A modern-day Dulles Doctrine?
December 20, 2004 ~ 3:36 p.m.
The action taken by Bush against Iraq is nothing new in history. The parallel with the Eisenhower Administration, his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles in particular, is striking.
Colin Powell resigned because he did not approve of the war and the way it was going�though he performed his duties with dignity and as much conviction as he could. Condolezza Rice will make a good�and much better�Secretary of State for President Bush, because she subscribes to a modern-day version of the Dulles Doctrine. Consider:
�Still another foreign-policy concept, the Eisenhower Doctrine, proclaimed by both houses of Congress on March 9, 1957, was really the Dulles Doctrine. Mr. Dulles conceived and defended this resolution before Congress, asserting that the President was prepared to use armed force to support any Middle Eastern country that asked for help against Communist aggression.�
Just substitute �Communist� and insert �terrorist� or �insurgent� in its place, and you have a foreign policy that would have made Dulles proud.
Whoa there, ND, you say: Isn�t this a simplification of things? Again, we can turn to his obituary in the May 25, 1959 edition of The New York Times:
(1) �For example, during his campaign speeches in 1952, Mr. Dulles maintained that the Democratic party�s policy of �containment� must be replaced by a policy of �liberation.� What United States foreign policy needed, he said, was more �heart.�� [Powell always advocated containment; the Bush Administration wanted liberation and �to win hearts and minds.� It is arguable that the second objective has not been achieved, but, with the passage of time, will be.]
(2) �At Iowa State College on June 9, 1955, Mr. Dulles said �neutrality has increasingly become an obsolete and except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an immoral and shortsighted conception.��
(3) �Mr. Dulles will be remembered for his part in leading the Republican party out of its long tradition of isolationism into a new era of internationalism. Often criticized during his tenure for seeming inflexibility in his dealings with the Soviet Union, there was growing appreciation during his last months in office that his line was basically sound.� [Mr. Bush, too, will be remembered for breaking his own original campaign promise to oppose �nation-building,� a good thing in this commentator�s opinion, and for once again making the GOP the party of liberal interventionism. History, if it is to be unbiased, will record such interventionist policies as sound once more.]
What is most striking to me is the way Vietnam could have been avoided if we�d had a bit more help in dealing with it. Consider:
�Although Mr. Dulles never specifically confirmed it, there is good reason to believe that during the month of July, 1954, he and Admiral Arthur H. Radford twice tried to get the British to agree to a United States air strike, with planes based on carriers and in the Philippines, against the Communist forces attacking Dienbienphu, a key French stronghold in the north of Indochina.But the British would not go along, as Mr. Dulles might have expected. The plan was abandoned, and Dienbienphu was lost.�
�But the British would not go along ���smacks of the attitude of France and Germany vis-�-vis Iraq.
Also, consider that for the doves, the peaceniks, the anti-wars of today, Bush is a reckless cowboy, intent on bombing anyone to hell for the crime of not being a Christian�conveniently forgetting, of course, that the creatures we�re fighting are intent on bombing everyone to hell who isn�t Muslim, including fellow Muslims who are too �heathen� for their liking. This bull-in-a-china-shop sentiment among liberals was the same during the Cold War:
�An important part of Mr. Dulles� �brinkmanship� was �massive retaliation,� the boldest of all his phrases. He said in a speech on Jan. 12, 1954, that the President and National Security Council had decided �to depend primarily upon a great capacity to retaliate instantly, by means and at places of our own choosing.�The storm aroused by these words obliged Mr. Dulles to explain later that of course the punishment must always suit the crime, that he was not talking about indiscriminate bombing of Moscow.�
Only a fool could have thought Dulles was talking about an indiscrimate bombing of Moscow. The same fools today think that we're launching a full-scale war against Islam and the Islamic world.
Contemplate also the snippet from Time magazine�s 1954 Man of the Year issue. The parallels with today are arresting:
�Americans of 1954 knew that the technical peace was not real, that they had to keep almost 3,000,000 men under arms, maintain a peacetime conscription and spend an average of $855 a family for defense. The year that saw the hydrogen explosion at Bikini�the biggest explosion in man's explosive history�was not one to foster illusions about an indefinite peace.�
We should not be lulled into a false sense of security during this current war, believing that peace, technical or otherwise, is real, forgetting the lessons of 9/11, believing that the War on Terror is mythical dragon-slaying. Just as John Foster Dulles attempted to garner �united action� against Communist aggression via the SEATO act, this time the world is wise to back Bush on the issue of Islamofascist/fanatic terror.
Mr. Dulles� policies paved the way for how Kennedy and Reagan would deal with international Communism. And the parallels with the War on Terror not only exist but are analogous.
�The election was about the use of American influence,� Bush says in the latest issue of Time�s Person of the Year issue. John Foster Dulles, who fifty years ago adorned the publication�s front cover, felt the same way.
