not stand for reelection. In
Iraq, in June 2004—the same month that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority was dissolved—U.S. public support for the war fell below 50 percent
for the first time. A mere 15 months had elapsed since the first missiles were
launched on Baghdad. (John Murtha's call for withdrawal came 17 months after
the public's change of heart.) Losing Support: Then and Now Two interrelated factors may be
driving the rapid and steep rate of decline in support of the Iraq adventure as
compared to the 1950s and 60s. One is the progressive easing in
the public's perception of the overall threat to the nation's survival. •
In the 1950s (McCarthy), the reality was that communist spies had revealed
vital national defense secrets to a hostile USSR—and more secrets would be lost
unless security measures were tightened for government employees. Another
reality was the threat of nuclear war, particularly Mutual Assured Destruction
(MAD), which was hyped in the 1950s, almost happened in 1962 over Soviet
missiles in Cuba, and while still a possibility to this day, has receded in
public consciousness. •
The U.S. public bought into the idea of a “threat” to U.S. interests spreading
across the Far East from Southeast Asia until the absurdity of U.S. troops and
Vietnamese dying to thwart this “domino theory” became overwhelmingly apparent.
The theory played itself out in Laos and Cambodia – and collapsed when a
united, nationalistic-modified communist Vietnam invaded Cambodia and fought a
border war with the People's Republic of China. •
Today, more than four years have passed since the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon. The horror of that September 11, strongly etched in
memory primarily among those who lived that experience first-hand or who had to
cope with its consequences, has become for most an iconic event to be recalled
annually, like Pearl Harbor on December 7. But unlike World War II or
present-day Afghanistan, the continued existence of the United States and the
American way of life were never in mortal danger because of September 11.
Moreover, the inability of the Bush administration to demonstrate any
incontrovertible connection between September 11 and Iraq reduces the invasion
and occupation of that country to the same level as Vietnam. It is a war that
need never have been because the clear and imminent threat by which a preemptive military strike is deemed
lawful never existed. Losing Trust The second is the growing public
distrust in the veracity of leaders, particularly within government. McCarthy
vilified any and all who had the temerity to question his assertions or his
methods. Not a few lost their job and reputation; many others were cowed into
silence. Endless assurances by military and Johnson administration officials of
“a light at the end of the tunnel” never materialized—becoming a phrase of
derision surpassed only by the daily “five o'clock follies” (Saigon briefings)
and the daily “body count” of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed. But years
passed before the whole truth emerged and long-term public support disappeared
for these nationalism-cloaked campaigns. Today, strong public support at the beginning of the Iraq
war was quickly tried as the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
proved a myth, and a seemingly endless and increasingly unpersuasive string of
justifications for toppling Saddam followed. But unlike earlier eras, the media
itself has become implicated in the deceit, sometimes wittingly, sometimes not.
Prominent personalities have been paid to hype administration themes. “News”
stories written by “consultants” have been planted in the foreign press,
sometimes with money changing hands. At one point, the administration allegedly
considered releases to foreign journalists of “stories” that were absolutely
false. When Bush is not appearing in strictly military or
military-oriented venues for presidential speeches, his applauding audiences
are pre-screened to ensure only supporters are present. Writers and journalists
critical of U.S. government policies risk losing access to briefings and press
conferences—and hence their livelihood. Others are constrained by their own
non-media corporate conglomerates. In
this climate, the public doesn't know who to trust—not the government, for it has shaded the truth
in every way possible; not the media, for one no longer knows who is on a
secret payroll or who is as much a victim of planted stories as the readers or
viewers; and certainly not consultants or most politicians. That
is why Americans sit up and pay attention when a person of the stature of John
Murtha speaks out against
dissembling and misleading statements out of an obvious commitment to principle. Such individuals understand that the
suffering and the dying on the battlefield—whether Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq—or
the ideological crusades against communism, nationalism, or the extreme
violence of terror may not be the real “war.” The real war is internal. It is for the spirit of the nation
and the soul of representative democracy, both of which fall into jeopardy when
government leaders fail to tell the truth, substitute character assassination
for accountability, and consciously suborn the press. In 1954 and 1968, respected arbiters of truth cut through public fear to open the way
for a change
in public discourse and accountability from leaders who had exploited public
trust. In 2005, Representative Murtha may be the decisive voice for the truth
that restores the most fundamental necessity of democracy: a well-informed
public. Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst
for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org), a
retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the
Friends Committee on National Legislation. http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2980 |
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