The battle against binge drinking continues
The Daily Mirror is not one of the more scholarly newspapers on the British market (espeically considering how pro-terror its editorial stance is), and columnists who write for such tabloids tend to be second-rate hacks. However, the column �Fiona� from this past Saturday�s edition of The Daily Mirror offered some great insight into the scourge of binge drinking which is fast becoming a social epidemic across the United Kingdom:
�More and more teenage girls in Britain are turning to drink ... The problem is so bad that some girls in their late teens are being treated for cirrhosis ... So why are we surprised? Unlike smoking or taking drugs, drinking is still seen as a cool, hip thing to do. No-one really tells you of the dangers of alcohol, do they? In fact, especially at this time of the year, it's positively promoted as a glamorous, life-enhancing elixir in countless TV and billboard ads ...Alcohol is a dangerous, addictive drug in the same way that cigarettes and cocaine are. Yet imagine the uproar that would have ensued if women were pictured snorting �charlie� instead of guzzling booze.
Why is it considered OK to go home and take charge of young children when you�ve been rendered legless by alcohol, but an outrage to be near them after sniffing drugs?
Some parents sleep off hangovers long into the day, sticking their toddlers in front of the TV until they can raise the energy to plonk a ready-made meal in the oven. So what message are we sending our children? Shadow Home Secretary David Davis says: �If we are to get a grip on binge drinking, the Government needs to stop sending mixed messages.�
He's right. Teenagers, stop binge-drinking, and by the way, we�re introducing 24-hour pub openings�even I�m confused by that one. We are becoming an increasingly alcohol-sodden society. And as long as we carry on denying that drink is a problem, it will carry on being a problem. A big, big problem.�
My thoughts exactly: Why do we turn a blind eye to massive alcohol abuse, which is at its worst-ever crisis in Britain, across Europe (with France being an exception to the trend, and good for them) and probably the U.S. as well? We come down hard on drugs, scare each other with paranoid, grossly unfounded fears about marijuana�you�ll shoot your friend after smoking a bong!�yet we do next to nothing about alcohol, a far worse drug, with far more potential for causing violent behavior.
Alcohol is fine and even healthy in moderate doses. But one�s liver will be turned into p�t� if overloading on alcohol is a chronic, continuous activity.
Alcohol in moderate doses makes most people more relaxed and sociable. In high doses, it turns them into monsters who will fight at the drop of a hat. Others lose control of their emotions, becoming weepy wrecks before passing out, becoming an embarassment to themselves and everyone around them. This is all to say nothing, of course, of the ever-present threat of driving while under the influence.
Again, this is a phenomenon affecting most of Europe. Denmark is actually above Britain in terms of young people's drinking habits. And, even though cannabis is available in coffeeshops across Holland, the number one substance problem among young Dutch people is, you guessed it, alcohol.
It doesn�t help that the media encourage young people intentionally slaughtering themselves on alcoholic drinks when you consider the amount of time and space they spend glorifying such activity on the TV and in the newspapers, and treating it as fodder for idle gossip or even hero worship. If the stars and footie players can do it, so can we!
Police Commissioner John Stevens is currently holding meetings with the Home Office to devise a zero-tolerance plan to deal with dangerous drunks over the Christmas period, even considering plans to incarcerate drunken offenders on a prison ship.
I do not oppose such law-and-order measures, but it won�t solve the issue of alcohol abuse. To wit, we must end this hypocrisy of treating drugs and alcohol separately. Let�s treat abuse of both the same, or not at all.
A rethink on Washington baseball?
Recently, cynedra told me that baseball�s glorious return to Washington, D.C. may be imperiled. She wasn�t wrong.
According to the AP report, the city has enacted a December 31 deadline with Major League Baseball before moving forward�or not, as the case may hopefully be�with a new ballpark for the upstart Nationals:
�The District of Columbia Council approved an alternate plan Tuesday that requires private funding for half the stadium construction costs, a provision baseball rejected as �wholly unacceptable.�[Mayor] Williams is planning to meet with Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp on Monday to try to sort out a compromise that could include private financing as well as guarantees for baseball. City officials are trying to arrange a meeting with baseball as well, he said.
�I actually am somewhat hopeful and optimistic that we can work something out,� Williams said.
Williams defended his stadium funding plan, saying it is �public only insofar as the city is involved in it, but it�s really private, in that the largest businesses of the city have stood up voluntarily� to pay a special tax to help build the stadium.
Critics have said the deal for publicly financed bonds is one of the most generous they have ever seen for major league baseball.�
The issue is not whether local business are helping to sop up the price of the alleged stadium�it would be in their best interest to do so�but whether it is right to publicly fund the stadium in any way. Naturally, some businesses will step up to the plate (forgive the pun), but involuntary donation via taxation is the subject of concern here.
This is not free enterprise!
D.C. residents should not have to pay one penny to fulfill Bud Selig�s wet dream.
If the motion fails by the end of this month, dare we dream of returning the team to Montreal, where they belong?
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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